Hello! It's been quite a while since our last post - hope everyone had a fun summer!! It went by way too fast for the Albrecht Family. Kale enjoyed his first summer outside of the NICU though. We got to spend days playing outside at the park, playing with our water toys, going for walks and we even snuck a trip to Okoboji in so Kale got to go on his first boat ride! What's new..... Kale is just a ball of energy these days! This summer we celebrated his first birthday which he enjoyed thoroughly. He is really close to walking, he walks around furniture, moves from toy to toy but hasn't quite gotten enough courage to actually take the leap of faith and let go of hands or furniture. He loves pushing his walker around so I'm sure it will be any day now that he takes his first solo steps and Derc and I are in for a rude awakening I'm sure! The biggest news with Kale recently is that he underwent eye surgery on 9/2 to correct his crossed eyes. The surgery went really well, it was incredibly nervewracking waiting for the surgery to be completed but luckily our parents came to keep us company while we waited anxiously. His eyes have been very red and bloodshot on the inner part of his eyes. You may be able to see some of the redness in the pictures below. It is going down quite a bit but is still there. They said to expect that for up to 6 weeks...at least they aren't bright red anymore. His eyes look great, it's crazy to see him look at you with both eyes straight, he seems like he has a new outlook on life! As far as other health updates, he had his last cardiologist appointment in May and they didn't want to see him back until December, so that is very promising that they are only wanting to see him every 6 months now. At his latest physical he was tipping the scales :) at 18 lbs. 10 oz. He was 29 inches long, so he is keeping up with his corrected age with height but he is still a few pounds underweight. He is getting there though! He is eating all sorts of food now, but he is still on bottles for calories. He has meals and snacks throughout the day and still takes a bottle in the morning, evening and he wakes up for one every night at 3am......we're hoping that is something we can stop soon!! Any weening tricks would be much appreciated. We're pretty sure when the day comes to sleep through the night he is going to throw a pretty big fit and I'm picturing projectile vomitting. Kale is going to daycare full time and he seems to love it. Derc spent a lot of time down at his friend's land in Southern Iowa this summer. They are developing it for hunting land so there were countless hours spent with his friends mowing, spraying, burning grass, tilling, planting, etc. to get the land ready for hunting season. He's very excited that fall has arrived, he is in full UNI gear every Saturday for football and he is buying hunting gear to get ready for turkey/deer/pheasant seasons. If Kale were able to walk he would probably try and convince me he's ready to get his hunting license, he's pretty excited for that day to come! I have thoroughly enjoyed not working weekends this summer with my job. I have been traveling quite a bit with work and Derc is usually flyin' solo with Kale anywhere between 1-3 nights/week. He is definitely a trooper! We have a busy few months coming up - one of the coolest things is on September 24th we will be headed to the UNI football game where they will be doing a dedication to my dad before the game. After he passed away one of his great friends, Pat, helped get a flagpole installed at the new UNI track. They hadn't ever had a permanent flagpole so before every track meet they would wheel a small flag out for the National Anthem. Pretty cool that the flag pole is a dedication to him and there is a plaque with his name on it!! Well, that's about it for now, hopefully you enjoy the pictures below from the summer!

Happy May Day!

Hello all -

Yes, we are back. Took a long break from blogging, not for any particular reason other than struggling to find time to do it. Lots of updates for you though!!

New things Kale is doing:
-Eating baby food 3 times/day and also eating Puffs
-Sitting up on his own
-Drinking out of a sippy cup...errr trying to
-Getting on all 4's and rocking...so close to crawling!
-Standing up while holding onto the couch
-Making sounds, bababa and mamama are his favorite
-Being much more interactive and inquisitive
-Noticing family, friends and strangers
-Jumping all the time
-Pooping on his own (I know this sounds small but it's really nice not having to give him suppositories every 3 days)...thank God for Miralax :)
-Touching faces
-Being more mobile, standing up, rolling around, crawling on top of us
-Playing peek-a-boo
-Walking towards us while holding on to our hands

Health wise he is doing well too. He is seeing Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy each once/week. The PT helps with gross motor skills, helping with the development for more physical steps like crawling, rolling over. The OT helps more with fine motor skills, for example right now they are working with him to try and have him grab individual puffs with his 'pincher' fingers and feed himself. He seems to enjoy both and each week we can see improvement.

We have his 1 year checkup tomorrow, excited to see how he checks out! We think he is about 18 pounds and he is definitely longer as well. He is breathing well on his own, he hasn't had any episodes where he struggles or anything. His heart continues to slow down as far as beats/minute. His appointment in February had his low at 42 beats/min and average at 60 beats/minute. If his average gets between 50-55 then that's when we have to start considering pacemaker.

This summer we're excited to have weekends free and have more time to spend with each other. I'm constantly surfing the internet for fun things to do in Des Moines so if you have any suggestions, let us know!

We're making our first out of state family trip to Phoenix next week to see some of my family. We are going with Sarah, Justin and Jordan too. It will be Kale's first time on a plane...we're getting a little nervous for how it's going to go. If you have tips on taking a baby on plane the please let us know :)

Derc and I are still enjoying our jobs. I'm finally getting the hang of my new job after a few months in position now. Derc is spending a lot of his free time in Southern Iowa at his friend's land. They are developing the land and also hunting it when possible. He created a website to track the progress if you want to check it out it's pretty cool! The address is www.spursandsheds.com, it's got some good stuff for hunting if that's up your ally.

Well, I'll do my best to keep the blog updated, but obviously I'm pretty terrible at it now so I'm not making any promises :)