SANTA!!!!!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa stopped by the NICU yesterday for a chat with the parents and a quick pat on the head for all the babies. It was so great of him to come by. For a moment it felt like everything was normal for us parents. No tubes, no incubators, no wires - just us, our babies and the excitement of Christmas. People like Santa are just frickin awesome!

I even got a pic of all of us. This will come in handy just in case Charlotte gets a KrisKringlephobia like I had. Yes, I was scared of Santa growing up. My mother didn't get a decent picture of me on Santa's lap until I was almost 20. Hopefully Charlotte won't have that same irrational fear (but he is kind of intimidating...).

Our family room is complete and over the last few days I have been getting Charlotte's room ready. I have a couple more things to hang on the wall and then it's pretty much ready. Our house is almost back in order. We still have to finish the laundry room, but that's been put on the back burner until after Christmas. It's time to stop for a moment and just enjoy the season.

I went into my work this past Monday and handed in my resignation. Yep, I am officially a stay-at-home mom now. It feels weird being unemployed, but I'm glad that we can do this and that I can be there to take care of my little peanut when she comes home.

Speaking of our little peanut, she is doing great. As of yesterday, she was up to 3 pounds, 2 ounces. We think that quite a bit of that is water weight, which is supposedly quite common with preemies. I'm able to interact with her a lot more now - give her baths, change her clothes and even change her poopy diapers. I still get excited everytime I can change a diaper. I'm sure one day the thrill will wear off.

Here's a couple more pics. The first one is Charlotte showing off her new booties that one of the nurses gave her. Everytime I see this picture I think "Wow, she's getting so big", which she is, but check out the hands of the nurse holding her and that puts things into persepctive. The second one is our "family Christmas picture". I realize that it's not very Christmasy, but at least Brian and I put on a nice top.