7 months

Time is a flyin'! This blog post has lots of pictures since I haven't posted in forever!Ella is learning to sit up. It's a slow process, but we're getting there. It's hard for her to have any personal space since her brothers are constantly in her face calling her "baby girl, sweetheart, Elwa, etc.)". Having a baby sister is still so much fun for them! Carson is loving t-ball and is playing great. He also loves playing the Wii. Cooper is just enjoying hanging out with everyone. He is always bringing laughter to our family. He's the jokester and is constantly cracking us up. Ella is just a sweetheart. She is such a joy to be around and is my saving grace from these rowdy boys :) Our last appointment with the neurologist went perfect. She has been released from seeing all specialists. Praise God!!!! Dr. Hille said her risk of having any more seizures is slightly higher just because she has had one before, but he thinks she is pretty much out of the woods of having anymore. She also could be at risk for developing cerebral palsy, but she would probably already be showing signs of that, too, if she had it. So, we're pretty much in the clear for that. She doesn't have to do any more MRI's/cat scans either. Dr. Hille was more than impressed with her muscle tone and her alertness. We feel so blessed with this precious angel!

She's got enough hair to hold a velcro bow

Look how much she has grown! This was one of her 1st preemie sleepers

Small group friends

We do a lot of this at t-ball

stats

We went for Ella's 6 month appointment on Friday. She weighs 12lbs 8oz (3%) 25 inches (10-25%) head circ. 42cm (25-50%) = one skinny little girl with a big noggin :)
She is FINALLY off of her apnea monitor. The company forgot to upgrade the monitor AGAIN and so it hasn't been recording any data as of January 1st. Oh the joys! We decided she was safer without the monitor since we found the cord of it up by her neck a couple of mornings. One other bit of big news....she is officially nursing! Don't know how that happened, but I'm beyond excited!

BUSY

I think she's a little angry with me (probably b/c I forgot a bow) 6 months! Standing at the Incrediblock
BFF's Ella and Abby!
Again! Aren't they the cutest?

Just us girls! (Note to self: make-up is always a good choice)

She loves her food!

It has been a busy few weeks in the MacKinnon house. Carson got enrolled in pre-k. His Daddy ran so fast that he got 3rd in line. We only signed him up for 1/2 day. Hopefully that was a good choice. Carson had his first t-ball game on Tuesday. He did awesome. He hit the ball and then tried to chase after it :) He also fielded a couple of balls, too. It is a lot of fun to watch! Cooper fell out of the Explorer last week and bumped his head pretty good. Then this week, he pulled his basketball goal on top of himself and busted his lip. He's our accident prone child that likes to live life on the edge a bit. Jason flew to California on Monday to be with his family and just got home on Saturday evening. His Grandpa's kidney's are failing and he's not expected to make it much longer. Ella started rice cereal and sweet peas. She is a BIG fan of both. She grabs my pinkie and pulls the spoon into her mouth. I'm hoping we'll see a huge increase on the scales this month for her. We had Jon, Lori and Abby come for dinner last Saturday and they finally got to meet Ella. Lori and I have been best friends forever and now our little girls are going to be, too. Abby is 4 months older than Ella. Cooper REALLY enjoyed playing with Abby. He's a fan of the ladies! PapaMac and Grandma Connie came for a visit and brought us all a ton of candy! Yum-my! The Easter Bunny hasn't been mentioned much in our house, but he did come for a visit this morning. Carson told me that Santa left him a basket full of goodies. I explained that it was the Easter Bunny. He said, "oh, well Santa told the Easter Bunny to bring it." Oh these kids keep me smiling! I love them all so much. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Remember the real reason! He IS risen!

FUN! FUN! FUN!

I made her a tutu!

this expression cracks me up! Getting ready for a walk

We have ventured out a bit the past couple of weeks with Ella (shh, don't tell our pediatrician). I figured we would take advantage of the nice weather. Ella has been to our favorite winery twice (the gift shop of the winery) I hate to admit this since she hasn't been in church yet (in May we'll be there!). We also took her to get our new outdoor playground! Yea!!! We FINALLY got a playground. We're ready for friends to come play! She also got to go to Home Depot, the mall and to get yogurt. Her absolute favorite outing was the zoo! She slept almost the whole time!!!! The boys have been so excited to finally get out of the house and loved seeing some friends. I have to admit, I'm excited too!!!! Bring on Spring!!!! Goodbye RSV season!

