A Merry (and white!) Christmas!!

So, I know it's a little late, but I've been a bit busy...so, I'm doing a Christmas post now. :) I'll try to be brief, but we all know that's not likely. ;)

So, this year was the first year that Ava really was able to understand all the Christmas stuff. At first, we weren't sure if she'd be a believer because she's so dang logical, and everything has to make sense. For instance, we did the Elf on the Shelf this year, and when I told her that he comes alive and gets into mischief while she's sleeping, she said, "He can't walk, Mommy, his feet are too small!" And when we went to pick out a tree from Hunter's Christmas Tree Farm (where they had a nice looking Santa), she just stared at him and said, "That's not the real Santa." She's THREE people!!! So, of course, I said- "You're right, that's not the real Santa. That's one of his helpers. He has a lot of helpers. We're gonna see the real Santa at the Santa party next week." Geez.

So, anyway, a friend hired a Santa to go to her house and had a party. Santa did the sit-on-his-lap-and-tell-him-what-you-want thing, he read a book to them, and them gave all the kids a special gift (thanks Bobbi!). Anyway, of course, Ava was NOT about to go sit on his lap, but Bella was too young to care. So, here's Bella with Santa.
And this was the beginning of the rather long attempt to get Ava to get even remotely close to Santa.
More trying...

And more trying...
It was a no-go. But after he read everyone a story, he called each child by name and gave them a gift. Ava had the biggest smile on her face when he called her name and was so in awe of the fact that he brought her something. We opened the present and I told her that she should go tell Santa thank you for the gift...which she did.
After that, she was willing to talk to Santa and tell him what she wanted- "a microphone, a red umbrella, a picture of me and Mommy, and a picture of me holding Bella." Quite reasonable, I think! Oh yeah, then she asked him a question. "What color PJ's to you wear?" HA!

"Red, of course!," he said. :) Which was great for Ava since red is her favorite color- you know, cause she has red hair. :)

So, finally, a picture of Ava with Santa! Couldn't get her on his lap, though. Baby steps.
Ava also had a holiday celebration at school which I was able to attend (usually I can't attend these things cause I'm working and don't know far enough in advance to change my schedule). But, since I was still on maternity leave I was able to go. Here's a pic of Ava and a few friends all reading. Notice Ava holding the book like the teacher does. She does this at home now when she reads to Bella. :) Cute.
Funny story: I was dropping Ava off at school one morning and she came in on a conversation with one of her friends from school who said, "I don't celebrate Christmas,"

Ava's response: "You have to celebrate Christmas because it's Jesus' birthday and you have to have a party." Hahaha. Her friend just stood there not really knowing how to respond to that. Of course, I quickly explained that some people don't celebrate Christmas, blah blah blah. Funny, though. :)

We got to spend Christmas Eve dinner with Patrick's family and Christmas dinner with mine. Here's a picture of us on Chrismas Eve!!

Christmas morning was really fun. Bella woke up before Ava, so I had a chance to feed her then get downstairs to turn the lights on and make everything look pretty. Patrick started a fire. It was so nice. It's the first time we've ever woken up on Christmas morning in our own house....EVER! We have never done that! For the past 13 years, we've always been visiting back home from school (college, dental school, or residency)! So, it was just lovely to walk downstairs and do Christmas in our own home with our family! Here's the tree before anyone else was awake!
Crumbs from Santa, the empty reindeer food bag (which was sprinkled on the front lawn), and a little Christmas note for Ave, also from Santa. :)

Here's Ava with her new pink umbrella. If you remember, I mentioned before that she told Santa she wanted a RED umbrella. Well, her previous umbrella was pink, and it broke. So, we assumed he wanted another pink one. So, I found one, ordered it, and had it sent. Then a few days later, she was talking about her Christmas list and Patrick mentioned the umbrella could be pink. "No, red!"

Crap.

So, we tried to really hype up the pink idea, but she wasn't havin' it. So, ultimately, she got a pink umbrella with a special note from Santa that explained that they were out of the red color and had to make a pink one instead. She was good with that. :)
These next couple pictures are really sweet. She asked for a picture of her holding Bella. She opened this and just smiled so sweetly. She looked at it for a long time. Then she decided she wanted to put it up right away with the rest of the pictures. :) It was very sweet. She also asked Santa for a picture of her and me, but after she opened the one with her and Bella, she said, "I guess Santa didn't bring me a picture of me and you, Mommy." We had to tell her she needed to wait and see cause she had lots of presents left to open. Very cute. :)
She had such a good time opening her presents and she was very sweet about it. She didn't rush through and throw the gift aside and move on to the next. She was excited about (almost) all of them, genuinely.

