White Chicken Chili

Lest you think my blog has turned into a blog just about Emmalynn, I thought I'd surprise everyone (including myself) with a stellar recipe!

1 onion, chopped

2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cubed

1 tsp garlic powder

1 can chicken broth

4 cans great northern beans, drained

1 can green chilies

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 cup whipping cream

1 cup sour cream

Sauté onion, chicken, and garlic powder in skillet . Add all ingredients except whipping cream and sour cream into a crock-pot. Cook on low for 4 hours. Add whipping cream and sour cream warm. Cook for another 15 minutes.

Oatmeal vs Rice Cereal

The verdict is in, our food critic thinks oatmeal tastes better!

Infection...Boo

Poor baby has 2 kinds of infections. We went almost 6 months without a trach infection. I knew it would happen at some point. They had to do a 4 day test to see if she will need to be hospitalized. For now we've got antibiotics galore and Tylenol for the fever. Lots of snuggling going on at our house cuz she just wants momma to hold her.

Free Concert

Ladies and gentlemen...the next Mozart!

What Has Emmalynn Discovered?!

Hair! She likes to grab and pull daddy's short curly hair. 

And people wonder why my hair is always in a ponytail!

Rice Cereal

So our little peanut only gained 4 oz in 2 weeks (9.6 lb) even with increasing her feeds. Today the doctor decided to have us add 1 tsp of rice cereal for every 2 oz of milk (which really is nothing and it just dissolves in breast milk anyways) but he said to let her taste it and try and eat it with a spoon (since she hates bottles) before putting it down her gtube. 

Hilarious! Here is our first attempt!

Second attempt = more success!

Back to School

Dear Daddy,

We are so proud of you for getting nearly perfect grades last semester! Good luck this semester! We love you!

Your Girls

Rolling For Reals!

Emmalynn used to love laying on her tummy in the NICU. Now that she has the gtube I think it's super uncomfortable. She learned pretty fast how to roll over so she wouldn't have to suffer through tummy time!

Jeans

I LOVE a good deal (especially on a poor starving students budget)! I got these cute jeans for Emmalynn for $4 at Kmart! It made my day. And it is blog worthy!

Whoa!

Whoa mom, what's on my jammies...it's making my eye go crossed!

Hot Chocolate

It's a hot chocolate kind of night!

Bumbo Time

Squeal

Her new favorite thing! She usually laughs (we can tell by her breathing). After 4 shots I can't believe she was still smiling! Listen close, she has learned to squeal and her pulminologist has order a speaking valve (PMV or passy muir valve) to try for a few seconds at a time to hear herself!

8 Months!!!

Bumbo

What's going on mom?!

Trying out the Bumbo for the first time, haha!

Love Day

I couldn't resist! I had to get my decor up for Valentines. Christmas came down and everything looked plain. Thank you Pinterest for the ideas, the 99 cent store and the dollar bins at Target, and my own stash because now we are ready for love day!

And while I was at the 99 cent store I picked up these fun vintage plates and made a cute tiered serving dish! 3 plates + 2 candle stick holders + E6000! Five minute project...just my style!

It's a Big Deal

Emmalynn has bad oral aversions (although it doesn't compare to others). I spent about 10 minutes putting her toys in my mouth, then hers. I showed her it was ok and smiled and sang goofy songs. I was just trying to make it a positive thing. When Santa got her a pack of rings for Christmas, there was a plan behind it! See the rings have a bunch of different textures. Textures that Santa was hoping she might put in her mouth, suck on, run her tongue over, etc. So after our little 10 minute "it's ok to put things in your mouth" I gave her one and walked away, all the while watching her. She looked at it, moved it from hand to hand...then put it in her mouth! I wanted to cry. It's a big deal to get something other than a binky in her mouth! My first thought was yay, she has something new in her mouth that she put in on her own! My second thought was dang she's a smarty! I am a proud mom! Baby steps!

A New Trick

Emmalynn surprised me by copying me! She clicks her tongue now!

New Year's Boy

My family has lots of traditions. I don't know how many still do it, but we remembered to put our shoes out and he came!

New Friend

Christmas Day {Overload}

Santa found our house!

Opening our stockings!

Yay, Mom can download books!

Daddy LOVES Big Bang Theory!

Santa spoiled Emmalynn!

And so did all the family (here are a few pictures)!

 And Santa never forgets Miss Shelby! 

And then it was nap time!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

What a blessing it was to spend our first Christmas together as a family! We loved every minute of it!

I made our traditional ham dinner. (I haven't unpacked anything and so this was the table decor we had to work with).

It was super yummy (obviously)!

 We opened our traditional Christmas pajamas from Mrs. Claus!

And the stockings were hung...

Christmas Card {Scanned Photo}

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope this letter finds you well. As most of you know, we have had an eventful year! We have experienced a lot and want to share with you the lessons we've learned in 2012.

We learned that some of our biggest BLESSINGS come in small packages! After 11 years of wanting children, we were blessed with the tiniest bundle of joy weighing 1 lb 8 oz and 11 3/4 inches long. She just couldn't wait any longer to meet us and was born at 24 weeks (4 months early). We just love our little Emmalynn Fern Candland!

