Swaddling

Chillen in the chair, She loves to watch bella our dog.

You are a sweet Princess
You love your feet and shoes Since Alexandrea was born, she has always loved to be swaddled. Putting her to bed was about a 10 min process, Change diaper, get her jammies on, swaddle and place in bed with her paci.
Now the past few days, she wants her arms out but wants her legs wrapped . You are now nearly 12 lbs, you have quadrupled your weight and have grown nearly 10 in. Wow.

Yes she likes to have a spare.

Becky and Lars

10 Months

I just can't belive Alexandrea is 10 months old today! Wow! Where has this year gone?

Park Swing

We have had a pretty uneventful weekend but little miss Alexandrea has had lots of first the past few days


Tonight we went to the park and met some friends from church. We all had a great time and she got to go in the swing. She giggled with happiness and smiled pretty much the whole time she was in there. It was a big hit and I think we will have to make it back again before the weather changes and gets rainy and cold.

Since being home form the hospital , Alexandrea has slept in our bedroom in a bassinet. She had only slep in her crib a handful of time and that was generally for a nap here or there. We wanted to put her in her bedroom but were having a hard time with it, but last night out angel sleep all night in her room. For the past week or so, everytime I was crawling into bed after pumping, she would start to cry. It was not long 20 min or so, but I did not want this to develop any further. We did turn on tthe Monitor Just in case but she did not make a peep until 730 am . Yipee!! It felt good to get some sleep.

Alexandrea also got to go to her fisrt birthday party for her friend Lilly who turn 1. She had a grat birthday and can'twait to play with her more. Alexandrea is just now counting down the days till she gets a birthday cake.

Overall Alaxandrea is doing well, We right now do not know how long she will have her feeding tube. It all depends on her and how much she eats orally to be able to gain weight without falling furhter off the charts. She is now about 11lbs 10 oz and 24 1/2 in long .

I have also had to go through some of her clothes and pack them away as they are getting too small . Depending on who make it she is now wearing anywear form 3- 6 months. After we finish off this last pack of diapers, we will also be going up a size in diaper to size 2.

Please continue to pray for growth for little miss Alexandrea so we can at least get her on the growth charts.

Becky and Lars

Pacifier

Alexandrea was started on the pacifier when she was in the nicu , She first had a special one for preemieS that was purple , once she got bigger, she graduated to the larger one in green.

She still loves her paci when going to sleep. Tonight she could not make up her mind which one she wanted. Sorry the videa is kinda dark but we only had a small light on.

5 min later when she was all wrapped like a little burrito she was out like a light happy sucking one paci.

First Tooth!!

Today Lars brought Alexandrea and met me at my office and we all went to lunch We went to a mexican place called Mazatlan grill. We all had a great time ! Alexandrea also visited with some of my coworkers,, it was pretty funny as she just really would not give anyone a smile and just gave everyone the look.

Tonight when I came home from work, Alexandrea was a little more cranky and , I checked in her mouth and our little miss has cut her first tooth.

When I am able I will get a pic.

My pretty girl

Alexandrea for the most part is doing well, The Dr had said it would take a few weeks for her to recover so she is getting there, it is just taking some time.

Alexandrea is slowly starting to eat more food, she seems to love oatmeal, applesauce, peas, and squash. Some of the other foods we have introduced her too, she is not too sure is rice cereal, sweet potatoes, carrots and avacado. In a few more weeks , we are hoping to be able to introduce her to products with dairy if all goes well such as cheese. We can't wait for the day for her to be able to eat what ever we are eating. It funny at times because when we are eating dinner, she sits at the table with us, we aslo have her a dish of her baby food, if she had her choice, I thing she would go for what ever is on out plate vs hers. I guess our food is much more appealing than pureed foods.

Yesturday I held one of my coworker's baby, She was 4 weeks early and now is 3 weeks old and weighs 5 lbs 2 oz. It made Alexandrea look huge, I am amazed at how far she has come even though we have the failure to thrive dx. Its so hard too in some ways believe that Alexandrea was that small.

Overall Alexandrea is a very happy baby, and always has smiles for mommy and daddy. We are closely approaching her 10 month birthday and then before you know it , She wilbe turning one.. I do not think she will be walking by one, but our goal for now is getting her to sit more independently, yes she can sit,but only for a few min. She still hates tummy time and is perfectly content laying on her back and if you place her on her belly, she will cry till you turn her over , or just roll over herself.

So please pray for Alexandrea to continue to do well , and to gain more independence in rolling over and improve her sitting time. And also for her to keep chowing down so we can move toward getting rid of the feeding tube.

Becky, Lars and Alexandrea

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update. Alexandrea is doing well and feeling better. The first few nights home from the hosp were a little rough. On Tuesday night, she had 2 spells of projectile vomiting. This is not fun in the middle of the night, but have not had any more since. On Wed we went back to the pedi and her weight was back up but, not quite all the way . She weighed in at 11lbs 5 oz., most of this was though due to the high amount of iv fluids they had her on. We Will go back again in a week to see how she has gained.

here are a few pic of our little lady.

Thanks to everyone for all the warn though and prayers during this time.

Much Love
Becky, Lars and Alexandrea







Alexandrea loves to watch her fish aquarium and mobile.

She is such a goofy fun baby!

