Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

JOY * MIRACLE * GRATITUDE

These three words sum up our 2011. We can’t believe our one pound wonder girl is now 16 pounds! She is thriving – smiling, giggling, (almost) rolling, and gobbling down baby food. She brings us so much JOY. This Christmas season has meant more to us this year as we have reflected on the MIRACLE of Tess’s life. We express our GRATITUDE to you, our family and friends, who have prayed for us and given us so much support throughout this year. During this Christmas season, we are truly grateful for the Savior and the miracle of His life that gives us hope and brings us joy and happiness.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

David, Tara and Tess Nielsen

 

New Helmet

Tess got a new accessory...she is ready for anything now! We picked up her new helmet a few days before Christmas. This was kind of a hard decision for us to make...to get a helmet or not. Maybe it was more of a hard decision for me, not Dave. Coming out of the NICU, we were really concerned about the shape of Tess's head because it was so narrow from all those months of sleeping on her stomach due to all the digestive issues that she had. We knew that a helmet was an option and had almost made up our minds already that we would get her one if needed. She has so many scars on her little body that we feel might make her self conscious as she gets older that we wanted to have her head perfect so that there was one less thing she had to worry about when she hit her teenage years.

We had been to the plastic surgeon several times for evaluations. We tried re-positioning her, having her sleep on a foam donut, etc. After a few months, the PA at the plastic surgeon felt like a helmet wouldn't do too much to help. It was mainly her forehead area that was really narrow that we were worried about. After they told us that they thought there wouldn't be any improvement, we had made up our mind that we would be good with her head shape.

Well, fast forward to the carpet fiasco in our new house...the one where I didn't like the two front rooms and we had it ripped out? We are glad we did because I went down to the carpet store to pick out new carpet. While there, I met another customer there that had a baby the same gestation as Tess...she actually had twins but one of them died a few days after he was born. She was showing me pictures of her little guy on her iPad...he's now 5. Out of the blue, she asked me about Tess's head shape and looked at it herself and then told me to have her checked out at the orthotic office that actually makes the helmets. So I made an appointment with the clinician. Amy at the orthotic clinic was great and had no doubt that a few months of helmet wearing would be just the right thing for Tess's little forehead. So we did it.

I am embarrassed to say that I cried when we were there picking the helmet up. I have no idea what came over me...craziness perhaps? I know that is what Dave would say. I think I was just having a little "pity party" and grieving episode that I wouldn't see Tess's little head for months...no hair bows, no cute winter beanies. But then again, a helmet? If that's all we needed after a 4 1/2 month NICU stay, I'll take it. We have been truly blessed.

Luckily Tess is still young that the helmet didn't really bother her much. And it is pretty cute, don't ya think? Especially with a little flower clip on it. Ya still gotta accessorize...



{In this picture, I think she looks like her cousin Evie when she was little}

 

 

Green beans caught on tape!

Love this little girl and all the sounds she makes! So fun to watch her discovering food.

Christmas Cheer

When we got married, we started a tradition of getting a family ornament each year. We want to do this for each of our children too, so we started this year with Tess. Here is her first Christmas ornament...a little baby carriage. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa J!

 And here is Tess ready to spread a little Christmas cheer!

Christmas dinner

We invited a few friends over for a yummy Christmas dinner. Dave was head of the kitchen as he whipped up a gourmet meal of tenderloin, potato knishes, and salad. I was his sous chef...just what I like. I definitely prefer his cooking to mine. I'm a lucky girl to have a husband that is such an expert in the kitchen. He never cooks half way...if he's cooking, he goes all out! He was going to try and make stuffed baked apples wrapped in phyllo dough for dessert, but reality sunk in as we were running out of time. So I threw together some apple crumble instead that was pretty tasty. Phew. We've decided that if we are going to cook "gourmet" dinner, we have to stick with an easy dessert and vice versa.

We had a little gift exchange for the adults. Everyone received some very "lovely" gifts...we'll probably see a few of them next year!

{Holdens showing off their fantastic gifts}

{Dave posin' with his do-rag...}

{Annette...I don't know what she is doing here}

{Tough guys}

{Miss Mya}

More pics...

I have this problem where I feel like I have to include every picture I take of Tess. Guess I need to work on my "editing" skills, but until then, I will just include them all. Nobody wants to miss out on these cute ones!

Our cute lil' Elf!

Here she is decked out in her first Christmas onesie...and socks to match! What a cute little elf!

 

 

Peek a boo, green beans, and peas

Tessie adores her Daddy...and he adores her. I love seeing them play and interact together. These days, Tess is discovering peek-a-boo and is all smiles and giggles. 

