2013: A Year in Review

Here is a recap of some of my favorite moments of 2013:

January - Tinkerbell Half Marathon

February - One Year Anniversary

March - We Moved!

April - Matt Turned 30

May - I Was Sick From Being Pregnant and Didn't Blog!

June - We Announced My Pregnancy

July - 4th of July in Inkom

August - Found Out We Were Having a Boy

September - Boise State Football

October - Sibling Preparation Class

November - Tyler is Born!

December - First Christmas as a Family of Four

It sure was a great year!

Christmas Happenings

What a merry Christmas season we had!  This Christmas was extra special for one big obvious reason (Tyler), but it was also fun to have our first Christmas in our new home.

One of the main reasons we selected the front elevation of our house (besides the fact that we just liked how it looked) was because Matt thought it would look awesome with Christmas lights.  I was so nervous for him to put the lights up I couldn't even watch (my vote was to pay someone to do it).  He had a ladder to get on the roof, then another ladder on the roof to get to the next story of the roof.  From there, he was hooked into a harness with a rope tied to the fence post so that if he slipped on the extremely steep pitched roof, he wouldn't completely fall off the roof and die. It took him about 12 hours over the space of a few days to get all the lights up (including putting in all the light clips), but he did it and they looked awesome!

My mom was excited that even though we had a new baby, we carried on the tradition of making gingerbread houses.

With Kylee spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at her mom's house and Matt working the 23rd through the 26th this week, we made the most of the time we had together and spread Christmas out over the space of a few days.  We had the traditional bowling with Matt's family on the afternoon of the 24th and prime rib and king crab legs with my family for Christmas Eve dinner.  Tyler and I spent Christmas morning with my family, followed by visits to both my parents and Matt's parents Christmas afternoon after Matt woke up and we picked up Kylee.  Santa came to our house one day late, and we celebrated "Christmas morning" today with Kylee.

And of course, the best Christmas present this year was this kiddo.  I can't get enough of him.  We are so happy that he continues to do well, weighing in at 5 pounds 10 ounces this week and measuring 19 inches long!

 

2013 Christmas Card

Just like every year, I made plans with my friend Mandy to make Christmas cards. The only problem was the day we had planned to get together was the day Tyler was born!  We were able to get together a couple weeks later, but I didn't have quite as much time with traveling back and forth from the hospital, so couldn't make as many cards as I usually do.  Sorry if you didn't get a card this year!  Anyway, here is what they looked like, along with the letter I put inside:

What a year this has been for our family. We started off the year by moving into our beautiful new home. Building was so fun for us and we enjoyed watching the entire process. We have loved settling in and getting to know our neighbors. Kylee has made several friends - it's been really nice having girls Kylee's age just two doors down on either side of us! Our sweet Kylee turned 5 this year and is our little social butterfly. She enjoys playing with friends, going to the park, coloring, and watching My Little Ponies and Horseland on the iPad.

We had a great summer enjoying the pools and parks in our new neighborhood but the highlight of our summer was probably our two family camping trips - complete with shooting, fishing, 4-wheeling, and dirt biking. We are already looking forward to camping when it gets a little warmer.

Shortly after we moved into our home this Spring, we found out we were expecting. Tyler Michael Hudson joined our family on November 16th, almost 7 weeks early and just 3 pounds 4.5 ounces. After 24 days in the NICU, he was finally able to come home, and we are looking forward to enjoying our time as a family of four.

Matt is still loving his job and enjoys his extra training as part of the Special Response Team. I had a great year at work, having a couple large projects with successful implementations, and I also earned my project management certification.

We have been greatly blessed this year, and we are thankful for our loving Father in Heaven. We are grateful for the joy that surrounds this Christmas season and wish you a very Merry Christmas!

One Month!

I can't believe our sweet baby is already a month old!  This last month has flown by, especially with the fact that Tyler has only been home for one week.  We love having him home.  I love being able to hold him or cuddle him or even feed him or change his diaper without having to drive to the hospital.  I do feel like I'm constantly feeding him though!  We start by breastfeeding.  When he gets too tired to continue to breastfeed, we feed him a bottle of breast milk that has had calories added to help him grow a little faster.  After he finishes the bottle, I have to go pump, followed by cleaning the bottle and breast pump parts.  The whole process takes close to an hour, and with Tyler eating every 2-3 hours, there's not much time in between the end of one feed and the start of another!  Matt has been amazing.  When he's awake, he does all the bottle/pump part cleaning and also does most of the bottle feeding so I don't have to wait to pump.  Matt's night schedule has been quite nice, because he's able to help out when I'm the most tired.

The entire feeding process is paying off though!  Home health weighed him in at 5 pounds 2 ounces this week!  Hooray!  I'm incredibly happy Tyler is doing so well at home.  He still sleeps a lot.  Tyler is a side sleeper - we are pretty impressed at how good he is at rolling himself onto his side!  We're still working on getting him to sleep at night instead of just during the day.  He seems to be getting better at this thank goodness.  He can be quite noisy when he's awake and laying in his cradle while I'm trying to sleep.  He doesn't really cry, more of just fussy noises.  I wish we could have blankets in his cradle with him when he sleeps - he loves being all swaddled up and is completely quiet when he is!

Kylee is loving being a big sister.  She is always saying how cute "baby Tyler" is and thinks he must be the cutest baby ever.

Dear Tyler - [NICU Day 24]

Dear Tyler,

You got to come home today!!!  Your dad and I couldn't be happier to be able to hold you in our arms whenever we want without having to drive to the hospital.  On one hand, it feels like we've been waiting to bring you home forever since we've been robbed of hours and hours of cuddles with you your first few weeks of life.  On the other hand, with all the back and forth to the hospital, meeting with doctors and nurses and lactation specialists, etc., time really has gone by quickly.  Regardless, we are all smiles to have you home.

Unfortunately, today of all days, I came down with mastitis.  I am in tons of pain and have a fever and chills and am pretty miserable.  But I'm getting on some medication and I won't let not feeling well hold me back from giving you extra loves tonight.

I got lots of information from your nurse today.  Here are a couple of the things we talked about:

• You gained over 2 ounces yesterday!!!  That puts you at 4 pounds, 9.8 ounces.  It makes me feel so good that you can gain that much weight taking everything through your mouth.  That, more than pretty much anything, makes me confident you will do well at home.  At home I will need to continue to add NeoSure to the milk I pump so you get extra calories.  I also need to give you vitamins every day.  To do that, I will mix 1 ml of vitamins with some milk and feed it to you in a bottle.  Unfortunately it doesn't taste very good.  I apologize in advance!
• You passed your car seat test with flying colors.  I was totally wrong on why you have the car seat test.  Besides making sure you fit okay in the car seat, the main part of the test is making sure your oxygen levels don't fall while you are in the car seat.  The test is 90 minutes and I am told you did very well.
• You have lots of doctor appointments coming up.  Tomorrow you will meet with your pediatrician for the first time.  You'll also be going back to his office on Friday for a metabolic test and weight check. Next week you have a pediatric ophthalmologist appointment to get your eyes examined.  You qualify for the eye exam because you were so small when you were born.  I also received a call from the hospital today that the doctor has placed an order to have home health nurses come to our house a couple times a week for 3-4 weeks to do weight checks to make sure you are growing okay (they want you to gain about an ounce a day) and to answer any questions I might have.

Anyway, enough of that for now.  I need to get back to cuddling you and giving you loves.  And I'm guessing you probably need to eat again!  I love you!!!

Love,

Mom