Wednesday May 29th

Haley had a good day of nursing today! Look how wide awake she is. :) The after that hard work, she is out! 

My Mom and Noah picked me up from the hospital so that we could take Noah to his music class at the library. It was fun to do something with just him and I think it was really good for him to do something that he "normally" does. 

Noah played hard on the playground at the hospital and got his first bloody nose. He didn't even want me to clean him up, he just wanted to go back and play. His sad face in the picture is because we had to go inside to get stuff to clean him up, we had ran out of tissues.
He's such a big boy on his motorcycle. He was super excited to take it outside.

Haley got some good snuggle time with Daddy this evening.

Monday May 27th & Tuesday May 28th

Monday May 27th

Haley had a busy day today full of visitors. She loved ever moment of snuggling that she got from everyone. :) We are feeling the love!

Grandpa Mark and Grandma Jayne were here this morning. Along with Auntie Sarah and Auntie Jessica.

Uncle Dan, Aunt Nancy and Aunt Norma were driving through to get home to Kearney from Chicago and were able to stop by and meet Haley.

My friend Dana was able to stop by and see Haley after work. 

1. The Halia kids get to "see" Haley

Juliet and Haley

Jude and Haley

Macy and Haley

Once again I'm just so thankful for technology. We were able to FaceTime the Haila kids while Haley was awake so that they could "see" her. I think they were pretty excited to "see" Haley. It will be fun when they can meet her in person. :) 

Cute little pink bow

After I had FaceTimed with the Haila kids, we thought we should Facetime with Olivia. She had to wait out in the waiting room. Only siblings under the age of 18 are able to come in to the NICU.



I think Olivia was pretty excited to "see" Haley. But then she wasn't super happy when she found out that her mom (Auntie Sarah) was holding Haley. ;)






They have a play room up on the 5th floor. That has been a nice break for Noah when he is here but is tired of being in Haley's room. They volunteers there are wonderful. They even let him bring on of the toys back to his room. Of course Noah picked the garbage truck. As some of you know he is REALLY into garbage trucks right now. He loves to watch them when they come to our house. He even had gotten some toy garbage cans for his birthday and he love to play with them. "Dump it" is what he says. :) The has become very expressive in the way that he says things. He also really plays with toys now, like a big kid.

Tuesday May 28th

My Mom was able to get some time off of work and come help us take care of Noah. Seth had to get back to work today.

My Mom and Noah came to pick me up from the hospital so that we could go to the store and get veggies for our garden. Noah has all of a such become such a big boy. Every time I see him I am in awe with all the new things he is saying and doing.

New garden gloves! 

Helping Grandma push the cart at the green house. He thought this place was pretty cool. 

Noah even helped plant the garden. He enjoyed scooping and dumping the grass. :) 

 The clouds were very different. Looked like someone had painted them. 

 Helping Grandma put the green bean seeds in. Noah is very into dumping things and really wanted to just dump all of the seeds out. It was hard for him to do just one at a time but he did it. :)

Seth of course got stuck with all the not so fun parts to do. :( So thankful I had three awesome people helping me so that I could have garden this year. :) 

The rest of Haley's week - continue Monday May 20th - Saturday May 26th

Continue from Monday...

Noah love touching Haley's hair. He's got a thing for hair, he would play with my hair when he was little while he nursed, he plays with his hair when he is tired or nervous and now he likes to play with Haley's hair. :)  

My friend Kathleen was able to stop by and meet Haley.

Our primary nurse, Julie "girl" as Noah had called her for awhile until he could remember her name. :) She was WONDERFUL!! She had gotten some hospital supplies for Noah to play with while he was here. They would fill the syringe up with water and then squirt it into the container.

I'm SO thankful for tecnology! It's been nice to be able to "see" Seth and Noah when I can't be with them. This is before bed time and I don't think Noah is so sure about me not being there to rock him. 

Tuesday May 21st

Cheese

Checking her out

On his own Noah asked if he could hold baby Haley. He was very excited and super proud of his big sister. He is such a sweet boy. He says things like "I love you so much Haley Mae!"

