We are home!

Just wanted to quickly let everybody know that we are at home with Allison. They released her from the hospital on Friday afternoon, which was the soonest possible that they would have released her because they had to get a full 48 hours of antibiotics in her. She did such a great job and kept getting better by the minute. Now we are just trying to adjust to having two little ones, but so far so good. Hannah is a great big sister, although super possessive, and Allison has been such a good sleeper so far. We'll post some more pictures when I have a few more minutes!

Good news

Miss Allison continues to improve. She has been off of her oxygen since yesterday evening and has been doing great. That means that today I finally got to hold her! It also means that she was able to start eating today. I don't totally understand the thinking behind how they do everything, but they wanted to make sure that her respiratory issues were cleared up before they gave her anything to eat. So for the last day and a half she has had only sugar water through an IV. I'm sure that it feels good for her to finally get some food in her tummy! Mom was excited to finally get to nurse her, too! The doctors want to make sure that feeding is going well and then hopefully we should be headed home. It sounds like if things keep going as well as they have we will be able to leave tomorrow or Sat. Hurray!

Quick update

So I was released from the hospital today and now we are in Des Moines with our new little one. So far Allison is doing great! Last night they were giving her 70% oxygen to breathe, this morning they were down to 55%, by the time we got here 25% (normal air has about 21%oxygen) and now she is off the oxygen completely. They will do a few more blood tests here shortly to make sure she is doing well without the help of the oxygen, but so far things look promising. Next thing is that we have to get her eating and make sure that her blood oxygen levels stay where they are supposed to be. They will check out her heart tomorrow, but she doesn't show any signs of being in distress because of the murmur. There also seem to be no signs of infection so far, so at this point we are hopefully on track to go home Friday! She's doing such a great job and we can't wait to be able to hold her and act like we really have a new baby!

Welcome baby Allison!

So yesterday was the big day. Miss Allison Renee joined our family and big sister Hannah couldn't be more thrilled. She was born at 3:39 PM, weighing 8lbs 1 oz, 20 inches long. She's chubby and already has a double chin! We originally picked the name Allison because we liked it, but it seems to pretty fitting. It is a variation of the name Alice, which means noble...but we'll get to that part of the story later.

Labor and delivery went great. I thought Hannah came fast, and this one about cut Hannah's time in half. I'm feeling great, which has been nice!

Here are a few pictures of the new little one. Hannah LOVES her new baby. Right away she got excited about the baby and wanted to hold her. The only problem was that she didn't want to let little Allison go. So if you want to hold the new baby, you have to hold her big sister, too. Hannah ended up falling asleep in daddy's arms while holding her new baby...that's probably the only way we got her out of the hospital without throwing a fit!

So although mom is doing great, Allison has had a little bit harder time of things. It started off that when my water broke it was meconium stained...which is a sign of stress in the baby and can become an issue if the baby gets it into their lungs. So right after she was born they took her away from me :( to run a bunch of tests which all came back fine. So after a few hours she finally came back to our room, and miss Hannah came to visit. A few hours later they took her to give her a bath and the nurse thought she was looking pale and that she heard a slight heart murmur. Her blood oxygen levels were low, and would come up only when she was given extra oxygen. So they called the doctor back, and she called the specialists in Des Moines and they decided that she needed to been seen by a specialist (not available in Carroll, IA.) So a busy afternoon turned into a long evening while they poked and prodded at little Allison and waited for the Life Flight helicopter to come and take her away. Around midnight she took her first helicopter flight down to Des Moines and is now at the children's hospital there. She seems to be doing well, and is needing less oxygen this morning. At this point they are not sure why she is having trouble...possibly and infection, fluid in her lungs, her heart murmur, or a combination a everything. Hopefully all she needs is a little extra time, and so far that looks to be the case. Luckily since things went so well for me, they are letting me go today, so by this afternoon we will be in Des Moines with Allison and then hopefully headed back to Carroll in just a few days!

All of this has been a little overwhelming and fast paced, but Allison is headed in the right direction and we will get to see her again shortly! Hopefully we have just been extra cautious...better safe than sorry! We will keep you all posted with updates when we know more.

Golf and Swimming

So here are a few pictures to prove that Nate really did have me out golfing. These ones are from Saturday. We had a great time, although I think Nate was trying to drive over all the bumps on the course to get this baby moving! No luck so far!

Here are a few pictures of Hannah playing in the "wawee" or the water. Some from our house, and then some from the pool. She LOVES the water and would probably play all day in it if mom had the energy to keep up with her.

Here she is helping her daddy, or course.

At the pool.

And here are some new friends she made at the pool.

A few pictures

We've been pretty busy the past week compared to normal...which has been nice since we are still waiting for this baby to come!

We got to go swimming with daddy. I barely fit into a swim suit, but it was nice to have Nate around to chase after Hannah for once.

Nate had me out golfing on Friday...and I took my camera, but forgot to take pictures.

