Happy (Late) Easter!

I definitely had intentions of posting a "Happy Easter" blog; however, it didn't quite happen. The updates on Elise are (a) she's up to 34 cc every three hours and (b) she's doing very well. We praise the Lord every day for how well she is doing and were recently told she's the healthiest baby in the portion of the NICU that she's in. Soon she'll be moved to the infamous "Tower" or East NICU where babies go who just need a bit more time to develop before they are ready to go home. Per the general estimates, we have about 3 1/2 weeks left!

Each day Kit and I get a little more independent with Elise's care. We still check with the nurses before starting her care (temperature and diaper change), but otherwise we're able to hold, kangaroo, nurse, etc. as we desire and as we can tell Elise's is up for. It's been so uplifting to be able to get her out of bed ourselves and to feel more like her parents and not just observers who get to help every once in a while.

We spent much of our day yesterday at the NICU and enjoyed a nice Easter dinner at Subway. :)

Kit went back to work today and enjoyed himself. He's such a schedule-oriented guy and likes to have regularity so I think it'll be good for him to have some of that normalcy for a while. He'll take a bit more time off once Ellie comes home as well so that we can have some family time.

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How cute is this? Can you tell how excited Kit is to be a dad?


Totally zonked out in dad's arms.

Both thinking intently.
(Click on the photo to enlarge if you can't see Ellie's hand on her chin.)

Big yawn.


Kit aunt Rae made Ellie socks, and I finally remember to actually take pictures of Ellie in them.


She really likes pink.


Aren't these socks adorable? Rae's so talented!


Ellie had enough of the paparazzi.


Hi-ya! She tried using her kicking skills to end the photo shoot.


I couldn't ever find a preemie Easter dress small enough for Ellie so this little sleeper was the next best thing (thanks to Jeannette). This was after all the sock photos though so Ellie wasn't really up for me actually putting it on so I tried to just make it look like she had it on.


She decided to reveal the truth that the sleeper was simply lying on top of her.


Kit tried kangaroo care with Elise for the first time on Easter.


And she pulled his chest hair. Hehe.


They were both completely enamored with each other.


And then she'd pull again.


Daddy and daughter both loved the cuddle.


Our very own little Easter egg.

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Please pray for Michelle, a gal from my work. Her water broke a couple of weeks ago at only 29 weeks. She's been in the hospital since then and her baby girl was born yesterday morning. From what I hear, her little girl is doing well and weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces at birth. I believe they're estimating that she'll have about a 4 week NICU stay.