Kisses 

Wednesday May 22nd

Flower outfit

Super BIG brother Noah!

We were planning on going to one of Noah's friends, Eliza, birthday party on Saturday but that didn't happen. This super Noah cape was one of the party favors that Kathleen had made.

Miss Haley really enjoyed her bath. She is just relaxing! :)

My friend Betsy was able to meet Haley. Her daughter is just 9 days older than Noah. Our due dates with our second babies were just a week apart! We were both very surprised both times! :)

Thursday May 23rd

Haley got some new "sunglasses" for phototheraphy. She like these a LOT better than the wrap ones she was wearing before.

Auntie Jess made this super cute name banner to hang on Haley's door

Special Daddy and Haley time

Pink bow.... and it begins ;)

Noah so enjoys holding Haley. He didn't like that she was all wrapped up, he wanted to see her hand.

Noah got to help push "ride" Haley's new big girl crib into her room.

He also got to play doctor with Daddy. I can't believe that he's such a big boy now.






Our little Haley looking so pretty in pink

Noah can't get enough of Haley's hair. He's such a sweet and gentle big brother.

Friday May 24th

Haley is off of her oxygen and she's pretty happy about it! :) She is a strong girl and has pulled out her oxygen many many times and feeding tube a hand full of times. When the doctor came in to check on her, she had pulled her oxygen tub out. The doctor said that he thought she was trying to tell us that she was ready to breath on her own. He said we would try it and see how she did. 

It wasn't the oxygen that she needed it was the flow that was blowing in. Because of the soft tissue on her neck her muscles weren't strong enough to keep her air way opened to breath on her own. The flow that was blowing air in was keeping her air way opened for her so that she could breath room air. 

Haley and I both LOVE "kangaroo time" or "skin to skin"

It was bath night tonight and again Haley enjoyed it. I was able to bath her this time which was fun.

Check out this wild hair she has. I can't tell yet but I think it might be wavy or curly. I guess we will just have to wait and see. You can't tell in the pictures because her hair is so dark but it's defiently wavy right now.

Doesn't her hair look wavy?

It took me a week and a half to finally get her in her "new" onesie but I say better than never! ;) 

Friday night after Noah and Liv went to bed Sarah came to the hospital to meet Haley. 

Saturday May 26th

There are three main things that are keeping Haley in the NICU.... jaundice, breathing and feeding. 

Her jaundice level has been all over the place. She has been under the light and then off of it. Her level went up to 14.9 so she had to go back under. The other day it had gone from 14.9 to 10.3! That's when she was able to stop phototherapy again. It went down to an 8 something and is now back up to 11 something but they aren't concerned about it because she is getting older. 

Her breathing is doing well. She has been off the oxygen flow for a day now. We pray that she continues to be able to keep her air way opened on her own.

Now the last thing is feedings. In order to go home she has to do 8 full feedings. Right now she is doing 3 partial feedings. She gets weighed before I nurse her and then again after to see how much she has eaten. She is getting 50ml right now. That means how every much she nurses, say 10ml, then after that she will get 40ml in her feeding tube (gavash feeding). The doctor had talked to me this morning and asked me if I was okay with Haley trying a bottle. I said that would be fine as long as we continued to work on nursing with her.

She didn't do any better with the bottle.
She was having a hard time getting a good suck.

We took out her feeding tub to see if that would help. It's so fun getting to see all of her beautiful face. We will continue with the nursing three times a day and patiently wait for her to get stronger.

The feeding tub had to go back in for now.

Noah and Olivia played in the play room up on the 5th floor and then we all went outside to play. I think Noah was pretty happy to have a buddy around. :) Haley got some good snuggle time with Daddy this morning. 

Haley got a lot of good snuggle time with Grandma Jayne and Grandpa Mark this morning.

I can home this evening for dinner and to spend some time with Seth, Noah, Mark, Jayne, Sarah and Olivia and there were these BEAUTIFUL flowers. :) 

 When I came back to the hospital these are the cute jammies that Haley had on. :)

Good night!