Happy Easter!

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We had a pretty low key Easter this year… we admittedly dropped the ball on Max's first Easter basket; it would have been filled with candy he wasn't allowed to eat anyway, so we didn't stress about it too much!

In the morning, we headed over to Katie and Jason's house for brunch… excellent as always, and our old friend Susan was there (celebrating her birthday too!) so that was a pleasant surprise.

Max “found” his first Easter egg:

Faith shares like a champ!

The Whole Fam:

Our Little Fam:

After brunch, we headed off to run a Very Important Errand. We took Max back to Kaiser to visit Kelly, his primary nurse, and to deliver the hats! There's something to be said for calling in to the NICU, saying “Can you please tell Kelly that Max is here to visit?” and have the person answering the phone say “Oh, of course! She's been so excited to see you guys!” We love Kelly so much, and Max and I haven't seen her since we dropped of doughtnuts for Christmas, so it was great to see her again!
She was SO touched by the hats… she started digging through the bag, pulling them out, each one cuter than the last, and thanked us profusely. Over all, I think they were a hit and I'm so proud of what we were able to do!
I was thrilled to find out that they've started a NICU parent drop in group a couple times a month, where NICU parents can meet each other, and chat about what's going on, and just generally touch base with others who know what they're dealing with. There was a definite lack of “community” in the NICU; it's so hard… you want to meet people, you see the same people day in and day out, but it's really frowned upon to interact at all… our litigeous society has made it really difficult to reach out. I'm really happy that “out NICU” is now doing something to help people out.
Also, there's a NICU reunion coming up in October, which I can't wait for! Max will probably be walking by then, and compared to the teeny tiny infant that left the NICU last July, he'll be a totally different kid!

The Peas will be mad, but I didn't take many pictures at our hat presentation… Jamie and I got kind of caught up in the moment and I totally forgot I even had the camera! I do, however, finally have a photo of Max and Kelly! All those days in the NICU, and we never managed to get one of them together! So I'll share that one with you…

Thanks again to everyone who helped with the hats! We ended up with a total of 208 hats… an amazing number!