We heard it was maybe gonna snow/flurry on Christmas, but you know how that goes. A few flurries and that's it. But it started to snow FOR REAL when we were opening presents and didn't stop all day!! It was kinda awesome!

This is what it looked like Christmas night looking out from our front porch. So pretty!!
Poor Ava. We were not prepared for weather like this! She doesn't really have a big winter coat. She's got a hat and mittens, but she left one of the mittens at school, so we had to get her old mitten from last year. Of course, NONE of these things were water proof, so after about 10 minuets of playing in the snow, her hands were soaked and FREEZING!! This is our attempt at keeping her warm. Not very impressive!
Daddy and Ava walking back in after she could no longer feel her fingers!

Here's Catcher enjoying the snow too! :) He's such an old man!
On another note, I returned to work on December 22nd. So, I am officially done with maternity leave. :( It's been ok so far, but the days are very long away from baby. I see Ava more cause I take her to school and she's older, so it's different. But I leave Bella at 7am and sometimes don't see her again until almost 7 at night. But, it's ok. I'm just glad it's only 3 days a week.

So, anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas this year! We hope you did too!!

A scare

This is a long one....

Our family had a huge scare last week. I decided to finally post about it since it's been over a week since things went down and it seems as though we are on a good track to full recovery. But, let me just tell you that it was absolutely the scariest thing I've ever had to deal with. It was baby Bella. Here's what happened:

Last Monday, Patrick had taken Ava out and it was just Bella and me at home. We walked to the mailbox for a quick second of fresh air (by the way...I never, ever check or put mail in the mailbox. Ever. Patrick always does it). It was freezing so I had her completely double covered with a blanket and was holding her over my shoulder. Just as I was stepping up the step outside our door, my foot didn't make it all the way up on the step and I tripped and fell forward. Bella fell backwards from my arms and hit her hed on the corner of a brick step. The sound her head made hitting the step was terrible. A really dense "thud." Just terrible.

I immediately scooped her up and checked to make sure she was conscious (which she was) and I awaited that terrible screeching baby scream. But that didn't happen. She was kinda doing a moaning cry and had her eyes half closed. I called the pediatrician and they put me on hold to get a nurse, but things just didn't seem right- she seemed shocked and I felt like she was maybe hurt really badly. So, I used the house phone to call 911. Of course, by now, I'm trying to remain calm but it's really hard when you're telling the 911 lady that your baby needs an ambulance. Bella was starting to close her eyes and was really sleepy (of course, this happened right at nap time) which was really scaring me, and I was trying to keep her awake. The paramedics got there and Bella and I rode in the ambulance to the nearest (adult) hospital.

They did a CT scan and an xray of her neck. Both of these things were said to be normal. They discharged Bella and told us to look for changes in her routine/personality and vomiting. If these things occurred, they wanted us to go back. She was very groggy that afternoon/evening (understandably) and went to bed earlier than usual. At 1am, she began vomiting. She vomited 3 times over several hours and I called the pediatrician on call. He recommended waiting, but in the morning she vomited again. I called her regular pediatrician and she recommended we take her to the children's hospital.

Of course, I was at work and Bella was home with Patrick (it was my 3rd day back to work after maternity leave). So, we had to cancel my patients and bring Bella to the hospital. They did another CT scan there and revealed that she had a small skull fracture and a subdural hematoma (a bleed between her skull and brain). Needless to say, I lost it. Meanwhile, I had just been holding her in my arms for hours and hours while she basically slept the entire day. The neurosurgeon that was there was wonderful (and very conservative) and told us that although it's very scary, her prognosis was "excellent" and he didn't anticipate any long term damage. They wanted to admit her into the hospital for observation over night.

