Storms

I'm currently hanging out in the car so I can do "my business" with Hannah Kate sleeping in my lap. We have been without power since Wednesday night at 6:30, but are extremely blessed that our power & about 10 trees in the driveway are all we have suffered from the storms. many in cleveland have lost their homes & loved ones. I am thankful that we were at home in an awesome basement when the storms hit throughout the day & night Wednesday. Wesley's dad thinks it could be a few weeks before power is restored here. thankfully these Skeltons have the fuse box wired so you can hook a generator up to it! Marvin & Pete brought a generator to us yesterday-Marvin said he thought we would need it to help care for Hannah Kate. And we do!!! So we've had the well pump, freezer, fridge & outlets in kitchen working so I can pump & heat her milk. We are blessed! Dean & Wesley have taken the generator to Mark & Jana's to run their freezer for awhile. If we are without power-this is the way to do it!!








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Happy HK's due date!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rachel Faith and Leah Hope

I just realized I used the word wonderful a ton of times in this post....oh well!

From the Cleveland Daily Banner:

Cleveland Daily Banner

Leah Hope Skelton and Rachel Faith Skelton, infant daughters of Denise and Wesley Skelton, passed away Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2011, in a Nashville hospital.

They were preceded in death by one uncle, Brad Skelton.

In addition to their parents, survivors include their infant sister, Hannah Katherine Skelton; paternal grandparents, Dean and Martha Skelton of Cleveland; maternal grandparents, Jim and Kay Coley of Castalian Springs; two uncles: Mark Skelton and wife, Jana, of Cleveland, and Michael Coley of Raleigh, N.C.; and one cousin, Maggie Skelton.

A private graveside service was held Saturday, April 16, 2011, at Antioch Church of Christ cemetery.

Memorials may be made to the Jamaica Mission Campaign, in care of Eastside Church of Christ, 252 Wildwood Ave. S.E, Cleveland, TN 37311.

Grissom Funeral Home was in charge of the arrangements.

To send an online condolence to the family, please visit www.grissomfh.net.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We are thankful for our church family and your prayers for our family during this whole experience. We love and appreciate you more than you will ever know!

We are thankful for Mark Grissom and his wonderful staff at Grissom Funeral Home. They have been so good to our family on more than one occasion.

We are also thankful to Bros. Roby Ellis, Kyle Gilpin, and Jeff Archey and the wonderful way in which they handled the memorial service.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Our sweet and wonderful Kristy has such a wonderful way with words.
She sent this to us when Hannah Kate was still in the NICU.

All They Knew was Love

They were not made for this world, not to stay.

Souls on a journey in bodies visiting for a day.

And while their heart beat on this earth,

All they knew was love.

All they knew was the comfort of love’s embrace.

They were not made to feel the sorrows of this place.

We shed tears for them that they would never cry,

For all they knew was love.

Hearts were created for them that were never meant to break,

This life a sweet dream from which only their spirits would wake,

We feel a sadness that they will never know,

Because all they knew was love.

Whispered words of all that is good was all they would ever hear,

No thoughts of worry, of grief, of pain, or of fear,

Blessed to tell them only of all that is wonderful,

And all they knew was love.

We have memories of innocence; they have an eternity of peace

In a moment of serenity, this earth granted its release

And all memories of this life will be sweet,

Since all they knew was love.

In memory of Rachel and Leah Skelton.

You were not made for this world, but we feel sorrow at your absence in it. Thank you for the moments of love you granted to us while you were here. We will be ever thankful for the moments shared with you and treasure your memories always, with much love.

Family

Last weekend (Saturday, April 16th), we had the memorial service for our Rachel and Leah. My parents and brother came and stayed Friday night and most of the day Saturday. It was good to get to spend time with them not in the hospital!
Michael got to hold Hannah Kate for the first time. His uncle name is now officially U-Dawg. :) (He and Wesley have tried to convince my mom to go by G-Dawg, but she's not buying it.)

