A Very Shutterfly Christmas!

One thing about having a baby, or kids in general, is photos or stuff using their photos make for easy presents for just about any holiday! Of course my family has alreday been receipients of some stuff and will get more for Christmas!

My favorite site for anything picture related is Shutterfly as you all know, since we already have the Sharing site and I seem to talk about them all the time already, but now they are running a promo where if I blog about them and some of their stuff, which I do anyway, I can get 50 free photo cards for my Christmas cards, score! I would have bought them there anyway!

If anyone else has a blog and wants to participate in this promotion, you can find more about it HERE.

Shutterfly has a lot of great Christmas cards to choose from....almost too many, I've got to sit down and decide which one's I want, but the one I want is a surprise that you will see when you actually get your card...hopefully prior to Christmas, LOL. Here's a link to all their lovely PHOTO CHRISTMAS CARDS.

Some other stuff I'm eyeing that may end up as presents to some of my great family will be their PHOTO CALENDARS and PHOTO MUGS! No better way than to start your day with a cup of joe and my daughters smiling face!

Everything I've ever gotten from Shutterfly I've been very happy with. Good quality and quick turn around. For someone who doesn't scrapbook the old fashioned way, their photo books are wonderful. Point, click and drag is my style of scrapbooking!

So, here's a sneak peek of some of the pictures that will be included in my Christmas cards....I've yet to get the perfect picture yet, but I will!!

Thanksgiving 2010: The Recap

As I sit here on Sunday evening and recap the events over the past several days, the smell of Christmas is filling the house....and in our house the smell of Christmas doesn't mean peppermint, or pine or even cookies, no, in our house it's the smell of Chex Mix! Ben is in the kitchen whipping up the first batch of the season!

It's going to be hard to head back to work tomorrow. I've essentially been off since Monday because Tuesday morning Mallory was running a 99 degree temp, kinda crabby and looked like she was pulling at her ears some. So instead of waiting until it could possibly get worse, we went to the Dr Tuesday morning. I knew it was probably either teething or an ear infection and Dr Phillips is out on Tuesday's so we saw Dr. Gannon. After about 2 seconds he knew it wasn't her ears, which I was glad to know and then pretty much after her appointment she was fine! Just more teething....one day one of those buggers will pop out! Oh well, being home Tuesday gave me time to put up the Christmas tree and hang the wreaths outside while the weather was still warm and nice.

Ben's parents arrived Wednesday afternoon and Ben made us a big batch of chili for dinner. Thursday morning was more of just getting everything together, making my sides and getting everything set up for my family to arrive around 3pm.

A few Pre-Tgiving Bean pictures:




Everything went well, Turkey and Deer Ham and a house full of people! Although we were glad to have the rain, it really would have been nicer if they hadn't had to deal with driving in all that pouring rain on the way here and back, but you cannot control Mother Nature!. I really enjoy family gatherings, especially when you don't have to worry about presents! Just each other, makes me happy!

Here's Mallory enjoying her 1st Thanksgiving meal with everyone else and some other fun pictures from the evening!











There was NO crack-of-pre-dawn shopping for any of us! Just a leisurly morning and then we did go out around lunch and run to Sears and out to eat. We did hit Kohl's at 1:30 pm and the line was STILL WRAPPED AROUND THE STORE!! I 1:30 pm, there is nothing at Kohl's that I want so bad as to stand in that line!

Between Friday night and Saturday night, we watched 3 movies....I don't remember when I watched that many movies in like a 6 month time frame, much less 2 days! It was good to be lazy for once. We watched Eat, Pray, Love and Grownups on Friday night, which I liked both, and Saturday night was the Expendables...which held my attention for all of 5 minutes. Ben watched it all while I laid on the couch and played on my iphone. Not my kind of movie, so I guess I really only WATCHED 2, but either way, more movies were watched in this house than had been in a very long time!

Ben's parents left Saturday morning and we've just spent the rest of the weekend not doing a lot of anything. So for me, this was the ideal Thanksgiving weekend. We didn't have to travel nor did we have anything we had to do. I would like to repeat this year over and over and over again in the future!

Mallory seemed to enjoy her first Thanksgiving as well, being the center of attention and everything! I think her meal consisted of squash, one of her favs!

Now I'm on the quest for that perfect picture of Mallory and Tucker for our Christmas cards! I think this will take several takes over several days!

Here's more pictures of our weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!

I love Thanksgiving, I get all that great family time without the stress of gifts, I'm really over all this over the top gift giving, but that a different story and a different holiday, so I will focus on Thanksgiving for now.

I'm not one to get all emotional and sappy and go on an on about what I'm thankful for, but this year I may at least make a little blog space because we do have a lot to be thankful for this year.

I'm thankful that my adorable daughter, who gave us quite a scare at 26 weeks pregnant, was able to incubate to 33 weeks and seem to have little to no lingering/apparent issues with being 7 weeks early.

I'm thankful that somehow me, one of the most impatient people I know, somehow has all the patience in the world for Mallory, but still none for anyone else ; )

I'm thankful that this whole mommy thing hasn't been any where near as hard as I thought it would be, YET!

