Today is the first day that I have actually felt a lot better, I can have conversation with out my lungs burning. The way I figure it Dane is about 4 days behind me in this flu/chest cold thing. He still has a very nasty cough, but his lungs were clear when we took him to the doctors. (BTW, he weighs 25.5lbs!!!) He is back on breathing treatments, mostly for preventative reasons. He is a much better trooper than I, you barely know he is sick except at night when he tries to cough up all the junk in his chest. We are praying that it doesn't turn into anything worse.

When he is sick or very tired it really effects his motor skill, so he has been falling a lot...which he has actually gotten very good at. He does get frustrated because his body won't do what he wants it to do. Now that he has been walking for two weeks, we have noticed that his right foot is turned out and his right leg is a bit stiff. So, we will keep our eye on that to see if may need a little help with it. We are so proud of him!

The never ending night

Well, I did it...I gave Dane my cooties. He started coughing pretty hard yesterday and I just knew that it wasn't going to be a fun night. He woke up crying and coughing after 15 minutes of sleep, when I went to pick him up he promptly vomited all over me. Now, I am not complaining, we have been so blessed that we haven't had any of the preemie eating, gagging, and vomiting issues. For so many preemies and their families vomiting is a part of the daily routine. I think that Dane must have steel guts, he eats and poops like champ...and has done so since he was in the NICU. With that said, curdled milk and half digested dinner down the INSIDE of your shirt is not cool. He was feeling better, but it took what felt like forever to get him back to sleep. I thought that I would share this cute picture so not to leave you with the mental picture I just created for you above. Then Gage came home from work to this, you guessed it folks, we have a revenge T.P.'ing at it's best. Yes, it sucked that he had to come home from work and clean this up, but the reality of war is not pretty. One of his best friend's that was involved in the initial attack that lead up to this revenge attack came over and helped clean up...there is one thing for sure, the bar has been raised and if I know my boy he will rise to the occasion. So the war will continue, consider yourself warned. Jade, Krystal and Allison!!! :) Gage has a job and plenty of money to buy loads and loads of toilet paper! This was written on the drive way, a cowardly move for sure! I personally think that this Bobby character has made himself a target fair and square...no pun intended of course.
Okay, getting back to Dane, he woke up with a fever and in need of a breathing treatment at around 3:00am. He seems to be a little better this morning but we are taking him to the doctors to be safe, though he has steel guts...his lungs are still a little lacking.

Hopefully, we will all rest well tonight!

Happy Fathers Day

This has nothing to do with Fathers Day...just a funny picture of my personal choir! Gage came home with these from work the other day because they were going to throw them out, but we managed to entertain ourselves for at least 20 minutes with these beautiful red and hot pink choir gowns!

A special Happy Fathers Day goes out to my Dad and my husband, the two guys in my life that I know no matter what happens will always be there for me!

I had to work this morning, and I have been fighting a bit of a yucky chest cold that has turned into what is looking like the flu, but it was a great day still. We went to church, then napped, and I made chicken pot pie to take to my Mom and Dads.

Dane is walking up a storm, though his walk does resemble a zombie that has had a couple cocktails! What a great gift for fathers day, to see our little man toddling around!

He is still doing great with his communication, his new thing is what I call "babbling in sign language". He will start doing things with his hands, I know he is trying to sign something but I have no idea what! I know that he is soaking up all the signing that I am teaching him and the signing videos too, so I guess it's just like the babbling he does in reaction to all the talking he hears around him...just with his hands! It's very cute none the less.

NEWS ALERT!!!

Sorry about the quality of this video, it was taken with my digital camera...anyway...Dane has been taking three or four steps on his own for the past week or so, but today we had some friends over and when they went to leave he walked from our kitchen to the front door to follow them out! We grabbed the camera and did a reenactment by dangling my cell phone in front of him! We are so proud of him!

We thank God for his continued healing of our sweet miracle!

The eyebrow

So, for those of you in our family...well at least my Mom's (Grandma Kathy) side of the family, there is the famous "eyebrow". My Mom can raise her eyebrow at you like no other, my brothers David and Mark also have "the eyebrow", it's been kinda a joke in our family as long as I can remember. Katie snapped this picture of Dane, and you can see for your self that the legacy of "the eyebrow" will live on for another generation! Though it's not raised nearly as high as my Mom can raise hers, not too shabby for a one year old. For those of you that don't care about our family eyebrow raising...it's still a funny picture!

You may have heard me say this before, but....This little boy amazes me! We were at the grocery store when he started making quite the scene over a picture of a baby in a magazine. So, once again, we showed him the sign for baby...which is folding your arms as if you were holding a baby and rocking. Well it finally clicked with him and he is now a "baby" signing fool. As you can see from the video, he shakes his head "no" when I keep asking him to sign "duck" (which he knows how to do)...but if you listen closely you can clearly hear him say duck. He has grown leaps and bounds in the past two weeks with his speech. He is clearly starting to mimic what we say to him. It is soooo exciting and one of the many "Thank you Lord" moments as we get to watch this miracle unfold right in our very own little house!

He is still very, very close to walking and has started taking one or two steps consistently between furniture with out holding on. He is extremely stubborn, and refuses to practice walking unless it is his idea and not ours! He is currently tempting his boundaries on behavior, which we are doing the best we can in being consistent...though it is very hard to keep a straight face when he is being a stinker! He already broke the first set of baby locks on our cabinets, and Chad just installed the new ones...hopefully they will last longer than the first ones! He favorite thing is taking everything out of the pantry, and when we ask him "who make this big mess?", he proudly raises his hand! We are baby sitting my Moms dog, and has been saying her name, Molly, like a pro...well at least he says "olley"...good enough for me~

We celebrated his "adjusted age" birthday party last weekend. We had his dedication at church, which was a tear jerker for me, then we had family and close friends over for some cake. Dane did great at the party, and let everyone hold and play with him. It was a great day, I only wish that we had the finances and the space to have invited more people to share in the celebration! I better go, I can hear Chad scolding Dane for getting into the garbage...he is worse than a dog when it comes to getting into the garbage!

We are really working on signing please and thank you, but as you can see from the video or if you have ever been around Chad and I, you know that we both seem to talk at the same time...so the fact that Dane can hold two conversations with us at once makes him a double genius!!!

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