The next day we repeated the CT. Dr. Neurosurgeon said that he thought she was "stable" but that there may be a slight increase in the size of the bleed. He wanted to confirm with the radiologist, who, after looking at the scan, didn't think there was any change- not any bigger than the day before. That was good news, but Bella was not anywhere near normal. She had continued to vomit throughout the day and night- about every other feeding- and was on IV fluids to remain hydrated. She sat perfectly still for all 3 CT scans- which I was thankful that we didn't have to sedate her, but all I could think of is- why isn't she crying? She just laid there. Perfectly. Originally they thought she would go home, but since she wasn't acting normal or keeping her feedings down, they wanted to keep her another night. Basically, we just waited.

Patrick was able to come during the day and would leave to pick Ava up from school in the late afternoon/early evening. We wanted to keep things as normal as possible for Ava, so Patrick went home and stayed with her at night while I stayed in the room with Bella. Ava was very concerned about Bella since she she the throwing up and knew Bella was "going to the doctor."

Bella started to smile more on the third day and was more awake for longer periods of time (more like her normal schedule). She finally stopped throwing up, and when she hit the 24 hour mark without throwing up. After three days of groggy, lethargic behavior, I was starting to see my Bella again. There are lots of details that I left out here (you'd be here all day reading this thing!), but ultimately, the outcome thus far has been good. She's not 100% yet but seems to be doing well. On the last day, Dr. Neurosurgeon sensed that I was still very worried about Bella's long term prognosis (permanent damage, etc.) and said, "I assure you that she will make a complete recovery. I have absolutely no doubt about that." Hearing that made me feel MUCH better. I know doctors don't very often use such strong language. Hell, I just deal with teeth, and I'm even very careful not to guarantee anything.

So, after that very long explanation, I feel like I left all the emotion, worry, and anxiety out. There really isn't a way for me to adequately explain how I was feeling during all this. It was absolutely terrifying - by far the worst experience of my life. To think that I am the one that caused this pain to my own baby (even though it was an accident and could "happen to anyone") is only made remotely bearable by the knowledge that she will probably have no lasting, long term damage and will ultimately heal completely. Of course, I don't have to tell you all the things that ran through my head.....what if she's not okay, what if there is long term damage, what about her speech, eye sight, hearing, EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. It's her brain. It does everything. And what if something I did hurt her permanently? How do you live with that? I'm her mother, and I'm supposed to protect her.

But, I am an incredibly blessed woman. And my family is blessed. And, so far, Bella is healing and getting to be more like herself everyday. And I am thankful. And grateful. And feeling so incredibly lucky that I got to leave that hospital with my baby...and that I get to hold her and look at her and love on her. She is perfection. And I am so thankful for her.

I have a few pictures of her from the last day in the hospital. I didn't take any pictures before I knew that she was doing better. So, I only have a few. She was admitted under neurosurgery. Here's the door to her room:

And her sleeping in that sad looking crib.

One of her awesome night nurses got her this little Rudolph when she had one of her CT scans, and the Chick-fil-a cow came for a visit, so she got a little cow as well. Something colorful for her to look at...

So, there's my sweet baby girl....trying so hard to get better fast for her mama. Please pray that baby Bella continues to heal quickly and completely.

Prayer request

To all the pray'ers out there....

I have a very good, very old friend whose family in is need of prayer and support. Her husband is very sick and is experiencing some unexpected complications. Things are moving very fast. They have 3 wonderful, young children. Please take a moment to lift them up in prayer...so they may have strength, faith, and peace.

My friend, I have not stopped thinking of you and your beautiful family. I am praying for a miracle...


***12/10/10 Update: Kelly passed away yesterday surrounded by tons of family and friends. He was an amazing husband and father. God bless your sweet family.

Bella boo is 4 months!

Wow! We just celebrated Bella's 4th month a few days ago! Kinda hard to believe. I do have to keep in mind that even though she's officially 4 months old, she's only 2 months past term...which means she's only supposed to be reaching milestones that are appropriate for a 2 month old. Hard to remember sometimes!

But, overall, Bella is doing great!!! Better than great, actually. If you saw her today, you would not know that she was a preemie! She has turned into a complete chunker!! :) I weighed her a few days ago (with her clothes on) and she was 11lbs 8oz! I looked it up on one of my growth charts and, from what I can see, she's around the TENTH percentile for her weight!! To compare, Ava was a little more than a pound heavier at the same age- 12lbs 11oz (25%)!! So, needless to say, Bella is doing a phenomenal job "catching up!" Ava has always been pretty petiet, but I have a feeling Bella probably wont be following in her footsteps! Check out these sweet chubby cheeks! In fact, I think she would now be considered a normal weight! Yahoooooo!!! She's got her official 4 month check up this week, so we'll see how close I am!

