Day 26...

Caroline continues to do very well in the NICU - she is focused on feeding and growing. She is still has her feeding tube and monitors but otherwise is wire free. She's maintaining her body temperature in the crib and just has to put on weight and learn to take all of her feedings on her own. We are focused on completing her car seat test and going to through monitor training this week while she puts on weight and continues to grow. Everyone is expecting that she will come home on a monitor for approximately one month - the monitors alarm anytime she has an 'event' where she stops breathing. Almost since the beginning, Caroline has been resolving all her events on her own - meaning - although she is forgetting to breath, she does figure out on her own without additional stimulation to start breathing again. This is again good news for her.

She is in the bad habit of pulling out her feeding tube on a daily basis, so we took the opportunity to snap her photo with one of her biggest fans in the NICU yesterday. Nurse Lori has been rooting Caroline on since day one and Caroline totally responds to her voice - she also LOVES Halloween and entertains us with a million new outfits!

I have also been meaning to post a photo of my daily drive to and from the plaza. The canopy of color along Ward Parkway is amazing - it just makes me smile each day. When Caroline arrived the trees were not even changing color yet and now today - they are just beyond their peak and will soon be thinning out. After mentioning the trees almost daily, Patrick and GA snapped this photo for me on their way home the other night. Although it doesn't do the color justice, you get the idea.

And a few more shots of mom and dad enjoying snuggle time with Caroline. She is starting to really change with the extra weight she's putting on - her cheeks are filling out, her eyes are changing, her ears have grown and she is working hard to grow into her head:) She is holding steady at 3 pounds, 12 ounces today.