Grad School/Michelle Update: Michelle has successfully completed her first three grad school courses! YAY! It was really tough to be away from home for three whole weeks, but it did go by really, really quickly and she learned SO much! She has lots of new information to pass along to her students, and is looking forward to the new school year! And, she's trying to gear up for the three classes she'll be taking online this fall/spring. Chemistry for biology teachers, here I come! =)
In addition to completing the first part of her grad school courses, she's also been working on curriculum and trying to determine her schedule for next school year. It's likely she'll be teaching an extra class (again!), and it's probably going to be chemistry. Interesting....it will be a VERY interesting school year! She is headed to Dallas (Carrollton) today to help Justin and Katherine move into their new home-YAY! She is SO excited to have some of her family join her in TX. This is the closest her brother has lived to her since she was in high school and he was in college-WOW! They've always been at least 6++ hours away from each other, so 3 1/2 hours is CLOSE! She's looking forward to seeing him more often, and to getting to know Katherine even better! Her parents have driven down to help as well, so they will be coming to Austin at the end of this week to visit for a couple of days and to meet our new addition, Mozart. My mom was hoping the twins would be out of the hospital, but that's not looking likely...more on them later!
Justin: Justin has just been chugging along at work. It's still very busy for them so he works late most nights and works most Saturdays-ugh. Luckily, his boss has tried to make sure they don't have to work on Sunday...so at least we have one day to hang out together! Things should start slowing down soon though, just in time for Michelle to go back to school and get very, very busy! Other than that, he has tried to keep our lawn somewhat alive with our water restrictions..which is NOT an easy job!
The Twins: The twins are doing REALLY well, and should be on the back side of their time in the NICU, and hopefully will be heading home in the next 2-3 weeks. Hailey is now well over 5 lbs...maybe even over 5.5lbs. She is feeding lots from a bottle and last week started breastfeeding as well! She is taking to both very well, and when she is able to take ALL feedings from bottle/breast then she can go home!!! She totally looks like a real baby now (finally!) and I got to hold her after returning from St. Louis! It was very, very exciting! Abigail is also doing well, though not quite as well as Haily. She is still not yet 5lbs, but is getting closer. They removed her nasal canula (breathing helper thing), but also stopped giving her caffeine at the same time and that was rushing her a bit, so she is back on the nasal canula for now. She is also feeding well from bottle and breast though, so that is good. The sad news this week was that McKayla (our 2 1/2 year old niece) got strep throat. This meant the whole household was banned from NICU until everyone in the house was symptom free for 48 hours. So, Kyle and Andrea have been unable to visit the girls since last Wed! This means Justin and I can't go either, but that's ok with us, we just feel bad for Kyle and Andrea!!! McKayla was given antibiotics and was not contagious as of Friday, and her fever did break, so Andrea SHOULD be able to go visit tonight. Hopefully, Uncle Justin will be able to join her since he hasn't seen the girls in well over a month! At any rate, the girls are progressing SO well considering how early they were born and have had relatively few problems, we are SO blessed and thankful! Hopefully they will be home soon so Andrea can settle in and get used to having 2 infants and a toddler running around (how you get used to that--I have no idea!).
Pictures of the twins, now sharing an open crib! In the bottom picture, the near one is Abigail and the far one is Hailey.
That's about it...we've definitely been keeping busy and things don't show any sign of slowing down, as usual! We hope you are all doing well!!
