GO AWAY IKE!!

Have you noticed the trend with my Titles?? All part of the great fun of living on the Gulf Coast!!! We wished Gustav away, but it hit our friends the Tubre's! So sorry Jac!!!

My sister has moved in and starts work tomorrow!! I can never ever thank her enough for all the sacrifices she has made for my family!!

And now for the weekly updates!!!

Cannon - Cannon has exceeded his birthweight and is gaining fast! We hope he'll hit three pounds by the end of this week and will get to wear clothes!! His PDA did not close with the medicine, but he is having zero problems from it, so they're going to leave well enough alone!! He has been a HAM the last few times we saw him! I've taken some really great pics of him smiling and will do my best to get them on here tomorrow or Tuesday! The nurses taught me how to get Cannon and Gunner out of their beds without assistance from them, so I actually feel like their mom when I'm there and can just grab them up when I feel like it!!

Gunner - Gunner has moved into Progressive Care with Cannon and they are now back to back isolette buddies!! He continues to gain weight and will try to start bottle feeding this week!! So excited about that!!! Gunner is doing the best by far!! He looks like a little dude with his clothes on!!! I know, I know, I need to post pictures!!! The boys are in a competition! Jenna Walker is pregnant with quads as we speak and is rocking out!!! Go Jenna Go!! She and her husband, Ryan, are expecting one little girl nugget, Jillian, who the boys are fighting over! I told them whoever came home first could be her boyfriend!! Ryan, I promise I'll raise them to treat her with the utmost respect!!!!

Lauren - Lauren has decided she didn't want to be the delicate flower anymore! She still has her PDA, but has decided it's not going to stand in her way! She's up to 18cc's every three hours, has been taken off all IV fluids and will have her PICC line removed tomorrow! She also is off of CPAP and is now on nasal canula! Last time they tried that she wimped out on us and had to go back on CPAP, so we're saying lots of prayers for her to stay strong without CPAP!! We told her she had a boyfriend and he was no wienie so she needed to stop acting up and impress him!! Thanks Moni for letting Pius be our daughter's inspiration to act right!!!!

Avery - Avery has fallen into the delicate flower category! She has had issues with heart rate drops which are "normal" in preemies, but we just don't want to be "normal." They tried her on Lasix to see if that would help and it seemed to do so for a day, but then she started acting up again! They checked her levels and determined she needed more aminophilline and that seems to be doing the trick today! She is off of CPAP and is on IFS (The Infant Flow™ System with its unique, patented generator design delivers stable, non-invasive CPAP therapy in harmony with the infant's own respiratory efforts by using Fluidic Flip technology and the Coanda Effect. Added work of breathing is significantly lower with the Infant Flow System compared to other systems because of an almost instantaneous response to patient effort and reduced system resistance.) The main reason she was put on IFS instead was because it has different prongs for her nose that don't seem to bother her as much. With the CPAP she was ripping it out two to three times a shift. No matter how they had it strapped on, taped on, she just ripped it out! She's still the fiestiest which means she'll get over this heart rate stuff soon and be kicking all their tails!! Avery's boyfriend is Cullen Tubre! (Can you see we're taking the leftover Graf's and Tubre's that didn't already have significant others! We're really copying them is what we're doing, but, hey, it gives our babies incentives!!) He may have to send her an e-mail and tell her to quit acting up!! He sent her a dress for her birthday and I haven't shown it to her yet, maybe I should do that!!!

We're so proud of our Muffins! In more ways than one they have been fighters and have exceeded lots of expectations! Please continue to pray for our family and expecially our girl muffins!! I'll try and post pictures soon!!!!

Oh, and if you read the blog Daddy, Happy Birthday!!! Your five Cochran Grandchildren wish you the happiest year ever!!! Can't wait until you come visit again! Hannah Noelle loves her Me-Mom and Pe-Pop!!!!!