Happy Birthday!

Ok, so I'm back dating this post because I've just been so busy and haven't had the time to post about our amazing little girl's birthday.


Frankie was able to take the time off so we could give as much attention as possible to the birthday girl. Both of us were thinking how hard it is to believe that we have a two year old. It seriously feels like just yesterday that we were at the hospital waiting for things to progress in the labor room so we could welcome our long, long awaited angel. We wanted to give Olivia as much undivided attention as possible, so we asked our good friend Alyssa Yancey to watch JD for a few hours. We decided to take Olivia to the American West Heritage Center after hearing from Hilary and Brad how much fun it was. It was fun.


We got there just ahead of the crowd, but not too soon that we missed the pony rides and train ride which started at 5:00. At the heritage center they had a corn maze, a huge slide down the hill, hay jumping, and little kids maze, pony rides, train rides and animals. We chose not to go into the corn maze because it was chilly and we didn't want Olivia to get bored with just walking around when there was so much more to do. I think that my favorite part was getting to see her ride the pony. At first she was a little apprehensive, but she decided quickly that she liked being on the pony.


After playing at the heritage center, we took Olivia to go and buy her presents. We let her pick out one toy and the rest of the presents that we bought were saved for her birthday party on Sunday.


We didn't do a whole lot, but we sure had a lot of fun celebrating our little girl. I still can't believe that she is two.

2 Months Old

I can't believe that 2 months have already gone by since we welcomes our sweet baby boy into the family. He is growing so much and just twisting all of our hearts around his little finger. It has been a rather difficult 2 months, but I sure do love my little JD more and more every day. Every time he smiles at me, cries, falls asleep in my arms or anything for that matter, I feel my heart grow even bigger with love. Olivia has also become fond of her little brother. She loves to climb into his bassinet at the end of our bed and go "na-night". She especially loves it when we put JD in there with her to cuddle with her. I can't wait for the days when JD isn't such a fragile little baby and can really cuddle back with her.





JD has grown so much and I've enjoyed getting to notice his little quirks and see him reach certain milestones. Although he isn't sleeping through the night, he has definitely improved upon his waking up every hour. Of course using the swaddling blankets with the Velcro have helped a lot in keeping asleep. He hates them when he's awake, but since he moves so much in his sleep, I have to keep his arms confined. Now he sleeps 3-4 hours at a time. It isn't great, but it is an improvement on every 1-2 hours. Occasionally he does sleep 5 hours at a time, so I hope that he'll eventually move towards that time frame.




JD has been smiling for about a month now, which has been so wonderful to see. The first time I saw him smile at me on purpose was in the middle of the night when he should have been sleeping. He was just trying to butter me up into forgetting it was 3 in the morning. Now you can get him to smile every time he gets his diaper changed or right after he's had a really good feeding. I love to see him smile and coo, it just melts your heart (even at 3 in the morning).


He is also slowly getting past his fussiness and being willing to be put down for short (I say short) period of time. He does have his one really fussy time around 9 o'clock every night right before we put him down to bed. There are times when the only way we can calm him down is to put him in his swing, which he loves to death. Sometimes we can get him to calm down by changing his diaper, which he is really starting to like. But most of the time it has to be the swing.



I've been trying to get him on something of a schedule, but he has been quite resistant. He does not nap very well during the day at all. Some of it has to do with Olivia making noise, but he just doesn't nap for more than an hour at a time. He likes to take cat naps. Sometimes I can get him to take a 2 hour nap while Olivia naps, but not all of the time. So that is what we are trying to work on right now. And that is our little boy.

Random

JD is getting better with sleeping at night, but he still likes to have an awake period at 5 in the morning where he just loves to talk and smile with mom.

The Grass Is Greener On the Other Side

I find that the mind is very interesting that your mind seems to play tricks on you when it is faced with certain choices or situations. For instance, I find myself, quite often, fighting with my cats at night for space on the bed. The story behind this is; nearly every night I get settled into bed and get myself comfortable and headed towards a dream state. Suddenly I feel the bed jostle as one of the cats decides to joins us in the bed. That cat will then choose a spot to get comfortable, which just so happens to be on my legs, behind my legs or in between my legs. Any of these positions restricts my motion in bed. Normally this wouldn't be a problem because I'm already comfortable and settled in for the night, right? Wrong! My mind imidiatly starts to think 'What if I want to turn over and change positions?' Once I start to think that, I am no longer comfortable and I start to develop the urge to roll over and get comfortable somewhere else. I actually like having the cats sleep in the bed with us, just not in the area of my legs, it drives me nuts.


I also find it really funny that Olivia seems to always think that whatever mom and dad have must be better than what I have. This happens a lot at dinner time. Even though she has the exact same food in her dish, what mom and dad have in theirs must be better. Even their silverware is better than mine, so I need to use that too. I find it very amusing, but also quite useful in getting her to eat. If she wont eat what is in her bowl, she just might eat what is in mine. It really has worked wonders in getting her to eat. It is fun when you get to know the little quirks of your children.

Ickie, Ickie, Ickie: Part 2

Yeah, I know; part 2 who would have thought that there would be a part 2. Just as I was starting to recover from my breast infection, we are hit with the flu. I have been dreading the day when my little girl would get really sick, like throwing up sick. Boy was I right to dread it.

Just as I was getting ready to leave for work on Monday, Olivia just suddenly started to throw up. There had been no signs all day that she was feeling under the weather. In fact, I considered it to be one of the better days for both her and JD. So I was very surprised to see her start throwing up. Because I didn't have anyone to cover my shift I had to leave poor Frankie alone for the time being. Thankfully, one of the lab consultants was just in the lab doing his homework, so I asked if he could just do his homework and work at the same time. It all worked out great because what do you know, on the way home from work, I started to throw up too. Thankfully I had a bowl in the car, so there wasn't a gross mess in the car.

In the 20 minutes I was gone for work, Olivia had thrown up 5 times; poor Frankie. Both of them were in the shower when I got home and she was crying. Sweet JD was so good and just chilled in his swing the whole time, what a blessing that was. For two hours or so, Olivia and I just sat in the bathroom throwing up. Poor little girl was so terrified and confused with what her body was doing. At one piont we were so exhausted that we just fell asleep on the floor in the bathroom, needless to say it was a very long night. Frankie was a true saint through the whole ordeal, we never would have made it without him.

By the next morning we were no longer throwing up and were on the mend, but then it became Frankie's turn to be sick. Thankfully he wasn't as sick, and was able to keep from throwing up, but he still had a sick stomach. So far JD hasn't been sick, and we are trying real hard to keep it that way. I must say, that it has been a real blessing to have a washer and dryer in our house, because there was a lot of washing to be done.

Well, we are now on the mend and we hope to keep it that way. I don't want to see my poor little girl so confused about being sick for a long time.

This is just because he is so cute