PHOTO FUN WITH CAMI

Cami was awake a lot yesterday so we took lots of pictures.......oh yeah.....she will be 5 weeks old tomorrow and she weighs 6 lbs. 5 oz.......what a little fatty ;)

Cami and daddy
Cami and mommy......I love to hold her close
This was funny......we put her in Dallin's lap and all he wanted to do was rub his cheek and lips on her and then he gave her a bunch of kisses.....then he was done with her
Mia always loves to hold Cami
I loved her face in this one

okay......one sleepy one
she never knows what to do with her arms and legs when she's not bundled
stretch those legs......one big toe headed in the air......she loves that
Mia always wants to be in the pics too
I usually make her hair into a mohawk

MIA AND DALLIN

Mia asks me almost every day, usually when I am feeding the baby, "mom, why do you love Cami more than me and Dallin?" UGH! I then explain that Cami can't do anything for herself right now so I have to do everything and you (Mia) can do a lot of things for yourself so mommy doesn't have to so it may seem like I love her more but I don't. She then smiles and says, "Oh, I understand......I'm so silly" So, I thought I would give them their own post with some recent pictures.

Dallin taking a hard earned break and watching Super Why. It is this great show that teaches kids their alphabet (I know, I know.......I do work on it with Dallin but he loves the show). Dallin knows more than half of his letters and it amazes me every time he comes up to me and points out a new letter on some piece of mail or something.
the kids being crazy together
Dallin looks like a little surfer in this one
Mia on the 4th
the bow I made for her that morning
Mia taking care of "her baby"

CAMI UPDATE

IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I POSTED PICTURES OF CAMI. SHE HAS ALREADY CHANGED SO MUCH. SHE GOES TO THE DOCTOR TO GET WEIGHED TOMORROW BUT I SUSPECT SHE WEIGHS BETWEEN 5 1/2 AND 6 POUNDS. SHE IS EATING REALLY WELL......BUT SADLY, SHE'S STILL NOT NURSING WELL. SHE'S A SWEET LITTLE ONE AND WE CAN'T LOVE HER MORE........ MIA ESPECIALLY. LUCKILY DALLIN THE BOISTEROUS BOY PRETTY MUCH LEAVES HER ALONE. SHE STILL HAS TO TAKE CAFFEINE AND WEARS HER MONITOR FOR HER HEART AND BREATHING. BUT, WE'RE GETTING USED TO HAVING IT ATTACHED TO HER......BUT WE WON'T MISS IT WHEN IT'S GONE. SHE IS AWAKE SO MUCH MORE NOW AND IS STARTING TO LOOK AROUND AT THINGS. SHE HAS REALLY STARTED TRYING TO STUDY MY FACE WHEN SHE EATS........EVEN THOUGH STUFF IS STILL SO FUZZY FOR HER. WHEN SHE IS HUNGRY SHE WILL LICK ANYTHING IN SITE......I LOVE TO PUT MY CHEEK TO HER SO SHE CAN LICK IT.

SHE LOVES TO HAVE HER HANDS BY HER FACE

MOMMY TIME.....SHE IS FUN TO JUST SIT WITH IN YOUR ARM
ENJOYING THE BOPPY
SHE LIKES HER PACIFIER BTU IT'S STILL SO BIG COMPARED TO HER

Still Fat......Just a Little Less Fat!!

Me.......2 1/2 weeks before I had Cami

Me.......3 weeks after having Cami

Photo's from India

Mia and Dallin,
I hope you like the photos of the animals.
Love Dad

CAMI UPDATE

CAMI WENT TO THE DOCTOR ON FRIDAY AND IS GROWING WELL. SHE IS BACK UP TO HER BIRTHWEIGHT OF 4 LBS. 14 OZ. SHE LIKES TO SLEEP AND EAT. SHE IS CUTE AND IS SMILING NOW. MOSTLY IN HER SLEEP. HER MONITOR GOES OFF OFTEN......ALERTING US THAT SHE HAS NOT BREATHED IN A WHILE OR THAT HER HEART RATE IS LOW. NO BIGGEE. THE KIDS LOVE HER TO DEATH. FOR ALL OF THOSE WHO THINK THAT SHE LOOKS BIG IN ALL OF HER PICTURES......WELL, CONSIDER THAT DALLIN IS ONLY 2 1/2 AND SHE IS ONLY AS BIG AS HIS LEG FROM THE KNEE DOWN. PRETTY SMALL.

