A couple of cute pics

Derek sent these to my phone yesterday when I was at work, I thought they were really cute so I thought I would share with you. Lexi was rolling around the living room...watch out people...mobility is not far away!

She looks like she is going to take off crawling at any time....you can tell by the look in her eye!!

Warm and Fuzzy

When I was pregnant with Lexi and learning about having a baby, there was a lot of information about cord blood storage. Stem cells from the cord blood is used to treat Leukemia, Lymphoma and other life threatening illnesses. Either you could pay thousands of dollars to have your cord blood stored in case later in life you or your child come down with a life threatening illness or you can donate at no cost your cord blood so that others can benefit from the stem cells in the blood. Derek and I chose to donate the cord blood. When I gave birth, there were probably 10 ish (I really don't remember...mom or derek?) people in the room, one of those people (probably as I was wolfing down my subway sandwich) whisked away the cord blood and it went to the Puget Sound Cord Blood Bank. The following day two people came and took several (again, it's blurry) tubes of blood for testing. Well, a few days after I got home from the hospital I got a call from PSBB and they were missing a couple of the questionairre forms that I was supposed to fill out in the hospital....had I not been a registered Blood Donor, the cord blood would have been thrown away. I answered their questions and the blood was then "eligible" for donation.

Where am I going with this? I got a call today from the Blood Center, they called to let me know that mine and Lexi's blood was matched with a 62 year old man who is suffering from Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. He told me that there was a high amount of stem cells in it, enough for him to have the treatment. He said that they are not sure the patient is going to have the treatment, but our blood is on hold in case he does. If he doesn't it will go back into inventory for the next patient.

I was very touched by the phone call, my Auntie Celaine has been battling this disease for quite some time now, so it is nice to be able to help someone that is going through what she was/is going through. I always wondered where the blood you donate goes, I know they don't call everyone that donates, but I thought it was a great call to get. Any pregnant ladies out there...donate that cord blood!!

Baby Food

At 5 months, we started giving Lexi some rice cereal in anticipation of her starting to eat solid foods. She has done really well with the rice cereal and seems to like it. We have been feeding it to her both by the spoon and putting some of it in her bottle....depending on how much time we have at night. The rice cereal has really helped her sleeping and she is getting back to sleeping through the night...though not reliably. This week is her 6 month birthday...can you believe it?? I sure can't! When she got sick this week, we combined her emergency trip to the pediatrician with her 6 month check up. Here are her stats:

Heighth: 25 1/2 inches - 50th Percentile

Weight: 15 pounds 13 ounces - 50th percentile

So...she is basically right where she was at her 4 month check up. Good stuff.

So on to baby food...we will start giving her some "real" food next week....we are not sure what to start with, so any suggestions are appreciated. Lexi has been on breastmilk this whole time until the rice cereal, she has only had formula twice! Before starting nursing if you told me that 6 months into it she would have had maybe 6 ounces TOTAL of formula, I would have thought you were crazy. But, we seem to have gotten in the grove, and pumping at work has worked out well, though as I get busier at work, taking time to pump 3 times during the day is getting more and more difficult! A couple of weekends ago, I got a wild hair to make my own baby food. My main motivation for this is cost savings...those little bottles of pureed baby food can really add up. I also had a coworker that gave me some good suggestions on how to cook it in large batches and put it in ice cube trays and freeze. So check it out! My carrots and green beans seemed to turn out well, I operated the food processor all by myself and everything...Mom aren't you proud?? Actually, you are probably proud that I own a food processor...yes, it was a gift. :)

The final product....

Here are some pictures from feeding Lexi the rice cereal, again with the confused camera face, but cute nonetheless!
Messy face!

Ryan loves feeding Lexi, he has been a great help.

Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween

It was soooo nice this year to be out in Monroe! The past 3 years Derek and I have had to haul ass to get out to Monroe in time to trick or treat with Ryan. This year, as many of you know, we have been stricken with the Swine Flu. Ryan was out of school all week and even had to miss the Halloween party at school on Friday (trauma for a 4th grader). We were happy to sit at home and hand out candy to all 143 trick or treaters that came to our door!

Here are Derek and Ryan's jack o lanterns, we put them up on our car, they welcomed everyone to our house.

Ryan was a knight and Lexi was a lady bug...this picture turned out sooo cute!

Ryan the knight....he was with his mom that night, so sorry that there aren't more pics of him....he just stopped by quickly for a photo op and then went to get his candy.

I uploaded this picture out of order...and couldn't get it to the end of the blog, but this is the result of a full swine flu halloween.

Playing with Grandma Cass

Lexi sits up all on her own these days.

Everytime we take Lexi's picture, she gets mesmerized by the red light before the flash...so we get the same, confused look every time we take pictures. Right before this, she was happy and smiling...can ya tell??

More confusion...

This was a sneak attack picture before the confused look....she was playing patty cake with Grandma.

Overall, we had a great halloween, we would have liked to feel better, but we are on the mend now and will hopefully be back to full strength next week.

Pumpkin Carving

Derek and Ryan carved pumpkins last Sunday, I had to work, so they soldiered on without my guidance....much to my delight, the entire mess was cleaned up before I got home! Good Hubby.

The Before Picture:

Ryan carving all on his own this year!

Digging out the guts...

The final products....Ryan's is on the left and Derek's is on the right! Happy Halloween!