New

Andrew's sporting a new accessory these days! He's become our little football player around the house. He got his helmet earlier this week and it's still it's not his favorite yet. They say they get used to it and eventually doesn't even phase them. Hope it's true! It's been a long week already, as we've tried to gradually increase the time he uses it. We're hoping this will help with his head shape and round out the back of his head so it's not so flat. Wish us luck!

Illinois Residents

So it seems I blog more now then I ever have. Yet, I feel like I have a ton of things I want to share and haven't. We've been extremely busy lately. I use this as our family journal and would say that this is the longest and most up to date journal I kept. Someday I'll print up a hard copy into a book. But until then.... I'll just keep posting.
So to quickly share what we've been up to, I'm going to roll it all into one post and title it "Illinois Residents" back in December, Stephen and I officially became Illinois residents. Turned in our Utah licesences, registered to vote and took a quick test. Yeah, can you believe they make you take a driving test to get an Illinois license? We weren't expecting that at all.  (AND just for the record...I have to note that I aced it with a 100%. Stephen... Not so much, but they were kind.) Since then, we've benefited from our residency in the 'Land of Lincoln'.  
Chicago has TONS of awesome museums and we've been able to go to a few of them for FREE, being residents. If you know me...you know I can't pass up a free deal! It's great! They have what they call resident days and you can get into most of the museums for free on certain days. The awesome thing about living right here and being so close to the big city, is you can go down for a day, see what you can and not stress that you don't "get it all in". Of course with most museums it's impossible to see everything in one day. I love that we can just go back whenever and I'll most likely be going back to a lot of these places we've visited the last few months. Some friends from the ward and I went to the Museum of Science and Industry one day back in January. They had some really neat exhibits. Tons of hands on and interactive stuff. So far it's been my favorite.

I had to get a picture with the airplanes for Stephen

Us and our boys!

Future Astronaut

We've also been able to go to a free day at the Brookfield ZOO. This zoo was incredible. I don't think I've ever been to a zoo this huge before. You would think that walking around the zoo in February would be the last thing you'd want to do when it's 30 degrees outside. But we really had a fun day! It's super close to Andrew's therapy and so we thought we'd give it a try. A lot of the animals were inside. Because of this we were inside more than we were outside. Andrew LOVED the giraffes. They really caught his eye. They were so tall and they came right up to us.

Say Cheese!!!

The camels were braving the cold too!

Andrew loved watching the penguins dive into the water

A few weeks ago we've been able to be some Travel Guides (if you can call us that???) to some of Stephen's co-workers. A bunch of them from his same rotational program came to Illinois for some training. While they were out here they wanted to see the sites. So we packed our bags and headed into the city for a day. They wanted to do so much. I think we only got about half the things done on their list. Just not enough time in the day.
First stop-The Field Museum. This place was huge and had some awesome exhibits. We got to see a whole bunch of real mummies. Wish we could have taken some pictures though. I was amazed at how well they were preserved being thousands of years old. My other favorite part of the museum was the dinosaur exhibit.

The Field Museum

Family Photo with "Sue" the T-Rex

Andrew crashed in Stephen's arms. It was a long day!

Useless Fact...just like our fingerprints, every Ape's
 nose is different and unique.

We had to find, of course, some yummy deep dish pizza for lunch! Then we took a walk downtown. We hit a little bit of Michigan Ave. and walked through Grant Park. We lucked out with such a beautiful day....windy but warm. What else can you expect from Chicago?

Walking down the Magnificant Mile

Looking over Grant Park

So far...Illinois has treated us well. We picked a good year to move here, having had a mild winter with just a few snow storms and an early spring. The last week or so it's been in the 70's or 80's every day! Couldn't ask for more and needless to say, we frequent the parks these days. Andrew's favorite by far is the swing. Gets a laugh everytime. LOVE it!

March for Babies

The last 8 months since Andrew has been home from the hospital. I've wanted to give back something to someone, but didn't really know how. I've felt completely in debt to all the doctors, nurses, surgeons, medical staff, transport teams, the miracles of modern medicine, technology and years and years of education and research that in reality saved Andrew's life. Had our situation happened 20 or even 10 years ago, I hate to think of the outcome. With his birthday around the corner, I'd hoped we could do something a little extra special to celebrate. Growing up, my mom has always helped with the March of Dimes Foundation. She...along with many others lost a little baby boy, my brother, who was born too early among other things. After doing some research, it didn't take me too long to realize this is where I want to "Give Back" as well.
So this year Stephen and I will be walking in the 2012 March for Babies in memory of our Angel Ethan and in honor of Andrew.

We've set a goal to raise money that will help with research and awareness programs. The money raised will fund research that helps find answers to serious problems that preemies face. Which in turn gives hope to the millions of families with babies born too soon or too sick. In Andrew's case, we are grateful researchers have developed surfactant therapy. Being born so early with no warning, his lungs were immature, underdeveloped and struggled with breathing. The surfactant they gave him, is a protein that kept his small air sacs in his lungs from collapsing. Although Andrew had this surfactant, he was still on oxygen for the first 5 months of his life. Again from research, the lifesaving oxygen treatments he had can lead to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a leading cause of blindness in premature babies. Thankfully much research has been done on just how much oxygen triggers this cause of blindness and they are able to monitor this very closely until the eyes are fully developed. Saying I'm grateful for all the research and doctors that helped our boys is an understatement.

So we're asking if our family and friends would support us in reaching our goal. If you'd like to help, you can make an online donation in any amount. Even $5 or $10 would make a difference and help us reach our goal. Just go to www.marchforbabies.org/holdenboys
OR
You can join a team and walk in your area. There are thousands of chapters around the nation. You can find one close to you by clicking here

I'm thinking this will become a yearly tradition for us. Especially since they walk every spring/early summer, which is when our boys were born. This year we will be walking on April 28th and hope to have the money raised by then.
I'll be honest...I'm kind of nervous and never done anything like this before. So we'll see how it goes! Wish us luck!