HOME!

 We arrived home late evening, and we super surprised to find our fridge full of fresh groceries, and a home cooked meal waiting for us to simply heat up, our freezer full of homemade muffins and buns, and our whole house had been cleaned and laundry was done! Even the bedding was clean! To top it off, all the baby clothes that I had planned to wash and sort (you know, in May), had been washed and sorted into baskets labeled by size!!! What a blessing our sweet friend Jocelyn must have spent a LOT of time here! We are so thankful for all the work she did, it was such a blessing and made our transition so much smoother!

It is so awesome to be home and to just be a family! The big kids are content to find bugs, plant seeds, jump on the trampoline and read stories with Mattias and I on the couch. Time to just be. Just enjoy each other and reflect on the way God has been at work over the past month. Time to be joyful, and thank Him for the ways He has blessed us. So many people have been praying for Mattias, and we are humbled and thankful. So many people helped us out with childcare, making it possible for us to be at the hospital as much as possible. We are thankful for those in our church family who provided meals for us this week as we transition to being home, being a family of 9 and having Jason go back to work. Its gone remarkably smoothly! Praise God for that!

Little man is doing awesome! As of last night he weighed 2620 grams (5 pounds 14 oz)! He is starting to have some more awake time and the kids love interacting with him. Its awesome to see the sibling love and excitement! Mattias is doing awesome with breastfeeding. He is acting more and more like a term baby in terms of cuing, rooting, and fist sucking. Its interesting after being in the nicu the things we get excited about, and the things we realized we previously have taken for granted. I would say its really weird going from the environment where every single ml taken in with feeds, every gram gained or lost is measured daily, all vital signs are monitored constantly, and your baby is assessed with every feed, to all of a sudden you go home... and you don't know if he is gaining weight, if the weird sound he's making is normal and ok and WHERE IS THE HAND SANITIZER????? (I really do miss the hand sanitizer).... its a strange transition! Thankfully, I was lent a baby scale, so every 2 days we have been weighing little man, without having to go out into the germ infested world ;) We were told at discharge, although they were sending us home, they wanted us to keep in mind that Mattias is still fragile and still early. They advised not going out in public and not having any sick visitors. You don't have to tell me twice. So, if you don't see us for a while, thats why... and please don't be offended if I ask you if you are sick if you are dropping by. Honestly, I haven't set foot outside my door in 8 days...and it feels awesome!

                                                  I couldn't choose the best picture :)