One Month & Still Sick

Emily actually got sent to the hospital after he one month check up... so I didn't get a chance to document it in pictures. But the only stats I remember is that she was almost 13 lbs.
(I think it was 12 lbs 13 oz)

After we got home from the hospital I decided to try and get some one month pictures of her. After shooting for about 5 minutes I decided to give up. She just looked so sad and tired, I didn't want to bug her any more. Here are some of the ones that I did capture. 

I didn't really edit any of these... so ignore the amateur-ness of them. ;)

My Buddy is Back!

Zak is the most pleasant, good natured little boy. It was so sad seeing him so miserable for so long. That RSV and the double ear infection really did a number on his mood. 

We're still dealing with some residual whininess, but for the most part he is back to his happy cheerful self. And life is so good!

Valentine's Day

With our recent cases of RSV in our house, it was no surprise that Abby caught it as well. Since I stay home with the kids (and I know other families at Abby's preschool have little ones at home) we decided to have our pediatrician excuse Abby from school for a week to get through some of the highly contagious days of RSV and not pass it along to her classmates.

This resulted in a really. lame. valentine's day.

Ryan and I really don't do that much for the holiday. We try and get sometime to ourselves, but with a new baby (who was still getting over RSV) we couldn't really do much.

I did however want to still make it fun for the kiddos.

Foolishly I pinned some cute homemade valentine's on pinterest and let Sarah pick the one she thought was most fun...

Of course it didn't look that complicated on pinterest... but it was a LOT more work than I had anticipated. 

Sarah loved doing her part though. She patiently went through all 20 valentine's and wrote her little message and signed her name on each and everyone. Even decorated the letters. 

So proud of all her work!

And then my foolishness strikes again for our Teacher gifts. 

I've wanted to make these heart-shaped hot pads for a while, and this was the perfect excuse.

They were SO much more time consuming to make than I expected. Mostly because my binding didn't want to smoothly lay along the edges of the hot pads. They definitely looked homemade.

It is the thought that counts, right?

We did a way simplified version of the hear in Abby's hear this year. 

I actually think it worked out better than the braided version I've done in the past. 

I wish I had more exciting things to share about this lovey, dovey holiday.

I will share some short little things that I love...

I love the sweet gazes I get from lil' miss Emily after she finishes eating. Big sighs full of satisfaction that her round lil' belly is warm and full of milk. 

I love Zak's cuddles. He is still quite my little snuggle buddy. I try my hardest to be patient and remind myself ofter that his constant desire to be near me, touching me or on top of me will fade and I will dearly miss all the cuddling that I enjoy now. My favorite is right after he has woken up. He will climb up onto my lap facing me, lay he head on my chest and gaze up with his big, sleepy eyes and suck on his "plug" and rub his monkey blankie under his nose. He still offers me nose rubs with his blankie.

I love how bright Abby's eyes get. Everything is so exciting to Abby. She tells me every bit of information about her day like it is the best thing in the world. She still cackles and I LOVE her cackle! You always know when Abby is near because you can hear her loud and clear! She is so fun though, I really love my ray of sunshine!

My sweet, sweet, Sarah. I love how obedient and grown up she is getting. Although sometimes I get sad that the time is passing by so quickly, I LOVE having an oldest child that is ever so helpful. I can always count on Sarah to happily answer, "Sure, Mom!" whenever I ask her to do something. I love her big chocolate eyes and her full grin.

I love my wonderful Ryan. It seems like the past couple of years we haven't always had the most quality time together. But I love when we are able to sit and talk and enjoy each others company. I love laughing with Ryan. He has the best laugh. Especially when we are laughing really hard, you know, so hard that you have a hard time catching your breath? Those are the best moments.

Ryan did surprise me with Flowers for Valentine's day. When we were first married I remember telling Ry how I thought sending someone cut flowers is kind of pointless because they just die... but I do have to say. Receiving a bouquet of flowers is pretty fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting them!

He is such a nerd, his little note with the flowers said, "I love you sweetheart! And I got you flowers. I hope you like them. Love, Ryan" He should have signed it Captain Obvious. ;) 

The flowers completed the look of our little Valentine's Day mantle. 

Well... that is about enough lovey-dovey-ness that I'm sure any of you can bare reading through... so I'll stop right there. 

RSV Stinks

My sister decided to come and visit us for a few days at the beginning of February.
I hardly got any pictures of it... but you can read her account HERE and HERE.

{Brooke is far wittier than I, it'll be more fun to read it from her anyhow}

It was so fun to have my sister here... but I got slightly distracted by this...

Emily going to the hospital... again. *sigh*

Here is the story.
Zak caught RSV (seemed like an ordinary cold on him... oh, with double ear infections).

Zak tried to be a good big brother...

Zak shared RSV with Emily.

Since lil' miss Emily was only 4 weeks old... it was too risky to just play it out at home.

So they sent us to the ER to have her monitored, and the ER decided it would be safest to admit her and keep her for 24 hours to do this again...

Watch that wretched monitor.

Oye! 

It was kind of nice for Emily. She really seemed to rest well while we were there.

Except when we had to suck out the mucous from her tiny lil' nose. 

That was really sad.

Once again they gave me free meal passes to eat while I stayed with Emily.

I don't know what we would have done if Brooke wasn't in town. It has been such a blessing to have the timing of things all work out. With Emily's stay while my parents were in town and this hospital stay. We felt so blessed to not have to stress about our other three kids. 

But, I do have to say that it wasn't fair that I missed out on spending quality time with Brooke.

I don't know how much of a hostess I was, I felt like a zombie pretty much the entire time she was here. {Sorry Brooke!}. 

It was nice to be able to squeeze in one more day of snuggles after we got discharged.

Yay for visitors!

Baby it's COLD outside!!

We have by far been experiencing our COLDEST winter in Pittsburgh this year! The weather man was calling it a Polar Vortex that ran through the country... whatever it was, it made for some very, very cold days in the 'Burgh. Brrrr!!

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