Last Sat. Hannah and I went to a parade with Nate's family in a nearby town (every town has some sort of celebration each year) and Hannah really enjoyed herself. The parade was mostly an excuse to drive a bunch of old tractors, trucks, firetrucks, etc. through town and throw out tons of candy, popcicles, hot dogs, etc. to the crowd. Once Hannah got the idea that candy was coming her way, watch out! She probably ate like her normal two weeks worth of sugar within an hour. Oh well! She was also really excited about the horses. There was only one group of horses, but she was making her horse sounds for like 20 min. and asking for more horses all afternoon.

Hannah also got to go to her first official birthday party (not family related) on Sat. evening. The little girl next door just turned 1 and Hannah thought she needed some help opening her presents, imagine that!

Sunday...Happy Father's Day! We spent the day over with Nate's family (typical for a Sunday afternoon) and had lots of yummy food. We had a great time hanging out with daddy. That is why we love Sundays because it might be our only daddy time of the week! It was also US Open weekend so there was some golf watching happening as well. Tiger Woods wins again!

Monday Josie got her cast off, so we had to stop by and take a picture with her before it came off. Whenever Josie is mentioned Hannah is quick to remind everybody that Josie has an "owie." Having a huge cast on her arm didn't stop Josie from carrying Hannah around everywhere...no wonder she's one of Hannah's favorites!

Tuesday we went to the doctor, again. Nothing new...I'm still pregnant and the baby seems perfectly comfortable where he/she is at. I was hoping that the full moon might have helped, but that's come and gone now. Most likely it will be another two weeks before this baby comes :( I finally gave in and set up a doctor's appointment for the week after my due date. We had to use it last time, but hopefully this time is different!

More wonderful weather...

So Wednesday night turned out to be an interesting one. It seems like about every night we have some sort of weather warning (tornado, thunderstorm, flood, etc.) and usually they aren't a super big deal. Wed. was a little more scary though. If you have watched the news you probably heard about the boy scout camp that was hit by the tornado and the damage that was done there. So about 45 minutes later that same storm came right through Carroll. Luckily it did not produce another tornado while in town, but it brought with it 70-80 mile per hour winds, which can be pretty damaging in themselves. Here are a few pictures from our neighbor's yard. Their trees did not hold up very well to the storm. Their house was not hit (although it was really close), only their fence was damaged. Fortunately, the trees in our yard did not have any big limbs break off. All around town it is a pretty big mess though. Mostly the damage was done to trees, and depending on where the trees landed the houses and surrounding areas were also damaged. I've never seen trees totally uprooted by wind before...kind of a scary thought, but a reality here in town! I don't believe that anybody here in Carroll was hurt as we had pretty good warning that the storm was coming, but I sure am glad that Nate was home while that storm was here. I've about had enough of this crazy weather (not to mention the 2 extra inches of rain that the storm brought along with the wind) As long as we aren't having to make a trip to the hospital in weather like that I should be fine :)

All of the stuff on the ground is tree branches...not bushes.

On a happier note...here is my cutie pie. We got her a toddler bed a few weeks ago and set it up in her room. For now it serves as a trampoline and a fun place to play. I plan on letting her make the transition slowly to the bed...she really likes her crib! But as you can tell, she is getting more used to the idea of a bed.

Watermelon and water

Here are a few cute pictures of two of my favorite people enjoying a little snack. Hannah loves food that tastes good and is easy for her to feed herself. Don't mind the half eaten piece of watermelon sitting in the bowl...I'm sure she's planning on getting back to that one later.They are always watching...I don't know where she learns to eat her food so quickly!?Good food always seems to be the messiest. It must make it taste better!Also wanted to let everybody know that we are doing fine even though about the entire state of Iowa is dealing with flooding. It is no wonder...usually in June we get about an inch and a half of rain total...as of a few days ago we have had over 8 inches of rain in June alone. And it is raining again today and predicted for tomorrow as well. It has been a crazy spring...lots of tornado warnnings/huge thunderstorms, etc. Luckily we have made it through it all with no water leaking into our basement (a common problem around here) and no flooding right in Carroll. This is mostly because there is no river that goes through town like many other places. This whole rain thing is new to me (growing up in AZ and CO) but extremes of any type of weather create problems. I'm just grateful that we are all safe and sound and I hope that this rain will slow down soon! It has kept the weather cooler, which has been nice while I'm pregnant, but little Hannah wants to play outside, too!

Groundbreaking

Yesterday was an exciting day here in Carroll, IA. We finally broke ground for our chapel. For all these years the branch has been in rented spaces...a daycare center, most recently some old office type space, but now we are getting a building of our own. So yesterday evening we had a neat little groundbreaking ceremony. Construction should start in the next few weeks, and the plan is that we will move into the building late December or January.

Here is the front of the program for the ceremony. The picture is a drawing of what our actual chapel will look like. It will be so nice! Finally a place that actually looks like a church and a place that has enough space for us!

And a few pictures of Hannah taking her turn with the little shovel...she wanted to help, too.

And the family, with the crazy monkey child in front. Where do they get so much energy from!?!? Do I look as tired as I feel in that picture? Only a few more weeks!...at least of being pregnant, I guess the tired part doesn't really go away for a while!