New "Tricks"

Kelsie has learned so much over the past couple of weeks!

Her first word (that we recognize to have meaning) is "up". But she will also say "night night" when its bedtime and "out" when she wants out of her crib.

She gives high five!

She can throw a ball overhanded.

She takes a spoon and tries to feed me saying "mmm mmm". Sometimes she is even so kind to take a cheerio out of her mouth and try to feed it to me saying "mmm mmm".

She knows what objects are and if I ask her to give me something she will. She picked up my socks for me and handed them to me this morning. :)

She can ride her little princess car on her own by pushing herself with her legs.

Unfortunately, she is also learning how to throw tantrums...she arches her back and throws herself backwards when you take her away from doing something.

I just LOVE my little bug to pieces! Watching her grow and learn new things brings so much joy to my life!

Haiti - medical teams needed

I received the following email today in regards to Haiti and just thought I would share it on my blog in case any of you are interested. Many of you know that I went to Haiti in March of 2010 following the devastating earthquake. It was one of the most challenging, humbling and rewarding experiences of my life and I highly encourage anyone who is able to pray about going and serving in Haiti. They are in such great need and God can use you in a mighty way there! NCBM is a great organization and takes great care of the volunteers. Let me know if you have any questions about my experience or how you can get involved!


HAITI

2012 NCBM TEAMS

Phase II

On January 12, 2010 Haiti was struck by a tremendous earthquake that caused extensive damage. NC Baptist Men Rescue 24 responded accordingly with a medical team as requested by a mission in Haiti. Since that initial team arrived, we have been sending teams to assist with the needs. Currently, we are recruiting medical teams to work in Haiti. A “team” is 6 people with at least 1 medically trained volunteer preferred.

COST: $1,100 for NC residents which include airfare, in-country ground transportation, lodging, meals, and accident insurance. Out-of-state volunteers will pay the cost of the airfare plus $400 for logistics. Housing is in a compound that provides lodging, food, and security. A deposit of $500 is due 2 weeks after reservation to hold the week for the team. $500 is due from each registrant 90 days prior to departure. The full amount due 60 days prior to departure. The team deposit will be returned or distributed as directed by the team leader.

You must possess a passport valid for 6 months after your return date. Also, be advised, Haiti is hot. You must be in good physical shape. The accommodations do not have air conditioning. Age: 15-17 yrs. old with parent or 18+ without. Medically trained volunteers must possess a current, medical license and not have any current or pending litigation or disciplinary action.

Medical teams will work mainly in mobile community clinics doing primary care. Some opportunities may exist for medical specialties. Ideal team is 1 Primary Care Provider, 2 Nurses, 1 Pharmacist and 2 additional medical professionals or non-medical volunteers. But, we are flexible! If you have a specialty and would like to use it in Haiti, we will try to find a location for your work. Typical trip begins in the US with a flight to Port-au-Prince on Sunday, return on the following Saturday. Team dates are organized by week beginning in January, 2012. Contact NCBM for available weeks. Additional information can be found at www.ncmissions.org

Kelsie goes to the dentist!

Kelsie had her first dentist appointment today! Yes, she only has 4 teeth but it is still recommended to have the first dental appointment by the 1st birthday. And I had some concerns so we decided to go ahead and get her seen.  Her bottom 2 teeth came in the week before Christmas and they look great. Her top right tooth came in last weekend, and top left broke through over the past 2 nights. Last weekend, I noticed some yellow discoloration of her top right tooth and as it has grown more, it has become more obvious! Then today it looked as though there was a dark brown spot on her upper left tooth. I was freaking out thinking what is wrong with my baby's teeth and why do they look like they are coming in rotten!!?? So I made an appointment and they were able to see her today! We went to a Pediatric Dentist in Southern Village and they were all just wonderful! Anyway, so the dentist said that there is actually a defect in the enamel of her tooth and there is no treatment!! They don't know what caused it exactly but do know that it was something that happened in utero when the teeth were developing, and for whatever reason, they just didn't develop properly. She said that it shouldn't cause problems to the permanent teeth though, because they do not develop until later, around birth. So now we just have to put up with this yellow tooth discoloration until that tooth falls out. But besides aesthetics, it shouldn't cause any problems. The brown spot on the other tooth was (thankfully) nothing but a spot of old blood where the tooth popped through the gum! (Poor baby, no wonder she was so extremely fussy last night!)

