firsts part 2

Here we have an extremely common "new baby" pose with Daddy. I have countless pictures of Micah and the boys just like this. It is his absolute favorite time with the kiddos. Micah had already been talking about how he was ready to get her home so they could have some snuggle time in the recliner. I think when I took this picture, we had been home all of 2 hours. (I think I didn't get my promotion from princess to queen. I think someone came into the world outranking me.)

Here is big brother #1 getting to hold Ally Claire for the first time. He has been waiting on her for quite some time and as soon as we wheeled her out of the NICU, he was already asking to hold her. For those who don't know...a couple of stories. We didn't let the boys go up to the NICU b/c we just didn't think our little tornadoes should go in, for one, and for two, we just didn't think they needed to see babies like that. However, we took pictures of sister while she was on the ventilator and when she was under the oxyhood and video and they watched her every night. When she was under the hood, we told them sissy needed to wear her Buzz Lightyear helmet to help her lungs get big and strong to help her breathe. When she was on the vent, we told them she had a special straw that was helping her. They were completely fine with those explanations and didn't ask any other questions. (and they said the sweetest prayers at night for "baby sissy" to get big and strong and come home.) More on Luke in the last picture.

Oh my little Sethy bean. I have been wondering how he was gonna handle things b/c he has been the baby on my side of the family for almost 3 years and he is a mama's boy. He loves her and loves to hold her and kiss her, just not as much as Luke. He's still into the "i'm 2 and the world revolves around me" stage. The most jealousy he shows is when we are burping her, he sometimes wants to crawl into my lap and says "mama, love me." and so she gets one shoulder and he gets the other. if that's as bad as it gets, I can handle that.

Now, this picture is not posed. We were home enjoying some quiet time and Luke just needed to be with his sissy. so he crawled up in the chair with Micah. I looked over and after a few minutes, this is what i saw while we were watching...Jungle Book I think. He just needed to be touching her...which I now know is NOT uncommon just yet. (She's still a novelty.)

That picture and this one are the ones i will definitely use as bribery one day...if needed. Since before even finding out we were having a girl, I would ask both boys "which name do you like". (hey, it was a way to distract them when they would come to visit me in the shower or a way to distract them when breaking up fights.) We finally had it narrowed down to Ally and Claire. Micah liked Ally a little better and I liked Claire a little better. But we liked them both. So I kept asking which Luke liked better and he kept saying he liked "Ally Claire". And so it stuck. At first I wasn't sure about a "double name", but if we decided on one, I knew I needed to like both names as equally as I could. And that is how she was named. Ultimately by her big brother. (And i'll use this time, since it's MY blog, to say that she DOES go by both names. I know I'll have to get over doctor's offices and such calling her just her first name. not a problem. But otherwise, I have already found that just calling her by only her first name really gets on my nerves. Who knew? Of course, on here I refer to her as sissy or AC for brevity, and that's ok.)
And the last little tidbit is that this is a picture of Luke carrying around a picture of his sister. We printed it one night while she was still in the hospital and he grabbed it off of the printer as soon as it spit it out, which of course, caused it to smudge. Well, the OCD got the better of me and i printed another for myself and gave him that one. Well they have pictures in their room of the 2 of them from this past Christmas, and Luke meant that I had to find a frame for sissy's picture. And he carried it everywhere with him for 2 days until she came home...even to the table to eat pudding.

kleenex, anyone???