Two months already? Wow! We are very lucky to have our family together for Christmas, and my heart goes out to all of the other kids still in the CVICU today. We wish that we could be with the rest of our extended family today, it just doesn’t seem like Christmas without them.

Both boys got nice long bubble baths and then got dressed in their Santa pants for pictures.

They really enjoy lounging on big pillows.

Our Christmas tree this year. We didn’t have the space or energy to put up a real tree.

The boys each have their own name ornament thanks to some trick customization.

Gramma bought them each a “Baby’s First Christmas” spoon too.

I hope everyone has a very wonderful and safe Christmas!

Today was just another day – the one important thing that set it apart from any other is that we had absolutely no medical appointments! Brendan just got a nice full day of rest with nothing but daily maintenance and diaper changes. We spent several hours video chatting with the family back in Illinois.
Brendan had a few hours of crankiness but overall he has had a good day and had a nice restful night.

Our only plan for tomorrow is to give both boys nice warm baths and have another restful day at home. Our amazing friend and neighbor, Bailey has offered to bring us Christmas dinner, which is awesome because we would have just made mac & cheese with hot dogs (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Just a few pictures:

Brendan is practicing his “it wasn’t me, I am innocent” look. (Trevor’s is already pretty good, so he has to work on it)
Surely someone else in the bed must have gotten the mitt off and pulled the cannula most of the way out of the nose, not Brendan.

The rumors about Trevor’s giant pinchy cheeks and double chins are grossly exaggerated… 😉

Some friends from down the street dropped by with a gift for the boys tonight – a pair of adorable handmade jammies for each of the boys. Maggie made them in sewing class and she did nice work! They were concerned that they would be too small, so Trevor had to model his!

This one looks like he is kicking up his heels, it cracks me up!

The photos that I take really make the babies look older and larger than they are. Even though he is growing like a monster, Trevor is only hitting 9lbs, so he is the size of a healthy brand new baby now. I love to see people’s double takes when they say “oh my, they are so tiny!!”. I have to appreciate it every chance I get, they are going to grow up too quickly!

Happy Christmas Eve Eve. I feel guilty today that I have not done a single thing for Christmas this year. I haven’t bought one gift or mailed one card. I will have to send out New Years greetings instead. I still have tons of other notes and thanks to write, the backlog is piling up.

We had our first visit from the home care nurse today. She will just be coming by twice a week for four weeks in order to check Brendan’s weight and make sure that we are doing OK with his care. He will still see his cardiologist weekly and we will soon have the first appointment with the GI doctor.

Brendan is a little bit sensitive to everything. We are following the schedule to wean the Methadone and his last dose will be Christmas day. He definitely seems to miss his dose that was skipped, we are now only giving it once a day at 9PM. He gets easily overstimulated, he is just not used to being handled. The one thing he really seems to like is taking a warm bath. He relaxes quite a bit, the only trouble is the after bath process of drying and dressing him makes him upset again.
Because he so easily overheats, we have stopped dressing him and just wrap him up in his breathable muslin blankets.

Here’s some pictures from today. Both babies were awake in the bed, and Trevor was very animated in talking to his brother!

Brendan is really not happy about having mitts on his hands, but he simply can not stop pulling on his face and wires.

He does like the swing sometimes.