Welcome Noah Sebastian

Charlie's new cousin, Noah, was born Wednesday morning, happy and healthy! Everyone is home safe and sound as of this afternoon. Congratulations Melissa and Walt!

fighting like mad...

Baby Jackson Beal was born sometime last night and is fighting his CDH monster already. We have not heard much yet, but he is struggling and needs all the prayers you can muster!

http://beal-jackson.blogspot.com/

Weekend Events

Before I begin, has anyone heard anything from Candice Beal (baby Jackson's mom)?? We thought she was due sometime soon, but have not seen any updates on her blog! We are praying, nonetheless, but are a little worried! :-)

This weekend was Vince's sister's, Sheri's, wedding. She looked beautiful!! And it was a great time! Charlie loved all the attention and love he got this weekend. Friday night Cynthia watched him while we went to the rehearsal and dinner. He had a great time playing with her and made sure ALL of his toys received equal attention! :-)

On Saturday, we brought Charlie to the ceremony at church where he met most of our extended family for the first time. Everyone was so excited to finally meet him and he, of course, loved the attention! He was great during the ceremony too! I was a little nervous because we do not bring him to mass yet, but he was so easy going and even cooperated for a few family pictures afterwards. Before heading out to the reception, we brought Charlie over to Dee's and he had a nice afternoon and sleepover with her. We are so lucky that she and her family love him so much! We were able to relax completely knowing he was in great hands!

On Sunday, there was a big Italian feast at Vince's parents with his family that was still in town. It was nice to spend some time with relatives that we do not see often enough! Of course, Grandma out did herself and the food was fantastic! I think I ate so many Italian cookies that I might turn into a cookie myself, but I couldn't help it - they were all so delicious!

Hopefully everyone has safe travels today and tomorrow! And we are looking forward to doing it all over again next summer with Dave and Colleen! :-)

Cheers to the happy couple!

Mommy, aren't I just the cutest thing ever??

Everyone says I am, so it must be true!

Charlie's outfit says: "If you think I'm cute you should see my aunt"

:-)

Sunday night: an exhausted Charlie after a very exciting weekend!

Road Trips, Reflux, and Reasons to Celebrate

This past weekend we made the trip up to Canton for the Olmstead family BBQ with Miss Kayla as the guest of honor. It was a long ride in the car, but definitely worth it! It was great to see Kate and Jerry and Kayla, and Charlie enjoyed himself! And Vince definitely enjoyed the great spread! The Olmsteads sure know how to throw a BBQ!

I swear that Kayla was not crying until we all got together to take this picture.

Its like she knows...

Charlie and Mommy - all smiles!

At least the mommies know how to look at the camera!

On Tuesday Charlie and I made a solo trip to Rochester to see my grad school girl friends. They all meet up for dinner once a month and I have not been able to make it since last December for obvious reasons! We surprised them by showing up and Charlie loved all the attention! I think the girls were a bit in love with him too and we were all so happy for them to finally meet the little man!

Monday night into Tuesday morning, Charlie's reflux suddenly took a turn for the worse. It seemed pretty sudden, so we are not sure what brought it on, but he was really uncomfortable during his feedings and was choking on his bottle regularly. After a bit of doctor run around and trying to figure out which doctor would make the call, Charlie has been placed back on reglan as of last night. He has been doing ok and will hopefully continue to improve.

AND, reasons to celebrate: Today is day 86 at home - - we have officially been home longer than we were in the hospital!! :-) It is strange how in retrospect, the days spent in the hospital seemed to take forever as compared to the days we have been home. I feel like time is flying now and he is just growing and changing so much every time I turn around! He is amazing! In other reasons for celebration, Charlie's Aunt Sheri is getting married this weekend and we are so happy for her and Uncle Trevor! They stopped over for a visit last night and Charlie was so happy to see them! He was a happy bouncer until far past his bedtime! :-)

Charlie is quickly learning he has many hidden talents!

Including his ability to eat his toes! :-)

We are stars!

Here is the link to the story done about us and Letters for CDH by News 10 Now. If the link doesn't work, go to www.news10now.com and search for "D'Angelo" up at the top. The link for the video is on that page along with the transcript from the story! :-)

http://www.news10now.com/content/top_stories/?RegionCookie=1013&ArID=477368

Attn CNY followers!!

We were interviewed this afternoon by News 10 Now and the story should air some time tonight! See if you can check us out! We will be looking for it on the internet since we do not have cable, so I will post the link to it once I find it! :-)

Send your BLUE ENVELOPES!!!

Wednesday July 15th is Letters for CDH Day!! Send your blue envelopes to Ellen and emails to Oprah!! For more information go to www.lettersforcdh.blogspot.com! :-)

We are ready to send ours!!

