Mallory's First Trip to the Zoo!

Today marked Mallory's first ever trip to a Zoo!! And our first ever visit to the Louisville Zoo.

We went for the NICU reunion for Kosair's. Apparently they have it at the Zoo every year because I saw several previous year reunion shirts on people.

We really didn't know what to expect. I figured our entrance into the Zoo would be free and I knew there was some type of tee shirts and White Castle would be handing out burgers.

As Ben said, you would think after racking $125K worth of NICU bills, the least they could do was to pay our entrance into the Zoo.

So, free entrance and we were off in BOB to the big tent that would serve as reunion site.



There were tons of people, none of who looked remotely familiar. We did see a couple of nurses that were familiar but not the ones we knew the best. We did see Dr Singh and Dr Tabb from a distance but never got to talk to either. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see more people we knew, it was more like "free tickets, white castle and a tee shirt if you were ever in the NICU" day as opposed to what I consider a reunion. But we will probably go again, it is free tickets and tee shirt : )


So here's some shots from our day. It was hot, about 86 degrees, but a good day. Mallory really seemed to care less about the animals. She was more into people watching, munching on cheerios and riding in BOB!







And, here's a few of the animals. The funniest thing I saw was a peacock that runs loose on the grounds was running up to this little boy eating a piece of bread. The boy was screaming thinking this peacock was going to attack him or something.....it just took his bread, lol!











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Triathlon in the books!

It just seems like it's been a busy past two weeks.

Last weekend we went down to Mom and Dad's so Ben could help Dad do a few things and then I was off Saturday afternoon to head to Nashville to meet up with another preemie momma to do a Triathlon!

We've truly lost our minds, but it was a ball.

We met through our preemie board and her daughter, who is now around 2 1/2 was born at 28 weeks weighing only 13 ounces. Her story is a true miracle. No one ever expected this sweet little girl to make it and she is amazing now!

But, regardless, we met at packet pickup and sat through the "tri for dummies" on what to do and what to expect on Sunday morning.

We then met up with another Nashville preemie mom for dinner, here's the 3 of us at Buca de Bepo's.

This was an all women's sprint triathlon. So it consisted of probably 80% of people who had never done one before. You swam 250 yards, biked 8 miles and then ran 2 miles.

I was totally nervous about the bike ride, my crappy $100 Walmart mountain bike wasn't exactly good Tri equipment.

Lets just say I limped through the biking portion. The gears weren't working right, the course was WAY hillier than they had led us to believe and my bike almost failed me, but I pushed through and finally got to the end of the longest freaking 8 miles of my life. It would have been easier to have just run it!

Then around Centennial Park twice and I was done. My time was not pretty, but I finished.

Now, I have new bike on the brain : ) I really enjoyed doing this Tri and can't wait to do another, but a new bike is a must. So, I'm selling crap on ebay, will combine Mother's Day, my birthday and then our Heath and Fitness allowance from work to combine to buy it......lets just say, it's not a $100 Walmart bike and I didn't realize how expensive bikes are!

If you want to read all about my Tri, here's my very LONG blog post about the tri and what I learned. It was a ball and everyone should try one!

I was quite happy that it was much easier than my half marathon and that I had no soreness on Monday and my butt really didn't hurt from the bike ride, which is impressive considering the last time I rode a bike about 6 years ago, I recall having trouble walking for like 3 days!

Monday was Ben's mom's birthday and I've got to get my butt in gear and figure out what to get her since she doesn't provide any ideas.....hint.....hint.

All is going well with Mallory.

She is enjoying the helmetless life. She's started standing up in her pack and play and pulling up on about anything she possibly can.

Her little peach fuzz head is growing hair like crazy.

She's just such a delightful kiddo!

Ben picked up his deer mount from the taxidermist this past weekend. Can't you just hear the excitement in my typing, lol! So, now we have 3 deer in the living room. Yippee. I can't wait to get a basement.

Tomorrow should be fun. We are heading to the Louisville Zoo for the Kosair's NICU reunion. I'm hoping we are able to see Dr Sing and some of our favorite nurses. When you are there for 5 weeks you kinda get to know them.

I can't wait to see Mallory's reaction to the critters!

And, for anyone contemplating running, Christi and I will be starting our next 1/2 Marathon training plan on Monday. Come be our virtual partner!!

Triathlon Eve Eve

Tis the the eve prior to Triathlon eve : )

We've arrived to mom and dads for the night.

I laid out all my stuff last night and in normal fashion packed way more than I will need, but the weather will narrow down my choices Sunday morning.

Right now Sunday is looking to be a high of 59 and chance of rain. I was hoping for a little warmer, but you never know here, they could change the forecast by 20 degrees in 2 days.

I determined that my day pack LL Bean backpack I bought around 5 years ago if perfect for holding all my Tri stuff! I have a thing for bags, always have, but this one is coming in handy!

They posted the swimming order this morning and our bib numbers. Looks like I'm #28 and I think Nancy is #20.