Bella is nursing very well. She's been nursing exclusively for the past 2 months (since we went "cold turkey" back in September!), but, now we're running into a bit of a different problem. She doesn't want to take a bottle (which she has to do in order for me to go back to work)! We discovered this little issue a few weeks ago when Patrick and I were going to go to the Dave Matthews Band concert (Sarah and Grandpa Mike were going to babysit!)....well, we were about to walk out and she was not even sort of entertaining the idea of a bottle! So, to make a long story short, our first attempt at going out for the evening since Bella was born was a wash. So, since then, we've been working on trying to get her to take a bottle....it's been a very slow process. But, we will be attempting at least one bottle every day in hopes that with a little practice, she'll get the hang of a bottle once again. Funny what you wish for...2 months ago, I was praying she'd take to nursing...and here we are trying our hardest to get her back on a bottle part time! I'll keep you posted! We've got a little less than one month before I go back to work...so, we'll have to figure it out by then!

Just imagine her cooing here. :)
Bella's personality has really changed in the past month. I used to refer to her as my "cry baby" or my "hold me" baby. Basically, if she wasn't eating, sleeping, or being held- she was crying or fussing. No joke. She was sweet, but she wanted constant love! :) But, as she's grown, she's gotten much more pleasant and requires a little less constant attention (which really makes my life WAY easier. I truly couldn't do anything before)!! She's turned into quite a happy baby- smiling and cooing all the time. But, most of the time, when I get the camera out to record it, she's so mesmerized by the camera, stops all her cuteness, and just goes back to her bug eyes! :) HA!
I forget how sweet babies are. And how happy it makes me when they start deliberately smiling and cooing. She has fantastic, huge smiles that just make me melt. I'm really so lucky. :) To even out those smiles...this is what "tummy time" is like:
Not much of a fan.

She's a serious little thang. Always looking so pensive...
About 2 weeks ago, Bella started to sleep through the night! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!! I mean, I was starting to get so tired my brain wasn't working right. She doesn't sleep through the night every night, but most of them. About every 4-5 nights or so, she wakes up around 3am and wants to eat. I can't pinpoint anything specific as to why she wakes on those nights. She usually goes to sleep somewhere around 8-9pm and will sleep until 6-7am. When she gets very consistent with sleeping through the night, I'll attempt to make her bedtime a little earlier, hopefully getting to around 7:30 or so. But, for right now, I'm just thankful for the extra sleep! Her napping is okay. She's not a super napper like Ava was...but we're working on it. I think part of the problem was that she was constantly in the car (taking Ava to school, driving to the new house before we were here, etc), and it would mess her nap schedule up because she always falls asleep in her car seat- no matter if she just woke from a nap. So, I'm trying really hard to try to keep her at home- work around her schedule instead of making her work around mine. She's already getting better...just trying to be consistent!

She used to sneeze all-the-time, and this is a a pic right after a sneezing fit. That's why her eye is a little red. :( She seems to have grown out of that a bit lately, though.
So, I couldn't be happier with Bella's progress! And she is totally turning into a sweet little baby, and I am enjoying her so much these days!
I mean, if that baby doesn't look like Patrick, then I don't know who she looks like!!

We had a special surprise visitor come to see us a few weeks ago! Lauren, one of my oldest friends (and someone who has always followed the blog!) was in town from NYC and got to come by for a few hours and (finally!) meet my girls! I can't believe she had never met Ava before. Totally crazy! (Of course, Ava wasn't cooperative for a picture since she now has a mind of her own)! It was great to see you, Lauren!!
Daddy lovin' on his baby girl. Sweet.

So, that's about it for now. Geez, these always turn into these monster posts! I know I've GOT to get an Ava update out there, but I'm trying not to slack on Bella's updates. Patrick is constantly tells me she's gonna have the "second child" complex with only a fraction of the number of blog posts! Oh well. I can only do what I can do!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Pop Pop

Earl S. Scholl
1918- 2010

WWII Fighter Pilot
Entrepreneur
Christian
Husband to Mom Mom for 68 years
Father of three
Grandfather of nine
Great-grandfather of thirteen

Extraordinary man.

