Sisters

Well as promised, here are some pictures of Stella that were taken around our house. Sittre Paige had to get in on some of the action and get her picture taken as well. She LOVES the camera and gets upset if she isn't in a picture! Stella is doing really great, growing everyday, staying way more alert and its so unreal to think that today she is 2 months old!! We are so ready to introduce her to the world on Easter. I have a wonderful relative, Aunt Debra who made the girls matching Easter dresses to wear. We are excited to all get out together! We do have another Dr. appt on Good Friday and should update then. Thanks for the prayers, we are all staying healthy.

Special Times

Okay, for those of you who watch TLC, I am a "Jon and Kate plus 8" fanatic and on a recent episode it showed how Jon and Kate give each of their kids a special day for just that one kid with the mom and dad. Then I started thinking of how even though we only have 2 kids, our life has pretty much been about Stella, so we are beginning to make an effort of setting aside special times just for Sittre Paige to show her how much we love her. Tuesday night we decided to take her to the carnival in Trussville and she had a blast. She rode everything....twice.....even the alligator rollercoaster. I think my heart was in my stomach because I am a little nervous about some "pop-up rollercoaster" but as jerky as it was, she loved it. When I was watching her last night, laughing and having a great time, she is just such a joy to me. Sittre Paige is certainly my comfort zone child, its just been me and her for 3 years. She has really done a good job of transitioning and having to share her mommy time with another little person! She is such a mini-me and my little helper, and is just so deserving of these "special times" with her mom and dad and her grandad, Pops (which by the way if you notice in one of the pictures, Jared and Pops looking a little to old for the carnival but decided ride anyway? and to top it off raced each other on the big slide). I am hoping her next special time will involve earrings!! She is excited and actually wants her ears pierced like mommy. That should be an interesting event!

Also, today Stella had a Dr. Appt and another RSV prevention shot. She will get this shot through RSV season, so hopefully next month will be her last one for a while. She weighed in at 7 pounds 13 ounces and 20 inches long! I can't believe how big my preemie is getting!! She is filling out in the face so much and staying awake more. Still a great baby, and will turn 7 weeks old on Thursday. The Dr. said she is looking great and we will just continue to do the preemie formula with cereal and hopefully soon she can start regular formula. We go again in 2 weeks. On a side note, we have a friend who is starting out in the photography business, so she came to our house this past weekend and took some random "artistic" newborn pictures of Stella around our house. Hopefully I can post some of those soon but she did a great job and we finally have some good pictures of Stella. From the pictures its hard to believe Stella is 7 pounds because she is still so tiny? The more she grows, the more we realize she might not be looking like me, total bummer. However, the pictures do resemble her Uncle Jacob (my brother) so maybe there could be hope that I look like my brother, and so in return Stella will look like me! Who am I kidding? Stella will probably end up being another girl Jared! How is this fair? Anyway, you decide when I post the pictures!

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers, God is good and so is life at the Jones house.

3 girls + Dr. appt = All day event

Well, today was eye-opening. Not only with getting out for the first time with both my girls ALONE, but also Stella's 4 week check up. Technically she will be 6 weeks on Thursday but since we were in NICU we are a little behind. Okay, let me start off by saying that getting out of the house and getting somewhere ACTUALLY on time could pose a challenge. I realize I only have 2 and hope that it gets easier to get all of us a bath, get dressed, feed the girls, put them in carseats, make sure we have Stella's essentials and then get to our destination. wow. I mean I am laughing right now writing this but it literally took me from 10:00 - 2:15 to do these things.....and Stella's Dr. appt was at 2 by the way - 15 minutes late is nothing right??!! Now having Sittre Paige around has really become the biggest help, she is so much the "big sister" and wants to help me do everything which is working to my advantage, she is really great. So half the day was exciting and I haven't even got to the Dr. appt yet, which went very well. Stella is 6 pds 13 ounces, she is still 17 1/2 inches long. The Dr. said her weight gain is excellent, 2 1/2 pds in 6 weeks is a milestone. He confirmed she does have acid reflux, although we figured this out ourselves when the formula started coming out her nose after a feeding. Speaking of feedings, Stella has been getting 2 ounces every 4 hours and now apparently we have to drop back to 3 hours. Jared and I find 4 hours in between feedings VERY convienent for us, but he said a preemie shouldn't go more than 3 hours without being fed. I found this very confusing, considering the NICU sent us home this way?? But he said it might make for a bad sleeper later on? So he wants her to get 2 ounces every 3 hours now and then just letting her do her own thing at night and wake me up whenever she is ready to eat. So, I guess we will try this, even though I thought Jared was going to cry when I told him. You really don't realize how nice that 1 extra hour is to sleep or get something done because it takes us about 30 min to an hour to feed. Jared said we shouldn't ruin a good thing, but for fear of posing a problem later on, we are going to do it. She will continue on the formula "Neosure" for preemies with about 10 cc's of rice cereal to help with the reflux. He said not to compare Stella with other babies that are 6 weeks or anytime because since she is "preterm" she will be behind. I was discouraged by this because nobody wants their baby to be behind, but for example he said at 4 months when a full term baby should be rolling over, Stella probably won't until 6 months. I really wanted to remind him that I serve a higher power and that would be something a little time spent with my Savior would cure. But I do realize that he has to give me all the medical facts and thats fine. But it is something that Jared and I are in prayer about and hopefully will correct itself. Thats about it, she is still a great baby, and overall the Dr had nothing but good things to report. The prayers are essential and really appreciate them, so thank you all!

The pictures are of us hanging around the house, and then we took one of Stella next to a wipes container so you could get a feel of how big she is.....or how tiny she is. This was all we could think of to compare her size to?

Praying for Baby Hudson

Hello! Haven't blogged in awhile but found a good reason too. Please send your prayers to our precious friends the Evans. Staci is one of my closest friends and was there for me the whole time Stella was in NICU. They had a baby on March 4th, Hudson, and he is having some complications and he is now in the NICU at St. Vincents. We have amazing prayer warriors praying for Stella and now ask you pass those prayers to Baby Hudson. We totally understand what they are going through and know they would appreciate any prayers for their baby. She has also started a "journey blog" to let everyone know what is going on, www.evansfamily5-hudson.blogspot.com
On a side note: As most of you know, having a precious baby is a little time consuming, we are so sorry we haven't done a good job of updating. But Stella is doing really good, she is growing so fast, its hard to believe she is over 5 weeks old.....although she is still the size of a newborn! We are thinking she is now somewhere around 6 pounds, we have another Dr. appt on Monday and will know where we are at then. We will blog that. Thank you for your prayers...please pass them on to Baby Hudson. Love to all.