75 days old

For all those who are counting, which I am sure it is just me, it has been 75 days now with Karsyn and Kennedy in the NICU. Up until recently it has gone by pretty fast but now comes the hard part. The good news is that Karsyn is now just over 5lbs, the bad news is that all she really needs to do is learn to drink from a bottle and she just doesn't want to do it. The occupational therapist says that she has what they call "nipple aversion"(I don't know if I spelled that right) which is when she doesn't like anything in her mouth because of all the trauma she has been through and when something is in her mouth she relates it to being bad. We gave her a 3 day break from trying to give her the bottle and then yesterday at 12:00 we tried again and we pretty much just let her play with the nipple and she didn't want to suck still. I am not sure when she will ever get it but hopefully soon. As for little Kennedy, she is still trying to get better from the pneumonia and in addition to that and the other bacteria they found in her nasal cavity, they just found a new bacteria that is really rare. They had to move her into isolation because they don't want any of the other babies or people get it. When we go visit her in the isolation room we have to put on gowns, masks, and gloves and we have to wash before we leave the room and then once we get out. Needless to say this is going to put her behind by who knows how long. Right now they will retest for the bacteria on Tuesday and if she is negative they will retest in 3 more days and she has to test negative 3 times in a row before she will be allowed to come out of isolation. Kurt and I are really trying to hang in there but are getting really burned out of all the bad news. We are getting pretty discouraged each time we go and are thinking that it may be time for a break, whether we actually do it, we will see! Sorry no new pictures either and I never could get the video of Karsyn to download.

Logan, Elliott, Rya, and Kinlee played in grandma Robison’s blowup swimming pool and after they were done they got in the hot tub to warm up!!!

Hogle Zoo Trip

Cousins Elliott and Rya are in town and we all went to the Hogle Zoo! It was the perfect sunny day, not too hot for pushing strollers around the big park. We saw every animal from monkeys to the white crocodile and the kids loved all of them. I think Logan’s favorite may have been the baby giraffe that was just born in November, he was so cute.

Logan, Makinlee, and Elliott standing by the big elephant that you have to take a picture by when you go to the zoo. Makinlee didn’t know what she thought about the weird sound he made though.

One of the fun animals to watch was the gorilla, Logan loves gorillas because of the movie “Tarzan. As you can see I am not sure she loved the big fake gorilla though, she didn’t really want to get near it!

SO BIG

Just a pitstop for snacks on the tiger with aunt “G”!!!

Just a little peak of Kennedy's life!

This video was done on Friday night, just before they had to start Kennedy back on the high-flow, huge, canula that makes her look so sad. It is kinda dark but we wanted to get a video of both the girls so Logan could know they exist beyond pictures!

Flashbacks

Yes, this picture was just taken today of Kennedy. Sweet Kennedy has come down with an infection in her lungs and it is causing them to be even more constricted than they normally are, which means she isn't able to expand her lungs well enough to breathe. They are thinking that it is pneumonia (did I spell that right?) and so she is on some heavy duty antibiotics, breathing treatments and she got a blood transfusion. She looks so sad and isn't doing that great but her daddy gave her a blessing last night and all we can do now is pray for her to get better. We love you Kennedy!
Kennedy had to have this high-flow cannula put back in to help her breathe because she kept pulling out the one with the shorter prongs,now she looks pretty sad.
Grandma Robison holding Karsyn why daddy gives little sister Kennedy her blessing.
Karsyn holding mommy's finger!

First Camping trip of 2008

We went camping last Saturday with Clay,Hailey, Makinlee, Ross, Lea and their kids. We went to our favorite spot up Farmington Canyon. As you can see the kids had a lot of fun and got VERY dirty, especially Makinlee!
Leave it to the boys to bring the shovels and buckets to play in the dirt, the kids had so much fun digging and throwing dirt,sometimes on each other!
Not only did cousin Makinlee get very dirty but she also wanted to test us on advise we gave her on not to go near the fire. She was walking near Logan and I sitting on a camping chair, tripped backwards on a rock surrounding the fire and, yes, fell in. She landed on her butt and used her hand to catch her,which landed right in all the hottest coals that we had been collecting to cook our dinner on...OUCH! She cried for a while but now doesn't seem too bothered by it.
OK, this is really random but when we got home from camping Logan and I took a shower and she was coloring on the tub walls and I thought I would show them off. One of Logan's favorite things in the world to do is color and draw and starting from the left she has drawn a snake, then a duck, a cat, and the last one is just fire. I thought they were pretty dang good and made Kurt take a picture of them so we could show her some day when she was an artist how she started out!

Kennedy is finally 3 pounds!

