So much to be THANKFUL for!

A note from mom:
What a year! My little girls have gone from 3 lb babies in Neonatal Intensive Care, to 20 lb healthy, lively, beautiful girls! How great is our God!!! Thank you for an amazing year!

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Hi,
It's Maryn...I'm officially a toddler. One year old! (and remember I am the OLDEST! Even if it is just by 2 minutes :)
Being a toddler is great!
On Thanksgiving, I got to eat turkey, potatoes, corn and my personal favorite...Sweet Potatoes!!! I even got to have some pumpkin pie. Yuuuummmmm!!!
We had Thanksgiving at our house this year...so the best part is leftovers!

On our birthday, we got to hang out with daddy and grandpa ALL DAY LONG!!! Mommy went shopping. When she got back, we went out and got a Christmas tree. It is beautiful, but if you try to touch it it feels kinda scratchy. I don't really like to touch it.

We made hand turkeys too. Grandma (Mimi) traced our hands, and then let us pick a crayon to color in the turkey. They are pretty if I do say so myself!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!
Love,
Maryn

Party Time!!!

Paaarrrtttyyyyy!!!!
We had a big party celebrating our birthday! Our real birthday isn't until Friday, but we had a party a little early to celebrate!
It was so much fun! Thank you to everyone who came and gave us hugs and kisses and such nice gifts! We have such good friends!
Here are some pictures:

Brynn and her cake. She loves her candle!

Leah's not too sure of her hat, and actually preferred frozen peas to cake. Go figure!

Maryn is our dainty eater. So clean and polite.

The fabulous party spread!

The AMAZING women who made our party so wonderful! Thank you!!!

A picture of Leah with Bev. Bev is our good friend who comes to play with us every Monday.

We love her so much!

Some of our preemie clothes. Boy, were we tiny!

Good Friends!

Our friends and their Mommy's. (and our auntie Jenny!)

Maryn and Mr. Harry:

Maryn is a sucker for Mustaches!

Look at this neat present we got!

Go, go princess car!!!

A silly picture of Brynn!

What a great day!

On Friday at 4:58 a.m. (Maryn) 5:00 a.m. (Brynn) and 5:01 a.m. (Leah), we'll be 1!!!!

Love,

Maryn, Brynn and Leah

Our Week

Thank you for all of your prayers for me and my sisters!
Boy, being sick is NO FUN. Thankfully, we are starting to feel better.
You know the worst part about being sick? Having your nose wiped! Imagine, you can barely breathe and your mom comes at your sore, sore nose to try and wipe it. Seriously mom, just leave it alone! I don't really mind the boogers.
Second worst part of being sick is having to use a nebulizer. Here is a picture of our nebulizer.


Don't be fooled. He looks cute...but he's really no fun!

On a good note, we all had our cardiologist appointments with Dr. Baker this week and everyone has beautiful hearts. Brynn and Leah have a tiny, tiny PDA's (murmur) but it is so small the the doctor doesn't even think he would be able to close it surgically and it will have absolutely no effect on us anyway, so really there is no need. YAY!!! They made us lay on a table and watch Baby Einstein while they rubbed some jelly on our tummies. It wasn't so bad.

The highlight of our week was going to visit our friend Becky. She gave us our first haircut so we can be "stylin'" for our birthday bash. It was so fun! Auntie Jenny was there, and so was Ms. Peggy and Mimi. We love the salon! We didn't cry at all while Becky cut our hair. Want to know something else? Becky has cut my mommy's hair for as long as she can remember, and she gave our Auntie Lauren her first haircut too. Becky even gave us sparkly "fairy dust" in our new "do's". We felt like princesses!

In 2 weeks from today, we will be 1 year olds! Truly big girls!
So cool!
Love,
Maryn, Brynn and Leah

Prayers for my Girls!

We've had a bit of a crazy day!
Leah has had a horrible "croupie" cough, and I took her into the doctors office today to have it checked out. They sent her home on some antibiotics and a nebulizer. During her second nebulizer treatment, she had a terrible reaction. She coughed up so much junk that she quite literally choked on it. Talk about scary!!! (Truly, it was top 5 scary moments since I've had my kids...including the NICU) Once she calmed down enough that I knew she was stable, I spent the next hour on the phone with pediatrics trying to figure out what to do next.
We'll be watching her closely tonight, and heading to the E.R. at Children's if it gets any worse. Her preemie lungs just can't handle too much junk!
Please, please pray for her. Pray that her lungs heal and she is able to quickly work out whatever is going on.
(on top of all of that she also has a double ear infection!) My poor baby!

Maryn and Brynn have colds too, but so far, they haven't been too bad. Pray that their lungs stay healthy.

Our little bout of illness has reminded me how important hand washing is! For the rest of the winter, we'll be careful to stay as healthy as we can! (Back to being the germ patrol and on house arrest for the winter!)

Thanks in advance for your prayers!
Alison

PDA Prayers

Hi Everybody,
I'm sorry we haven't written for a while.
Boy, time flies when you are almost one!
We have a busy week coming up this week.
We all have cardiology appointments. Remember when we were tiny babies, and the doctors
said that we had little heart murmurs?
They told us that when we were one year old we had to go back to have them checked out.
Dr. Baker is pretty sure that Maryn and my PDA's closed on their own a long, long time ago when we lived in the NICU, but Brynn's was still open when we went home.
If her test this Wednesday shows that it is still open, she might have to have a little surgery to close it.
We're told that it is a pretty routine day surgery (sometimes they do this surgery on babies that are less than a pound!), but we really want to ask you to pray that she (and all of us) won't have to have it. We're just praying that those little PDA's closed on their own.
We're so thankful for your prayers!

Love,
Leah

We will be sure to update you after this weeks appointments.
It is pretty common for preemies to have open PDA's. Brynn's was open 1 mm (tiny, tiny opening) when she went in for her first appointment last January. We're praying it has resolved.
Brynn and Leah's Echocardiogram Appointment-Wednesday
Maryn's Echocardiogram Appointment-Friday

We promise to let you know what happens as soon as we have our test results.
Thanks so much for praying for us.