We learned to be GRATEFUL for modern medicine/technology and inspired medical professionals. Emmalynn was in the NICU for 137 days and received the best care! She had the “Cadillac” of stays by having her heart ligated, a tracheostomy, and a gastrostomy (gtube). We will forever be in debt to the wonderful doctors and nurses who saved our baby girls life.

We learned that MIRACLES happen everyday and inspire faith, hope, service, and love. Emmalynn's story touched not only our lives, but the lives of people around us, and the lives of people we didn't even know. We felt the prayers of so many and were in awe at the acts of service and hundreds of donations made in her name.

We learned that the SIMPLE things in life are what really matter most. Spending so much time at the hospital made us realize that all the things we wanted and needed to do all the time (you know Deneigh and her projects) weren’t as important as we thought. Deneigh is now living her dream of being a stay at home mom and simply focusing on our daughter and helping her thrive and progress. Speaking of simple, we are counting this as our baby announcement (hence the reason there are only pictures of Emmalynn), moving card (see the front of the envelope), and Christmas card (the novel you are reading)!

We learned that GROWTH is a challenge with a reward! Although we are grateful that at 7 months our little peanut is weighing 9 pounds, this isn’t the kind of growth we’re talking about. During the year we grew spiritually, and more recently Phillip is stretching himself mentally. After a 2 year wait to get into a program, we both felt it was important for him to finish his (long awaited) degree when the opportunity presented itself. Emmalynn threw us for a loop by coming early, but Phillip sacrificed a semester away from his girls and went ahead to Las Vegas to begin his 2.5 year program at UNLV. He is getting all A’s and we are very grateful for Skype/Facetime! Emmalynn is finally strong enough for his girls to join him in time for Christmas!

Our favorite thing we learned this year is the true meaning of LOVE. We learned what it feels like to love your child unconditionally. We increased our love and devotion to each other by becoming parents. We felt the love and support from so many of you.

We have so much to be grateful for and we look forward to more life lessons in 2013! We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

Phillip, Deneigh, Emmalynn, & Shelby @

Family Snuggles

O' Christmas Tree

8 Hours!!!

I am one happy momma! Emmalynn slept 8 hours last night! We are all well rested and playful this morning!

Who Needs Toys...

...when you can stare at your hand all day!

And on a completely unrelated topic to this cute girl, there I was this morning minding my own business straightening my hair and BAM...I found my first grey hair!

We Made It!

We arrived safely in Las Vegas! 

On our way out of town we had to stop and pick up Shelby. She was just excited for a car ride, she didn't know it would be a LONG car ride! She hardly acknowledged Emmalynn, but Shelby has always been fine with babies and kids. We also used smell cloths so she would know her smell.

Emmalynn was an angel the entire trip! She looked at her favorite books and watched a little Baby Einstein. We stopped in Kingman and I was initiated into the "mommy club" because I changed my babies bum...on my lap...in a Walmart parking lot. Haha!

Just as we got off our exit to our new house, Emmalynn had a pretty stellar blow out. Needless to say, we were scrambling to find all her bath supplies! As you can see, she was totally content and happy to FINALLY be together as a family!

Thank you to my wonderful mom for driving us (I was afraid she wouldn't let Emmalynn stay though). She watched Emmalynn so we could do a little shopping and get one last date before we were on our own! I think it was an excuse to get in a few more Grammy snuggles!

Alterations

I bet you didn't know that zipper clothes are a no go for us. Emmalynn has her pulse ox wires and her gtube extension that make it impossible. But I just couldn't accept the fact that she wouldn't be able to wear soft and comfy jammies. So I altered a few to test the waters. I figured out where her gtube extension and pulse ox could come out on each side of each pair of jammies. I unstitched about an inch and a half, then zig zag stitched the fabric so it wouldn't fray and viola! We are in business. Warm jammies for winter!

Supplies & Equipment

This my friends, is the shipment of supplies we get each month to sustain our daughters life!

And the following is the equipment we use on a daily basis!

This is called a pulse oximeter or pulse ox. It's kinda a love hate relationship. I love it because it tells me what Emmalynn's oxygen is at along with her heart rate. The hate part is when these numbers dip when I am fast asleep and I wake up in a panic and my adrenaline is going, only to see her numbers bounced right back. It does give me peace of mind at all times and I'm sure most new moms would be jealous because I don't feel the need to think, "is she breathing". I can see exactly what her sats are at!

I love this picture I took a while back. See we wrap the pulse ox on her foot and we rotate it every 3 hours so the light doesn't burn her skin. I had to snap a picture when I saw the cord between her toes!

This machine is pretty important around here. It's her converter. It converts our air into the oxygen she needs. Right now she's at 1 liter but really it's just what they call a blow by so we don't even know what she's really getting. She only requires it when she is sleeping because she starts to get a little lazy.

And this machine hooks up to the converter and it's what makes her humidity. The humidity keeps her trach secretions from getting too dry.

This is the suction machine we use for secretions. Since Emmalynn doesn't breathe through her mouth or nose yet, everything comes through the trach and she's not quite old enough or strong enough to cough or clear her throat. So we use this VERY noisy machine. It startles her every time I turn it on.

This is the feeding pump. It hooks up to her belly since she has oral aversions and won't nurse or take much from a bottle. She gets a certain amount, based on weight, slow dripped over an hour.

This is a nebulizer we use twice a day to give Emmalynn breathing treatments for her little lungs since she has chronic lung disease due to being born so early.