glimpses of Mary

A few things to catch in this clip: trying to get her thumb, hiccups, yawn, smile?, grabbing at the camera, and best of all - not crying! :)

birthday cake

Corrie made this for me. She said pink was my favorite color..

sledding down the 'hill'

When I got home today it was twilight and the deep snow was still in our yard. Here's a clip of the 'slide' we made.
In the beginning of the clip she says "I'm ridn n da prpl sld dat grmma grmpa gave meee..." :) If you weren't used to her, that probably sounded like another language!
Thanks to Petersons for bringing the sled..

wacky hot air balloons

review of LOST

Haven't seen LOST and want to catch up? No problem:

"I'm goin' down to the li-brary.."

Tip: After you press play on the youtube clips, there is an option in the lower right corner for "HQ". Click that to see the clip in High Quality -- it looks a lot better.

"I'm so happy to see you"

a rare warm day...

Thanks to a very long nap from her sister... Corrie and I got to enjoy the sunshine today. I guess God knows just what you need! Between stuffing her face with snow we managed to build this little guy. Video clip to come...

Maybe he'll be a puddle by tomorrow? We can only hope, smile.

Corrie the cook

the perfect cookie

The creators of 'The Perfect Pizza' bring you: the perfect cookie.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
mix in large bowl:
1 stick real butter, 1 egg,
3-5 heaping spoons of Crisco,
1/2 c. sugar, 1/2-2/3 c. br. sugar,
1 tsp. real vanilla.
Mix.
Add 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. baking soda,
6oz. semisweet choc. chips,
(optional: a handful or three of Quaker oats)
2 c. (don't let it settle) or less of flour.
Should have consistency of pie dough?
Bake at 350 degrees, 4.5 min. on bottom rack,
then 4.5 minutes on top.

Enjoy warm with some milk :)

harness, ultrasounds and Dr. Caltoum

Well, we went for the second time down to Riley to check on Mary's hips. Our first visit things didn't seem very promising... from what we understood both hips were bad but specifically Mary's left hip was completely dislocated and out of the socket. Dr. Caltoum (see above picture) put her in yet another harness and wanted to see her in a week to check if the hip was in the socket. If not, she talked about a cast or possibly even surgery... it was a long drive home.

Yesterday she had an ultrasound with the harness on and thankfully both hips were looking better. So, it's six weeks with the harness on and we go back for another ultrasound. Hopefully the harness can come off after that... Thank you to everyone who has been praying. And another big thank you to my mom who came down and started modifying some of Mary's clothes so she can wear them with the harness on (a passion I didn't know she had, smile). thank you too to our friend Katie who watched Corrie yesterday while we went to Indy.

Every time we round the corner and and see our home I am amazed at the changes we have been through in our short time as a family but always I feel blessed to have the things we have... or rather "hold the things we hold". Mom Powell, you were right. Corrie did seem to grow up over night and Mary is already such an important part of us. Lately, we have been finding old friends from the summer project where Brian and I met. I'm so glad we both went ...and found each other.

Mary clips, and the new snow

sleeping a lot... well, one of us.

the name game

A few tidbits about her name :)

• 'Mary' is supposed to just be a nice name, a Christmas name, but not necessarily named after Mary the Mother of Jesus -- or because it means 'bitter'. (?)
• Corrie is named after her great grandma Cora Graber, who also has a sister named Mary. Coincidence, really, but a nice one :)
• She will probably not be called "MJ" like in Spiderman.
• Mary J. Powell is not related to Mary J. Blige.
• Noel Powell rhymed, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
• Added bonus: Carrie's middle name is Marie.
  

1 week old

She just needs to grow into that hat a bit...

Also our 6th anniversary today :) I'm doing something real romantic like...getting new tires.

baby practice; before and after

baby related Fun Facts

More goodies from the book that Carrie bought me for Christmas:

• One in every 2,000 babies is born fully clothed.
• Geronimo was conceived while his parents were skydiving.
• A baby has over ten different cries for strained lentils.
• Jesus always felt shortchanged because his birthday fell on Christmas.
• The baby on the Gerber label is a young William Shatner.
• Two out of 5 airplane pilots have a child named 'Niner'.
• The longest human pregnancy on record was 47 months.

Happy new year

Day 4. She's doing great and letting mom sleep almost 4 hours in the middle of the night, and other 1-2 hour shifts.. Corrie is still really curious and helpful - almost too much :) Here are a few photos: the one with the harness is from Day 2, the other one is here at home today. Her face and head are already filling out (ha) and I cloned out a couple scratch marks on her face (she had sharp nails and busy hands!)