Saturday 29 June 2013

We're Home

After two weeks and one day in the hospital, little Brett was finally able to come home yesterday! Daddy and Mommy are SO excited to have our precious little bundle with us all of the time now!!!!
Brett did very well on the ride home, with only a couple of whimpers along the way. Grammy McFarland and a couple of the Aunties were at our house to welcome us home when we pulled in the driveway, and had decorated with blue balloons to celebrate the momentous occasion. Grampy McFarland stopped in after work just to say "Hi", and Uncle Jay visited later in the evening and held Brett for quite awhile. That was the first time he had been able to hold him, and he was so nervous that Brett would break in his arms. He was a natural at it though, and Brett just slept the whole time he held him.
We had a pretty good night for the first night home. Brett woke up about every 3 1/2 hours to be fed and have his diaper changed, but in between feedings we all got some pretty good sleep. Daddy took one of the feeding shifts for Mommy as well, and that helped out SO much.
 Thank you all so much for your prayers for us! We appreciate them all, and are so glad to be home! :-)






Saturday 22 June 2013

Today's Pics

Just a few pics I snapped today while spending the day with our little guy.



Friday 21 June 2013

Sleeping Peacefully

My days right now are spent feeding, cuddling, watching and changing this precious little treasure. 


Little Brett is doing very well and continues to make progress every day. He is between 5lb 1oz and 5lb 2oz right now. His body temperature is great, and he could be moved to a crib if his jaundice levels will even out so that he doesn't have to go under  blue lights for it. The doctor told us this morning that he can go home as soon as he is eating everything on his own, and his jaundice readings level out. Please pray that  that day is in the very near future. He has made so much progress, and we are very thankful for that.
I never get tired of watching Matt with our little boy. He is a great Daddy. 




Tuesday 18 June 2013

My Guys


I love these two guys SO much!! I can't tell you how thankful I am to have them in my life!!!
Enjoy this shot from this afternoon. Both of my guys were SO tired! :-)

Monday 17 June 2013

Father's Day

We didn't plan to actually be celebrating Father's Day in the true sense this year at our house, but wouldn't have it any other way now! 


This guy is the best Daddy ever!! He is so gentle, sweet, and loving with our tiny little Brett, and takes advantage of every opportunity he has to hold and touch him. 
We spent Father's Day afternoon with our little man, and I was even able to feed him his bottle. He was sleeping peacefully when we got there and continued to do so until it was time for his next feeding. Doesn't he look so peaceful? 


A special little card for Matt was taped to Brett's isolette when we got there in honor of  Father's Day. One of the nurses makes them for all the NICU baby parents on special occasions. 



Those tiny little footprints are SO adorable!!! This is one of those cards that will get saved in our keepsake box. It was so sweet of the nurse to take time out of her busy schedule to do that for us. 
Baby Brett is doing well, and we thank each one for your prayers. We really appreciate them! 

Friday 14 June 2013

Arrival



Brett Matthew McFarland
June 12, 2013
4 lb 13oz.
18 1/2 inches long

Baby Brett made his arrival early Wednesday morning (12:01am to be exact) a few weeks early. We didn't expect him until July 19th, but he had other plans and decided to come at 34 weeks. Mommy and Baby are both doing fine. We are so blessed with this little treasure, and just fall in love with him more and more every single day. 
Brett will have to stay in the NICU unit of the hospital for a week...maybe two... until he gets bigger, but we know he is getting the best care possible while he stays there. 
I will blog more about all the details later, but in the meantime, enjoy some pictures of our little bundle.










Sunday 9 June 2013

A Touch of Beauty

I just wanted to share a few pictures of the flowers that are blooming around our house right now. I'm enjoying the beautiful blooms, and thought you might as well. :-)



My first call lily blossomed about a week ago. These pictures make it look pink, but it actually has more of a purple hue to it, with a dark purple throat.


This cheery little African violet seems to enjoy my kitchen windowsill over the sink, and I enjoy its pop of color there just as much. :-)


I thought I had killed the beautiful orchid Matt bought me, because after he brought it home, all the buds it had on it dried up and fell off. Some of the leaves were starting to turn brown as well. Thankfully it seemed to pick up after it got established in our east bedroom window, grew more buds, and now we are enjoying the beauty of its blossoms.

Friday 7 June 2013

Carnage or Progress?

After music lessons on Tuesday, Matt and I worked on putting the banisters on the deck. When we got done this is what it looked like.



However, it didn't stay looking that way for long. That afternoon Paul Carter showed up with this to do some work for us, and our whole property began to look like a tornado had struck.






Holes were dug around the sides of the house to check to see if there were any drainage pipes around the house. A couple of trenches were dug to channel surface water away from the foundation of the house. Trees that we didn't need and were in the way got toppled over like match sticks. Brambles and underbrush got uprooted. By the end of the day Tuesday, our property kind of looked like a war zone.
The "carnage" has continued for the last couple of days...more trenches have been dug and more trees and underbrush have been removed. This is what it looked like when Paul got done digging last night.