She also has a low frenulum (the piece of tissue that connects the upper lip to the gum). It comes down between her upper two front teeth. They said she will either outgrow this, she will fall and injure it and "naturally" clip it, or will have to have it clipped later in when she is older. 

Kelsie did so good with the whole visit! She laid so still and I was pleasantly surprised!

Kelsie & Ava

My friend Kelly and I love to get together at Southpoint mall on a regular basis for lunch and shopping. And they have a great nursing room so it makes it quite convenient for our breastfed babes.  Here are a couple videos from our visit this week. Our time together is always full of laughs and I'm sure the best is yet to come! Kelsie and Ava are already best of friends! :)

Messy lunch!

Kelsie needed a bath after her lunch today! Black beans and rice mmm mmm.

And then we snuggled after bathtime...

Shes the BEST!

She's been just taking off walking more today too. Before, I would have to stand her up and then entice her to walk toward me but today she has been pulling up things and then just letting go and walking to where she wants to go. She's still a little wobbly but she is getting there!

11 months old!

Kelsie was 11 months old yesterday!! That means that a month from now, she will be ONE YEAR old! I can hardly believe it. So since I didn't make a "10 month" post I feel the need to recap everything she has learned over the past 2 months! And boy has there been a lot! Goodness, times like this I wish I were better at being organized and writing things down because I know my memory will fail me on this one. So instead of listing everything, I will just try to recall the things that really stand out.

She turned 10 months on Christmas day and I recall that she had just cut her bottom 2 teeth a few days prior to that. She was also just beginning to stand up on her own for longer periods of time.

She started walking around 10 1/2 months. She still doesn't take the initiative to just start walking very often but will walk a good 10 yards unassisted if you stay in front of her.  And when my cousin was here the other day with her 1 and 3 year old, Kelsie did decide to just let go and start walking on her own from one toy to the next. I guess she was trying to be a big kid like them!

She's not a big talker so still no real words, just alot of jibberish lately. Well, I take that back..this week she has started saying what sounds like "up" and "hi". She will drop something on the floor and say "up" (and if you pick it up, she will just throw it down again and then say "up" again) and she also says that when she is done eating. She doesn't really say dada or mama anymore. She will cry out what sounds like "maaaaamaaaaa or mommmm" when she is really upset and wanting me but thats about it. She has also said what sounds like "Daddy" and "bye bye" but she doesn't say it consistently by any means. She will also sometimes repeat something similar to what I say like "baa" when I say bath or ball. Oh, and the past week her words or jibber has been "gibble gibble gibble" and "boogie boogie". I don't know what she is talking about but I doubt it has anything to do with turkeys or boogers. But who knows!


She started waving bye-bye  about a month ago probably. Its quite adorable, I think.

Over the past few weeks she has started giving REALLY good hugs. The BEST hugs actually! All I have to do is ask for a hug and she will put her face next to mine, put both arms around my neck and squeeze. It is absolutely the sweetest thing ever!! And she still gives good kisses too, sometimes she will sneak a sweet one in when you aren't even asking - those are the best.

For the past couple of weeks she has started pointing at things that are interesting to her or catch her attention. And over the past few days, she has been making the cutest little expression. She does it all day, sometimes more than others, but when she wakes up in the morning, she does it over and over. It is such a serious but interested expression and I love it. It makes me laugh. Its hard to describe but I will post a video. It sounds like a quick "hib" or "hup" and she abruptly closes her lips, sometimes with an inquisitive look.

She also has started pointing at something and gasping out of excitement, as if to say, "Ahhh... wow". I feel like this could be something she has learned from me as I notice that also point out new things and do the same thing. 

