Saturday I got to go to a s shower for Phil and Stacey's babies.  It was so great to see everyone! 

I picked up Candice and we headed up to Mantua.  It was  raining  pretty hard a lot of the way up there so we had to go slow, but we finally got there. 

The babies couldn't be there because they are still  too small to leave the University hospital.  They were born in June...at 27 weeks  Stacey had been at the Hospital on bed rest because the babies kept wanting to come out but it was way too early!  They had her on medications to  try to stop it from happening, but they just couldn't. Each baby weighed about 2 pounds....so incredibly tiny. 

Camille was here when they were born, so we went up to the hospital to see them.  You have to be really careful to not bring any germs into the ICU so they had us scrub up good before we went in.  It was pretty amazing to see these tiny little babies.  They were all hooked up to breathing, feeding, heart machines so you couldn't see a lot of them, but you could see that each one was perfectly perfect.  They all had lots of dark hair and sweet little faces.  It was very emotional just watching their little chests rise and fall as they seemed to struggle for every breath.  I couldn't hold back the tears when I watched Phil and Stacey with them.  Phil had this deer in the headlights look on his face and Stacey was just kind of in shock trying to deal with the incredibly challenging road ahead of them.  Both of them so grateful they were doing as well as they were.

We got to visit the babies several times..kind of holding our breath each time for the new challenges they were facing.  One of the boys, Brigham, struggled from the very beginning and he was not thriving as well as the other two, so we were concerned for him.  Stacey wanted to nurse them but couldn't at this  point so she has been pumping her milk and giving it to them through the feeding tube.  She didn't  have a breast pump at first so Camille took her hers to use till they could get one.

As I considered their situation, my heart surely went out to them.  They live in Idaho, where Phil teaches school, so they had to set up house at the Ronald McDonald house until they could bring the babies home.  This place is really a life saver that offers low cost housing and shuttle back and forth to the hospital.  They both stayed there for the first while, then Phil had to go back to Idaho to start school, so Stacey stayed there alone.  I offered a hundred times to have her come stay at our house, but I'm sure that is more convenient and close to the hospital. 

Anyway, the reports were all good on the babies and she had some adorable pictures on her computer of each of them.  They are so cute! They each look completely different from the other. The little girl...Analei ( she is the biggest one at 5 pounds!) has the sweetest little feminine face and the boys, Alex and Brigham are just cute as can be with lots of dark hair.   

 It was so good to see my sisters and their families too...it's been way too long! Gosh I just miss them something terrible...the past few months have flown by and we haven't had a minute to get together.  We made plans for October though....blaaaaaah that's too far away!  I got to have a good visit with Denise too.  I hadn't seen Jasmine since she was a new baby!  She is just darling and that Sophie is just adorable.  Julie said she is way into dragons right now and insisted on wearing her dragon costume to the shower. 

Showing me her "Puff the magic dragon"

 Stacey is such a sweet girl and so grateful for everything.  I got in the crochet mood and made some little hats for the babies.  I got them a bunch of onsies diapers and wipes too....just can't even imagine what it's going to take to keep three babies going!