Today is the day!

Side by side or miles apart sisters will always be connected by the heart.

My very best sister in the whole world comes home today. For the last 18 months she had been serving and LDS mission in Oaxaca Mexico.

I can hardly wait to hug her! 

She truly is the very best sister in the whole world. I think my family will back me up on this. Ruby has the special talent of being able to make anyone laugh, she can converse with everyone. She is a friend to all, she is my hero. 

2 Months

It seems like so much longer than two months, and also shorter is some ways. The days go by quickly waking up early, pumping, going to work, visiting Emma in the NICU, and then pumping some more. The time we get to spend with her is never enough, she is such a sweet girl. She is more awake and alert now, and has been moved from the isolette to an open crib, and we're practicing breastfeeding once a day. Her current weight is 4 lbs 11 oz and she just keeps going up! I love watching her grow and change.

what a cutie:)

"um excuse me, can I go home now?"

The starfish pose

Open crib!

Dad is a pro diaper changer

Bath time is still our favorite, yesterday when we were changing her diaper (just prior to her bath) she was crying and putting up a fuss, but as soon as her toes touched the warm water she calmed right down. She gets super relaxed and I think her favorite part is having her hair washed and combed.

Best day ever

Tender little fingers

She's doing well with taking a bottle as well as with breastfeeding, we love working with the lactation consultant, occupational therapist, and physical therapist. We are surrounded by nurses who are kind and supportive and encourage us in helping Emma learn how to eat.

On Monday I got to spend the whole day with Emma, it was so wonderful to be there for so long. Before I left I changed her diaper, took her temperature and helped the nurse get her feeding started. I held her and snuggled her and she opened her big eyes and just stared at me. When she was placed back in her crib she furrowed her little eyebrows at me as if to say "where do you think you're going?" It just about broke my heart, so I came back over to her crib and put one hand on her head and one on her belly and looked into those beautiful eyes and explained that I had to go and pick up her daddy from work but that her nurse would take care of her until I could come back the next day. Leaving her there is always the hardest part of my day, but coming back to see her is the very best! Being a mother to such a sweet, smart, tender little human is just the best.

This is my favorite face

Sleep tight little miss

Nursing/pumping friendly clothes

After having Emma I began to pump for her. I quickly found that most of my t-shirts didn't work for pumping, or for holding her during kangaroo care. The best options were button downs but sometimes you want to wear something different. I started looking at nursing tops and dresses... oh my. There is very little available and what is available is not very cute or it's very expensive. I think of my self as being a problem solver, so I set out to make some dresses and tops that would be pumping/nursing friendly.
My solution was to put a placket in everything so a lot of the shirts and dresses that I have been making recently have been a tunic or henley style with buttons going only part of the way down the front.

I learned how to put in plackets a long time ago in school. I watched this video here as a refresher. I am also putting together my own tutorial of how do do a placket because the video is long, and sometimes it's easier to just scroll through a page and be able to follow the instructions at your own pace.

Oh and here are some pictures of sweet E because in the first one she looks like she waving, and how can I possibly put up a post devoid of her cuteness!

Little E

This tiny cutie is 6 weeks old, and getting cuter by the minute. This weekend she hit 3 lbs. It seems huge to us, but she still isn't anywhere near as big as a "normal" baby. She is active and tries her very best to pull out all of her tubes and wires, lately she makes the funniest noises, grunting, squeaking, and sometimes hiccuping. 

Worlds biggest yawn

I love this face so serious.

Bath time is everyones favorite, we love being able to be more involved in her care. Layton holds her while i wash her face, neck, tummy, and legs. We do her hair last and I think it's her favorite, it's the only time we've seen her smile. we use a very soft brush and scrub her head she gets so relaxed.

Her second favorite thing to do is sprawl, legs out, arms out, and flailing madly. Her physical therapist told us to hold her arms to her chest and put our hands under her feet so she has something to push against, but some how she always ends up with arms and legs stretched as far as they will go.

I love her tiny hands and have about a million pictures just of those darling fingers. Whenever Layton or I hold her she still works one of her arms out from being swaddled and lays in on our chests.

Lately we've been giving her a pacifier to start practicing sucking, her pacifier is so tiny but it still takes up half of her face, she likes to be in charge and hold the pacifier herself whenever we practice.

1 Month Old

Emma is 1 month old this week! This sweet baby girl brings us so much happiness, even though she is in her isolette most of the time. Our daily visits to her are always the highlight of our day. Her tiny hands and feet moving and reaching out while we take her temperature and change her diaper make us fall more and more in love with her.

Sometimes it's hard to be a parent when your baby can't be with you. Because she came to us so early it's sometimes confusing to explain how old she is. This is how to calculate gestational/ corrected age here.

Weight: 2lb 7oz

Little miss Emma is doing so well, everyday she is doing a little bit better. This week they also took her chin strap off and she's breathing fine without it! She is still small, has a feeding tube, and is receiving oxygen, but for how early she was everything is going better than we could have hoped. As her nurse yesterday said "she's a little rockstar!"

On Tuesday we got to give her a bath! It was so fun and she handled it all really well, she stayed stable the whole time.