Dave's family visits

Dave's family came to visit and meet Chloe last week. Because of his dad's failing health and dialysis 3x/week for the last few years of his life, it had been five years since his mom's last visit to California.

She didn't want to fly alone, so Dave's sister Christine came with her two kids - Noah (16) and Celestial (14). It was their first time visiting California.

One downer was that we were sick for the first few days of their visit. There have been so many mean viruses going around! Dallin had a stomach virus, and Dave, Brennan and Levi had fevers and such that lasted for days. My mom, Kristen and Nathan and several of their kids were sick too - some of them for weeks. We were SO glad our company didn't get sick - whew!

We set up our badminton net and Foosball table, which gave people something to do while we were hanging around the house.

I love this picture of Levi on the zip line!

I pretty much stayed home with sick kids and Chloe while they managed to get around a little bit. Thursday they went to Farmer's Market in San Luis Obispo, where they ate ribs, watched a play snippet and stuck gum on the wall of Bubblegum Alley.

Friday (after taking snickerdoodles to Tyler's class for his birthday) we signed Spencer and Tyler out of school a couple hours early, and they all went to Morro Bay. They shopped, watched big waves, ate crab and fish, and bought lots of salt water taffy.

At the Salt Water Taffy place we like to go to, the owner let Tyler have a lollipop with a cricket in it.

Tyler: Oh cool! How much does this cost?

Owner: $2.

Tyler: Oh, darn!

Owner: How much money do you have?

Tyler: None.

Owner (laughing): Okay, you can have it.

Noah chose this hat and sweatshirt for his birthday.

On Saturday we went to In-N-Out for lunch. We were hoping to go to a beach again, but it rained. That was the other bummer about the trip. The first couple of days were sunny and warm, but then it was rainy, cold and windy.

On Sunday we watched our church's semiannual General Conference on T.V., and Dave's mom went to mass at the San Miguel Mission. Then we had my family over for dinner and cake. Tyler and Noah share the same birthday, so we celebrated them together.

On Monday they went up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I stayed home with Levi and Chloe.

I probably should have put my regular lens on my camera before I gave it to them, because my new one is a little finicky if you're not used to it. Group shots are particularly hard because the focal length is so small and it's hard to get them all in focus at the same time. I just thought it would have been perfect for low light pictures of fish.

I think Celestial really enjoyed it.

Tuesday was their last day here, and we all went to the beach. First we went to see the elephant seals. The adults had gone back to Alaska, leaving just the babies and teens. It wasn't as exciting as the last time we went, when we saw mating and fighting. And it was freezing cold and windy!

I don't have any pictures of Celestial at the beach. It was too cold and windy for her, and she spent most of the time in the car.

At least it was warmer and less windy at Hearst Beach, which is why we usually like to go there.

This was Chloe's first trip to the beach. Poor thing pooped through all her clothes and had to be wrapped in blankets because I forgot to pack a change of clothes for her. I have since bought a diaper bag so I can be more prepared for outings.

Dave and Noah went kayaking, but the waves were bigger than normal and flipped them over a few times on their way out.

Noah is such a cool guy. I'm glad we all got to know him better.

Christine was going to go boogie boarding, but she put her feet in the water and decided it was way too cold for her, even with a wet suit on.

The boys spent the entire time building a dam and sand castle.

And eating, of course.

Brennan loved having Spencer pull him around on the boogie board. Kids don't seem to notice the coldness of water. Plus they tell me it isn't nearly as cold in the creek, which is why they spent all their time there. I'm glad I was finally able to get out of the house a little bit while they were here.

Chloe: 1 month

Chloe has bounced back pretty quick from her stint with RSV. At her 1 month check-up she weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces, so she gained over an ounce a day after she got out of the hospital. Her doctor was very happy with that, and he said her lungs sounded all clear. Yay!

I dress her in a lot of pink, not just because she's our first girl after 5 boys, but because she looks so good in it. I have some neutral colored clothes I kept from my other babies, but she just doesn't look as good in them.

We were home one week before Dave's family came to visit from West Virginia for a week. I'll blog about that next.

Brennan took this picture of us one morning when I realized that I didn't have many pictures of me with her, even though I wasn't wearing make-up or contacts and she was all cranky by this point.

My friend sent Chloe this cute swimming suit and sunglasses, so we had to take pictures of her in it.

We took these in Spencer's ocean bedroom, so we stuck various shells next to her.

Love those big, bright eyes!

One gorgeous day while Dave's family was here we all went out back. I realized it was Chloe's first time outside, other than going to and from the doctor and hospital. Grandma brought her this cute outfit.

Spencer took some pictures of us - this is my favorite one. Dave's sister was surprised how little she is. I guess she looks bigger in pictures when she fills the whole frame.