HK hanging out with "Pa." He, Wesley, and Wesley's dad worked cattle all day Friday. They were pretty worn out.

This precious lady is Mrs. Shelly. She is the school nurse at the school where I taught. Wesley and I didn't want to take Hannah Kate to the service and expose her to lots of people/germs. We were also very nervous about leaving her with someone other than a nurse! Mrs. Shelly drove all the way from JC just to keep HK for a few hours. We were so thankful for her!!!

Cousin Sarah was here along with my Aunt Carol and Cousin Celia.

Ma Coley's Easter card to HK said, "I wish I could hold you everyday." So sweet.

Papa and HK. She was awake and I told him she needed to sleep. He told me, "I said just do this," and closed his eyes. :)

Mindy and Gracie came to stay for the weekend as well. We have missed them! They stayed from Saturday until Monday-they went back with us so we could take another vehicle and HK didn't have to ride in the truck. Kristy also went with us so she could ride back with HK and myself.

We are blessed with wonderful family and friends.

Squishy Baby Pictures

I was afraid that Hannah Kate would outgrow her super sleepy stage before I could get to Rebecca to take pictures. So, I took some very quickly one evening.....these were taken in about 10 minutes in the bathroom of all places (it has the best light!) right before I left for worship services. I think they turned out pretty well considering it was my first time to take "squishy baby pictures."
These were taken on April 10th-she was two months old and we had been home for 6 days.

I don't know if she can look anymore like her daddy than she does in the picture below!

Our friend Katherine (her husband is Wesley's good friend from school) made this headband for HK. I am not crazy about headbands, but I LOVE this one!

I think this is my favorite. :) I can't believe how much our sweet girl has grown!

Updates

Whew! I have really neglected the blog, but I think I have finally caught up most of the way. I haven't taken a ton of pictures since we got home from the hospital except with my iPhone. It's not the best pictures, but pretty handy at the same time. I think I will wish later on that I had blogged/journaled a little more during our first few weeks at home, but I am sleep deprived!
We are still feeding Hannah Kate every three hours, even at night. For the first few nights, we both got up with her at each feeding and I would do my business and Wesley would give her a bottle. When we went to JC at the end of the first week at home, HK did not have a good night and I did not get much sleep. When it was time for her 6 o'clock feeding, Wesley told me to stay in bed and he would take care of her. That worked so well, that we have started doing that-I get up and do her middle of the night feeding by myself and Wesley does her first early morning feeding. It works great for us both during the feeding when we get to sleep, but it's not so fun when you have to be awake by yourself trying to feed a sleeping baby! It is better than being completely sleep deprived though. A couple of times during the first few nights, I woke up holding HK asking her if she was hungry and about to change her diaper---then I would look at my phone and see it was an hour before her next feeding. I guess I heard her grunting and just assumed it was time to feed her! The best story I did document on Facebook (below). It was VERY entertaining reading everyone's responses. There were at least 30 of different people's stories about their sleep deprivation during newborn weeks. :) We laughed so hard that we cried.....it could have just been that we were so sleepy though!

HK is eating & has survived her sleep deprived parents--Wesley woke me up about an hour ago frantically looking for her bottle. I had her out of the bassinet & was about to get milk from the fridge when I realized he was looking for the bottle she had finished last time. When I realized that, I looked at the clock & saw it wasn't time for her to eat. At one point, I looked at him and said, "What'd you do, fall asleep FEEDING HER?!" Wesley was still saying something about feeding her when we went back to sleep. I just remembered this whole experience & looked at him & said "what happened earlier?" his response "I have NO idea!"

April 6 at 4:15am

Top of Form

Going Home Day

4.3.11 Sunday night-we were fairly certain that we'd get to go home the next day, so we made sure Amy came to see us!

Our two very special nurses-Amy and Michelle. We had such a great time with these ladies and NP Jenny (pictured below-she's the one who also went to Crieve Hall), that the family next door complained that we were too loud! I felt bad, but we had such a fun time with them. So much for getting a good night's sleep the night before going home....we didn't leave the hospital until 2 am!