Look at those fat rolls on our little Kennedy! She finally hit the 3 lb mark so hopefully she will stay that way. Just a little update, Kennedy is now taking the bottle 2 times a day and is doing really well.
I thought this was a funny picture because Kurt was burping Kennedy and it looks like he is strangling her because her face is so red and Kurt's hand just fits right over her head.
Now for our big Karsyn, she is in the open crib so she is now wearing clothes. This is one of the smallest outfits I could find that is supposed to fit up to 5 lbs. I don't know about that because Karsyn is now 4 lbs 3oz, huge! She is just looking like a little baby now.
This outfit was bought when Logan was born and she fit in it for like 1 day, even then it wasn't really long enough and she was almost 8 lbs. You can see on Karsyn it is long enough, too long. You can see where her feet are, halfway up the leg of the pjs.
Karsyn is now fed with the bottle anytime she is awake and acting ready for it. Right now it ends up being about every other feeding, that is great though! Today the doctor thought that maybe Karsyn would be home in about 2 weeks and Kennedy maybe a month, there are no guarantees but that is an estimate!

I don't know how much this is true but it was kinda fun. I think that I can be a big girly girl sometimes!
You Are Mulan!

Strong and spirited. You're no one's girly girl; actually you are very determined person with a strong sense of self. Never let go of that! The only thing that equals your sense of self is your family, but the traditions of society can always be bent to protect something or someone you love.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Happy Mother's Day

Well as you can all imagine one thing I wanted for mother's day was to be able to get Karsyn and Kennedy together for just a minute. We got to do just this, and yes it was just for a minute. Kennedy is on the right and Karsyn the left, aren't they cute?
Kennedy is much more tired than Karsyn, she is trying so hard to thrive and grow.
We are now able to feed Kennedy once a day now, just like big sister Karsyn.
As for Karsyn, she is now in a big girl bed, no longer in the incubator. Karsyn is growing big and is able to control her own temperature now and can be in this open crib.
Karsyn now weighs 3lbs and 12 ounces, WOW!!!
Kennedy weighs 2lbs and 11 ounces!!
Another thing we can do with Karsyn is dress her. This is her first shirt, provided by the NICU, and as you can see it is just a little bit big still. We have bought a few things for them in the preemie size but I doubt they will fit.

Here is our first picture with Mom, Dad and both girls. I wish more than anything I could say this is our first whole family picture but we are missing our little Logan. Dad is holding Kennedy and Mom is holding Karsyn, this is as close as they have been for almost 8 weeks. From here on out it looks like all the girls need to do is grow. In order to do this they need to be taking the bottle more than once a day, obviously and then they also need to still come down on their oxygen settings which along with most things Karsyn is much more ahead than Kennedy.

Yea Logan

Logan got this "new" bike from the neighbor girl that grew out of it and said that Logan could have it...how nice! It only took her a few times of riding to figure it out and she loves to ride all day. Logan is the most determined little girl ever. She would never let falling down several times on her bike get her down, she just gets up and tries again. She does a lot better too if she doesn't think anyone is watching because if you are with her she will probably cry and make you help her get up even though she can do it herself.

Logan is the funniest girl ever and I wish I could remember all the stuff she says that we all just laugh at. Right now she talks a lot about her baby sisters and her two baby dolls she got for Christmas are now named Kennedy and Karsyn and she plays with them a lot lately. She makes sure to tell me how to hold them and that they are asleep and I need to be quiet too! We have to really be careful what we say around her now because she is starting to repeat everything. The other day she was telling people that her daddy hits her and of course she was acting out what he did to her. She would hit her chest really hard with her fist and say, "this is what my daddy did" and then the next day she would retell the story only this time she would hit her back. It has been really good to spend time with Logan before the babies get home because she has just grown up so much in the last 6 month and is looking forward to having a princess party when she turns 3 in June. We just love her to death! Anyway here are just a few pictures from the last few days of just hanging out with Kinlee at grandma's house and one with Kurt, Kennedy and I at the hospital. I don't know how to put them in order so they are pretty random, sorry!

First Bottles...they are champs!

Daddy fed Kennedy first
Look how big the bottle is in her mouth!
Mommy fed Karsyn, not quite as big, but still big!
Burp Karsyn!
This is just a picture that Aunt Hailey got when I was holding Karsyn in the afternoon feeding, she was smiling a bunch and she got it just at the right time.

Hey everyone I just wanted to show you pictures of Karsyn and Kennedy's first bottle feedings. We have been trying to get the doctors and nurses to try because they are supposed to be able to suck, swallow and breathe by around 33-34 weeks, they are now 35. We tried Kennedy first and thought that it would be a 30 second deal and that she would either get too tired or she wouldn't breathe but she did so good. She drank about 10 cc's of her 15 total that she usually gets. The bottle is pretty big in her mouth but she did great! Then big sister Karsyn decided she wanted to try to show her little sis up and she drank about 7cc's of her total 22. I then burped her, which she did, and then when I put her back down to try some more bottle she started pooping...big time poop! Everyone in the NICU turned and looked because it was so loud and juicy. We then decided to let her finish pooping and then let her get the rest of her feeding through her OG tube so she wouldn't get too tired. Anyway they both did so great and hopefully we will be able to get one feeding a day to start out with the bottle.