DADDY......WE MISS YOU A LOT!!

THE KIDS

AS LONG AS CAMI IS BUNDLED AND WARM.......SHE SLEEPS PRETTY WELL
CAMI LOVES TO STRETCH OUT HER LEGS
MIA ALWAYS WANTS TO HELP......AND HOLD THE BABY
IT'S HARD ON DALLIN HAVING A NEW BABY SISTER
MIA IN HER NEW DRESS......THIS ONE'S FOR BEN

Cami Update

Cami came home on Thursday. She is doing well. She sleeps well.....and a lot. She is eating well. She nurses just a little and then stuffs herself with a bottle. We are still working on the nursing thing. Her mouth is so small. She is as cute as can be. Ben left today for two weeks in India. I miss him already and have shed many tears. I could have insisted he not go but, it is a great career opportunity and I know he wanted to go, even though it was hard for him too. I think we'll survive because of all our great helpers.....namely Ruth and Grandma Martin. And maybe Grandma Engstrom if she is able to come. Mia and Dallin love their new baby sister. Well.....Ben and I do too. Words can't describe how blessed we feel that she is healthy. AND, I only gained 10 pounds during the pregnancy but have now lost 25. If you do the math it equals one happy mommy. I'm sure it won't last long. Cami while still in the NICU
Daddy and Cami checking each other out.
Mommy loves to cuddle with her.
YES.....there is a baby under those buckles
Mia and Dallin checking out their baby sister.

The Baby Story and Update

So.....for all the friends and family that read our blog that haven't heard the rough story of how this baby came about, here it goes. About 8 months ago, Ben and I were feeling especially romantic..........just kidding! Anyway, on Thursday night, I was having some braxton hicks which was not uncommon for me or any pregnant woman. But, they were hurting me a little but not coming on a regular basis. I read in my pregnancy book that if it is not your first pregnancy you can experience some pain towards the end of your pregnancy with these but make sure you don't have more than four in an hour. I thought nothing more of it. I went to bed later and remember dreaming about having contractions and in my dream specifically I kept having the same four contractions over and over. Once my brain woke up a little I started to realize that I was having real pain and it wasn't a dream so I continued to toss and turn for a few minutes and realized I should start timing these pains. 3:13 a.m.......ouch, 3:19 a.m.......that hurts, 3:25 a.m.......uh, 6 minutes apart! These aren't braxton hicks anymore. I have never gone into labor before so I had no clue what to do at this point. I woke Ben up to tell him what was going on. We think we should go to the hospital but I'm like, what if it's not labor, what are we gonna do with the kids, I'm just 34 weeks pregnant.....CRAP!! I call my brother and wife that live a few miles away to see if someone could stay with our kids. They think it is just braxton hicks. I somewhat believe them so I call a nurse hot line that our insurance company has. I'm in total pain right now and she's asking me stuff like, what is your height, address, # of prenatal visits, hair color.....whatever lady, I gotta go to the hospital. Call my brother back and talk to his wife ....Diane, you sound like you're in pain but give it a little longer. Crap, they are 3 minutes apart by now. NO!! can Josh come sleep on the couch, I'm IN LABOR!! Run upstairs and get dressed. Ben picks up Josh and we head to the hospital which is about 20 minutes away. I get there. Have two contractions while walking in. The admissions lady is taking forever while I have 5 contractions. I'm starting to worry by now that she might come out in the chair because she was breech at her appointment just days earlier and I knew I would need a C-section. I get upstairs and the midwife and doctor come in. I am bleeding heavily at this point and getting very worried. I immediately tell them I need a C-section hoping they would hurry. But, they do a quick ultrasound to find the head and she was in the birth canal, head down and I was already at a 10! . WHAT!! I was very happy about that because ultimately I didn't want a C-section but was open to it because I thought I needed it and because I didn't want to go through labor after a hard pregnancy. I was in triage for that and then they moved me to a birthing room where they started my I.V. and got things ready. Then they tell me the midwife was busy. GREAT! As soon as she got there she broke my water and I push her out at 5:31 a.m. I think, I just woke up at 3:13. Man that was fast. No epidural.....I was happy about that because I didn't want one. No pain meds......because the stuff they offered makes me whacked. They look at the baby for about twenty minutes and decide she should go to the NICU. I got discharged Sunday and Ben and I come back twice a day for 3 to 4 hours at a time to feed her and be with her. As of today (Wednesday) she is ready to go home but will probably not go home until tomorrow. Cami had several things that she had to do before she was ready to come home. She had to keep her body temperature up on her own without heating lights. She did that. She had to be able to sleep in a regular crib instead of the special heated one. She did that. She had to be able to feed from the breast or a bottle for 24 hours straight and eat all the required amount and not from her feeding tube. She did that as of this morning. She had a sleep study performed because she would stop breathing several times a day and would need to be stimulated to start breathing again. So now, we have to get her a monitor to take home to alert us when she heeds to be rubbed to help her start to breathe again and she has to take caffeine orally once a day to help stimulate her to remember to breathe. I know, caffeine, weird, huh? At this point, Ben and I have to be taught infant CPR, she has to get her monitor and we have to just spend a little time with her practicing everything before we take her home. We don't want to rush anything so that is why it will be tomorrow before she comes home. I am hoping that it will be fairly early in the day so Ben will have lots of time with her before he leaves for India on Saturday. We'll post more pictures very soon......like later today.

