Pioneer Day Parade!

Caitlin got her first chance to ride in a parade.  I don't know if she'll ever do it again.  I think she probably will, but she was so hot and tired by the end, if she remembers that feeling next year she probably won't do it again.  She did have a lot of fun, but instead of enjoying the festivities she just wanted to go home and get into a cool house, some yummy food and a cold drink.

Caitlin's Major/Minor Accident? Not!

Have you ever had days when things that go wrong are different than what your panicked self leads you to believe? I had one of those days today. Caitlin was in the kitchen while I worked on dinner. I thought I had all the knives and anything else that she could hurt herself with, out of her reach. I walked into the living room for 10 seconds, she was at the sink playing with the water. She started crying like she had hurt herself, so I walked back into the kitchen to assess the problem and saw what I thought at first was blood on her face, hands, and clothes. I carried her into the bathroom to locate the wound, because already having three other children I have learned that even very small head wounds bleed a lot. I started wiping what I thought was blood off of her and found out that it was koolaid. Relief flooded through me. If I had followed my panicked self, I would have call 911 for nothing, thanks to a cool head and quick thinking it wasn't an emergency. The clothes might be a loss, but Caitlin is great. We couldn't get all of the koolaid out of her hair.

Please Paint My Nails!

Cailtin enjoys looking at painted finger nails. One of the Young Women in our church had painted nails on Sunday and Caitlin was mezmerized by them. Jim leaned over to me and told me I needed to paint her finger nails. Today, with it snowing outside, I decided it would be a good day to paint her nails. I started by painting my nails. She came and held her hands up for me to paint her fingernails. Since we painted them she's been holding them out to show her brothers and their friends her painted nails. It's pretty cool. It's fun having a girl in the house. I can actually do girly things and she enjoys them.

Caitlin Helping Herself!

Caitlin didn't want to wait for me to grab a bowl and spoon and the milk. She thought she could do it herself needless to say I just caught her with a little bit left in the bag. Before that she strung all my dirty laundry all over the house. She's a busy body.

Caitlin at 11 days old

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When Caitlin first came home from the hospital she was so tiny that one of Skylar's friends thought she was a doll and almost sat his book on top of her. I barely caught him before he actually did it. His response to me was that his sisters had dolls bigger than Caitlin. It was a shock for all of us that she was SO tiny. She weighed 4 lbs. 3 oz. and was 16.5 inches in length. Just a tiny little thing.

Caitlin came home from the hospital after 11 days in N.I.C.U. I have tremendous respect for the nurses and doctors that work in the Neonatal intensive care unit. Caitlin was 5 weeks and 2 days early and ended up being smaller than the doctors thought she was going to be. They assumed she would be around 5 to 6 lbs., but when they got in to take her, via c-section, they found her umbilical cord was tied in a knot. If she had gone full term she probably wouldn't have lived. Thank heaven for modern medicine.

I am grateful that she is healthy and happy. When she came home she slept a lot, I used to have to wake her for most of her feedings. In the N.I.C.U. she had a feeding tube in for a couple of days, she kept pulling it out. They decided to leave it and not feed her that way. We just had to keep trying with the droppers and the bottles. When we brought her home she was eating 2 ounces of milk at each feeding. Quite a job for such a small little girl.