1st Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It's such an amazing and sometimes still surreal feeling to be celebrating Monroe's first Christmas in 2011. We certainly weren't expecting this! But we are so lucky our little nugget (as Jill calls her-I think she's watching too much Gold Rush on TV) is doing so well. On Thursday night and again on Christmas Eve her weights went up 20 grams (that's the first two times she has gained more than 10 grams a day!), so we are very excited to see her growing and changing. Christmas Eve was also her 2 week birthday. Can't believe it has been 2 weeks already, but at the same time it feels like she has been here even longer since we can't imagine life without her.

They make these cute little signs for her door, this was the 2 week old sign.



Thursday Monroe's bilirubin was checked and it was just a little high so she's back under the blue lights for jaundice until Sunday or Monday. She also has to wear her sweet sunglasses again. The doctors said we could still hold her as much as we want and we have been taking full advantage.









Christmas Eve was a very big day. It was the first time that Grandma held Monroe. It was really nice and went well. I told my mom we hadn't had time to get Christmas presents this year, so holding Monroe was her Christmas present. I think she was ok with that.





Last night Bree made up the cutest little Christmas card with her foot prints.



Today her feedings went up 10% to 5.5mL/hour, so that should help her gain even more weight. We wrapped a couple presents from Santa for her stocking and unwrapped them for her this morning.



And Santa and the Elves came back to visit today and brought her a nice wooden puzzle.



Last night we celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents' house and all of the presents were for Monroe and we wouldn't want it any other way.



My dad ordered her a sing a long song CD that I'm sure will be played over and over and over and over in the coming years.



My mom made her a bunch of blankets and burp cloths and got her so many cute outfits. She is going to be VERY well dressed.



My parents also ordered the stroller/carseat combo we had on our registry, so we're very excited to see that! We have received so many generous gifts and money to put toward things for Monroe and we are so very thankful for all of our generous family and friends. We are so lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives. We are getting closer to finishing the basement and that means closer to finishing Monroe's room. We'll have a few more furniture type things to get and some painting done. We have a little more time though, it's just so hard to be at home when all we want to do is be at the hospital with our little girl.