Today Kasey posted our sneak peak of our family photos/Owen's photos and I am absolutely in love.  I am so glad we chose Peace of mind Piece of soul photography to do our first pictures together. :) So here you all go! What I've been waiting for. Here is the link to Kasey and Ben's blog. Enjoy!

http://pmpsphotography.blogspot.com/2012/06/new-bay-owen-k-family.html

Is there an echo in here? June 6 11:07pm

So this past weekend was Kevin's first father's day. We didn't do much, just spent the weekend with our amazing little guy.  Kevin recieved a new grill for his father's day present so we grilled out on Sunday, brats, tinfoil potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms, and grilled asparagus.

On Tuesday we went down to Children's hospital for another interstage clinic appointment, while in the waiting room we met a little boy who was about 5 or 6 named Tucker and he was running around and climbing on everything, we didn't even notice that he has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome until his mother told us. It really gives us hope that Owen will have a somewhat normal childhood.

Dr. Affolter and two of the interstage nurses, Jena and Jen, said Owen was looking really good.  We are going back down on July 3rd for 8am (that's going to be a pretty rough morning), so Owen can get his pre-Glenn echo.  Based on the results of the echo images we will schedule his Glenn.  Looks like it will be mid to late July, I'd prefer it to be a sooner than later so life can get a little easier.  Once Owen has his shunt out, life won't be so complicated.  Right now there are so many things we have to do and keep track of throughout the day that it sometimes seems a little overwhelming. We have to take Owen's weight every day and we have to keep track of his pulse ox and heart rate every day.  We also have to write down all of his feeds throughout the day to make sure he is taking in at least 100cc's per kilogram.  That can get extremely frustrating when Owen is having bad days where he doesn't want to cooperate and take his bottle nicely.  It's times like those that I wish Owen had a g-tube in, but then there are the extremely good days where I'm relieved that we didn't have the g-tube put in.  All in all, our life since Owen was born has been constantly hectic, but it is definitely worth it. It is so weird to think that in a few weeks Kevin and I will be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary! I can't believe how time flies! 


As for milestones, Owen is able to hold his head up on his own now and he managed to roll from his side to his tummy this morning.  He has also discovered that he has feet, but he can't quite reach them yet and he LOVES to "talk".  He is constantly chattering (while in a good mood). He also sticks his tongue out. 




Well, I'm going to wrap this up with some pictures so I can go to bed. :) Enjoy!

Just chilling with the Bear.

Napping on mommy.

All smiles! 

He rolled onto his tummy by himself!

Now Owen can match Daddy!

These socks were HUGE on him when he was in the hospital, now they fit perfectly!
 Owen is growing too fast!

Update and Photobomb! June 15th 4:45pm

So since we haven't updated in over a week, I thought I would let you all know what we have been up to! Last week, Thursday the 7th,  Owen had his second pediatrician appointment, which was the first time I took him out by myself! Nothing new to report from the appointment.  They just weighed him and took his temp. Afterwards, we went to Walmart to pick up a few things.  Saturday the 9th, we went to a few rummage sales and ended up coming home with lots of clothes for Owen.  We spent much of the day relaxing and having family time.  Sunday the 10th, we had our first family photo session and Owen's 2 month pictures!  We went through Peace of mind Piece of Soul Photography, in Green Bay.  They were one of the many amazing donors for our benefit back in March. And I must say I absolutely can't wait to see the pictures!! I've been checking their Facebook page, Blog, and website multiple times everyday to see if they posted any teaser photos! No such luck yet.  After we got home, Trisha and Debra came over and we discussed the surprise birthday party we were planning for Deb's sister, Becky.  Their dad is the one we asked everyone to pray for about a month or so ago because he was in a terrible car accident.  Monday morning Trisha came over and watched Owen while I had his phone interview for SSID.  Wednesday, Trisha and I took Owen to the grocery store with us to get the food for the graduation party that evening.  The party was a complete surprise for Becky.  Since then Owen and I have just been spending time at home cuddling and cleaning (Bear has been shedding so bad that I feel like I am constantly vaccumming). We've also been collecting cute summer rompers that have no sleeves for Owen.  They are a godsend on really warm days! Owen is doing so well lately, he is even able to hold his head up by himself, it's still a little wobbly, but he is doing it! :) We have also been getting to know our next door neighbors this week, since they have been redoing their roof on their house and two sheds.  Chris and his wife are extremely nice and his kids and grandkids are as well. It's nice to have that connection. Chris has been giving us the DL on the neighborhood.

So as you all have been waiting for, I have a massive photobomb for you all and probably another one later this evening too (from Kevin's phone).  But since Kevin isn't here, you're only going to get the pictures I have on my phone. :) There are even a few of Bear.  Enjoy!


Note: We have pink baby towels for Owen, because when we went to the store to buy some we could either spend $20 on a single towel or get a pack of three for the same price, well they were all out of the blue ones...We figured he wouldn't notice until he's older! :)

We also gave in and bought a new entertainment center for our living room, since our living room looked a little like a college dorm living room, we figured it was time for an upgrade, it's in one of the pictures (where Owen is watching TV). Kevin and I had a bonding moment trying to get it put together!

