Sorry about my laziness in posting. My heart surgery went well and I'm starting to feel much better. The surgeon was able to repair my valve. I also had some ruptured chords that had to be repaired, which they weren't expecting, but that went fine. He did a MAZE procedure as well which should prevent me from going into A-Fib again in the future. It's so nice (and also weird) to not feel my heart beating so crazy and out of rhythm anymore.

I can't lift the kids or anything else that weighs more than 10 lbs for 6 weeks and no pulling or pushing. Dan has been the best husband ever, taking care of me and the kids and keeping the house in order. I am so grateful to all the people who have brought us dinners, it has made life so much easier the past couple weeks!



Here are some pictures of the kids right after they got home from the library, reading their books.

I love this one, even Ruby is enjoying the train book!

And this little cutie patootie turned 10 months old while I was in the hospital. What? 10 months!?! I know, I can barely wrap my head around it. I seriously feel like we just had her.

She has gotten very fast at crawling, and her goal is to get out of any room we are trying to keep her in. She just wants to go, go, go. She still only has 2 teeth at the moment but I think the top ones could be coming in anytime. She walks along the couch now or anything she can walk along. She has not tried to let go yet but that's coming, and too soon I'm sure. She loves to empty things out and put them all back again. She entertains herself for quite a while emptying all the blocks out and then putting them all back again. She likes to test the boundaries. She'll go find something she is not supposed to play with and then start shaking her head because she knows that I will say "no, no".

A couple weeks ago she started giving kisses. Instead of the mmmm-maw sound she says mmmm-baaa when she kisses. It's so cute, it melts my heart. I'm having a really hard time not being able to pick her up but she can crawl on my lap and I can hold her that way. She's getting to be such a big girl! In a month and a half, my baby will be one! But she will always, always be my baby!

Christmas Eve we went to church and then over to my mom's house.

My mom made the kids these adorable hats

Christmas morning at our house we had a nice french toast breakfast and then took our time opening stockings and presents.

Owen was very excited about his sled

Owen taking a bite out of his unpeeled orange that he got in his stocking.

We had a fun Christmas this year. I think this was the first year Owen was really into it so that was fun. We went to the Milanowski side of the family on Christmas night and over to my Dad's on the day after Christmas. I'll post more photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas morning soon.

Aunt Libby helping Owen open a present



Emily, Dan, and Libby enjoying some eggnog



Zach hamming it up



Audrey with Grandpa



All the kids over at my Dad's house



So sweet



Audrey's favorite thing was to play with and try to eat all of the wrapping paper

One year closer to the big 3-0

Dan is 29 today! Happy birthday babe! I don't know what I would do without you in my world!

9 months


Audrey turned 9 months old last week Saturday. She's now officially been on the outside longer than she was on the inside. This month she FINALLY started sleeping much better. Her naps are a lot longer and she almost always sleeps through the night now. It's about time! She's pulling herself up on anything she can get her hands on right now, but also bumping her head on things in the process. She's a pretty rough and tough girl so most of the time when she bumbs her head it doesn't even phase her. She loves to dance whenever there is music playing, and almost anything makes her smile. It's seriously so easy to make her smile. She's such a little sweetheart and she loves cuddling which is going to make it so hard to not be able to hold her much the first couple weeks after my surgery. She has started saying mama. I don't know if she knows what it means though but when she gets upset she says "mamamamama". We also discovered that she LOVES Curious George. Her cousin Zach has a big stuffed Curious George and Audrey loved it! She kept giving it big hugs. Santa might be bringing her one for Christmas.

She went to the doctor for her 9 month check up yesterday. She's getting so big! She is 19 lbs 11 oz (70th percentile) and she is 29 inches (93rd percentile). She had to get the other half of her flu shot. She didn't even notice when the nurse gave it to her. Didn't even flinch. I was really surprised. The nurse was awesome though and did it really fast.

We got our tree this weekend. I wish I would have brought my camera to the tree farm, I could've gotten some cute pictures. It was so snowy on Saturday, which was great. It made it feel more like Christmas. They had hot chocolate and sledding there too. Owen loved sledding. He wanted me to go down the hill with him the first couple times but after that he went all by himself. He left the sled at the bottom of the hill though everytime so we would have to go back down and get it. The price of trees went up this year, but it was still worth it for the experience. Audrey stayed with my mom. It was too cold and windy and she was getting over a cold.




Here's Owen helping Daddy build a fire before Owen had to go to bed. The tree was so covered with snow, we had to put old paint drop cloths under it to catch all the melting snow.

The tree before decorations

Hanging Audrey's first Christmas ornament that Grandma and Grandpa Baron gave her

Owen was so funny. He helped put the red and silver balls on but he put them all in one spot! Cracked me up!

Owen helping with the star

After

And a couple of Audrey standing up in the pack n play. She's pulling herself up on EVERYTHING now!

Very snowy day here! We got a ton of snow. Both kids are getting over colds (and so am I). We have been going through a lot of Kleenex around here.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. We went to my Dad and Cindy's house. It was just Dan and me and Owen and Audrey, my Dad and Cindy and my Uncle Dave, Aunt Gaye and cousin Kate. It was fun and the food was great!

Audrey has another new trick. She started pulling herself up, just one step closer to walking! Yikes! She pulled herself up on the coffee table on Thanksgiving and since then I have gone to get her up from a nap and she has been standing up in her crib.

Audrey playing with her cousin Nolan.


They are only 2 1/2 weeks apart and they are becoming good buds already.

8 Months old today

This month Audrey started clapping and crawling. She has two teeth now, on the bottom, and I think the top two may be coming in soon. She is still hardly napping and doesn't sleep real well at night either. I don't know how she gets by on so little sleep. I think she's afraid she is going to miss something. Here is a picture from today: 8 months and I uploaded two videos. A video of her crawling, I think it was a day or two after she started crawling. She is already getting much faster. The other video is Audrey clapping, which is just too cute.