BJM’s Photos

For Nicholas’ 13th birthday this year, Bryan took Nicholas and three of his friends to Glow Putt in Gahanna. I was looking forward to going too, but Ally was sick, it was SUPER cold and Nicholas thought it would be cool for it to just be the ‘guys’. . .wow. . he really is 13, huh? Bryan did an awesome job taking pictures. . The boys reported that is was indeed a lot of fun. Seriously. .how cool is that? I wanna go too! After playing 18 holes, they went to Cici’s to get their fill of pizza and pasta. Wow. . he’s 13!

At our Portrait Party last month, we accepted donations to benefit the Riverside Children’s Hospital NICU.
THANK YOU to everyone that donated money and to those that donated actual items! We had some scrapbooking items, over 28 blankets, and a 4X6 photo printer donated! With the money we collected, we bought over 200 pcs. of photo paper, a supply of ink cartridges, 12 hand mirrors and more scrapbooking supplies. Check out the picture below of the whole donation!
We delivered everything the day after Christmas. One of Ally’s nurses was there and came out to visit with us for a little while. We attempted to get a picture of them together but Ally turned super shy and faked sleep for the photo. . . what a goofball! The last pictures are of the card I made to give them with the donation. . so they could see how much she’s grown in the past two and a half years and to say THANK YOU for taking such good care of her during her NICU stay!

Here is a sampling of the photos that were taken at our Portrait Party that we had last month. Thank you to everyone that came!
We had a great time and hope that you all did too!

AND MORE BFF PHOTOS. . . .

Monday evening was the Holiday Festival at Nicholas’ school. It kicked off with a spaghetti dinner followed by a Christmas concert by the orchestra. (Nicholas is in the center of the photo below in the Santa hat) During this song, only certain kids stood up and they played it by themselves. Very impressive! I can’t believe how much they’ve improved in the past year!!

We were hesitant about taking Ally since we weren’t sure if she would sit through the whole thing, but with the assistance of some juice and vanilla Oreos, she did awesome! At the end, she stood up on Bryan’s lap. Bryan said “Look. .do you see Nicholas? Can you say Nicholas?” (of course we know she can. .she says it all the time) but when Bryan asked her this time, she yelled “Nickwiiis! Nickwiiis!” It was hilarious! Nicholas even heard her all the way down on stage! It was like she was at a rock concert yelling his name!!!! Rock on! Jingle Bell Rock that is!

On the way out we found out that Santa was in the library! We decided to give it a try. . .Nicholas took her up to Santa and she went right to him! She only wanted to tell him about her beanie baby guinea pig that she was holding. . .nothing about Christmas gifts. But. . .I guess he already knows that she’s been a really good girl and what she wants to find under the tree on Christmas morning!

Ally has had some respiratory issues for the past 2+ weeks and we’ve had to do more breathing treatments than ever. Normally she does very well with them, but this past week she’s really been fighting it. Luckily we got a hold of these awesome nebulizer masks. . .They’ve definitely helped make treatments go a little easier. She chooses a baby or stuffed animal to use the tiny turtle preemie mask on and uses the dinosaur on herself. Luckily she’s starting to cough less so we can taper down to less treatments per day! YAY! Unfortunately, we’re going to have to continue a daily Pulmicort treatment every day until at least the end of the winter.

As we were heading out the door a couple of weeks ago, Ally yelled “WAIT ME!” and ran to grab something from her toy box. A few minutes later, she announced that she was ready to go. . .with 5 purses for some reason.

Then she came back in and grabbed her new hat and gloves. CUTE!

Then she found daddy’s hat and gloves in the car and decided to try them on with all 5 purses. How’s that for being a trend-setter? (by the way, we soon discovered that all 5 purses were hilariously EMPTY!)