Thursday morning

Well, I think by the sound of it Emma Kate had a decent night- I haven't gotten the full update from Mimi or Daddy... I was able to get Gretta out of the house without waking Mimi, and I'm here in the room where Daddy has Emma Kate asleep on top of him in the chair. Sounds like she may have slept a good portion of the night with some awake time too- he did mention that she spent some time going through the massive amount of mail we've got to catch up on.

I wanted to post a few pictures here just to show the progression over the last month or so. I wasn't sure how I would feel about these pictures, didn't want to have to relive it all. But it really is a testament to how far this little girl has come in a month's time, and how strong she is.

First, some pictures of Gretta, the poor girl has been severely neglected in the area of exposure to camera flashes for the first month of her life!

So here's where the road started- this is 10/31/10, the afternoon that Mimi and PopPop were going to be heading home after Gretta's birth and visiting for a few days. We were taking family pictures in the living room. Emma Kate was a little raspier than normal, but acting completely normal otherwise... a couple hours after this picture was taken, we were driving to the ER scared out of our minds about what was going to happen...

Here we are on our first day in the Intermediate care ward after finally leaving the PICU, Emma Kate has gotten so much stronger in just a few days after extubation
We put Gretta in the crib to change her diaper, and Emma Kate leaned in for one of her special "kisses," it was so sweet.
Here's Emma Kate doing the Itsy Bitsy Spider with Lara, her physical therapist
And standing and walking! She still needs a lot of assistance but is getting stronger and stronger by the day!