She is eating more table foods and eats well most days. She is also drinking from a sippy cup without difficulty and feeding herself finger foods.

She is a mommy's girl no doubt and we have so much fun together. She likes for me to chase her around the room and then catch her and tickle her. She gives the best belly laughs. A new thing this week that she just thinks is hilarious is for me to lean my forehead up against hers, then we just look eye to eye and she starts laughing. When I back away, she will lean in to do it again.


She likes to pull things in and out of any container. And open all the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen.

If is understanding the names of objects now and their associations. For example, you ask, "where are your books" and she will crawl over and get them. Or she will pick up the remote control and point it at the TV.

She is alot more interested in reading books lately and will actually sit still to read them with me. She still doesn't like to lay back though. Would much rather be sitting up and flipping through the pages herself. Always busy I tell you!!

She does this really weird thing where she leans her belly over objects and just sits there...for long periods of  time...laying over the soccer ball is her favorite.

 

We have been working on learning body parts and its interesting how much they really take in when you don't think they really understand. Yesterday evening, Nathan mentioned "nose" and she reached up and pointed to his nose. He didn't know that we had just been talking about where's your nose, my nose, baby's nose etc..babies learn so fast you know!

Top teeth are coming in this week. The upper right just broke through the gum yesterday and the other isn't far behind.

Here are a couple more videos.

Future cheerleader?

Or just an avid football fan like her momma?

CF check up

We had Kelsie's CF check up Friday and they were so pleased with how well she is doing. Her growth was fantastic! She weighed 21 lbs 11 oz!! And both her weight and height were at the 75th percentile. So she is still tracking along that growth curve perfectly! Since she has been doing so well, there wasn't a whole lot to say...just to keep doing what we are doing - enzymes, reflux meds, vitamins, salt, chest PT, breastmilk and table food.  At 1 year, we will increase her vitamin dosage to twice per day and add whole milk of course, but everything else will stay pretty much the same. I'm still breastfeeding so we discussed when/how to start weaning and decided to keep it up at least part of the time through spring just so I can continue to provide her with some extra immunity through this cold and flu season. And that is fine with me! I'll do whatever I need to to keep her as healthy as possible!

They also went ahead and did some blood work and an X ray. They checked her iron, vitamin levels, liver enzymes, and electrolytes. They also did their routine sputum culture by swabbing the back of her throat. They do this routinely on CF patients at every visit and thankfully, Kelsie's have been normal so far. Hopefully this one will be too.  I looked up the results of her blood work and everything looked perfect except for one liver test, alkaline phosphatase, that has been elevated the whole time. She has had it checked 3 times since birth and it has actually gone up each time. I'm nor sure what is going on there but will talk to her Dr more about it tomorrow. In the past, she hasn't really been concerned so we'll see what she thinks about it this time.

As usual, Kelsie was a trooper through the entire visit. She cried out a little for the blood draw because she was getting frustrated being held down and then didn't like the poke very much, but I was able to easily comfort her and for most of the test, she just laid there and even laughed a little bit. 

See my boo boo? It wasn't so bad.

After the blood draw, we went down for the chest Xray. They put her on the table with little supports up around her head and strapped her down so she couldn't wiggle around and distort the picture. They even pulled her arms up over her head. And we just watched in amazement because they did all that and she just laid there and didn't make a sound. The last time she had a chest xray, she was only a couple months old and asleep so she didn't even know what was happening but this time she was awake and still made it through the first Xray without even a whimper. But when they radiology techs came back in and spoke to her, she busted out crying. I think she was just scared at that point not realizing who those people were or what she was doing there. Bur it didn't last long. We were in there and able to save her within a couple of minutes. All in all...a successful and positive experience. We're so thankful that her health has been so stellar up to this point and pray for God's continued blessings.

Head to the left, cute little feet hanging out on the right. Quiet baby under all that!

Sleep tonight?