So is Miss Baby K!! :-)

Camping

We went on our first camping outing as a family this past weekend. For those of you who do not know, we do not go "real" camping. We have a camper and the campgrounds we went to had full hook ups, which meant full use of our toilet, microwave, air conditioning, heat, etc. It was a really good time and a much needed break away from everything by ourselves. It was rainy/stormy most of the day on Saturday, so we stayed in a relaxed. Charlie did great with it. Friday night he did not sleep as soundly as he usually does, but by Saturday night he was fine. One of Vince's major concerns was having Charlie and Chloe in the backseat of the truck together, but they were fine! We are looking forward to our next trip in August to Southwick Beach. We try to make this trip every year and love the campgrounds, but they do not have the nice amenities (electric, water, etc) that we had this weekend, so it will be a little more challenging with Charlie, but hopefully we will make do!

All hooked up and ready to go!

Please don't slobber on me Chloe!!

Friday night, camping pasta while Charlie sleeps

Sleeping peacefully!

Taking a quick walk in between storms on Saturday!

Mmm, I love frog legs!

Look Ma, no hands!!

We managed to pack everything up while Charlie slept the time away!

Back at home!

I missed my bouncy seat so much!!

"4" month checkup

We went to the pediatrician's yesterday for Charlie's "4" month checkup, even though he is 5 months old now. We are a month off because of him getting his immunizations a little late in the NICU. It was an aggravating visit for me because I did not feel like the doctor gave us the time I wanted and I felt very rushed trying to ask all the questions I had. Plus, he still isn't willing to fully take Charlie on as his own patient it seems. I asked him about continuing the actigal (the medication for his jaundice) and even though his last bilurubin count was only 0.5, he would not make the call to stop the medication. Instead he wants me to contact his GI doctor and ask him. BUT, the GI doctor isn't even the one who prescribed it - Dr. Marr in the NICU started him on it. He was already taking the actigal when we met with GI and had his endoscopy done. So, it is rather aggravating.

He did give us the all clear to start Charlie on a little bit of cereal, but we have decided to hold off until he is 6 months. We do not have a real reason to start him on cereal yet - he is gaining weight (almost 15 lbs now!!) and his reflux has been managed pretty well with the zantac. And we are going to try to follow the Super Baby Foods Diet, which recommends starting at 6 months because the cereal is very high in fiber and his system may be too immature to handle it before 6 months. So, another 3 weeks or so and we will start some cereal and see how that goes.

I was not able to get a clear answer about the soy formula and possible dairy allergy. As I mentioned before, because of the small chance that Vince could have passed his dairy allergy on to Charlie, we started with isomil soy-based formula. I wanted to know what the plan was for testing the waters and seeing if he is indeed allergic to dairy. Basically, the gist of what I got was we will not worry about it now and then when we do move forward we will start by slowly introducing it to him through an easy to digest formula. AGAIN, I think there is a misunderstanding that this is not an INTOLERANCE that I am concerned with, it is an ALLERGY. But my head was spinning by this point and the confusion did not dawn on me until I was on my way home. We will just bring it up at our next appointment and hopefully he will not be in such a hurry to move on to the next patient! :-)

Charlie did get his second set of immunizations and finished the rotavirus series. He was not happy with the shots, but loves the rotavirus syrup. He slept really well all yesterday and last night and is napping again now, so I think he is just sleeping off the stress!

Vince took our nephew Emanuel to the Chiefs baseball game last night and the pictures were so cute that I couldn't help but post a couple! He will be 3 in September and is a great little boy. His latest thing is his Batman alter-ego. When he wears his Batman cape, he refuses to answer to anything but "Batman". He came over and hung out with Charlie and Vince and couple weekends ago while I was in Rochester for the day and had a great time helping Charlie play.

"Are you sure I can't go touch the horse, Uncle Bince?"

(No, that is not a typo - - he does call him "Bince")

Oh the DIMPLES!! :-)

"Why are you touching my stuff Batman??"

"Here Baby Charlie, let me show you how this works..."

Charlie's two newest infatuations: his mobile and his feet!

rollin', rollin' rollin'...

Charlie suprised himself and me yesterday and rolled right over while he was on his blanket on the floor. He typically HATES being on his belly, but was all smiles once he made it there after rolling. He did it a few more times throughout the rest of the day too, so I guess he has decided he is ready to be a little more mobile! :-)

creatures and Charlie butts!

I have been working to collect pictures of all Charlie's outfits with creatures on the butt. He has many! I am finally getting to posting them. Please note that these pictures took place over many weeks, so you may notice some differences in Charlie's size from pic to pic. Enjoy!!

"ferociously cute"

"go bananas"

"little squirt"

There's no cute quote on the giraffe outfit! Guess he's cute enough on his own!

"snugglesaurus"

"dog gone cute"

Charlie is so going to hate me some day for this one!!

I just wanted to prove that his butt is cute even without a creature! :-)