I'm thankful for all my friends and family that have been with us and supported us through this whole roller-coaster ride of a year.

I'm especially thankful for Ben who essentially had to manage without me for 12 weeks, slept more nights than anyone ever should on the crappy chair bed in my hospital room, set up the nursery and peeled all that crazy wallpaper off the guest bathroom walls and primed the walls, and more things than I can even remember, all while I was either in the hospital or living in the camper while Mallory was in the NICU. And of course, he did all this while having quite the aversion to hospitals and missing all of Spring Turkey Season!!

I'm super thankful that we have an amazing sitter for Mallory in Mrs Carole, I have no worries while I'm working and she's there.

And, in no specific order, I'm thankful for "The Preemie Palace", the preemie forum I talk about from time to time, I would really be clueless about so much without these girls, my life is better because of all of you!

Enough! Here's a few pictures of Bean, there will be more Turkey Day pictures on a follow up post, but this is what I've got for this morning!












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Doctors, Barn Squares, Stolen Trailers and More...

That title almost sounds like some kind of country song, LOL!

We had our 2nd appointment with the Neonatal Doctor for our NICU Followup on Thursday. This is the same people who had us so freaked out about Mallory having to have a helmet when we went to visit them back when she was 4 months.

We had a different doctor today, who I liked better. She had Mallory play with some toys to see her abilities, looked at her muscle tone, etc. Overall she looks great and scored at either her actual age or adjusted age on everything, so we are right on track. She said her head looked better as well, so no more helmet talk for now at least. We had another lady come in and work with us on a few things to do to help strengthen her neck some, she tends to lean to one side, but nothing major. We were officially discharged, no more neonatal follow-ups! Her pedi can do everything from here!! Yipee!!

Also, I have to mention how much of a little ham Mallory was at the appointment. She would just grin and wiggle every time the nurses or doctors talked to her…..her personality is really coming out now, but we have a little show-off ham on our hands I think!

Thursday night was the March of Dimes Signature Chef Dinner and Auction. I went to help volunteer while Ben stayed at home with Mallory. It was fun, we had a pretty good turnout and the food was awesome! They had a goal of raising $12K and I found out today we raised $18K, more than they've done in over 5 years!!! Yeah!!

Friday we were off again to my parents, deer hunting beckoned. Thankfully Ben was able to shoot a nice 13 pointer on Saturday morning, so the trek back and forth to Elkton every weekend can be curtailed for a while. Here’s a picture of Ben and his deer, and yes our redneck shows every now and then, so we had to put Mallory in the pictures too.....






We then took it off to Smiths Grove to the processor…..and of course the head had to go off to the taxidermist. Yeah……

We made our first trip to Charley’s with Bean on Saturday night. She can’t quite enjoy a good steak yet, but thankfully she was an excellent baby while the rest of us enjoyed our steak. Probably had something to do with putting her across the table from Daddy. She is totally taken with my Dad, as is Dad with her, but it cracks me up. All Dad has to do is just look at her and she just grins so big! I don’t know why she gets suck a kick out of Dad, but Puddin’, as he calls her, is totally taken by him!






Sunday morning we realized that our 6X12 trailer was missing. Ben had it parked at mom and dad’s by the grain bins when he had come down to first start hunting and now it was gone. It had probably been gone for about 3 weeks but we just noticed it on Sunday. So, it sucks, if you see a 6X12 Heifner Custom Trailer around the Todd Co area, get the plate # and let me know! Although I’m sure it’s long gone now. Ben filed a police report today but our deductible is $1000 so it doesn’t make much sense to turn it into insurance for $200.

I just got the letter saying that Mallory has now been approved by her insurance for Synagis thanks to her Pedi writing a letter/peer to peer review on our behalf, which is awesome, with the exception that in January Ben’s insurance changes companies totally and we are deciding if we will go with his or mine but regardless it looks like they will both be $6K family deductible HSA type accounts, which means we essentially get to pay out of pocket for the last 4 shots because our deductible will start over. Yippee, you can’t win for losing on this thing! I know it will be worth it for her to have them, but thank you Mr Obama for screwing it up for everyone, you suck. Ok, rant over.

Ben had taken this whole week off because he had planned on hunting but since he killed a deer on Saturday, he decided he was pretty much done hunting for now. So, he went back down to Elkton on Monday to help Dad put up the Barn Quilt Square. They finally got the rest of the barn painted and then could get the square up. I think it looks great! And be on the lookout Todd County people, there a soon to be announced project that has to do with Barn Quilt Squares!




Here’s a few other pictures of Mallory. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Prematurity Awareness Day

November 17 – National Prematurity Awareness Day

Today is National Prematurity Awareness Day.

This time last year November 17th was nothing more than my brother-in-law Micah’s birthday….boy what a difference a year can make.

I think prior to last year, what I knew about preemies consisted of little more than remembering that my sister had a “preemie” Cabbage Patch kid doll growing up and that it was “smaller” than normal Cabbage Patch kids. That was about it.

I have found out now that I do know several people who have had premature babies, but it seems to be one of those things that until you get thrown into that club, you are pretty unaware of what actually goes on around you.

