March for Babies

**Remember to turn off the music that is below and to the right on the sidebar**

Please support Karlee and I as we fight to end prematurity. You can support us by clinking on the link on the sidebar or by visiting www.marchforbabies.org/karleealbertson! Thanks!!

Merry Christmas!!

Pray for Stellan and MckMama

Baby is Stellan is 8 weeks old and currently fighting a hard case of RSV. Stellan is in the hospital and has stopped breathing a few times. He is still fighting hard to breathe and is on the brink of being intubated/ventilated. Please remember him and his family in your thoughts and prayers and also stop by MckMamas blog if you haven't already to read about the MckMiracle that baby Stellan already is...it is a truly amazing story and to also let her know that her family is in your prayers!!

Fisher-Price's Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle & Coo Doll

You be the judge of what this doll is saying!! This is a doll that of Karlee's and there is quite the contraversy over what the doll is saying. This is an actual video of her doll!! Comment with what you think it says. I have the doll go through it twice so you can hear it twice. People are being outraged by this doll saying it says al qaeda is the light, islam is the light or even some that say satin is king. See if you can hear either of the 3 statements in this doll. Karlee has 2 of them and we returned a third one a month ago. Crazy!! It has been all over the news and Wal-Mart pulled them off their shelves. Fisher-Price says the dolls just jabbers and says Mama and that it is just a bad recorder!! You be the judge!!!

Albertson Family

March of Dimes 2008 Prematurity Conference

This past Friday, I was invited to Helena to participate in the March of Dimes 2008 Prematurity Conference & Volunteer Leadership Conference. It was an honor to get invited to participate in anything that raises awareness on the issue of prematurity. The conference started out with Dr. Jordan Perlow an OB-GYN from Phoenix who is an expert in pre-term birth talking about if Premature Birth in the United States is preventable. That was a hard talk filled with lots of tears for me to listen to from a personal perspective as I sit here struggling with trying to decide if we should tempt fate and try for another baby when we have been guaranteed another preemie. How can I help fight to end prematurity when I would be knowingly and willingly giving birth to a preemie? So, long story short, after hearing his talk, I had came to realization that I probably wouldn't be having another baby. BUT THEN........I got to speak to him one on one about my case and what I was told by my docs here and he gave me hope that I have a chance of not having a preemie. Will I go to 40 weeks.....NO....but possibly 35 or 36 weeks which is 4 more weeks than I made it with Karlee.

**Me, Tana, Amity & LaShay**

After the conference, we had the Volunteer Leadership Dinner and Awards. This past year when Karlee & I participated in the March for Babies, we walked as part of the team Montana Mamas and with a very dear friend of mine, LaShay who was blessed with a beautiful daughter, Chezni born at 26 weeks. Unfortunately God needed Chezni and after 2 months, took her home. Well LaShay, LaShay's mom, and Amity (founder of Montana Mamas) attended the conference and dinner with me and we were all given an award for being one of the top fundraisers for the walk. It was a great to know that the money we worked so hard to raise will be going to great research to help give all babies a healthy start at life. We are very inspired to work even harder this next year and raise even more money for the babies that need our help. Someone worked hard years ago and that work helped to save Karlee's life and I owe it to give back. Needless to say, when the invite to the conference went out, they should have said in big letters to bring tissues as I shed a lot of tears of joy, sadness, thankfullness, pain....it was just an emotional day!!

Give all your babies, no matter how old, a big hug and kiss and be THANKFUL and CHERISH every moment with them!!

Preemie Prayer

Preemie Prayer

Heavenly father full of grace

A ray of sunshine upon her face

On this night there's one thing I pray

You gave her life so please don't take it away

You sent her an angel to stand by her side

Thur heal pricks for gases, not a tear did she cry

All ten fingers and all ten toes

Barely as big as a giant rose

From three pounds to five pounds

Your on your way home

My precious little girl, oh how you've grown

On this night there's one last thing to say

Thank You God for letting her stay

**This is a prayer that I read daily while Karlee was in the NICU and I am still thanking GOD everyday for letting her stay!!**

Hey Diddle, Diddle

If this doesn't make you laugh.....nothing will!! :-)

Voted

Prematurity Awareness Month

**Karlee the day she was born-9 weeks early-3lbs 6oz**

In the United States today, 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely, and millions of children face serious health challenges or have trouble learning in school because they were born too soon. It's time for our country to do more to help moms have healthy, full-term babies.
Will you help me this November, Prematurity Awareness Month? Sign the Petition for Preemies at marchofdimes.com/petition and let your voice be heard. Then send to your friends and ask them to take a stand, too. More newborns die from premature birth than any other cause — but solutions are within our grasp. Join me this November in spreading the word and show our support for the March of Dimes and give hope for all babies for a healthy start in life.