When Kelsie was about 4 months old, she suddenly started sleeping all night from 8pm-7am...she did that for about 3 weeks and it has been downhill from there. Yet somehow I still go to bed hopeful EVERY night that she will just miraculously sleep all night again. Maybe tonight will be the night...


UPDATE 4:00am
I just finished feeding Kelsie...tried to lay her down in her crib after getting her back to sleep in my arms and she just sat straight up. So now I'm holding her again. And prior to her waking up at 3:45 to eat, she, at some point must have woken up because she was in our bed. I'm thinking that was around 1:30. Oh me, oh my, we have a problem on our hands. We need to address this issue eventually and teach miss Kelsie how to fall asleep on her own!

Walking!

My sister was off work today so she came up last night and spent the day with us today. We had such a great time. We went out to lunch at McAlisters and tid a tad bit of shopping for baby necessities. It was nice having her extra set of hands and the adult, sisterly conversations were a very nice change as well! : )

When we got back home, we played with Kelsie and practiced getting her to walk to us! And for the first time, she consistently took several steps by herself. Yay!! SHE'S WALKING!!!

Here are another couple of pictures from our day out with Aunt Bubba!

See my 2 front teeth!?

I love pickles!

Walking soon...

Kelsie took 5 steps towards me yesterday! This is the best she has done so far. I kept trying and trying but she quickly got tired of it and decided she would rather just crawl. She will stand for long periods of time on her own but gets wobbly, loses her balance and plops down on her butt. With a little practice, she should have this walking thing down pretty soon!

Visiting Nathan's Papaw

We took Kelsie to visit her great-grandpa Houston last week. He is at a nursing home in the Alzheimer's unit and this was the first time he has met Kelsie. It was a special time to have 4 generations together - Lamar, Barry, Nathan, and Kelsie.

Four generations

When something catches her eye, Kelsie likes to point at it

Waving bye-bye

And we went out to lunch afterwards...showing Nana and Papaw how Kelsie likes to eat pickles! :)

We have snot...

Well, we made it 10 months without so much as a runny nose, but Kelsie has officially had her 1st cold. And we have survived! I have feared her getting sick since we found out she had CF and have actually been kind of surprised that she hasn't been sick until now.  Most infants get sick before 10 months old, but we have been fortunate that she has been super healthy so far! But Nathan and I have still worried about how her lungs would respond to her having a little cold, but so far, her symptoms have been pretty minimal, with little coughing. It started last Thursday and by Friday, she had lots of snot, a little cough, and a low-grade fever. We went to the Dr. because of a little rash (that turned out to be a type of eczema) and since the cold had just started, he checked her lungs and ears as well. Both checked out to be fine, so we just managed it at home with saline and suction and by Saturday, she was already a lot better. She woke up ALOT Friday night and was so congested she had a hard time breathing through her nose.  But since then, the congestion has improved. She is still waking up a lot at night with a stuffy nose. And because she needs her paci to get to sleep, when she wakes up, tries to suck on her paci in and then realizes she can't breathe through her nose, she gets so upset and thus, we have to intervene. But I can take a little nasal congestion. I am just thankful that she hasn't had much coughing and has done so well with her first respiratory infection. Its still to early to tell, but this helps me to remain hopeful that she will not have a lot of lung involvement with her disease.

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!

Oh, and Kelsie was so kind to give the cold to her daddy AND me. So we have had a house full of snot this week. But I think we are finally all on the mend!

Home with Kelsie

With so much going on lately, I feel like I have been going non stop since November, and haven't had many days to just stay at home with Kelsie. So it was nice to just stay around home on my days off last week and today. Granted, we still had a couple of grocery store stops and a Dr's visit, thrown in there but none of those exhausting all day outings. I am very outgoing and like to stay busy but I also really enjoy the time at home with my baby. It makes me wish I could stay at home with her all the time, though... and not have to work. But unfortunately we can't do that right now. I am thankful that I have a job and only have to work part-time but it still feels like a lot some weeks. Especially because its the cold season and the time of the year when working in Pediatric healthcare is super busy! Therefore, my 3 days a week really needs to be more like 4 days a week because I am needing an extra day to catch up on my notes at work.  But as much as I would love to be a stay-at-home mom, deep down, I know its good for me to keep practicing right now. And I do enjoy my work as a Nurse Practitioner. But I still can't deny that I love my job as mom the most! This will be my job for a lifetime and will always be the best job in the world!

