Weekend Fun!

This weekend, actually on Thursday after Haylee's dr. appointment, I took her to San Antonio to visit my grandma. She hadn't seen Haylee since Christmas and was really excited to see her. When Haylee and I got home on Saturday we went to our neighbors house for dinner. Finally Sunday we went to the hospital to visit Kayelyn, who by the way is doing GREAT! Here are some pictures.

Haylee playing with the new little puppies, Bella and Mia.

They loved running back and forth chasing each other.

Haylee helping her Great Grandma water the flowers.

Haylee and Grandma (Her Great Grandma)

Bella and Mia

Haylee Reese

mmm smell the flowers...

I just thought this flower was pretty.

Haylee and Briley coloring at the hospital.

Haylee went to the doctor on Thursday for her 18 month well. Her stats are:

Weight: 20 lbs. (3rd %tile)

Height: 31 inches (25th %tile)

Other BIG news... My sister Kristen is also pregnant! So, we get to go through this together! She is due on February 15.

Update on Baby Kayelyn

This update is from the new mama and daddy:

Hello Everyone,Good news, Kayelyn is slowly improving. We are Cautiously Optimistic- BUT--She is responding well to treatment. She has a huge team of doctors calledfellows that have been assigned to her case-- these guys are the "big guns"of neonatologists. They are a special team of doctors assigned to thecritical/high risk infants in the NICU. The official diagnosis is RDS (Respiratory Distress Syndrome), PPHN(Persistant Pulmonary Hypertension) and Pneumothorax. The odds of a fullterm baby being born with RDS are 5% of all babies born. The odds ofdeveloping problems like Kayelyn's are less than 1%. She is fighting hard and so far is really doing well. The Nitric Oxide isworking. As of today, both of her chest tubes, that have been used to drainair and fluid from her chest through from the pneumothorax have been clampedoff. The doctor will have them out by Wednesday at the latest. This is ahuge step in the right direction. Her oxygen she is receiving is at 51% andshe is saturating at 100%. If her next blood gas comes back good, they willlower her to 48%. Tomorrow they will begin weaning off the nitric andchanging off the oscillator onto a conventional ventilator. Once thishappens, Nathan and I can hold her!! We hope this happens in the next 2-3weeks-- it could always happen sooner but this is what the doctor isprojecting. She has to be at 20% oxygen to be breathing like you and I. Itstill looks like at least a month until she is released, if not longer (upto 3 months). They have also let up on her sedation/paralytic and she isstarting to come around and open her eyes and move. As long as shecooperates with the doctors (She gets a bit fiesty at times) they will allowher to stay off the sedation. So this is the latest.... We will email again soon with more. Please continue to pray!!!
Love,Nathan, Melissa, Briley, Kayleyn, Zoey & Sully

Weekly Update and Haylee's New Shirt

Ha...That's what it seems like these days, weekly update. I will get better at this again. I promise!

Since I have been keeping Briley quite a bit, she needs a place to take a nap in our house sleep for the night if she stays over. Well it works out perfect because Briley now sleeps in a Big Girl Bed at home and we just happen to have a day bed with a trundle in Haylee's room. So, we pull out the bottom trundle and let Briley sleep on it and Haylee sleeps in her crib. First of all, it is really comical hearing the coversation between the two girls before they finally fall asleep. I laid in bed listening to the monitor just laughing. It's so cute. Anyway, since Haylee adores Briley she wants to do everything she does. The other day I took Haylee upstairs and said it was time for a nap. She shook her head and walked over to the big girl bed and crawled in. I asked her if she wanted to sleep there and her reply was yes. I thought to myself...ok this is too easy. So I tucked her in and closed the door. I went downstairs with the monitor in hand. I was so impressed! She did great. A few times I could hear her jumping, singing, saying "book" and "fish". Here are a couple of pictures.

What a big girl laying in the Big Girl Bed!

This is how quiet she is...I had the monitor in my hand and didn't even know she was pulling her baskets our and dumping them. We will work on this one. :o)

Haylee takes after her mom! She will soon be doing my blog posts. :o) She loves pushing the "buts" (AKA buttons) for me.

Haylee's new bathing suit. Her Grandma O'Neill has a little obsession with bathing suits (she has one more on the way). Atleast she will have plenty for mommy and me swim lessons which start next week.



Father's Day... (we don't have too many pictures...Travis is in the middle of some extensive and painful dental work so he wasn't in the picture mood. Atleast for me to post them.)

We hope everyone had a great Father's Day! We woke up on Sunday and decided to cook daddy some breakfast.




We then went to have lunch with Travis' dad and then ended the evening at my dad's house for dinner. It was a busy day as most holidays are. We thought this was a cute picture. We were driving down the road and looked back at Hay...She's quite the thinker.

Finally, and certainly not the least important bit of news. Haylee got a new shirt! Check it out!

YES...Haylee will be a big sister in February!
Right now our due date is February 11, 2009.

A lot has been going on...

OK...The last two weeks have been really BUSY!

Two weeks ago we attended my grandparents 50th Anniversary Party. What an accomplishment and great honor. I truly admire couples who have reached this milestone. Especially in this day and age. It seems that many couples find it easier to give up when times get tough rather than work together and become stronger during those difficult times. I have two sets of grandparents who have made it to 50 years of marriage together. I have learned a lot from both of their examples. They have made great role models for mine and Travis' marriage. Here are a few pictures. (My camera batteries went dead)

Me with my grandmother.

Happy 50th Anniversary!

Haylee, me, my dad, and sister!

Me and my dad!



My sister, Kristen, has a few more pictures on her blog if you want to check them out.

The week after the anniversary was my last week of school. My district didn't get out of school until June 4th, teachers last day was the 5th. So my first full day of summer vacation began on Friday, June 6th, which was the day that my new little niece was to be born.

Kayelyn Olivia
June 6, 2008
4:17 p.m.
8 pounds 14 ounces
20 inches long

Proud New Papa



New baby girl!

New Big Sister seeing Kayelyn for the first time!

Uncle T with his daughter and neice! (What a great babysitter!)

These are the only pictures I have of little Kayelyn right now. After being born she was having a difficult time breathing on her own. She was put in the NICU about 30 minutes after delivery. She spent the night there on Friday and sometime during the night her lung collapsed. The following night both of her lungs collapsed. Yesterday morning she was life flighted to Memorial Hermann Children's Downtown. She is now in great care! She is stable and slowly improving. Please keep her and her family in your prayers. I will be sure to update as the days go on. The lungs heal themselves. It can be from 7-14 days. She is closely monitored at all times. That hospital is an unbelieveable place! We can't wait for her to get well and be able to hold that little girl!

I have been keeping both the girls. We all want things to be as normal as possible for the new big sister. So here are a couple of pics of them yesterday afternoon in the backyard.

A few others I had...This is Haylee's new favorite thing to do! She loves to help daddy water the yard (or herself).