What a wonderful life. We love you, Pop Pop.


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Halloween and Houses!

OMG!! Life is crazy busy, and I'm SO sorry for not posting something sooner!!! We have had a VERY busy month! I know I said I was gonna write an Ava update- but things just got too busy! So, to catch you up to speed... we bought a house(!!), we went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch, we carved pumpkins at Michee and Pop's house, we Trick-or-Treated in our new neighborhood, Ava is still a super great girl but sometimes really makes me want to pull my hair out (I'm talkin' bald, people!), Bella is smiling and cooing, sleeping through the night(!!!!!) for the past few nights, and otherwise doing wonderfully (although, she's still my "cry-baby" and totally wants to be held all the time...facing out....while you walk...just a few specifics). :)

I will have to go into more details about all of these things another time- but I wanted to share some Halloween and house pictures for now. We moved in to our new house 5 days before Halloween. We had a great time trick-or-treating and have already met many of the neighbors (all of whom have been so friendly and welcoming)! We actually went around with a pretty big group- a total of 4 families. One of the dad's pulled a little red wagon that provided extra room for the kids to put their candy when it got too heavy and, naturally, a place for a cooler so the dads could enjoy a beverage....or several. :) It really was great. We made it to all the houses in the neighborhood (a big change from last year when Ava visited 4 houses and then wanted to go home so she could eat her candy!) and had a great time!

Here are a few pics from Halloween!

This was my favorite Halloween outfit that Ava had- so I HAD to find it for Bella, too! Bella's not quite as big as Ava was at this point, but it's close. :)

Here are my sweet girls just before Trick-or-Treating! Ava thinks this is great, but Bella seems less than thrilled. :) (For those of you who are freaking out about the fact that Ava is holding Bella (Ashley), I was just out of sight of the camera. It was only a matter of seconds that Ava had her)!!! None of the cute Halloween things fit Bella, so I was a little lame and didn't really get her a costume. Next year, though!
Sweet Ava. She dressed up as Tinkerbell!
The fam at the new digs. This was the best family pic we could get!
Ava waiting for her neighbor friend to come trick-or-treat with her!
Waiting for candy....

For the first 7 or 8 houses, she RAN from one to the next!But, by the end of the night, she had my sweatshirt on and was hitching a ride with the beer!
She was so proud of all her candy! She ate 2 and a half pieces and said she was full and ready for bed. Gotta love her. :)

Okay, so to make a VERY long story short, we closed on our house on October 26th! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!! I have been WAITING for this day for what seems like forever! We started looking at this neighborhood about a year ago and started serious negotiations with the builder in May. And, now, here we are! Here's the transformation!

Beginning of July:
End of July:
Beginning of August:

End of August:
September:Finally done in October!!
Here's some inside pics just before we moved in...this is the family room (what I call the living room).

The kitchen...More kitchen!
The formal dining room and across the hall is the formal living room...
The master bathroom...
One of my favorite parts of the entire house...the master closet!! (I've been scared by 2 closets for an entire HOUSE for the past year and a half...so this is Heaven)!
The backyard...

So, there's a quick update of what's been going on. Since we've moved in, I have been running around like a crazy lady doing all that new house stuff! It's super fun, but also very exhausting. But I'm so happy to be in our own space with our own stuff- I'll take the exhaustion any day!

A special thanks to my parents who, for the last year and a half, have let me and my family invade their lake house and make it our temporary home. Although it's nice to finally be in our own space, the lake wasn't so bad. ;)

I've got some great pics of Ava and Bella on my camera, so I'll try to get those up soon....ish. ;) I'll also have an Ava update...and a Bella one too...as soon as I can.

Lastly, good luck to Patrick this week! He's got finals! He doesn't need luck since he's a total smarty pants, but a little luck never hurt!

Here's two more pics- just for fun. :)

Bella-boo looking funny at 14 weeks... (she's 16 weeks now....can you believe it?!?!) A-bay getting ready to carve pumpkins at Michee's...
That's all for now!!! I promise to update sooner than last time!! Thanks for reading!