Catching up...

Coley was one month on the 18th. She is doing wonderfully and I'm much more confident in her now that she has reached this milestone. She is eating great, gained 1.5 lbs in 10 days, and is on a really good schedule. I even have Coley and Mylie napping at the same time during the afternoon (on most days). She's cooing just a little and today, while she was wide awake and as I was making a fool of myself to her, she gave great big smile. Too bad Mylie was across the room and my camera was no where to be found! Coley still wears her apnea monitor at night and in the car, and it still hasn't gone off due to a spell. We are so thankful that she is proving herself to be a healthy, normal baby. We go back to the lung doctor on the 30th and feel he too will be confident in her health. Hopefully we'll only have the monitor for another month or two. Here are a few pictures of Coley.






I've been very leery about letting Mylie get too close to Coley since she's been home from the hospital...probably too much on my part. But I couldn't help let Mylie try to give Coley her sippy cup. The cup did make it into Coley's mouth, so I'm praying the runny nose Mylie has, once again, won't be transferred to Coley. I then asked Mylie if she would like to hold Coley and she became very excited.





I wasn't able to get any cute pictures of Mylie holding Coley, but I'll get some good ones soon and will post those then.


Poor David is still traveling a lot with work. And when he gets home, he tries to spend as much time with the girls as he can before they head off to bed.

Mylie is still just as sweet and cute as can be. I can't believe that she'll be 18 months at the end of this month. It's amazing how she has gone from my baby to my big girl. She loves hiding. We'll say "Where's Mylie?" and she'll pop out and say "Here she is!" Her new thing is to say "Bless you!" when you sneeze. We'll fake sneeze just to hear her say it.



David's parents were in town over the weekend so we decided to take the girls to the lake and have a picnic. Mylie loved throwing rocks in the lake and getting her feet wet. She loves being outside. It was really windy that day so Coley and I sat at the picnic table and relaxed while David chased Mylie all over the place.

All our visitors have left for a while so it's just the 4 of us and me and the girls during the day. We're all doing really well and are loving all the adjustments that come along with a family of three becoming a family of four.

Week 3

We've had a good week! Coley is doing great and has not had anything strange occur, and appears to be a very healthy baby. The apnea monitors have not gone off once (not even a malfunction to report) and we couldn't be more happy. She is still sleeping a lot during the day, but she also has a lot of awake time too where she appears to be trying to focus on faces and is even trying to crack a smile or two and may be on the verge of cooing. However, we have noticed that this girl can cry...I mean loudly...probably the loudest crying baby on earth. It's almost ear drum shattering. But we quickly remind ourselves that crying means she is breathing so we encourage her to cry as much as she would like.

Mylie is adjusting to grandparents being gone (even though my brother is now in town) and being at home with just me and Coley during the day. She is still a very sweet girl, but there is a little bit of a stinker hiding in there too. We've only had one sibling injury where Mylie launched a wooden block right into the side of Coley's head while she was nursing. This prompted the ear drum shattering screaming, scaring me, Mylie and my dad. But Coley recovered and we have put the blocks away in the meantime.

All is well at our house and we're having fun with the girls. Here are some pictures from our week.


I think Mylie had just thrown her biscuit on the floor and thought she was extremely funny.


Mylie LOVES music and LOVES to dance. She'll listen to the same 2 songs over and over again. This is good for me because I get a chance to do my blogging and email.


Here's Mylie walking around the house in Uncle Ryan's house shoes.


Coley at 3 weeks old. I'm trying to take more pictures of Coley, but she's always swaddled and sleeping in her bouncy chair!

2 Weeks Old

Coley is 2 weeks old today and what a week we've had. As I'm sure most have heard, we had to take Coley to the ER last Saturday afternoon when she quit breathing after a feed. I was holding her when I looked down and saw that she was quite blue. I handed her over to David and he too thought she was not the right color. I quickly called 911 and they were able to help us get her airway open and sustain her breathing until the fire department showed up. They gave Coley oxygen and this brought her back to the right color. Once the paramedics arrived, we decided to take her to Cook Children's Hospital in Ft Worth even though she was stable at this point. I went with Coley in the ambulance and David followed behind us. Coley had 2 other apnea spells, once in the ambulance and once again in the ER triage room. Luckily once we were in the ER, David was able to get a nurse and she too saw exactly what was happening and they were able to treat Coley as necessary. They sedated her, inserted a breathing tube and this started the process of many, many tests, 3 days in the Pediatrics ICU and 2 days on the floor. Although the doctors cannot say that her apnea spells were directly linked, they did diagnosis her with reflux of the stomach, which is treatable with medication. This will also get better as she gets older and can have more control of her head, abdomen and just gets stronger in general. In doing an ultrasound of her stomach, they also determined that she has some minor issues with both kidneys. The doctors didn't feel it necessary to treat her at this time, but we will have a follow up appointment and ultrasound in 3 months where we will hopefully see the reflux has lessened with age. As for the apnea spells, she has not had any further incidents since last Saturday. We were sent home with a monitor that she wears when she sleeps and when we can't closely monitor her (in the car, when I have to leave her in her swing to take care of Mylie, etc). Luckily, my mom and David's mom are both here and helped with Mylie when were at the hospital last week. This scared everyone so we'll be having family coming in and out of town for the next few weeks so David can go to work and travel as necessary with is job and not worry that I'm overwhelmed with Mylie and "complications" Coley (ha).

My friend Lindsay encouraged me to take pictures of Coley in the hospital because this is apart of her life. So, here are some pictures of Coley after the breathing tubes were removed and she was completely off all sedatives. We anticipate only FUN pictures going forward...

The prayers, emails, calls, texts...we are so overwhelmed and grateful of your love and support. Thank you for loving our family.

Week one at home

Coley is one week old today. Goodness - how time flies. She's had a pretty good week. She's eating good, sleeping a lot during the day and has been pretty awake from 11pm - 3am. This has been the hard part. You forget the sleep deprivation. Luckily, my mom has been in town to help me during the nights and watching the girls during the day so we can take little naps. David has also been home to help wrangle Mylie and keep her entertained by taking trips to Home Depot and going to the park to play.

Here are some pictures from our week...

Coloring on the house and chairs with sidewalk chalk

Throwing the ball for Martie

Hanging out outside with Mom, Grami & Mylie

Having a little bit of awake time

Screaming through her first bath

Mylie gave her diaper bag to Coley and got a big girl ladybug bag

She loves taking the dirty diapers to the trash

And spending time with Grami before she heads back to ABQ Saturday night

We're home...

We were discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon after a great stay at the hospital. Mylie greeted us when we got home with the best welcome ever and went straight to Coley's car seat to pat her and lay her head on Coley's blanket. She was excited to have us home.

Things are going good so far. And we are even more tired than we expected to be. We're trying our hardest to keep things "normal" for Mylie, but she is well aware that things are somewhat different now. She is still such a sweet girl and we are even more proud of her now that she is the big sister.

Coley is a very good baby. So far, she is not easily upset and when she gets upset, it does not take much to quiet her down. We're not sure who she looks like...or if she really looks like any of us...but we are completely taken with her and are so proud to have two daughters.

Coley Beth

Coley Beth Hicks
April 18, 2008
5:10pm
6 pounds, 13 ounces
20 1/2 inches

Here's a few pictures from Coley's birth. Whitney will post more later.

Travel Companion

David asked Mylie if she would like to go with him to Austin yesterday for his meetings. She accepted, but then realized that she would have to participate in meetings on topics other than yogurt, dogs named Martie, and would be required to respond with words other than "more" so she opted to stay home with me.