The end of another great hockey season

Wednesday was the last hockey game. It was Spencer's 8th season and Tyler's 2nd. I missed a few games towards the end, what with having a baby and living in the hospital for a couple weeks and all; but my mom watched Chloe so I could go to the play-off game. They lost 3-1 to their cousins (Alec, Jacob and Peter), so that was a bummer, but I'm so proud of them. Spencer scored the most goals of the whole division this season - 28!! The next highest going into the play-offs were 20, then 15, then several 10's. Tyler got a lot more comfortable on his skates, became more aggressive and stopped a bunch of pucks. Now we get a couple weeks off before it starts up again. I want Dallin to play, because I can't think of anyone tougher than him (except maybe Levi!), but so far he's not interested.

Welcome home, baby!

After being off oxygen for 24 hours, Chloe was able to leave the hospital on Tuesday. Her sats dropped a little bit that last night there, but they gave her a treatment, performed chest percussions and suctioned out her mouth, and she did better after that. We were home when the boys got off school, and they were SO excited to see us.

For family home evening the night before, they made me a huge list of all the things they loved and missed about me while I was gone. It made me cry. Here are a few of the things they wrote: my smile, homemade cookies, tucking them in at night, reading them books, hugs and kisses, cooking dinner, cleaning, laundry, helping them say their prayers, playing games, talking to them about their day, playing, laughing at their silly jokes, my pretty face, giving them gum at church, helping with homework, taking them places and loving them, even when I'm angry. I missed them just as much. It was quiet and calm in the hospital, but I missed the noise, chaos, work and joy of being a mom to these sweet boys. I think the whole experience made us all appreciate each other SO much.

And cute little Chloe is doing so much better! She never has to work hard to breath, and her cough improves every day. She spends all her waking minutes looking around at her surroundings with wide eyes, like she knows she's in a new place. I love putting clothes on her and holding her without wires and kissing those soft cheeks without oxygen tubes and yucky tape in the way. Now I just need to fatten her up. She still wasn't up to her birth weight when we left the hospital.

We're a little bored here. Can you tell?

My doctor said his goal was to get us to the point where Chloe is doing so great that we're sitting around, wondering why we're still here. As you can see, we're getting close to that point. She has a cute shamrock dress at home, but we had to make do with a green onesie and some picnik stickers.

But the doctor wants to make sure she does well for a decent length of time, and they're still weaning her off the oxygen. They just took her off of high flow, and now she's down to just 1/2 a liter. So far her sats have stayed up.

She's sleeping great and taking wonderful long naps, interspersed with long periods of alertness.

I love those big, bright eyes! She reminds me of baby Tyler. Dave's not coming down for a couple of days because there's a stomach bug threatening the homefront. I hope it resolves quickly so we can go home to a healthy house!

Visitors!

Today was the Pinewood Derby. It's a good thing Tyler wanted to start making his car super early, because we've been pretty distracted the past few weeks. Dave went home early last night to help him finish it up.

Very cool design!

His cub master is so creative and fun, and they all had a great time.

I was feeling bad about not being able to be there this year, but then I remembered that I don't like those things. I get so nervous, and I hate to see the boys lose. But apparently there were lots more races this year with 4 cars racing at a time and a cool electronic finish line that showed each car's time, so there was less emphasis on winning/losing.

They came down to visit afterwards, and he showed me his awesome car.

There was a full house in the pediatric unit last night (it was so loud!), but then there were 3 discharges this morning, leaving just Chloe and another RSV baby. I'm always so jealous when I see someone go home. But it was nice and quiet after the patients left, and my sweet nurses let my whole family in to see us. There were lots of extra lunches, so the nurses gave them to the boys. They had already eaten lunch, but that didn't stop them from chowing down.

This was the first time they were able to hold Chloe in almost 2 weeks, or 2/3 or her life. They say she's changed a lot. She's doing better every day, and the respiratory therapists have started lowering her oxygen % and flow.

The nurses went nuts about how cute, polite and social the boys are. One thing I love about the staff here is that they genuinely like kids, which is why they work in pediatrics.

Levi was excited he got a knife to cut his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then he started playing with toys, running around and making a lot of noise, so they couldn't stay long.

We left Dave with Chloe for a couple hours and went bowling at Cal Poly, since it was raining and we couldn't go to the park.

It was really busy there (what else can you do in SLO when it's raining?), so they played arcades while we waited for a lane.

Everyone did great. Of course the bumpers really helped!


Brennan's bowls were a group effort.

That's a heavy ball for him!

Levi was a handful! I tried to let him "help" me bowl, but I ended up knocking him in the head by accident. He kept escaping, biting Brennan, and taking everything out of my purse. I guess he isn't quite old enough for bowling! But he liked putting his head on the ball return thingy to feel the air blowing out.

It was pouring down rain when we left, and we didn't park too close (you know how campus parking is!), so I left the boys there while I ran to get the car. I had an umbrella, but my pants got soaking wet. What an adventure! Dave and Chloe had a nice nap together the whole time we were gone.