Good-Bye Grandma

Today Ben had to say good-bye to Grandma Rita as it was time for her to fly back to MN. It was so nice that Ben got to spend some quality time with her and I know he will miss her very much. Ben is already looking forward to a visit from Grandma Cathy next week. He keeps asking us when she is coming:) He is lucky to have so many people that love his so dearly.

Ben also got to say good-bye to his IV today. So now he is fully ramped up on bottle feeding and he is no longer getting any meds or nutrition through an IV. He gained another .5 oz today. Based on his progress, I have a feeling that the hospital will be discharging him earlier than they thought. Our little guy is quite the champ. Pat thinks he is going to be a quarterback because his lucky number seems to be 4. We met him in his 4th day of life. He is currently living in the 4th floor of the hospital. We have switched hotels twice and both times our rooms have been on the 4th floor. I think all new dad's dream about their sons being drafted into the NFL so I guess now it is Pat's turn to hope and dream about this little guy's future.

Ben Meet your new Friend Hudson

Notice the big brown teddy bear in the third picture below. We put that in his crib so he starts to get used to the idea of a big brown hairy animal living in his house....just kidding. Hudson...you have no idea what is coming home with us in a couple of weeks:) I think your life is about to change dramatically!

Milestones For Baby Ben

Bottle Feeding like a Champ!

Ben started out the day in his incubator

By the end of the day he had graduated to an open crib...yay!

Today Ben got to get dressed in Newborn clothes for the 1st time

Cutest baby on the block!

Today was a big day for Ben. He started off the day by finishing his last of his photo-therapy (billy-ruben lights). Today they also tapered off his IV nutrition to nearly nothing and gradually increased his bottle feeds. He is almost to the point where they will take out the IV for good. He is eating more and more at every feeding and he gained .5 of an ounce today. YAY! By the end of the day he was ready to graduate from his incubator to a real crib which means that we now get to dress him in real clothes. It was so fun to dress him in an outfit for the first time. He absolutely drowns in the newborn clothes, but it it so cute and I am sure he will be fitting into them in no time. There is no possible way we could love this baby any more. He has stolen our hearts forever!

Our Big News

Bennett Anthony Jordan

Born July 12th at 9:46 pm in El Paso, TX

Weight: 4lb 9oz

Length: 16.5inches

Adopted into our Family on July 15th, 2010

We arrived in El Paso last night at 7pm and spent the last day by his side at the NICU feeding him, snapping zillions of photos and grinning from ear to ear.

He was born a little early so he is small, but very healthy.

He LOVES his bottle and loves challenging the NICU nurses by tangling up his cords

He has gained 2 oz already so as long as he keeps eating like

a champ and putting on weight, he should be out of the hospital in no time.

All that hair...just like mommy

Amazed by his Daddy

Caption from Ben: "Holy cow, can you believe these are my parents."

We are so amazed by this little man that God brought to our family. No greater gift have we ever been given.

We are Alive and Well

I took a little sabbatical from the Blog. Summer gets so busy and I just needed to unplug a little. We are alive and well!



We went up north for the 4th of July. This is the third year that we have tent camped at the Wilderness of MN campground in Garrison. Although we roughed it in our tents, as our group adds babies, we are able to cheat a little and sneak a shower or two from the Jordans and Antonellos that stay at Ruttgers with the little ones. We spent most of our time at the beach or on the lake or eating. We watched fireworks from the boat on Friday night and saw more fireworks in Garrison on Sunday. It is becoming a fun 4th of July tradition and I hope there are many more to come.



I forgot my camera but you can see pictures on Angel's and Mindy's blogs.

May Day

Mindy and Kaylee have a May Day tradition of dropping off May Day baskets at all of the cousins. This weekend Mindy was gone and Kaylee was staying with me, so I stood in as Kaylee's photographer and get-away driver on the big May Day adventure. Our first stop was Dan and Amy's and this was our sneakiest stop as Kaylee managed to get the baskets to the front step without Dan, who was mowing the front yard, seeing her. She jumped back in the car and then we headed for Mike and Kristin's. There we saw the boys looking at us out of the window, so we we knew we were kind of busted. And then at the Janisch's we were totally busted as they were all out in the driveway when we pulled down their road. What a fun time we had.

One other funny from this weekend was that Kaylee had just learned all about orangutans this week at Como Zoo. The Zoo Keeper had told them all about the fact that their habitat is being destroyed for Palm oil which is in a ton of food and household products. So Kaylee checked every label of every food that touched our mouths this weekend. We learned that chocolate pudding and oreos have the dreaded palm oil in them. Uh oh...but Kaylee said there is no way she can give up the goodies...so she will be feeling very guilty now as she enjoys her oreos:)

Cheerios Chase

Yesterday was the annual Run of Mills 5K event. I was not about to submit myself to the horror of running in front of all of my colleagues, but I figured it would be a fun thing for Kaylee and I to do while she was staying with us this weekend. So we got Kaylee all signed up for the Cheerios Chase Kids Race. We also invited Amy and Adam along to join in the fun. I was thinking Adam would have fun with the inflatables, the Gen Mills characters and watching Kaylee race. Little did I know that Adam, who turns two in a week, would get to participate in the race too. When they called the 4 and unders to the start line, Amy said, "Oh he would love this." So she took him to the start line where he threw a minor fit. But as soon as that "Ready, Set Go" was announced, he took off and ran as if he was the only guy out there. He did not look for Amy or anything, he just took off running after all the bigger kids. It was hysterical! Here are the two Champs sporting their yellow ribbons! And some pictures of Kaylee with the Characters...Adam wanted nothing to do with anybody in costume!