Playing with my pretend cookie and looking cute in the overalls grandma got me!

Having fun on her new pony!

Trip to the grocery store ... she likes to ride in the shopping cart!

Mom turns 50!!!!!!

So my mom turned 50 on Friday (1/6). For months I have been secretly planning a surprise birthday party in my head and had contacted some folks to help me. But I didn't start putting it all together until after Christmas. I had a little over 2 weeks and feared I wasn't going to have enough time to make it happen.  But I rounded up some awesome family and friends to help me and we successfully pulled it off. We had the party on Saturday and it went so well. Mom had absolutely NO IDEA!

We planned the party for 6pm, but I had everyone arrive a little early. I had invited mom to our house and told her I was going to cook a birthday dinner for her. But then called and asked her to stop by the church to pick up some ice so we could make ice cream. I told them to be at our house around 6:30 or 7 - any later and I feared she would get suspicious.  I knew she would want to get there earlier to see Kelsie before she went to bed so I had to make an excuse for why I was planning it for later. She asked if they could just come at 6 but I told her no, that we had stuff to do around the house and that it would be later before I could get everything ready.  They are often late anyway, and it takes an hour to get to our house, so I thought if I said 6:30 or 7, that they would really leave around 6:00. Well mom was apparently a little anxious to get to our house at 6:30 and was so frustrated with Dad, Valerie and Drew for dragging around and making them late.  Valerie and Drew were at the church helping us get the party put together but went back to mom and dad's around 5:30, the time that mom thought they should be leaving to come to our house.. Normally, they would ride with mom and dad to our house so we wanted to make things seem as normal as possible to keep mom from suspecting anything. But when they got there, they said Drew had to take a quick shower before they could leave...but he purposefully made the quick shower a long shower to stall and keep mom from trying to leave before 6. Well, mom was apparently so adamant that she should go ahead and go pick up the ice at the church that she tried to leave the house on her own, before 6, which would have totally ruined the surprise.  Dad said he held her off as long as he could, but they eventually left together at 6:00 on the way to the church, but without Valerie and Drew since he was still in the shower.  (Sadly, they missed the surprise entrance but still got there before mom got inside.) But all in all, it worked out great and we pulled off the greatest surprise ever (in the history of our family anyway!) :) We had such a great time and it will be a memory I will keep forever! LOVE YOU MOM!!!!!!!

 

The "Dixie Hicks" crashed the party...it was HILARIOUS! 

New Years!

Its a new year! 2012! This is sure to be a fun year watching my baby grow and learn all kinds of new things!

As for 2011...it will go down in the record books as the year that brought the most change to my life and brought the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, the birth of my sweet baby girl. Oh what a year it's been! I am so thankful for all of God's richest blessings upon our family this year! And I pray for His continued blessings of health and happiness in 2012.

By far the greatest thing of 2011! And the light of my life today and always! 

Christmas and I'M BACK!

Whew, its been a busy few weeks! And unfortunately, the blog has sadly fallen by the wayside. I wish I could spend hours catching up on here, but instead I will have to settle for a quick recap!

Christmas was super fun but super busy as well! We had lots of fun with family and were able to spend the night with both sets of grandparents. And Kelsie is a very blessed little girl and got so many new toys to play with. A ridiculous amount actually. More than she even knows what to do with. But we are very appreciative! And it has been so much fun playing with her and all of her new things.

And she was 10 months old on Christmas day! Definitely developing quite the personality and we are enjoying every little moment with her!

Santa came!

And visited mommy and daddy too!

Sweet girl!

 

 

Weee this makes walking easy, look at me go!

Somebody is a very blessed little girl!!

I LOVE my pony!!

So much fun!