Play time, grammy time, more visitors!

Tori and Tony come by to see the sweet pea.

Ruby takes advantage of play mat time to get some loving of her own.

She pretends to care about Violet, but really, she just wants to eat the toys. Lion rattle already bit the dust. Little lamb nearly did, but grandma just found it in the hall a little moist. Probably someone made a noise and scared her off of that quest. Ru spends a lot of time staring into the crib, which is currently holding the toys we have accumulated so far. When Violet goes into the crib, we will have to find a safe place for her toys.

Attack giraffe!!!!!! She is just starting to grab onto the toys and move them around. She started out by just gripping them, but didn't seem to be able to lift her arms with them in tow.

Violet is making Grammy Pat very happy by looking at her a lot.


Violet has this dubious look a lot of the time. Trying to figure things out...maybe...mostly I just don't think she believes what we are telling her. Oh, and the jungle jammies were a thrift store find that I was incredibly pleased about! These I bought before we even made the decision to adopt...I think we were still trying. I chalked it up to being hopeful...which I desperately needed at that point. I didn't think she was going to be able to wear them as Mandy said she made big babies. Thanks to Violet's urges to join the world, she gets to wear them now. I basically want to put her in them every day, but try to spread the wealth to other cute little outfits too.

Kung Fu Baby...Bwahhhhhhhh.
One of Violet's many sleeping postures.

Deck fun...we are getting close to being caught up!

It was such a nice night a few nights ago that we all just hung out on the deck. Violet even had some awake time (previous post) but mostly she slept through us having some fun.

Ask and you shall receive...

Awake photos...well, she was trying to stay awake anyway.
Hi everybody!!!

Helping mommy and daddy get Grandma's room ready

Before mom came the other day we decided it might be nice if we cleaned all of the stuff out of her way. The guest room had become the catch all place for all displaced items during the room fix up earlier. So violet was snoozing and we took her up with us. She ended up spending her time in a basket of clothes. Ken took this set of funny images. She was just starting to wake up.

Everybody wants you...

We have had a steady stream of visitors over the past week. We are loving introducing Violet to our friends and neighbors. People are taking really good care of all of us by bringing us dinners, putting up welcome home signs, taking care of our dogs, etc. We are fortunate to have such a wonderful family of friends in Nashville!!!

Betsy and Jenny, neighborsAmy
Rosa, Janet, and Yauka (the dog)
Kelly, Rosa, Yauka, and Ruby
Grandma Pat is finally here!!!

We are done with Medicine!!!

Today is a banner day. We are done with the 8 days of antibiotics. YAY for mom.
Violet actually took it pretty well. We had to give it to her at 4 pm and 4 am and as long as she was hungry at those times, which she was, she sucked it down. I only nearly killed her once when the syringe popped half of the medicine into her mouth at one time. She only stopped breathing for a second. It freaked me out completely!!! She actually chokes a lot when she is eating too, so now I am an old pro and I just remind her to breathe and sit her up. She coughs and throws her head back to get more food.
These are the photos from her getting the meds the first time in the hospital.

We also went in for her two week check up today (2 weeks and 2 days). She is right on target with her abilities and her growth. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 11 oz. so she is definitely gaining weight. Her cheeks are showing it, as is her second chin! Her face is rounding out a bunch and her belly is getting more froggy. Her legs are still pretty spindly at this point, but I bet they will start here soon. Dr. Woods seemed pleased with her progress over all. Tonight on the playmat she actually lifted the rattle toy and also grabbed the neck of the giraffe and put his head to her mouth. She also lifted and turned her head from one side to the other during tummy time. Small milestones at this point, but it is all we gots!
Also heard from Mandy tonight. Blood pressure going down, but still too high. Send her good energy for us.
This is also officially the last day Mandy could legally revoke her severing of her parental rights. So as of 6 pm tonight, Violet is stuck with us! I still feel a bit nervous and don't believe it is true yet. While we haven't been dwelling on it, the possibility of Mandy taking back her parental rights did linger in the back of my mind. Based on circumstances, I knew she wouldn't do it, but still, it would have been her right to do so. I just couldn't imagine losing her after just getting to know her. Now we don't have to. Our little girl.
Seconds after taking her meds...back in the sleepy zone!

First bath...she didn't dig it.

Still at the hospital...well in photos anyway

We had a lot of visitors after I put the word out that I was dying of boredom.
Lindsey, Rosemary, Stacey and Andee all came to see us and we were thrilled for the company.
They gave me time to take a shower, hence the air drying hair badness in some of these photos.
They also brought me some food when Ken was otherwise occupied. My saviors!
Today, Grandma and I took Violet out for her first official outing. We went to Cool Springs area to swap out some duplicate outfits people had gifted us. She basically slept all the way through except for eating lunch and a small outcry to be removed from her carseat toward the end of our grocery shopping. Grandma carried her through the store and she fell back asleep. Really she was just filling her diaper.
More visitors when we got home today, which keeps me from putting up more photos...hmmm.

Our second stay in the hospital

Well, I promised to catch everything up in images as well as the text I gave you...
So here is a little slide show with highlights from our hospital stay at Vanderbilt Children's hospital. The weird alligator was just wandering through the halls and I asked if we could shoot the photo. At that point, I was REALLLLLLLY bored. Safety pig was a present from Stacey, one of the care partners at the hospital. All of the nurses and staff loved Violet, she was just so tiny and sweet about all of their poking and prodding how could they not??? The only time she protested was when Jen took her temperature, and she repaid by nearly squirting her with poo. Jen was fast and got out of the way...barely!
On the day we left, Shawna, a nurse we had a number of nights, came by just to say goodbye to Violet. She was the nurse that was on duty when we had to put Keona down and was so supporting and kind.
Lindsey is one of my art students who took care of the dogs while we were in the hospital, well, for part of the time. She has been waiting for Violet to come since we found out we were picked. She took pity on me and brought me dinner that night as I was starving, too tired to go get anything, and all of the delivery places stopped delivering about 30 minutes before I thought about food. It was Sunday I believe. So she came with food, but really it was just her excuse to get to come meet Violet. She was her first non-adoption, non-hospital staff visitor! As you can see, she was VERY excited to be there.