Sleeping at the zoo!

Finally woke upDouble Trouble

Carson started t-ball this past week. He has just had two practices but he LOVES it! I can't believe he is old enough to play. I'm sad but excited all at the same time! It will be so much fun.

5 MONTHS

can you see the orneriness?

new toy!

5 months!!! It's really already been 5 months since Ella decided to surprise us with her early arrival. We have been through a lot in those 5 months, but this little girl is developing with leaps and bounds. She is still petite at only 11lb 0oz and 23 1/2 inches as of February 28th. She is developing quite the little personality and I love it!!! Ella has officially been moved to her crib. She still sleeps 12+ hours at night until those big brothers go and wake her up. I was afraid that with her being in that big bed and not being swaddled that my restful nights might soon disappear. Boy, was I wrong. I think she sleeps even better. Ella also eats 8oz of milk when she gets up! That is crazy to me that such a small baby can eat so much.

crazy boys!

Carson and Cooper still adore Ella to pieces. They can't get enough of her....neither can Jason or I. We are all smitten!!! Mr. Cooper is back to himself and I am so thankful of that! I thought he was full out in his terrible 2's. But, being the nonobservant Mom that I am, he went a month off and on with double ear infections. Poor little guy! He's back to smiling and laughing ...especially when Mommy is getting on to him. I'm afraid this little guy is going to get by with murder. I can't get mad at him without laughing. He's so funny!

Growing Kiddos!

She loves sucking her thumb! She can finally wear these cute little leggings

Look at this double chin!

I took Ella and Carson to the pediatrician on Friday for their well child checkups (with the much appreciated help of my parents) and they both are doing incredible. Carson weighs 47lbs (97%) and is 41 inches tall (75%). Ella weighs 10lbs 13 oz (3%) and is 23.5 inches (25%)....She's on the charts!!!! Carson got to do some fun tests. Unfortunately, there is nothing to do about is orneriness! Ella is doing so well. Our pediatrician was very pleased. She is right on track doing everything a 4 month old should be doing (even though she's really only 3 months). She is beginning to compete with her big brother Cooper on who can smile the most....and that's a lot! We are so incredibly blessed! She is just perfect! God is so good!

She is STILL on her apnea monitor. It is a bit of a funny story. The company that monitors her basically had a Y2K when the year changed to 2010. She had a download done that showed her last apnea episode was 11-10-09. The download recorded events from 11-03-09 to 12-31-09. She has to go 2 months without an episode to be able to come off of the monitor. So, she went 1 month and 21 days. Then the monitor company lost everything from 1-1-10 on. So, we have to start over from square one and go 2 months without an episode. We basically now just hook her up to the monitor at night. She still has to wear those sticky LED's under her arms and they are causing her to break out :( But, better to be safe! We've made it this long with that little monitor....I don't think a couple more months will be that bad. She just can't wear any zip up jammies at night, but that's ok. This is just another little bump in the road of inconvenience, but that's all!

Carson has thrown us for a loop the last few weeks. Disobedience is becoming the norm. Yesterday I found a book he had stolen from Mother's Day Out. He had hidden it in his sleeping bag. He also has began telling a whole slew of lies. How are we ever going to survive the teenage years? Super Nanny, where are you????


Jason recently introduced me to wine....good wine. I never knew there was such a thing as good wine :) It's sometimes nice to just have a glass after a long day (you know what I'm talking about). We also went on our first wine tasting adventure last weekend. We had a good time and tasted some really good wine. Here is where we went http://www.strebelcreek.com/. If you are interested in ever trying some good wine, you should definitely check it out! Invite me to come with you!!!

Happy Heart Day

I had the best time taking these pics of the kids (as you can tell, so did they). It was so hard getting the boys to cooperate, that I decided to join them in the madness. (These are familiar photos to some of you but they are definitely some of my most cherished pics).

I had been delaying this post in hopes that Ella would be off of her apnea monitor. They did the download last Friday and we never heard any results. I called her pediatrician today and they had no record of the download. I called the company who downloaded and it got lost somewhere. So, hopefully we'll know on Monday. And, she is officially off of her seizure medicine!!! WooHOOOOOO! Praise God!!! And another praise, she is still sleeping through the night!!!!!!