Turkey Day, Get a grip, & GQ

Hey all-

I hope that everyone had a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

For us it was a great chance to have relatives in for a visit, get some much-needed catchup sleep, and stuff ourselves with turkey and all the fixin's!!!

We cheated a bit this year, ordering in a pre-cooked meal from Hy-Vee instead of cooking our own from scratch, but that we were able to break bread with our loved ones (minus the two who are still doing their own "cooking from scratch") made it a joyous occasion.

As you can see from the photo, we had to adapt a little bit on the seating arrangements- opting for a two-tiered approach to dining together.

Clockwise from L to R - Grandma Linda, Grandpa Chris, Mom,
Grandpa Jim, Dad, Grandma Carol

The weekend also provided a great opportunity for Great Grandparents and Great Aunts to visit!

Great Grandpa Laverne, Great Grandma Theresa & Mom

Mom, Great Grandma Theresa, & Great Aunt Lori

Our schedule remained pretty much the same over the break- mornings and evenings in the NICU with the kids.

Caroline has just begun a round of steroids to help her with some lung development.  After a strong start, she has plateaued a bit and the docs want to keep her going strong.  I warned the nurses that she could be prone to fits of "Roid Rage", but they assured me this would not be the case.  She's grown to 1 lb 10 oz. and continues to go up on her feeding amounts and handles the digestion of such quite well  (Sidebar- I'm going to be off of any form of pesto for a while.  I suspect that this will just be the first of many poo-related aversions I'm going to develop)

Logan has grown well too.  He's up to 3 lbs. and 8 oz.  He's been getting milk supplemented with high-protein formula and aside from a few stoppages (he's related to his Grandpa Chris) he's been handling them like a champ.   Since he's on a regular vent, unlike his sis, he's been hogging all the kangaroo time lately as Mom and Dad have been alternating days with him for an hour or more each night.  He's strong too.  Didn't like lying on his side on Thursday morning and turned himself over onto his back.  Surprised the nurses that he was able to do that.

We continue to hear from the docs that the kids are moving along at a normal pace for the NICU world and their nurses continue to ask to be back taking care of them, so I assume that means that they've behaved themselves while Mom and Dad aren't there.

As we continue along this journey - just 3 weeks in - it's amazing how far we've already come.

And here are some photos from this weekend:

Miss Caroline was very alert and awake on Friday morning,
so we spent some time interacting with her before we
changed her diaper and such.

She has a killer grip - strong like a vice.
She always is hanging onto something, her bedding, a tube or wire,
or her bedding.  It's funny to think about now, but she would always
hold her umbilical cord in our ultrasound photos.  

Logan may be prepping for a career in modeling.
He's got the pose.  

But something tells me we're going to have to
work on getting him a better headshot.
His "Blue Steel" needs some work.
(Zoolander reference)

Well that's it for our update.

We hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and have made it back safely whence you came.

All our very best,

Mike and Melissa Vogel