I think I've been slacking a little bit with the posting, I keep telling myself to update the blog and for some reason I never get around to it. Sorry!! Abby is doing wonderful, she's getting so big and she's so fun. We took her to the pediatrician last week and they think she's doing really great. She weighed in at 10.10lbs and was 22inches long!! Such a chunker and we love it!! Abby did have to get her four month shots, and she really did not like that! Her face was purple and she was screaming, but after a few minutes she was fine, and she slept great that night!! Earlier today we went to the clinic at Chester County to see her neonatologist and someone from physical therapy to see where her development is and if she needs Early Intervention(a state funded program to help with development). They were very excited with her progress-and how big she is! She has great control and strength in her head and moves around really well. She isn't that great with the visual things, but great with sound. She won't look at someone and follow them with her eyes, or really with toys, so they're a little concerned. The eye Dr said Abby has a wandering eye, which 80% of babies are born with, and most correct themselves. We go back in July to get it checked. If it's not corrected she might have to wear a patch on her stronger eye to help the weak eye. They gave us some things to do with her to help strengthen they eye so we'll see what happens. The PT thinks the wandering eye might be affecting her ability to track things, but they aren't that worried since everything else was great. Abby was definitely pooped after all the activity today. They did a bunch of tests to test her strength, lots of stuff with toys and sounds, and she did great. So no Early Intervention, and we go see PT and the neonatologist again in August and see where she is. We also go back to CHOP on Tuesday for another ultrasound, so everyone keep your fingers crossed and pray that whatever was in her liver is long gone!!! We have finally been able to get out and visit with everyone, which we-especially me since I've been house bound-are thrilled! We really missed everyone! Here are the latest pictures!

my mom was over tonight to get her hair done, and she put Abby right to sleep.....
this outfit was a gift and it is so stinking cute on her!

some of you may know that my grandmother had been a little under the weather lately, she fell and has a fracture in her back, so she's been housebound and has been dying to see her great grand baby-I think Abby's her 6Th great grand baby-we finally went to my Aunt Jeanne's house to see her over the weekend, and as you can see she looks great!

Matt's family came for a visit last weekend and we were really excited to see them. Since they live in Massachusetts we don't see them as much as we'd like, but they get down here when they can. Our niece and nephew were on spring break so they came for the trip-I'm sure they wanted to see us and Abby but they love to play with Roxy-and she loves when they come, she was tired for like three days after they left!

Matt's parents and niece and nephew with Abby

Abby finally was able to meet her Great Great Aunt Grace-hence Abby Grace. My grandmother's brother and sisters (and of course my grandmother)were always so good to us growing up, they still spoil us, and I always thought I'd try to use their names when I had babies, Grace was first, so that's where we got Abigail Grace.

We finally got a picture of all of us, thanks to grammy! (excuse the beer bottle in the background)

Abby with the birthday boy-he held her long enough for the picture and then he had enough!

Abby with Aunt Jess...

Moira found Abby's pacifiers and went to town!!!

Abby in her Easter pj's-they say 'just hatched'-they were a gift and they are adorable!

Happy Easter to everyone! We had a great day and we hope everyone else did too. We had my dad, Cathy, Jess, Jim and the kids over for breakfast-which Matt made and it was awesome. Then we went to my mom's for dinner-I think I'm still in a food coma! It's alwasy an adventure when Moira and Aidan are here-especially Moira-she is into everything! She walked away from us for about two seconds and I found her dipping her hands into the toilet-yuck! She is trouble! Roxy escaped twice, and it takes forever to get her back in because she thinks it's a game and just runs from us, but we managed to rangle her back in. We do have so much fun with the kids. Matt and I hid some Easter eggs for them, and of course as soon as Aidan walked in he started to find them-I guess we didn't hide them too well! After they left we had some down time before we headed to my mom's for dinner. It was also my brothers 18th birthday, so it was nice to see him-and tease him. We had a great day, and ate way too much!

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I updated the blog! I don't even have an excuse because we haven't really had much going on. Abby is wonderful, as usual. She's smiling and cooing more. She definitely wants to talk, but she can't quite figure out how, I'm sure she'll be talking up a storm in no time! We are venturing out more, mostly to Target or my sisters-but it's still nice to get out when we can! Hopefully it will warm up and we can get out even more. Here are some picture from the past couple of weeks.

Abby just hanging out being cute in her boppy

After bath time...

Abby's cousins watching over her...

She's started licking everything, it's really cute!!!!

Hello Spring!! Well, at least it felt like it yesterday and I love it! It's kind of ugly today but yesterday was beautiful so I'll take it! The Long family is doing wonderful, and we are finally starting to venture out with Abby. I took her to Jess's on Monday, our first outing alone, and it was great to get out of the house. It was so good to see Aidan and Moira(and Jess), even if it was little nerve racking. Moira loves baby dolls, and she thinks Abby is her new baby, so she was literally squeezing and hugging the crap out of her, but it was SO cute! Aidan can't get enough of her, he says "Abby is the cutest baby in the whole world, not Moira"-I love it! It was even cute when Moira decided to blow her nose on Abby's blanket-I'm not sure why she did it, but Jess and I were cracking up. Jess made brownies for dessert and I definitely found some chocolate on Abby's hat when we got home, I guess Moira was playing with that too! We had a great time, and I loved seeing them.

