Allie Update

I cannot believe she is already over 11 weeks old! The most exciting news is that she is no longer on her monitor! We were beyond thrilled when we took her to the doctor for her 2 month check-up and they gave us the good news. It is like a whole new world leaving the house without her monitor and the diaper bag and the carrier and trying to hold Eli's hand. I love it!!! She is doing so good. I cannot say enough good things about what a great baby she is. She is so mellow. She sleeps about 7 hours a night only to wake up eat and go right back to sleep. She is starting to smile ALOT and make noises. I have been horrible with trying to get video of it I do have a small clip on my phone not the best quality so hopefully I will have a better one soon. (Sorry I tried to upload the video and for some reason it wouldn't work :( It is VERY cute though)Eli loves "his Allie" and already is really protective of her. When I took her to the doctor he did NOT like it when she was getting examined. Thank goodness for the nice nurses to take him out of the room during her shots. I hope to get some more pictures of her up soon. I don't know about you but I can't get enough of her!!

Her 2 months stats are:

11 lbs. 8 oz

23.5 inches

This has been our making dinner routine. It doesn't last long before Eli starts "playing" with her so I have to cook quick. But it is cute to watch them interact.

Now if you have ever come in contact with Eli you know he is somewhat obsessed with Toy Story especially Buzz. The other day I found him sharing all his Toy Story toys with Allie. If this is not love I don't know what is!!!

Once again

What a month! Once again I start a post by saying it has been too long and having to play catch up. As always the easiest way to do this is by pictures. Most of these (ok all of these) are from the beginning of the month when Troy's family came into town from Utah. It was so much fun seeing everyone especially watching Eli and Hunter play together. They immediately got along great like they saw each other everyday. We loved the visit and miss ya'll already!!

This picture is out of order but is to prove that Allie was there to take apart of all the festivities too!

On August 7th Eli turned 2!! We started talking about the big day about a month before to try and get him excited. He loved waking up to a room full of balloons. We hid his present in our closet waiting to give it to him that night, however, he seemed like he knew right where to go that morning finding it right away!

One of the few family pictures we have taken since Allie was born.

A little flash back from his birthday last year.

Eli loved his car cake, he still talks about it. When it was time to blow out his candles he decided he much rather take a bite of the kit-kat spoiler instead.

Coolidge Park. Eli and Hunter had a blast in the fountains. Those boys were too much fun to watch.

Discovery Museum. I haven't been there in forever and was so glad we went. There was so much stuff to explore!

Aquarium. As always Eli loves anything that you could see in Finding Nemo. This trip his favorite was the Sting Ray.

We blessed Allie on the 8th. We were so grateful for all the family the were able to attended.

(more pics of her blessing day to come)

Clean Up

I asked Eli to help clean up his toys and found this:

I then told him that's not where our toys go and found this:

Typical Eli

Update time

Allie at 1 month and a day

Where to begin? As always I let too much time pass. Allie is now almost 7weeks and is growing too fast. She hasn't had an official "episode" since we've been home from the hospital. (Her alarm did go off twice last weekend but the doctor feels it was a misread due to her moving around a lot more) She now weighs 9.6 lbs and is 22.5 inches long. She has already grown out off all her newborn clothes and we have already had to adjust her car seat straps! Allie is overall a really good baby. She will sleep for about 5-6 hour spans at night and during the day will sleep right through all of Eli's craziness which says a lot right there. Eli still loves having Allie around. He actually is starting to get protective of her which is cute. Eli is well Eli. He can be the sweetest kid at times and then other times he can throw the biggest fits for what appears to be for no reason. He as always is extremely active and lately has to throw everything he picks up. I joke that with as much as he throws things he better be a quarterback or pitcher someday. I am not going to lie having two kids is HARD many days I don't get dressed the house seems to always be a mess and we don't really go anywhere but every now and then I will have those "this is all worth it" type of moments. I have taken a ton of pics these past two months and it was hard to go through them all so here are a few I was gonna put even more but got tired of uploading and trying to distract Eli while I am on the computer.

Troy put the blanket on his head and surprisingly he didn't want to take it off

Crazy kid

Eli LOVES the pool. It took awhile for him to warm up to it but now he thinks he is a pro

Oh by the way Troy no longer works at UPS. Which also means he no longer has to wake up at 3 in the morning. YEAH!! UPS has been great to work with but a position came available in the Financial Offices at Dalton State so Troy applied and got it. It will be great for his resume and a pay increase is always nice. It also means he doesn't have to work anymore Saturdays which makes me super excited!!!

Where to begin...

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG POST..for me anyway

Well I guess the best place to begin is with the most exciting thing that has happened to us over these past few months... I am no longer pregnant and we have welcomed our sweet little girl unto our family...

Allie Elizabeth McGuire

June 10, 2010 1:09 am

7 lbs 8 oz 20.5 in long

The delivery story was actually a short one. And its funny how similar it was to Eli's. I went to the doctor earlier that week and they decided to set an induction date for early Thursday morning. We decided to go ahead and bring Eli to my parent's house the night before so we wouldn't have to wake him up so early. That whole day I was having contractions, not regular though. It was my back to was driving me crazy. With Eli I knew it was time when I had bring me to my knees contractions so this time I thought nothing of the back pain. After realizing that we might as well just go ahead and go to the hospital since Eli was taken care and I was NOT going to get any sleep at home. We got there and the nurse didn't think it would be anytime soon until the baby came...until she checked me. I was a 5 and since the doctor on call was in the next room delivering a baby they decided to keep me. The doctor came in, I was about a 7, and decided to break my water. OUCH!! The contractions started instantly and by this time were about a minute apart. Thankfully I was able to get an epidural just in time. The doctor came in again and it was time to push. About 3 pushes later she arrived!! From the time Troy and I walked in the door to when she was born was about 2.5 hours. I know some of you out there are cursing my name...sorry don't blame me blame her she was just ready to come.

