March of Dimes 2013

It is that time of year again that we walk in the March of Dimes Walk for our beautiful Addison and preemie babies everywhere.  Ryan and I were blessed with our beautiful baby girl September of 2008.  She decided to join us 9 weeks earlier than planned.  I was sent to Iowa City by ambulance for what I thought was going to be at least a 4-week bed rest.  My blood pressure did not cooperate and I spent a week on bed rest before we decided to induce labor for my health and Addison's.  I was induced Tuesday night and my water broke on Wednesday morning.  She came into the world at 8:32 in the morning and was rushed into the NICU.  She weighed 2 lbs. 15 oz.  I wasn't allowed to see her for 24 hours due to the drugs I was given to induce labor.  Addison spent 6 weeks in Iowa City in the NICU up there and then came back here for 2 more weeks.  We would not be where we are today if it weren't for those doctors and nurses in the U of I Children's hospital and Genesis.  We also would not be as advanced in research about Premature births if it weren't for March of Dimes!

Goodbye Little House!

Well we have taken a giant step these past couple of weeks!  We sold our first home and bought a bigger house for some more space.  We officially put our house on the market at the beginning of February and it sold in two weeks.  After selling the house, we got started packing and deciding what to keep or donate.  During all the packing, I really began to think about all the wonderful memories we had in that house.  The first winter and spring, we had the hardest time keeping water out of the basement.  We discovered the people who owned the house before us were "do it yourself" kind of people but they didn't do a very good job so we had some things to fix!  It had the biggest bathroom in the world when we moved in (a toilet and sink in an unfinished space) =]  We brought three babies home to that house (1-four legged baby and 2- two legged babies).  We re-finished the basement for a rec room/toy room for the kids.  We had great neighbors who were always willing to lend a helping hand.  My very first blog post was all about our first home including pictures.  It changed a lot from those first days and we loved it.  It was harder to leave than I thought it would be.  Not that we were not excited about our new house but closing a chapter is hard and beginning a new one can be hard too. 
Out new "tall" house (as Addison calls it) is in Bettendorf and closer to Ryan's work and my mom's house.  Addison and Gus will be PV Spartans (=[ ) but thats okay.  PV is a great school, it isn't Bettendorf but oh well!  Addison loves her new room.  We were able to get into the house on Thursday before we moved in and painted Addison's room bright yellow.  She and her cousin Callie and Carter helped her put princesses on the wall.  We have not done anything to Gus Man's room yet because I want to wait until he has a big boy bed with big boy bedding!  It is really nice to have more space for the kiddos to run and play.  Pictures to come!!