Going Home Day!
4.4.11
8 weeks, 5 days old

Our going home day was a whirlwind! Dr. Prince came in and told us that since HK had gained weight on plain breast milk (no supplement) for 2 days, she was good to go. As soon as we got the go ahead, Wesley went to Celia's to load up our stuff. There were supposed to be bad storms and we wanted to get on the road in between two different lines of storms. Lindsay was supposed to stop by to see us after she got out of a class she had to attend, and I was very scared that we were going to miss her! While Wesley was gone, the hospital had a yellow and orange alert for weather. I got pretty nervous when HK's nurse brought in 2 big hospital blankets and told me to cover HK with them if a red alert was announced. Awesome! There was a tornado warning for the county. Wesley got back and we waited until her next feeding to leave.
We had several visitors before we left:

Nurse Allison-who we hadn't seen in a month! (she had been sick and given different assignments) We were so thankful to get to see her!

One last thought bubble thought...

I had the receptionist call Nurse Scarlett to tell her that we were going home.
We were thankful that she came by (and super sad that we didn't have her that day-we aren't quite sure what happened!).

Scarlett starting tearing up and said she wasn't prepared for this!

Thankfully, Lindsay came by right before we were going to leave.

She dressed HK one last time. I was fighting back tears!

Lindsay helped us load ourselves down with bags and even took the elevator down with us. I was so thankful she was there. Somehow I felt a lot more calm with her with us!

Thanks to Nurse Lindsay for this picture!

Getting buckled in!

This was the last picture with the good camera....I had to pack it away and use my phone after this!

This was the weirdest feeling! I kept thinking, "How are we taking her home?!"
I totally cried all the way to the car after taking this picture.

I am really not sure how we fit in the car with all of our stuff!
Wesley proudly announced every "first" in the car. "This is Hannah Kate's first time on the interstate!" first time going under an overpass, being beside and behind a Honda Odyssey, etc. What a trip!

It literally took us 2 hours to get from the hospital to Murfreesboro. Not fun! A tractor trailer had overturned on the interstate. We stopped at this truck stop/gas station to get gas and feed HK. We had to change her on the top of this cooler. Wesley held her on while I changed her diaper. I had to document this! As he was handing her over the seat, I caught myself before I said, "Be careful, I don't think her cords will reach.".....um....she doesn't have cords anymore!
On a side note, during the next car trip there was no cooler and I said, "How will we change her diaper, we don't have a cooler?!"

A horrible picture, but we were finally home!!!! (Just in time to feed her again!)
The total trip that is normally 2 1/2 hours took 5 hours!

Rent Payment

Celia's rent for letting us stay with her for 6 weeks. :)

We didn't give her Hannah Kate!

NICU Day by Day Part 8

4.1.11
Nurse Lindsay helped with a mini-photo session.

4.2.11 TWO MONTHS OLD! See newborn and one month ring shots here and here.

My Aunt Carol brought Ma Coley to see us one last time before we went home. She was very surprised and excited when Wesley told her she'd be more comfortable sitting in this chair with Hannah Kate!

He took these pictures. I LOVE this one. :)

Then, Aunt Carol decided he didn't take enough, so she took some.

Trying out the NICU Bouncy Seat!

Love the view from the top with this hat!

Some sweet friends gave Hannah Kate this outfit. We used it for her "hospital" pictures. Do you know the people who do the "hospital pictures" cost an arm and a leg?! And they were not even good! I made a joke about how each baby's hands were by his/her face, so Nurse Lindsay made sure to stick HK's up there! Ha!

I like these much better than what we would have gotten from the "official" photographers!

We LOVE Nurse Lindsay!!

She will always hold a special place in our heart because she "rescued" us the first night we had her and she was the first one to put clothes on HK....and that continued all along!