We need to focus the nation’s attention on the impact premature birth has on babies and families, and on the opportunities for prevention. Today more than 1,400 babies in the U.S. will be born prematurely. Many will be too small and too sick to go home. Instead, they face weeks or even months in the intensive care unit. (NICU). These babies face an increased risk of serious medical complication, and death; however, most eventually will go home. What can you do to help....sign the Petition for Preemies! The Petition for Preemies addresses the following: 1. We urge the federal government to increase support for prematurity-related research and data collection as recommended by the Institute of Medicine and the Surgeon General’s Conference on the Prevention of Preterm Birth, to: (a) identify the causes of premature birth; (b) test strategies for prevention; (c) improve the care, treatment and outcomes of preterm infants; (d) and better define and track the problem of premature birth.

2. We urge federal and state policymakers to expand access to health coverage for women of childbearing age and to support smoking cessation programs as part of maternity care.

3. We call on hospitals and health care professionals to voluntarily assess c-sections and inductions that occur prior to 39 weeks gestation to ensure consistency with professional guidelines.

4. We call on businesses to create workplaces that support maternal and infant health. View our 14 recommendations.

Please help give all babies a chance at 9 months!!


**Karlee @ 5 days old**

P.S. Please feel free to copy and post to your own blog!! Help spread the word!!

Halloween 2008

Our Halloween started off bright and early with a 7:00 a.m. flight home from Arizona so needless to say we were exhausted by the time we got home. It was an early nap for Karlee so hopefully she would be ready to go Trick-r-Treating. Her cousins Cora and Fayth (Fayth & Karlee are 2 months apart in age) were in town so we met up with them and headed to the Mall to get some goodies before heading out to hit the streets. Everything was going great till the dang Easter Bunny (Karlee is deathly afraid of him) had to poke his butt into Halloween. Then it was all over for Karlee! She kept crying and saying, "GO BYE-BYE" so we left. We then decided to go to a neighborhood and go door to door. The girls were all excited and ready to go again till we got to the first house and there were Trick-r-Treaters with masks (who would have thought it)! Scared the crap out of them both and there wasn't enough candy in the world to make them walk up to a door to get candy!! So we decided to call it a night. Karlee did really good though considering we had been gone the whole week and completely out of our routine. Here are a few pictures from the night! Hope everyone had a great Halloween!! :-)

How cute am I????

Halloween Bunco

My Bunco group had our Halloween party on Monday night!! It was a lot of fun and everyone's costumes were great!! I was McKracken the plumber and won best costume which is so ironic because I am not at all in to dressing up and actually almost cancelled going this month beings we were suppose to dress up!!

Pickin' Pumpkins

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch for our annual picking of pumpkins. It was cold, rainy & VERY muddy!! We all had a good time which is all that matters even though we all had to hose our shoes off before we could get in the car to leave!! This weekend we will have the fun task of carving the pumpkins. Thank God for pumpkin carving patterns or who knows what they may look like!! Scary!! Hope everyone is having a Happy Fall!! :-)

More Snow Fun

The snow kept falling until early this evening and we ended up with 22" of snow!! We ventured out in it again today with Karlee even trying to take her jeep for a spin in it!! Needless to say, she didn't make it far!! We are suppose to be in the 60s by Wednesday so we will have a sloppy mess on our hands in a few days!! I will probably be posting mudd pictures next weekend!! :-)

Hope everyone has a great week!!

1st Snow of the Year

We had our first snow storm for the year and Karlee was ready to get out and play it! She had a blast making her first snow angel, eating snow and going down her slide. I am sure we will be back out there tomorrow playing in it and hopefully will be able to get a snowman made!!

Not much else to report for this week!! Been kind of a lazy, slow week for us and it has been nice!! Hopefully everyone had a great week and is enjoying a wonderful weekend!!

2 Years ago today.....

......we brought our miracle home from the hopsital!! It was the happiest day of our lives and also the scariest!!

For the first time, we were solely responsible for her care and had no monitors to tell us if something was wrong!! The last 2 years have been amazing and can't imagine what the next 2, 4, 6, 10, 20, 30 years will bring!! Love ya more than anything sweetie!!

SNOW!!!

It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!! It is SNOWING!!
Yippe!!!! Love the snow!!!

******Update--Pictures from the snow on Friday*****

******Update--Pictures from the snow on Saturday & it is still snowing!! Yeah!!! *****

Feeding the Squirrels

Today Mike had a Saturday off for the first time in a long time so we decided to drive up to Red Lodge. We love going up there every fall and seeing the trees changing colors!! It is beautiful!! We drove up Beartooth Pass to the lookout where the squirrels are always happy to see a friendly face and eat anything you will feed them. Here is some video of Karlee feeding the squirrels and some pictures of our day!! While we were there another little girl...Elli was there with her parents and Karlee and her became BFF's!! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

***Yes she does eat the chip in the end!!! Yucky!! :-)

Squidoo

Squidoo (an online group that raises tons of money for charities) is giving $80,000 to the charities of your choice just by you simply voting. There are lots of charities to choose from including the March of Dimes (we know they can use lots of money to give every baby a chance at 9 months). Click here to vote for any charity of your choice that you believe could use $2. You have until Oct. 15 to vote! It is free and you don't have to sign up for anything! Thanks!!