The funny thing was she was exactly 10 days early just like Eli.

As we where in the hospital things started off pretty routine. She was actually doing really well. Eating alot better than Eli ever did. Very alert. Perfect. Thursday afternoon she started having these "episodes" where her oxygen levels would drop and would sometimes stop breathing. They decided to keep her in the nursery to monitor her and just bring her in our room to feed her. These continued Thursday night and Friday morning mainly occurring before she would eat. They thought it might be related to reflux but weren't quite sure yet. Friday she had one were they nurses had to stimulate her to get her breathing again. After this they decided to admit her into the NI CU for closer observation, which also meant that only Troy and I and our parents could go in to see her. Talking about this after the fact is a lot easier than what it was like during all this. To say this was hard is indeed an understatement. To see my perfect little girl having these problems and hearing the doctors say they have no idea what is causing it to happen...I can't put into words the emotions Troy and I both felt. I felt so helpless, frustrated, and torn. Helpless because there was nothing I could do to make this problem go away. Frustrated because we had no idea how long she was going to be in the hospital. And torn because now having two kids every time I was with Allie I felt like I was neglecting Eli ( which I knew he was more than well taken care of,,,thanks SO MUCH for everyone that watched him) and when I would go and see Eli I felt horrible for leaving Allie in this situation. Those first few days that she was in the NICU were indeed some of the hardest moments of my life. But how lucky we are to have the gospel, the priesthood, and family. All the prayers we received were and are definitely felt. After Troy and I both received a blessing the sadness and despair were still there but there also was hope and comfort. Every time we would here the phone ring telling us it was time to feed her we both would get so giddy and once we walked into her room we knew without a doubt everything was going to work out. We still didn't know how long that would take but we knew it was going to be ok.

The doctors said they wanted her to go about 3 days without having an episode before we could take her home. During this time they performed test after test. each test came back negative which was a blessing but they still didn't know what was causing this. We then decided if she had one more episode we were going to transfer her to the children's hospital in the area. Each time we went into see her the nurse told us that she didn't have any episodes. This was amazing news but we didn't want to get our hopes up too much. Thursday came, her 1 week birthday, after the doctor examined her and seeing how much progress she was making decided if she did well through the night we could go home with her on a monitor tomorrow!! Once again words can't express the way we felt only this time in a positive way.

Finally after a long and trying 8 days we finally were able to take our little girl home. They diagnosed her with sleep apnea and mild reflux. She probably will be on a monitor for at least two months. but other than that she is perfect in every way and so excited to now be a family of four.

Last pregnancy pic before heading to the hospital


Being held by her mamma and daddy for the first time


Pics from where we spent the most of our time, the NICU. Since I was breastfeeding her and they weren't too busy we got to stay in a room there as a courtesy. She was the only full-term baby in there and looked so big compared to the premies.

On our way home!!!

Eli LOVES Allie. Maybe a little too much. He always wants to give her hugs and kisses. Any advice on how to teach an almost 2 year how to be gentle and soft???

Of course I have a ton more pictures and video so hopefully I will be a lot better with posting now but as always no promises.

Way over due...

Once again I let too much time go by between updating. There has been alot going on over the past two months so I will just do a quick recap with some pictures.

The beginning of March we headed off to Utah to visit Troy's family. It was so much fun to spend time with everyone and get away from normal everyday life. Eli loved playing with his cousin Hunter.
At the Zoo in Salt Lake

Playing at the Park in Utah.

There is a park next to Troy's parents' house that we would walk to when we were dating. The pic on the left is soon after we got engaged and the one on the right is from our trip...being pregnant I didn't even try to squeeze myself into the tunnel.

Easter!!! The annual Easter egg hunt at my parents' house

The advantages of having a tall daddy

Eli LOVED finding the eggs and putting them in his basket. He still walks around the house with his basket trying to find whatever he can to put in it

Easter morning...he loved his bubbles and chocolate bunny even though he thought it was more of a toy than candy.

Other than that we have been enjoying the warm weather...finally!! Troy is as always busy with work and school. I am about 30 weeks now so almost the home stretch which lasts FOREVER. I don't know if I rather deal with being uncomfortable or learning how to be a mom of 2!Eli is getting bigger which means alot more active. He loves to be on the go and rarely will sit still. He is talking a ton...even though Troy and I may be the only ones that understand him. Yes he can be a handful but he sure makes things fun around here!!

Chocolate syrup anyone?

So Eli's new all time favorite thing is chocolate milk...who could blame him right? The other day we ran out of chocolate syrup so when we went grocery shopping we picked up some more. Eli carried the bottle the whole time in the store and in the car, never trying to open it. We get home and I walk from the front door to put the groceries on the counter, a total of 5 seconds, and hear Eli screaming as if he is in excruciating pain. He managed to get the plastic cover off and unscrew the lid and empty it all on himself and the carpet and kitchen floor and was screaming because it was all gone! Fun day...