A fighter

Despite being born 10 weeks early, Ames is such a strong little fighter. He is truly incredible. 

Kayla and Lance both got to do kangaroo care within 24 hours of him being born. I love how much hospitals are encouraging the skin to skin time with parents.

Ames is awake and loving his Daddy

First time holding his little guy

 The CPAP was on for a couple days to help push oxygen into his lungs, but he proved he didn't need it and could breath on his own. This was a relief, not only because it meant he could breath on his own, but because he HATED the CPAP. I don't blame the guy, he had two tubes stuffed up his nose and huge tubes on either side of his head.

Storytime for Ames

No more CPAP!!!

Within 5 days he moved from the extreme NICU to the normal NICU (clearly those are super technical terms) and got his very own room!! This has been such a blessing.

Bright eyed!!

Loving his mama

At the same time Ames was moving to his new room, Lance's siblings were moving Lance and Kayla out of their apartment and into storage. You see, they just started going through the process of buying a house before Ames was born, and it's down in Albany. So, we got them out of their apartment early to save money and all their stuff is safely sitting in storage until they close on the house.
We were able to pack up their stuff, load it up, drive it down, and unload it into storage within 24 hours. Boom. That's how we dooo!
Now that kind of leaves Lance and Kayla homeless until they close on their house, so Mom and Randy drove up their RV and parked it in the parking lot of the hospital. Now Lance and Kayla get to be close to Ames. However, going from the hospital room to an RV and living out of a suitcase for the last 3 1/2 weeks is starting to take it's toll on the new parents, so we are hopeful that they close on the house soon and then Ames gets to come home.
Back to Ames...
He has started to gain a substantial amount of weight and is up to 4 lbs now! He has his feeding tube but Kayla also gets to nurse him about twice a day, he is still learning and it's so much work for him but he does get some milk and he's doing awesome. They also give him a bottle at some feedings if he is showing signs.
So he is a superstar and as his doctor said, "...ridiculously healthy." Love that little guy to pieces!!

While Ames has been getting stronger and bigger....life at the Holcombs is going well.

A few weekends ago I took Bria and headed down to Albany to see my adorable nieces in their school play, The Little Mermaid! It was such a cute play and Bria loved every minute of it. Jaidyn and Kailey were so much fun to watch and I was so impressed with them. Jaidyn was a one of Ariel's sisters and Kailey played a princess and also a sea creature :)

With Ariel :)

Jensen fam

Not only did Bria and I enjoy watching the girls in their play, but we enjoyed a little Mommy/daughter bonding. We stayed the night at the Tegner's and then in the morning headed back up home with a new passenger...Jax! We got to spend the day with him while Jenny and Kyle visited Lance, Kayla, and Ames and then went out for a date night. 

Funny story, on the drive up I was singing Christmas carols with Bria and I saw this in my rear view mirror:

 So Jax is not a fan of my singing, haha!

We enjoyed having Jax over and all the kids had such a good time.

Wagon ride

Since the weather was decent, Brian took the opportunity to put up our Christmas lights!!! We usually do some bush lights and things like that, but this is the first year we have done them up on the house and I am so excited. I love love love how they turned out. So grateful to Brian for his lack of fear of heights and his mad skillz.

Jax helping out

I feel queasy just looking at this picture.

So our house is all ready for the holidays!! I realize now I need to take a picture at night of the finished product...