Grandma Loving

Grandma and Grandpa have been popping in to visit. Here are a couple pictures of us snuggling with Grandma.

cuteness and hamming it up

It's all about driving cars with daddy!

How about this cuteness!

Miss Kayla Ann's 6 months stats:
17 lbs. 9 oz
25 inches

At 6 months Kayla can:
--army crawl (she started at 5.5 months)
--started to crawl with hands and knees
--is using her hands more equally
--has 2 teeth!

My first foods!

Mommy and Daddy started Kayla on some food about 5 days before her 6 month milestone. She loved it. We've done beans, peas, sweet potato, and carrots about now! Kayla even demands to feed herself.

Visiting with the Kaplans

Mommy's really really good friends came to visit us from brooklyn! Erin was mommy's maid of honor in her wedding. Erin had a beautiful baby boy, Patrick Aiden, in June! These pictures are of all of us hanging out at the end of July. We had such a fun time playing at the park and the canal. You can see Kayla was fascinated with baby Patrick. Meanwhile, my pal was their puppy Rauri. I wandered around for weeks saying "where's Rauri girl, where's Rauri girl." We hope to see the Kaplans again soon!




All of hanging on the canal.






What's a little beer between boys?

Hiking

We are bit behind in updating the blog. We've been trying to spend lots of time as a family. Here are some pictures from our family hike a couple days after we got out of the hospital. The Savino Family joined us as well! This trail is less than a mile from our house.

Kayla Baby Leg Campaign

While in the PICU, the staff were constantly commenting on Kayla's baby legs (her little leg warmers). We wanted to give back for the amazing care we received, so Jenn had this thought to donate some sets of baby legs to the PICU. After thinking about it a bit more, Jenn decided to call Andy's sister for help. Amy is an amazing marketing guru! She contact the Baby Leg company right away and the Kayla Baby Leg Campaign was born. See Amy's email below. We hope you all will help us in giving back to Strong Hospital! Please spread the word. Thanks, Amy, for all of your wonderful work on this!

________________________________________________________________

In early July, Kayla Pierson...just 5 months old, experienced a severe stroke to the left side of her brain. Her parents, Penfield, NY residents Andy and Jennifer Pierson immediately took Kayla to Strong Memorial Hospital/Galisano Children's Hospital, in Rochster, NY. After a week of intensive testing and treatment, Kayla is home with her family. Her recovery has been nothing short of miraculous. Kayla's parents were so touched by the care and level of professionalism with which the situation was treated, that they wanted to give back. While in the Pediatric ICU, Kayla was kept warm and cozy with her Baby Legs (www.babylegs.com); a leg warmer for babies. PICU staff were so interested in the product as it made for easier diaper changing and warmth in the babies, but could also serve as a friendly cover to otherwise frightening IV lines. Out of this desire to give back and interest in Baby Legs for future PICU residents, the Kayla Baby Legs campaign was born. Through the end of September, for every pair of baby legs you purchase for the Strong PICU, Baby Legs will match your donation with a 2nd pair. The hospital will be washing and reusing the Baby Legs, so your donation of around $12 per pair will touch so many little lives.

The process is as easy as 1 - 2 - 3!

#1 - Go to www.babylegs.com and choose the pair(s) of Baby Legs that you'd like to purchase.

#2 - At check out use coupon code: KaylaPICU and receive a 10% discount on your donation as well as receiving the donation match from BabyLegs.com

#3 - Enter the shipping information as follows:

Kayla Pierson

150 Highledge Dr

ADD TO PICU DONATION FOR KAYLA **this must all be in caps**

Penfield, NY 14526

As previously noted, this campaign will run through the end of September, at which time all of the Baby Legs will be shipped to Kayla's parents. We will then take the donation to the PICU and make the donation in Kayla's name and strength.

Thank you all for your consideration in making a donation!

Best,

Amy Karlgut

Kayla's Aunt

Kayla Ann looking so cute!

Home Sweet Home

a little jam session...
My brother looking super cute!
Look at me starting to use my 2 hands again! Do you notice my wrist rattle? Mommy and Daddy are making me wear it so I can hear and see when my hand is moving. They put them on my feet too, to help encourage me to grab my toes with both hands again.



Here's what we've been up to the last few days! Benji and Kayla have loved loved loved seeing eachother. Jenn's mom caught it on camera, but we didn't. Kayla and Benji kept reaching for eachother. Benji insisted on holding her and Kayla couldn't take her eyes of Benji. It was amazing. Kayla has started belly laughing again and is fully sitting up already. We are so proud of her. You can see the look of concentration on her face and confusion in her eyes when she's missing something. She's always had wise eyes, and now they are in a constant state of confusion. She's afraid of loud noises. She's also gone back to nursing every 2 hours and waking every 2 hours. Not sure if she forgot how to sleep too? Jenn's not really a fan of this regression. :) All in good time!

Home

Benji and Kayla are in bed. Jenn and I are jus... zzzzzzzzz

Yippee!

Getting discharged...paperwork is getting gathered! We hope to be home in the next couple of hours. We appreciate all the emails, voicemails, texts, facebook posts with encouraging words! We know we haven't responded to the vast majority, but we really were touched. We hope to re-start our lives and focus on improving Kayla from here!

Can't wait to see Benji and have our kids reunited.