Tess has gotten adventurous in her eating...green beans and peas. Not her favorites, but it's something green at least! She seems to prefer anything orange.

Giggles

This little girl is so easy to get giggling. It's our favorite sound to hear! She is so much fun and we just can't get enough of her!

 

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma J

My parents came up to visit the first week of December. It was fun to have them. The house was still in chaos and disarray, but they were able to help us get a little more organized. Yay! We managed to get out for a little window shopping. TJMaxx is one of our favorites to go to. As you can see, my Dad got tuckered out and had a little nap. This is a normal occurrence for him. Don't you just love the book he's holding? So fitting!




When Grandma comes, she always reads Tessie a million books. She is such a great story teller. I even love listening to her read books. She is so animated and always changes her voice. Grandpa is such a good cuddler and he loves to feed Tessie. She loves it too!

We took a few pictures by the Christmas tree. Tess was curious about the tree and loved to touch it. We'll see what next year brings. I have a feeling we will only be able to decorate the upper half to keep those curious hands away from the ornaments!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for coming to visit. We'll see you in a few weeks for Christmas!

Getting stronger!

Tess has an occupational therapist come in once a week to work with her. She has had this pretty much since we brought her home. Maureen is WONDERFUL! We love her. She has worked so hard with Tess and we have seen so much progress for this little girl who started out so teeny tiny. Tess is super stubborn though and we have learned that she won't do anything until she wants to and until she is ready to. So while she is behind on her milestones and gross motor skills, she progresses every week. And she really really really works hard. You can tell by her grunting. And she loves to fake cough when she is trying to do master a new skill. It's like the coughing helps her to get over the last little hurdle of that skill. It's funny to watch her.

Tess loves to work on the exercise ball. She thinks it is her massage time at the spa or something. It has really helped to strengthen her core and hopefully she will be rolling one of these days on her own. She is so close! My favorite thing is to see the proud smiles as we praise her and praise her on her progress. She's pretty much a superstar.

Random pictures

Just some cute random pictures from the camera roll. We pulled out the Santa hat for Tess before it doesn't fit her anymore. Her head is getting big!

 

 

 

 

We've been trying to train Tess to hold her own bottle. She really does think she is the "Queen Bee" and that everyone should serve her. She starts to hold the bottle but then lets it drop and expects us to hold it for her the rest of the time. Hopefully we can teach her to be a little more self sufficient as she gets older.  

 

Cuttin' down our Christmas tree!

The day after Thanksgiving, we skipped "Black Friday" and went up into the mountains instead to find and cut a Christmas tree. We had talked about making this a family tradition in the years past, but just never made it come true. So since we had nothing to do (other than unpack our whole house), we decided to make it happen. We got Tessie decked out in her warmest clothes and headed out. The roads were great...there was still plenty of snow though and we almost got stuck a couple of times when we went off the main road. Tess was a trooper as we hiked through the trees looking for the perfect one. And we found it! Dave was awesome...he did most of the grunt work (like always). Who knows if we will keep this tradition...it was a lot of work for a tree. But it was a fun family memory and it was great to be up in the mountain fresh air. Maybe we will do it every other year???

 {checking out the "tree cutting" rules}

 {toasty warm and full of smiles}

 {ready to find the perfect tree}

 {self portrait}

 

 {hiking in the forest}

 

{the perfect tree}

 {tuckered out from all the hiking}

 {Dad and Tess dragging our Christmas tree}

{our tree is tall!}

Moving Day...finally!

Our house is finally done...most of it anyway! What a crazy time we have had. A couple of weeks before, we moved out of our house because the people buying it wanted to be in before Thanksgiving. Our house wasn't completed yet, so several of our friends opened their homes to us for a few days. It was an adventure as we packed up and moved from house to house. The Holdens were our last stop. Thank you to them, the Ogdens and Dave Swindler for your wonderful hospitality and letting us crash for a few days. We were VERY grateful to them for sheltering us. We were also very grateful to them for helping us move and store our boxes in their garages while waiting to get into our home. We had to divide our stuff up into three garages plus our new garage. What a pain! What good neighbors and friends we have! 

We were finally able to get our stuff into the house on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We decided to just hire movers this time since we had already taken advantage of our friends' goodness. Kind of crazy that we hired movers to move us down the street but it was the best $300 we could have spent! It was a crazy day to say the least. To add to our moving stress, Dave was closing another deal that day which had lots of hiccups he had to work through. I was grateful to just get through the day! Wasn't my best one. The movers were only 2 hours late, but finally got everything in the house. Instead of staying at our house that night, we went back to the Holdens where we knew we would get a warm meal and a warm bed. They were so great to us! I only took a few pics of the madness in the kitchen.

We are THANKFUL to finally be in our home and get settled.