Family June 6 4:06pm

I meant to post yesterday, but we had Owen's second appointment at Children's, so we were extremely busy all day.  So yesterday marked Owen's two month post op anniversary.  The past two months have been extremely crazy and emotional, but the end result is perfect.  Owen is everything I ever imagined and then some.  For being just over two months old, he is the bravest person I know and I am not just saying that because I am his mother. I am saying this because it is true.  The one thing I hate when people pity us. Owen is amazing and absolutely perfect despite his heart defect. We keep climbing the mountain towards his next surgery and all I think about is how proud I am of Owen for getting this far.  In my eyes we are lucky.  Lucky to have such an amazing little boy that shows us constantly how precious life is. Not to mention all the amazing people we have met on our journey so far. All the doctors and nurses in the CICU have become an important part of our family.  It's amazing to think how a group of people we had never met can become such important figures in our and Owen's lives.  I never imagined that first week of Owen being born that we would leave the hospital 6 weeks later with not just our beautiful son, but also a network of friends.  We stopped in the cicu to visit yesterday and I can honestly say it felt like being at home.

Good clinic visit 8:26pm June 5th

So Owen is now on Enfamil fortified to 24 kcal.  After a day on the non fortified Enfamil, Owen lost weight, so when Cassie texted the interstage pager yesterday about that they gave us a new recipe for fortifying the formula to 24 kcal.  Today we had Owen's second interstage clinic visit down at Children's Hospital.  The appointment went really well.  Owen was awake the whole time and just enjoying laying on the exam table in his diaper, kicking his legs, and talking.  Owen is looking really good.  They had one of the surgeons come in to look at Owen's incision because some of the sutures are sticking out.  The surgeon said that Owen's incision is looking really good and the sutures sticking out is actually quite normal but he did trim a few of them off.  He said that we can pick Owen up under the arms if we want to because his sternum should be as good as new at this point, a full two months post operative.  Owen's weight was back up again, so that is encouraging, maybe we finally have a formula that will work for him.  They want to do another echo cardiogram in a few weeks, and since they wanted it a month from his last clinic visit we probably are going to have his next visit in three weeks.  After we were done in the clinic we decided to visit in CICU, since we didn't have to run to the lab to get a blood draw like last week and we had some extra time.  As usual, every was fawning over Owen and how cute he is and how great he is looking.  That's about it, Owen is sleeping right now, pretty much for the first time today, for some reason he didn't really sleep in the car very much, and he was starting to get pretty fussy here because he was over tired.  Isn't that kind of silly how babies will get fussy when they are tired instead of just going to sleep.  Hopefully he will sleep well again tonight like he has the past few nights.

Our dog thinks he is a cat 4:19pm June 3rd

So I think Bear might have picked up some habits from Tanner and Silver, Cassie's parents' cats.  The other day Cassie was sitting in Bear's favorite chair with Owen and he really wanted to sit there and look out the window.  So what does he do?  He climbs up on the back of the chair like a cat so that he can look out the window.  I am relaying this now because earlier today Cassie was sitting there again and she coaxed Bear to sit on the back of the chair again and I got a few pictures of this odd behavior.  The funny thing is he stayed on the back of the chair even after Cassie moved  As far as Owen is doing back on the Enfamil without fortifying it, he is taking in more volume than he has in the last few days.  I think he might be developing an oral aversion because it seems that we can't get him to eat unless he is sleeping (or nearly sleeping).  If he is awake and you try to stick the bottle in his mouth he starts fussing.  But if he is sleeping, he takes the bottle just fine.  It seems that every time we change something we have to learn how to handle Owen all over again.  Hopefully we will find something that works.  Now he are the pictures of Bear.  Isn't that funny a dog named Bear who thinks he is a cat.

Struggling 11:44pm June 2nd

So since they switched Owen to the Elecare formula which is the hypoallergenic formula, Owen has been getting fussy for every feed.  We have been struggling to even get him to take a little bit, but we have still been scraping along.  Sometimes Owen will start crying as soon as the nipple of the bottle gets past his lips, it doesn't even have to touch him.  We aren't sure if it is that the taste is different or what, but Owen just doesn't seem to like this new formula.  The other night the nutritionist suggested that we could try flavoring the formula so that he would take more, so we started putting some vanilla, the artificial stuff without any alcohol in it, but that didn't seem to help.  So every day, Owen has been taking less and less formula and for the first time tonight in a very long time Owen didn't even reach his maintenance goal for the day, he fell short by 5ml.  Earlier this evening Cassie was getting very frustrated so I told her to just take a nap and I would take care of Owen, but she didn't feel like sleeping, so she went to hang out with Tanya and Trisha.  Before Owen was even done with his 9pm feed, his last feed in the 24 hour cycle, I texted the interstage pager saying that he probably wasn't going to reach maintenance today.  I knew it was going to be close and since it is the first day he hasn't reached maintenance, they weren't too concerned but they did tell us to switch back to the Enfamil formula in case it was the taste that was turning him off to eating and to not fortify it just to make sure that he will get adequate volume if the thickness of the formula is getting to be too hard for Owen.  So hopefully things will get better.  Until this morning Owen had still been gaining weight each day, but today's drop might be due to the fact that the two feeds before we weighed him were smaller than normal.  They want us to text his weight in the morning to make sure that he is still on track with his growth and not starting to loose weight.

Two months old! (Well tomorrow) June 1 5:21pm

Hello to all our amazing readers, followers, friends, and family! It's Cassie writing this time.  So as you all know we switched Owen's formula on Tuesday to an amino acid based one because we thought that he could have a milk protein allergy.  Since we switched, he hasn't had any bloody stools!

I am thoroughly enjoying being a stay at home mommy, but I wish the weather was a little nicer so I can bring Owen on my daily walks I take with Bear after Kevin gets home from work. Soon enough, hopefully.

Owen will be 2 months old tomorrow, so this afternoon I spent some time taking lots of pictures of Owen.  I will be posting some of them up here for you all to enjoy! :)