All Smiles , getting ready to eat her dinner! Such Pretty blue eyes,

Her hair is also starting to grow, you can barly see it standing up on her head.

Weigh in at the Dr's , loves to watch herself in the mirror already, oh no I am in trouble when she gets older.

I did not do it! Playing innocent., I just love the look on her face.

Home Again!

We are home! We got home around 8 tonight. Alexandrea is still cranky but overall is doing much better. The bad new is the diareah form this flu bug can last up tp 2 weeks. , her poor little bum is so sore. During her stay yesturday, she barely had any wet diapers. The labs that she had done did show some dehydration but not bad, but as the day went on and no wet diapers the more we all realized how dehydrated she became . When she was weighed on saturday , she was 11 lbs 8 oz, at the pedi office she was 11 lbs 2 oz, chck in at the hosp 11lbs 1 oz, She lost nealy 1/2 lb in just a matter of hours. ,Due to Alexandrea being so small, this is not good fr her. It was pretty rough.
Last night I did come home from the hosp to try and get some sleep, as I was just exhausted after no sleep the previous night. I knew she would be in good hands. We spoke to Alexandrea's nurse right before we crawled into bed and her fever had spiked to 104. The nurse gave her some tylenol and held her for a while, When we spoke to the nurse again, he r fever had dropped back down to 101. We did not get much sleep but we did get a little. When we spoke to the nurs in the am, They said soemone was always holding her as she did not wan tto be put down. Hmm i though tthis wa pretty funny as I think it was the other way around, granted Alexandrea was more clingy but the nurse also made the complement, we don't get to many opportunities to snuggle little ones. So seh was spoiled last night. So hopefuly Alexandrea will sleep through the night withoug wanteing to be held.

Thanks to everyone for all the warm thoughts and prayers as it means so much to all of us

Love Becky, Lars and Alexandrea

and again

My sweet baby girl is in he hosp again tonight.
On Sunday afternoon, she came down with diarea, We must of changed her diaper 8 times in 2 hours, We finally got her calmed down and in bed and started on her continuous night feed. Around midnight I checked on Alexandrea, to me she felt warm, So I check her temp, 99.9, We had just been at the pedi office days before, he had talked about stuff going around and Decided to go ahead and give her some tylenol and will call the Dr in the am. I crawled into bed alittle bit later. Around 2 am I hear Alexandrea start coughing and then the following of her heaving and a scream of pain. It is no fun when this happens, It is such a visous cycle for us. We were trying ot figure out whether is was her normal thing or was it tru vomiting. After several min, we determined it was more than her normal thing. She also nwo felt hotter, Again check her temp, now it was up to 101. We place a call to the on call Dr who reaasurad us ,. Said clean her up, wait a little bit and offer her pedialite or milk if tolerated.
For Alexandrea milk is prefered due to her weight issues, as pedialite is just empty calories, Alexandrea needs every ounce and calorie. We get her bed all change Lay down for a bit, get up offer het milk, she drinks 2 oz and 1 oz pedialite.
As soon as out dr office opened, We called, They wanted to see us shortly.
We tooker Alexandrea in and had to see the on call Dr.
After examining Alexandrea, it was decided it would be best to admit Alexandrea, due to her weight issues and dehydration and wanting to stay on top of this before it took her down. Her measure output the rest of the day was very low, her labs were off showing the begining of dehydration. She also continues to have a fever.

Please pray for Alexandrea to heal quickly

9 months

My sweet baby girl is now 9 months old . Wow , where has the year gone.


We did go to the dr today and weighed in at 11lbs 5 oz. still growing slowly though, she is sucha busy baby though, I think I am going to be in trouble once she starts cruising.

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Sitting!

she is pretty much sitting up but only for a few seconds

she was enjoying eating peas and oatmeal YUM!!!

Alexandrea's big brother had to go back home today to Oklahoma

We miss you buddy and can't wait to see you again.

She was quite the giggly happy baby at 5 am , but oh so grumpy later. Since Chris was minor traveling alone, we knew that only one of us would be able to go behind security and escort him to the gate, what a surprised when we were all able to go to the gate. Anyway , it has been really hot here all week, even at night it has not really cooled off. When we arrived at the airport , it was chilly at 430 am , we get all checked in and head to security to head to the gate. I removed Alexandrea from her car seat to take her through. She started her cough/reflux thing, and you know when it gets to a certain point , she will spit up. Lo and behold she spits up, uug, I manage to keep it off of me but she did manage to spit up all over the brand new airport carpet. Our new airport terminal just open here in March . All I had to change her into was a onsie I think she won the hearts though of all the security in that area,as they were all coming over and see how cure she was and just amazed a this super happy smiley baby.

It was just too cute.

Natural Bridge and Crater Lake

today we drove and went to see Natural Bridge , It was hot and beautiful! It is about 70 miles from our home

one of the calm spots, but do not let it fool you as the water is flowing under this in a lava tube very quickly

sorry , got it sideways but wow the power!

the natural bridge , there are 3 blow holes two, if you click on the picture, you can see a spray of ater coming out of one of them

Crater Lake

Christopher was almost ready to fall in!

A patch of snow and its August

Crater Lake is known for getting about 500 in of snow a year

A Truly Specatacular Sight!!