Now that I’m a year wiser, been through this whole prematurity battle with Mallory and have gotten to know so many others who have gone through similar experiences, I guess I feel like more people should know about what goes on with the 12% of babies born in the US that are born prior to 37 weeks gestation and to help that number continue to decrease and know more about all the innovations that help keep these babies alive and thriving later on.

We were lucky, our NICU experience would have been vastly different if Mallory had been born at 26 Weeks when I started actually leaking amnionic fluid. Overall our experience was minor compared to most, but what I wouldn’t do to have been able to actually have a full term baby and take her home when you are supposed to take your baby home and not be so worried about her lungs and if a common cold is going to take a quick turn to something worse.

But, I’m not one to look for pitty or expect it, nor do I want someone to feel sorry for me or Mallory because she was born early or that I spent 7 weeks in a hospital bed. You do what you have to do and you play with the cards you are dealt and thankfully I must be a pretty good card player because I feel like regardless of what I get dealt, I keep winning. And I feel like because I keep winning, the least I can do is help to make others aware and work to promote the March of Dimes and all that they do.

So, now you know someone who prematurity has directly impacted, and since I was the one that was impacted, one who doesn’t like to keep her mouth (or blog) shut, you too will probably know more than the average person about prematurity.
So many of us that have had premature babies didn’t bring this on ourselves. I think a lot of people think it’s just those that aren’t careful, or smoke or do drugs and that’s not the case. Yes, those are some of the reasons why, and the March of Dimes is working hard to help educate people as to what can increase the risk of premature births, but so many times it’s those of us who do all we can to be perfect incubators for our little ones and then something totally out of our control happens.

So, if you get the chance, support the March of Dimes. Our Owensboro chapter will be having their Walk/Fundraiser at the end of April where we will have a “Team Mallory” or whatever we will call it, so be assured you will get hit up for contributions then, but here’s a link of more info on March of Dimes and what they do!



MARCH OF DIMES

And of course, I have to include some pictures of Mallory, then and now! She was 4 lb 1 oz at 33 weeks 1 day and now is 16 lb 3.5 oz at 7.5 months and she’s perfect!

Home Sweet Home!!

Wow, what a busy last week!! I'm sooooo glad all of that is over and we are done traveling for a while!

We packed up Wednesday, which seems like forever ago now, and headed down to Mom and Dad's again so they could watch Bean while I went to Wichita for work meetings. Ben just went on down there as well so he could hunt, work, be with Bean and have mom feed him, LOL!

I left out from Elkton at around 4:45 am on Thursday morning, got to Wichita via Memphis at around 11 am and headed to Hesston for meetings on Thursday afternoon for company shareholders, then we all went out and grabbed dinner, so I finally got back to the hotel around 9 and immediately went to bed....and.slept.hard!

Friday brought forth another full day of meetings and then "team" dinner night, which are always fun. I get the lucky opportunity to have a team at work that consist of me, Mark Waschek, Mark Esfeld and Lacey Mills and we get along great and like to have fun too, so after the day of meetings off we went to dinner in Wichita at a great restaurant....Bella something and thankfully a glass of wine aided in eliminating my pounding headache. A good dinner and then off to the Esfeld's for more drinks and conversation until around 11:30, then back to the hotel for sleep because we had more meetings on Saturday morning!

Ben flew into Wichita Saturday morning. They flew in all our spouses so we could have the first true company wide Christmas party. We wrapped up our meetings around 11, went and grabbed lunch in Old Town Wichita then ran off with the Mark's wives for a little shopping before Ben arrived.

Thanks to Facebook we realized that our cousin's that live in Great Bend, KS were actually going to be in Wichita on Saturday. So we met the at the HUGE Shepler's right across from our hotel and visited with them for about an hour and a half. We hadn't seen Matt and Christa in probably 6 years, so it was a good treat. Their son Isaac was with them but we didn't get to see Emma and Lilly, hopefully we can get together sometime in the next year or so, we really don't need to wait 6 more years!!

Since Ben had to give up opening weekend of gun season for deer, I figured I had to make it up to him somehow. Since we were at the HUGE Shepler's, we went boot shopping for him. He finally found some that he really liked, and I did too, so he got himself a new pair of boots and new pair of jeans. So, the trip wasn't all bad for him!

Our Company Christmas party was fun, we all get along and like to have a good time, so there was plenty of beer, wine and margarita's for all. We had a "feliz navidad" theme, so there was a Chef that came in a catered it, a mexican spread, including a 40# smoked hog, LOL.



We had a good time, but we were both more than happy to just get back to the hotel and crash!! Here's a few more pictures from the evening. They brought in sombreros and
mustaches for everyone to have goofy pictures made....you can tell we are a real serious bunch, LOL!!






Ben was in Wichita less than 24 hours! We loaded back up on the plane Sunday morning and headed back to Nashville and we were sooooooo ready to get back to see Bean!! Thankfully Susan sent me a few pictures while I was traveling and Mom took some pictures while I was away too, so here's what you really read the blog to see, pictures of Bean!!