It is hard to picture it right now, but eventually all of the dug up places will be graded away from the house properly and we will have a beautiful lawn all the way around the house. Also our basement will have no more water trouble, and we will be able to build more rooms down there if we so choose. It is amazing what can happen in such a short period of time, but it is so exciting to see all of this happening that I can't stop smiling! I choose to call it not carnage, but progress! :-)

Monday 3 June 2013

Saturday and Sunday

We had such a busy, productive day Saturday, that I didn't take any pictures. We decided to start the day out a little earlier and try to get some things done before it got SO hot. By 11:00 that morning, we had put up a clothesline, mowed the lawn, Matt had tilled the garden, I spread manure over it, and he had tilled it again. By that time it was getting pretty hot, so we came in, got cleaned up, and headed to town.
 Matt had some birthday money and I had a little piano lesson money saved up that we put together and bought a porch swing for our new deck. We had seen it a few days earlier, and had tried it out at the store deeming it very comfy. I had mentioned picking up a couple of lawn chairs, but jumped on the idea of a porch swing instead. In no time the swing was purchased and loaded into the back of the truck, and we were headed home for a busy afternoon after grabbing a bite to eat in town as well as a grass trimmer to keep our yard looking spiffy.
It was our week to clean the church, so that was the next thing on our "To Do" list when we got back from town. We had that done in about an hour, and we headed home and assembled our new swing and the grass trimmer. I hung out some clothes on my new clothesline, and then Matt and I took turns trimming up our lawn. By supper time our dooryard looked amazing. Here is the one picture Matt took of our Saturday activities.


We ate supper out on the deck for the first time Saturday night! It was so beautiful and relaxing out there! I could have stayed there forever! After supper we made a quick run to the grocery store to pick up a few supplies before heading to Dad and Mom's to return their tiller. We stayed and had some ice cream with them, before heading home to grab showers and fall into bed. Not before Matt had cut down a bush near the front of our lawn that was full of tent caterpillars, though. :-) We enjoyed our productive day together, and found ourselves wishing Matt's vacation wouldn't end.
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My ever faithful photographer had his camera ready last night when we showed up at church last night to find a little excitement happening. Somebody pulled into the church parking lot before church last night with their car smoking. Some of Matt's sisters were at the church singing and saw the car pull in, went out to see if they could help, and found the car starting to flame with the lady who owned it trying to beat out the fire with a blanket. Pam tried to call 911, but the phone in the church wouldn't dial through. I'm not sure of the timing of all that happened next, but somewhere in the next few minutes Mr.Jim had been alerted and had arrived with a fire extinguisher, giving it to the lady and grabbing another one from the church to try to help. Also around the same time one of the Sedgwick firefighters happened to be driving by, saw what was happening, and radioed in the fire department for them. The fire did spread to a couple of trees, but by the time we got there, the fire had been put out, and the trucks were starting to clean up to leave. I felt bad for the poor lady, but she seemed to be doing OK, and thankfully nobody was hurt and the fire didn't spread any further.




Saturday 1 June 2013

Day Off

Matt has been working out straight all week trying to get the deck built for us. Even though he has been enjoying the change of work from selling cars, we really couldn't call this week off a vacation because he has been so busy. He decided that he would fix that by not working on the deck at all yesterday, and just having a relaxing day together.
 It was a warm summer day, and we had already decided the night before that we wanted to go on a picnic for lunch on Friday, so we headed out around 11:00 to Acadia National Park to have a picnic on the sand beach there. We stopped in Ellsworth on the way and picked up supplies for a clothesline as well as sandwiches for our picnic. As usual the park was gorgeous, and I enjoyed sinking my toes into the warm sand on the beach immensely. There is just something about a sand beach that is so much more appealing to me than a rocky one.




After we finished lunch, we headed down to the water and I stuck my toes in to rinse off the sand that had stuck to my feet and legs. The cool water felt so good on such a warm day!





We were both getting thirsty, so we headed back to the car to get our drinks that we had left, and we headed to downtown Bar Harbor to do some sightseeing/
window shopping. Matt took me to our favorite ice cream shop there, and bought a cup of creamy ice cream for both of us to enjoy while we wandered around. We ended up going down to the pier and just relaxing on a park bench to watch the boat activity in the harbor.


Somebody's private yacht was in port and we watched as two guys meticulously cleaned all of the chrome, dark wood, and such that the boat was trimmed with. I couldn't get over how HUGE this boat was or how much it must cost to own something like that!! I told Matt that someday we would have one to dock next to this one. *wink*


A cruise ship was also in. This picture doesn't do it justice to show how gigantic it really was!! We could actually see this boat when we were driving around Acadia National Park.
When we were done our ice cream, our adventures took us into many little shops looking at jewelry and whatever took our fancy until we had worked our way back to the car.



Bar Harbor was the perfect place to spend a relaxing day off. It is always so beautiful there, and I could spend days just wandering through all the quaint little shops. Having a whole afternoon to enjoy with Matt was amazing! I've gotten so spoiled with having him home all week that I already don't want him to go back to work on Monday!