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-charity-giveaway

This week's Randomness

Nothing special to report this week so I thought I would just post some random items that I found interesting.

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The first picture is of Dave Mahon. He is a Baker, MT native and grew up next door to my mom with his other 12 brothers and sisters and my mom's other 8 brothers and sisters. So yes....half the town's population was on one street corner. Okay....back to the picture!! Dave is the Superintendent at the Huntley Project High School in Worden, MT. Their school was burned to the ground by 4 troubled young kids (ages 19, 16, & 2 14 year-olds) on Thursday, September 18. This picture is so powerful to me in the fact that no matter how hard government tries to take religion out of schools, you just can't. In their hour of desperate need, the first person they turned to was GOD. Amazing!!

**Huntley Project school superintendent Dave Mahon starts a morning meeting off with a prayer in the Huntley elementary school as the Huntley Project High School burns next door Thursday morning. Firemen, teachers and the public attended the meeting.**

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Next......back in July Karlee had a stubborn mosquito bite on her elbow that decided to don an infection a month after she was bitten. Well, not to be outdone, she has another infected bug bite to end the summer with.

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Next......Random pictures of the week.....

Hope everyone had a great week and is having a great week!! :-)

On the Move

On Saturday, Karlee & I along with some of my family members participated in the 2008 Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk in honor of my Grandpa Everett Knipp who is suffering horribly from the disease and in memory of my Grandma Bertha Koenig who suffered from it before her passing.

Alzheimer's is a horrible diesase that has had a huge impact on my family. Grandpa had a bad episode at the end of March and has not been the same. We all knew that Alzheimers had already started with Grandpa before March as he would forget things and would get confused often. Although all this was happening, Grandpa still had his sense of humor, smile and his willingness to always help one of us grandkids or his kids. Grandpa also did all of the yard work and snow removal and most of all the driving in town and short out of town trips. Things are very different in just 6 short months. Grandpa cannot walk very well as he has a slow shuffle, he is very weak and shaky and so he needs help going up and down stairs. Grandpa does not talk very much anymore and you can tell he is struggling to put words together. He cannot remember much of anything, but does still remember who we all are, but I am sure that will be going soon. Grandpa hardly ever smiles; he has totally lost all of his great personality. It is very hard to see him struggle with this terrible disease and it is very hard to see the toll it has taken on my Grandmother, as she helps him all that she can.

I know that all we can do for my Grandpa now is support him and my Grandma but hopefully we can make a difference for the other generations of my family and other families by finding a cure. I don't want to have to worry about Karlee being inflected with this horrible disease.

Here are a few photos from the walk where the Knipp Krew team won an award for the most money earned for a team!! It was quite an honor to know that we will be making a differenceL-R: Karlee, Myself, Renee (My Uncle Jeff's Daughter), Rachel (Karen's Daughter), Aunt Karen

**Click on the pictures to view it larger**

My Grandpa in June of this year--The one thing I will always remember about my Grandpa no matter what is his smile!!

Jeep Videos ...

Okay..finally!! Here are videos of Karlee with her jeep that she got from Aunt Kodi aka Kookie!! :-) I had to split it into 4 vidoes as blogger doesn't allow a big video!!

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

Video #4

Karlee turns 2

Karlee had her 2nd birthday on Saturday!! It was a lot of fun and she got alot of GREAT gifts. We started with a yummy bbq, then opened gifts and then stuffed ourselves with a great JoJo Circus cake!! Thanks to everyone who was able to attend the bbq...we really appreciated it!! Here are a few pictures from the party! Hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!! :-)

Having Fun @ the Water Park

This past weekend Karlee & I went with my friend Lindsay and her son to the new water park here in town. Mike was in Arizona visiting a friend so he missed out on all the fun. I wasn't sure how Karlee would like it as the few times we have taken her in a pool, she has freaked. We have been going to the spray park up here by our house a lot and that has seemed to help her get over her fears as she loved the Water Park. She had a blast going down the slide and even enjoyed herself on the inter tube with Bridger in the wave pool. Thanks Lindsay and Bridger for the invite. It was fun getting to hang out with you guys again. We will have to get together again soon!! :-)

**Click on the picture collage to see it bigger**

Karlee's Birthday Party

Please join us in celebrating Karlee's 2nd Birthday!! Her party will be Saturday, August 30th @ 5:00p.m. at our house. We are going to bbq and then celebrate with her JoJo Circus cake.

Blogging

I am new to this but I am going to tryyyyyyyyyyyy and post blogs at least once a week to keep everyone up on what is going on in our lives!! Hopefully I won't bore everyone toooooo much!!

Our Miracle is almost 2

So our little miracle is turning 2 soon!! It is so crazy to think back to those frightful first few days and to think where we are now. My how time flies!! Mike and I have been truly blessed by our TINY MIRACLE and she brings us so much joy and happiness everyday. Here are her 2 year pictures.