Feelin' the love

Happy Valentine's Day! Hard to believe, but this was Samuel's second Valentine's Day in the hospital... makes it even more real that it's been a year. Last Valentine's Day we made big cards for each of the babies that hung on their IV poles... this year we had a big Valentine's Day breakfast with George and Olivia and took Samuel a few of his favorite treats - suckers and mylar balloons :) We certainly have come a long way!

Loving one of the balloons :) It's hysterical, you literally have to take the balloons away for Samuel to take a nap.

Looking studly, as usual, in his Valentine's Day hat :) Thank you Meghan!

Best story behind this bear! From the NICU days, only grandparents were allowed to visit unaccompanied by the parents. Since BB's parents are so far away, we were allowed to have one fill-in 'grandparent' who would visit Samuel on a regular basis. That's a big commitment to ask someone to make! First it was Sarah, who was awesome and read Shakespeare but had to stop coming when she got to about 39+ weeks pregnant... then it was Amanda, who was incredible and made sure Samuel was not fooled by the Brown Bear myth but had to stop coming when she went back to school in New York... then we weren't sure what to do. Until Amanda's mom, Maryann, expressed interest. It was so amazing - I had only met Maryann a handful of times, and she was excited to make a commitment to visit Samuel. We must be the luckiest family to have three such wonderful women visiting our guy! Back to the bear... Maryann teaches, and her students know about Samuel. She got in to work one day last week, and a few girls were excited to tell her about the gifts they made for children in the hospital... and that they made a special one just for Samuel! Yep, the bear :) What a small world! We are so blessed to be surrounded by such love and joy. Thank you Girl Scouts for caring about other kiddos... especially our Samuel!