Dedicated to Uncle Patrick

Elli has been practicing the art of eating your entire hand at once. I wish I had the picture of my brother Patrick doing the same thing when he was attending Snow College. He had his whole fist in his mouth. Elli's not far from that very useful skill, but the problem is that when she does it she triggers her gag reflex. She is actually doing it right now. When I say her name and tell her "no, no" she stops and smiles at me. I think I'm missing the amusing part of almost throwing up?

Playing at Grandpa & Grandma's

We love spending time together at grandma and grandpa's house. The kids always have so much fun, and this time we were lucky enough to have Marnie here. They drove down from Oregon for Great Grandpa's 90th birthday party. Here are just a few snapshots of the kids.

Ben was very proud of his sand box creation. He worked on it nearly the whole time we were together. Ben belongs to my oldest sister Kim, he is her second to the youngest.

Starting at the top is Clara, then Taylor is on the top right. Ian is on the bottom right, and Elli is on the bottom left. Elli was born August 22nd, Taylor was born October 11th, Clara was born November 11th, and Ian was born December 20. As you can see Elli is still the smallest of the crew, the oldest, but the smallest. (Elli's due date was December 17th.)

Here is Bradley with a couple of his cousins. Clara's big brother Noah is in the middle. He belongs to Marianne. Isaac is on the right, and he is Marnie's oldest.
The girls love being together. Kristen used to be quite out numbered with the cousins in Utah, but now she has Elli and Clara. Unfortunately they aren't very close in age, so it's nice when Marnie comes. Kristen is on the left, she is Kim's 3rd. Elise is Marnie's 2nd.

This is darling little Paige. She is Marnie's 3rd. She is sooo cute!!

Here are the babies all lined up on birth order. Elli is small, but she's not that far behind Clara in size. The 2 boys have both the girls beat by quite a bit. It was fun to finally meet Ian. We were sure sad to see them go back to Oregon. But we look forward to another visit in August.

Just a quick update on Elli:
We had Elli's follow up clinic with several specialists last month and they were all very pleased with her progress. They were especially impressed with her health. They couldn't believe she hadn't needed to go back to the hospital, which we found out is very common for premature babies. Up to that point she had never even had a runny nose. She did catch a very mild cold a couple of weeks later, but it didn't bother her much at all. She still has a fairly weak appetite, but that is improving slowly. She is a tiny bit behind developmentally as well, but so far there is nothing too alarming. The only thing she isn't doing well is coming up onto her arms when she is on her tummy. We have been given exercises to help strengthen her arms.

She is up to 11 lbs. 9 oz. now, and is about 25". She is small, but very happy. She laughs, but it's almost silent because of her vocal chord. It's very cute to watch her laugh. We enjoy her so much! She really is a delight!!

Grandpas are great

We just celebrated Elli's great grandpa's 90th birthday with him. He was so happy to be able to finally hold her. He hadn't seen her since his trip down to the NICU several months ago. One of the things that always brings him joy is holding babies. He has such a sweet and calming spirit about him that the babies love it too.

He passed this love for tiny babies onto my dad, Elli's grandpa. This is him holding Elli around Thanksgiving in the NICU. Elli is very blessed to have such tender and loving grandpa's.

Happy Father's Day to Grandpa and Grandpa Great!!

Family Pictures

Now that we are 4, we needed to update our family pictures. All we did was walk out our front door and go over to our side yard. We have really pretty rock stairs, and they made the perfect photo spot. It was so convenient, and looks great!

Bradley really wanted a picture of his new skill - going cross eyed. What a kid!

watching Elli grow

I am so sorry that it has taken me 2 months to update Elli's blog. I till try not to let this happen again. These photos are a taste of Elli growing up here in our home. We love having her at home with us.

This first photo was taken just a few weeks ago. Elli is holding her doll that is 10" long, which is exactly how long she was when she was born. The interesting thing is that when I compared her 4 day hand molds that the nurses made for me, they are actually smaller than the dolls hands. She has come a long way, Elli is now 24" long and weighs 11 lbs.


This is Elli getting ready for her ride home from the hospital on January 3rd.
Here she is sleeping underneath our Christmas tree the day we brought her home. She is the best gift of all!!!
Remember the pictures from Elli's one month birthday? I took this picture as a comparison. Now instead of being the same length as the candy bar, her waist is the width of it. (See October 2007 to compare)
We took this one about a week before Easter. I couldn't take her down for all the family festivities, so Wayne needed something to show her off to his family. They all agreed that she is adorable, and I would have to concur.
This was taken a couple of weeks after Easter. It was so wonderful for her and for us to have her off the oxygen, and after only 2 months. She is truly remarkable!

I absolutely love this picture. What you can't see is the reason she is smiling. After trying for several minutes to capture a smile, her brother walked in the room and this is her reaction to seeing him. She is always happier when Bradley is near. She does the same thing when Wayne gets home from work. She loves the men in her life!

Elli's cousins

My mom and dad were happy to welcome 4 new grandchildren in 5 months. It started with Elli in August and ended with Ian in December. It was fun for me to be pregnant at the same time as all my sisters, and I love that Elli has 3 cousins her age to play with.




It isn't easy for a grandpa to juggle 3 babies at once. Elli is on the left. Clara, who was born in November, is in the middle. Taylor is on the right, he was born in October. The only one missing in Ian who was born in December. Elli is officially the oldest of the 4 babies, but had she been born when she was suppose to then she would have been 2nd to the youngest. Taylor still looks like he is the oldest, he certainly has her beat size wise.



Elli also has 2 new cousins on her daddy's side of the family. Both Megan and Aaron were born in December. She will never be without someone to play with at family gatherings. What a lucky girl!

My New Look...

When we brought Elli home in January we were told that she might need to stay on oxygen for a few months if not for the year. We were at least planning on having her on oxygen until it was much warmer outside. Well, once again Elli has proved what a little trooper she is. After being on oxygen for only 2 and 1/2 months she is done. Isn't she lovely!? It is so nice to be able to look at her precious face without all the extra stuff.

Elli is enjoying the freedom too. No more blasts of water shooting into her nose sending her into sneezing fits. No more painful removals of the little cheek tabs that held the cannula in place. No more yanks or tugs on the cannula from people tripping on her oxygen hose. No more sore nostrils from the cannula rubbing against her nose. No more indents on the head from laying on the cannula. I do think that she misses holding onto the cannula behind her left ear though. She had recently started hanging onto it while she is eating, now she plays with her ear instead. She seems to be sleeping a little better, and she doesn't scratch at her face like she used to. I think she is really happy to be done.

She is still hooked up to her apnea monitor, which monitors her breathing and her heart beat. She will keep that for another month just to be sure that she is really ready to be off oxygen, and that she doesn't have any other issues. She hasn't had any legitimate alarms on the apnea monitor in over a month though. She's doing great!

Good job Elli! Keep on beating the odds!

Now we just need her to have this kind of success with her eating and gaining weight. She is eating a little better, but sadly it hasn't shown in her weekly weights. Last week she only gained 1.6 oz. which puts her at 9 lbs. 14.4 oz. Hopefully we will see her break the 10 lb. mark this week.

Thanks for all your prayers. They are being heard and answered.