Little Girl

More Pictures

Cami Pictures

Suprise - Cami Ellen Engstrom has arrived

Much to our surprise Cami arrived at 5:30 this morning 6 weeks early. She was 4lb 14oz and 16 ½ inches long. Mother is doing fine and baby looks good, although she is staying in NICU for precautionary measures. In our rush to leave we forgot the camera. We will post pictures soon; she is as cute as can be.

PREGNANCY UPDATE

I am now 31 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Yessss.....a little less than six weeks to go. I have gained 9 pounds. Why so little you ask? Because it's hard to gain weight when you are still throwing up everyday. It is a daily occurrence that I think this......I wish this baby would come NOW...oh, but then she'd be sick, never mind...is there a way to have your baby really early and not have her be sick?? Then I get over it....slowly. My hips hurt so badly that there are times when I seriously can't walk. I rarely move anymore without pain. I feel really horrible that my poor little kids are getting neglected as I have to rest ALOT. I even fainted in my room while getting ready for church yesterday. No Ben because he was at meetings and my kids were downstairs. Obviously I survived but I was scared. I know it doesn't sound like it but, I really am happy and excited to be having this baby. On a happier note. My blood sugars are stupendous and my kidneys and eyes are fantastic with no problems. The baby is moving alot and she is growing right on target. Ben will be in India for two weeks and will be coming home from India the day I turn 37 weeks and I will be having my amniocentesis without him. If the test is good then she will come shortly thereafter. Talk about close timing. Anybody want to come help me for those two weeks?? PLEASE!! Here is a picture of my ankles (or should I say cankles) at the end of the day.

HAPPY 6th ANNIVERSARY TO US!