On Tuesday, I took Abby to the eye Dr for a checkup. He said everything looks great, and we go back in July just to make sure everything is still good. I also took Abby out shopping with me, so exciting! And Matt and I decided we wanted to go out to eat so last night we took Abby out to dinner. We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise because I really wanted a pina colada, and we survived. We went early in case it was crowded and Abby didn't cooperate, so we felt like old farts, but it was nice to go out. Abby thankfully slept most of the time, so it was a nice quiet dinner-which I'm sure will be few and far between as she gets bigger. We are just loving being with her, she is starting to smile and coo at us, it's so cute, we can't get enough. Although I'm sure Abby has had enough of the camera! Here are the latest pictures.....

Abby with her cousins... In her big girl clothes...

We bought her a mirror with lights and music and she loves it, she's starting to smile at it and of course we had the camera in her face the whole time!

Abby hanging out with Daddy, this is about a half hour ago, it was the first time we put her under this thing with the lights and music and she loved it! She was smiling and cooing, it's amazing to watch her discover everything....

Hello again to everyone! It seems that we have fewer updates lately, and I think that's a good thing. No news is good news right? Everyone here is doing wonderful. As of this past Friday, Abby is off of the monitor for good! YAY!!!!!! Last week she was only on the monitor at night when we were all asleep, until they got the results from the download. It's so exciting! Now we can get on with our lives and just enjoy being with Abby. We still have plenty of Dr appointments coming up in the next few months. We have to see a specialist to make sure her eyes are developing properly, (which they were at the last checkup), we have her four month checkup and shots, we go back to CHOP in May for another ultrasound, and we also go back to Chester County to meet with the physical therapist in April to see where Abby's development is. All of those appointments are a piece of cake compared to everything else we've been through. It just feels so good to be done with everything else. We are just loving her and starting to be around more family and friends. We have a had a few visitors, but we're still staying home for the most part, trying to keep Abby healthy, especially until it's warm-and when will that be?? We are certainly ready for the spring! This past weekend if was finally time for Abby to meet Aidan and Moira, and we couldn't wait. I really miss them! It went pretty well, (-only a few meltdowns) Aidan wanted to hold Abby the whole time and Moira was eating Roxy's food and they were both chasing Roxy around the house, but we survived. Here are a few pics.....

here's the family, of course Roxy managed to get in!
Aidan couldn't get enough of Abby, it was SO cute!

Abby with her Aunt and cousins....

Here she is in her big girl outfit Aunt Kim bought, too cute! It was a little big, but I love it!

Hi everyone! Happy St. Patrick' Day! I hope you're all out drinking green beer and eating corned beef and cabbage (yuck!) I don't have too much to update, but of course there are some new pictures. We're taking so many I'm having a hard time choosing what to post! We went to the Dr on Friday for another shot, and Abby was 8lbs! She's such a chubster and we love it! We are also getting her monitor downloaded today, for the last time! Once they get the results Abby will be off the monitor for good, YAY! Last time they downloaded the monitor, it took two weeks to get the results back, and if they had gotten back the next day, Abby would be off the monitor today, not getting another download. So we talked to the Dr yesterday, we're going to try to get the results sent right to her so she can read them in the next day or two, but in the mean time, we're only putting Abby on the monitor at night when we're all sleeping-well some of us, she's been boycotting sleep lately. The Dr told us to just live our lives during the day and not worry about it. She's doing so well and the monitor's memory is empty, so there isn't anything happening, and we are done! Hopefully we'll be rid of it soon. Here are some new pictures of the peanut...

here is Grammy with her grand-babies.... here is some tub time...she's loving the tub lately, no tears...

my little peanut!

I was trying to keep her awake, but I guess she was pooped, of course this was the middle of the day, not at night...

We have some more news for everyone, and it seems to be good news! We heard from the surgeon and the liver specialist today. The surgeon thinks that the growth is probably a hematoma (which is pretty much a collection of blood)-this is what they originally thought it was. When Abby was first in the NICU, they had her main IV line in through her belly button and they think that's where the hematoma came from. If it is a hematoma, it will go away on it's own and we won't need surgery! YAY!!! There isn't a way for them to know 100% at this point, but that's what they think. The blood work also came back normal, which also leads them to believe it wasn't a hamartoma. We are scheduled to go back to see the surgeon in two months and have another ultrasound and at that appointment he'll decide if she needs an MRI. Again, we are trying not to get our hopes up too high because nothing is totally certain, but whatever the mass is, it's shrinking own it's own and that is amazing!!! We are really happy and are praying she won't need the surgery, but we'll have to wait and see. It seems like all of your prayers are certainly working! We'll keep everyone posted if anything changes. Here are some new pics of Abby doing some more tummy time, which she loves more and more these days.

this is how I know she's done, she either cries or starts to fall asleep, and she's pretty close here....
Abby is so stinking strong! She lifts her head all the way up, it's crazy! She looks like a turtle!