When we registered we had to rank our swimming skills from 1-10, 10 being the best. I had no idea but since they said 1 was if you couldn't swim it non stop so I figured I was a 5. There's a zillion 5's registered!!! Guess we will see if I'm really midpack or not!!

Me and my side stoke, lol!!


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Helmetless!!!

As some of you may have seen from Facebook, Bean is officially done with her helmet!

We went back to Louisville this afternoon to the orthotic and prosthetic office, aka helmet dr, although I'm pretty sure Aaron isn't a doctor.

Whatever!

Her head hasn't really changed from the last visit but during her 3 months it had improved a 1/2 inch and is much better!!

And once she has hair, it will not be noticeable at all!

We ran to the mall afterward, here she is after we ditched the helmet:



We then made a stop at Starbucks! Mallorys first trip to Starbucks.

It wasn't really deliberate, but where else are you going to get milk in a mall??

Mallory's order? Tiny whole milk, cold : )








Now I will probably freak out because she's going to bump her head on everything!

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Mallory's 1 year photos!

She's such a ham.

And cute.

And happy.

And, of course, I'm totally biased.

But, check it out for yourself!

Here's the link to her 1 year photos we had done at True Reflections here in Owensboro (they've done them all thus far).

Click HERE

and then click on Mallory and they type in the password: april12

They will be up for viewing until May 17th, decisions decisions......

Happy Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!

Last year Mother's Day was May 9th and it was the day that after 35 days in the NICU, we finally got to bring Mallory home from the hospital!

Here's a few pictures from that day a year ago!




Crazy to see her that small! She's just so big, alert, into everything and smart as a whip!

I was hoping that this past Monday would be our last PT session, but no, it's going to get drug out to at least one more session in 2 weeks. Arg.

We had a good weekend overall I did the Derby Trot 5K Friday night at 11pm! I'm not sure when I have been up that late lately! It's been a while but it was a lot of fun. I ran with Mary Ruth and they gave us glow bracelets to help make us more visible. We started out in front of the Mall and did an out and back. The weather was good, about 54 degrees, no rain or wind, really a lot of fun. Got home about 1 am!




Saturday I was just lazy for quite a while and then we went out for Panera Lunch, part of Mother's Day since Ben claims to not like it and then grocery shopping and TJ Maxx and the new Coconut Mocha Frappachino's at Starbux.....OMG,.....awesome!!

Saturday night we went down to Shady Cliff at Lake Malone and met Mom, Dad, Memaw, Susan, Nick, Aunt Sharon and Mike for Mother's Day dinner.....catfish, yummy!

Sunday, my request were fairly simple. Get Mallory up so I can sleep in somewhat, bring me coffee and breakfast in bed, let me go run, and cook me dinner. Oh yeah, and you MUST get me a card......from you and Mallory : )

All that came to fruition, so overall it was a good day, other than the clean out the closet/laundry part, but other than that, I enjoyed it.

We also officially joined the church here in Owensboro on Sunday.

So, good Mother's Day!

I somehow failed to take a picture of me and Mallory together on Mother's Day, but I got this cute one of her in the laundry basket on Sunday!



And, here's a few others from the last week:












In case you forgot, I'm doing a mini sprint triathlon on Sunday in Nashville. Another preemie mom convinced me to do it with her. Us preemie mom's give each other a lot of peer pressure, lol!

I'm looking forward to it. I was a little freaked out about the swimming piece since I haven't swam an actual lap in eons, but now that I've been in the pool a few times, I'm good with that, now actually riding my bike is freaking me out....Ben said it's not acting right.....gear issues, I'll try it out tomorrow and see what's happening. My Mother's Day/Birthday present may be a new bike!

So, I went to the Y tonight to do a run through of my tri, I guess to make sure I can do it, lol! So I ran 2 miles, stationary biked 8 miles and swam 250 yards. Felt pretty good afterwards, so now I'm more excited for Sunday! Wish me luck!

In my "old photo" tradition......since it's Stefanie's birthday, I dug this photo of us at our High School Graduation!! You, John, Me and Kasey. That will take you back, lol!!

March for Babies!!

The day finally arrived, our Owensboro March for Babies was this past Saturday.

This was the first time I've participated in this event and I'm looking forward to doing it every year now. My first year fundraising goal was $1000 and we surpassed that and raised $1228!

Team Butterbean was well represented at the Kentucky Wesleyan campus where we would do our 3 mile walk.

In attendance were, myself, Ben, Mallory, Mom, Susan, Ben's Mom and Dad, Mrs. Carole, Mary Ruth, Kim, Destiny, Brayden, Marcie, her husband Josh and 2 kiddos Maggie and Morgan and another friend of hers as well.

We actually won 5th place in family team fundraising, not bad for our first year. I think there were about 12 family teams.

The weather was amazing, we couldn't have asked for a better day. Somehow the rain stopped for this morning, the sky's were blue and it was mid 70's, just perfect!

Overall I thought it went really well and was happy with our turnout and support!! Thank you to everyone who walked with us and supported us with donations!!

Here's some photos of yesterday!