Eden's latest...

Eden loves her dad and can't help but smile when he gets home from work each day.



I went to a really great baby shower and one of the games was to make a baby out of clay and the new mom to be would pick the winner. Well, I didn't win, but I thought my clay baby was pretty darn cute:




Yesterday we went to our first audiology appointment since leaving the NICU. We got some mixed news. Eden's left ear is great and she passed the hearing screen right away, but with the right ear they had to turn the frequency up quite a bit before she would hear anything. We aren't sure if Eden has permanent hearing loss, or if there is something that just needs to be fixed in there. If it isn't permanent, the doctor said it may just be a recessed ear drum, or there may be some fluid in the ear. So we are waiting to hear back from another doctor to go in and get some follow up testing done. We will see what happens! Hopefully it's something that just needs a little fixing!

She sure has grown!

Here's Eden at about three weeks old and somewhere in the 2 1/2 pound range.


And here she is just a couple days ago. She's now just over 12 pounds.


I have a hard time remembering just how tiny she really was, but now that I look at the darn monkey it really puts in back into perspective! She sure has come a long way and we just love her to pieces!

The Bumbo

These pictures were actually taken a few weeks ago and she has since improved in her posture in this fun chair. But even though she had a hard time staying upright she sure thought it was fun!


And of course, she had to keep one finger on that oxygen tube just in case it tried to go anywhere!

Oh how we love this happy little girl!

Rice Cereal? Not so much...

As we know, Eden has had a rough time with eating so we decided to try some rice cereal and see if she might take to something a little more solid. Here's how it went...






Hmmm.... maybe we will attempt this again sometime. A lot of babies react this way the first time, don't they?? :o) Poor girl...

Eden's Baby Blessing

Clear back in November, on the 29th to be exact, Brad was able to administer Eden's blessing. I'm not even going to begin to explain why it's taken me so long to finally get these pictures up. All that matters is that the pictures are here, we were surrounded by loving family, and Brad gave Eden an amazing blessing.

Here we are getting Eden dressed and ready in her beautiful blessing dress.


I love my family more than words can explain.


Eden has the BEST grandparents on both sides.


We were so fortunate that my brother Michael was able to be there and stand in on the blessing. This was his last visit home before leaving to Afghanistan.


Here's the group after the meeting. Unfortunately Greg's family had to leave right after Sacrament meeting and weren't able to be in this photo.


I was able to get one with Greg and his family before we left to church though.


Thank you to all our family who were there with us (especially those who traveled in from out of state) to celebrate Eden and the blessing she is in our lives. We love you all!

Brad did an amazing job with her blessing, and is such a wonderful daddy!

New Year's Celebration

2010 really got started with a bang and so much has happened for our family in just 11 short days. But before all the craziness began, (finding out about my brother's severe injuries, and Eden getting surgery), we had a very nice New Year's celebration that I must blog about.

Brad and I went and stayed the weekend at my parents house where we had a full fondue meal, including appetizers, delicious meats with different dipping sauces, and Brad’s specialty, dessert. MMMM… it was all so good.




Fortunately we had lots of leftovers so we did it all over again on New Year’s day when Tiff and Cam’s family could join in the fun too.


Meanwhile Eden entertained herself with this fun, squishy nativity set, and with grandpa too.

The hospital... again

What a crazy week this has been.

Eden has never been a great eater. Since coming home from the hospital in October, feeding time has always been a somewhat dreaded event and was always a rocky road. She would go through periods where she would eat good and gain weight pretty good, but then just days later she would drop back down and decide she didn't want to eat and her weight would drop back too. Even in good times though, it would take us at least an hour to get her to finish a three or four oz bottle which is way too long! Obviously this has been a major concern since her little preemie body is still trying to catch up so it needs all the nutrients it can get!

Back on 12/28 we took Eden in for a swallow study. They made her drink this crazy chalky liquid as they watched through the x-ray. The good news is that she is not aspirating at all (getting any liquids down into her lungs), but the bad news is that she has pretty bad reflux. They call her a "silent refluxer" because she doesn't ever really spit up, but she definitely has some acid burning problems going on inside. So it's no wonder that she wasn't liking to eat! She started on some reflux medication, but unfortunately it didn't really seem to help.

This past week she decided she had had enough of the whole eating thing and decided she wasn't going to do it anymore. I tried all I could do to get her to eat, but over a two day period (Mon & Tues of this week), she only ate a total of about 12 oz. It was time for me to give in and get the G-tube.

We have had several conversations about this procedure since leaving the hospital before but I wanted to make sure she really needed it before putting her through another surgery. I tried my best, she tried her best, but unfortunately it came to a point where we could no longer avoid it.

So Wednesday we checked in to the hospital, and she had her surgery on Thursday. She now has a little tube that goes directly into her stomach. Everything went really well and I have already realized how amazing this thing is! It has already made life so much easier!

So we offer her a bottle and she takes what she wants of it, and whatever she doesn't finish we can feed her through the tube. The best part of all, I can now give her all her medications directly through the tube instead of making her swallow it all! It's amazing! No more forcing her to take anything she doesn't want to take!

It's also such a blessing to have piece of mind because I was constantly stressing about her weight gain and how much she was eating, and whether or not she was getting all she needed. Now I don't have to worry, and eating can become a much more enjoyable experience for us both.

Preparing to go into surgery. Isn't that a cute little gown?


Here she is right after surgery. Poor baby.


She was not a happy little girl. I think it was the pain mixed with the extreme hunger. She couldn't eat anything at all the day of the surgery or so she was not happy. And the pacifier was not doing it for her.


This doesn't look like a comfortable way to sleep, but we were just happy to get her to relax enough to go to sleep!


But by Friday afternoon, after she had some food and some good recovery time she was already back to her happy, content self. Here she was hanging out in bed with dad watching a movie.


Now that Eden is a little older, it was much harder to keep her entertained in that hospital room so she was a little more fussy. We were able to find this little bouncer for her and that helped break up the boredom a little.


Fortunately we were able to come home Saturday night and Eden is doing really well. The recovery from this procedure has been very smooth and easy and we are grateful to be home again. Oh the journeys this girl leads us on! We are anxious for what's next! (hopefully it won't involve the hospital though!)