Yesterday (the 4th) was our 6th anniversary. I don't have a scanner so I can't put up one of our wedding pictures so you can see how much we've changed. So since I don't have that, then why put up a current picture either. I'm tired peole! I have to admit with shame that I totally forgot about it. I swear it is pregnancy brain and not my lack of love for Ben. We hadn't even talked about it in anticipation and apparently I didn't think about it on my own either. So, on Friday we went to my parents' house to help them open their pool. When we got there Ben asked me where I wanted to go for dinner. I was like, what are you talking about......mom already made dinner. It's our anniversary on Sunday and I called your mom to see if she would mind watching the kids while we went to dinner. Since I am usually the one to remember and do something nice and Ben isn't, I felt dumb at that point. So, our options were to drive another 45 minutes to this really nice shopping center in Birmingham that has some nice restaurants or to stay closer to home. I was already in pain from the 1 1/2 drive over so I reluctantly said, lets go somewhere around here because I knew my options were slim. Where did we wind up going you ask? To the PELL CITY STEAK HOUSE!
My parents live in Pell City, AL and I lived there for 6 years before going to college. Every time I have come home to visit the town has changed a little and gotten a little bigger but the pell city steak house has always remained. As you can see from the picture it looks like it is lacking something to be desired. After my mom informed me that the food there is actually good we decided, what the heck, we'll give it a whirl. When we got there, the first thing I noticed was a sign on the wall that said, "Please don't touch the animals." As I looked around for some animals I finally realized what animals they were talking about. Stuffed deer heads and birds all over the walls. Then, as I looked around at the people I realized there were only old people and skanks there. But, we were there so we couldn't leave, right? We were seated and a lady came around and took our orders. And much to our surprise......THE FOOD WAS ACTUALLY GOOD!! My favorite part was when the lady came to fill up our water and I said thank you and she said back, "your sure welcome, baby". There's nothing like that southern hospitality. Ben got a steak and I got a hamburger because of course I didn't feel well. When we got up to pay they had an ancient cash register and these display stands of just as ancient looking wrigley's gum and certs mints. I spotted the bowl of complimentary mints. Andes mints.....score......until I saw the handwritten paper sign that said 10 cents on it. Dang it! The consensus is......we would definitely go back there for a burger someday.

UPDATE

Since I haven't updated in a while I thought I would give you the scoop on the kids.

Mia is 4 1/2 and lives this age to it's fullest. She is quite smart and sometimes I feel that is a disadvantage to parents. You can't slip anything past her. She remembers everything and can recall it on command. She has to do eveything on her own including serving her plate at dinner.....and she does a pretty good job at it too. She is no stranger to making messes and waits until Dallin is napping and I need to lie down to make the dirtiest of all her messes. She is now becoming more compliant with cleaning up her messes too. We have now had to put a lock on the fridge and tun off the water in the door because water or something in the fridge is always involved in her messes. Dragging a chair around the haouse to get anything she wants is apparently no struggle for her. She is in the CTR 5 class and loves going to Primary and did a great job giving her first talk recently. She is usually nice to Dallin but when she's not she doesn't know when to stop and she has a bite mark right now to prove it. Mia can talk anybody's ear off if you let her. She can'twait to go to Grandma and Grandpa Martin's house alot this summer and swim in their pool. She is also really looking forward to preschool in the fall since she will miss the cut-off for Kindergarten. Mia loves playing outside and especially running to the mailbox to get the mail. Dallin is just shy of 2 1/2 now. He is half sweet boy and half stinker. Okay.......maybe more like 55% stinker and 45% sweet boy. He talks in long sentences now and wastes no time telling you what he wants. He knows just how to push Mia's buttons and they have at least one session of chase each other around the house per day......mostly initiated by Dallin. He is in his naked stage of 2 right now and to catch him in his true form I would have had to put a nude picture of him up. He is gearing up for potty training because he takes his diaper off when it gets wet or stinky.......much to my dismay. Dallin loves to be around his Grandpa Martin and when he sees grandma without grandpa he asks where he is. He needs no help from Mia to make horrible messes but that is usuallyhow it happens.....the two of them together. He is my muscle man and I caught him today carrying around a 5 lb. weight in each hand with no struggle. Maybe every two year old can do that for all I know but it seems like alot to me. He loves to play outside and ring the doorbell as he comes in. He also loves to help his daddy fix things......mostly to play with the tools.