Change is in the air

I'm updating this page a little and taking over some of it for personal scrapbooking use, so any of y'all who don't want to see all my scrapbooking stuff, feel free to unsubscribe!! I'm not sure how often I'll actually post, but I may still do some updates on the kiddos. Plus was thinking of doing some stuff related to my weight loss. So who knows. Change is in the air!

Is anyone out there?

Hello, not sure if anyone still reads this or not. Olivia will be THREE years old on next Sunday! Wow, the time has flown by. And not to be outdone, we are expecting her baby brother sometime this week or next as well!! Things are soon to be very busy around here. Will get some pics up when I can, seeing as how I have one week left of work then will be off for a bit, I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to do that.

Please comment and let me know if you're still reading this. :o)

Carolyn

My Pink Stamper

Couldn't figure out how to put this on the side, so I'm making a post.

Everyone who knows me knows I like to scrapbook! I'm entering for a chance to win a Cricut Expression! yay! (www.cricut.com).




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11 Months Old

So, Olivia turns 11 months old this coming week. She started walking on October 28 at 10.5 months old. She took 2 steps, then got up and walked 6 steps to me! It was awesome! Since then she has not stopped walking yet, and has actually got to where she will walk across half the house from the bedrooms in here to my office. She cut two more teeth up top a few weeks ago, and she has pretty much graduated from baby food and eats primarily table food at daycare.
She also got her ears pierced two weeks ago, on Oct 24. She fussed of course, but seemed to be more upset about being held down so they could mark her ear. The piercing itself only hurt for a few seconds, and she was fine after that. She is getting so big, and has already graduated to her "big-girl" carseat since she is about 22 lbs at this point.

For Halloween Olivia was dressed as a Ladybug, so I dressed up as a butterfly and Blaine dressed up as a bumble bee.

9 Month Update

Well, Olivia is now 9 months and 1 week old. She has grown so much in the last couple months. She finally cut two teeth on the bottom at the same time, and they came thru on July 26. That same week she learned how to get herself up from a laying position, and she started crawling that week too.

In August, the week she turned 8 months old, she came down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease and had to stay home the whole week until she healed. Ever since then she has not wanted to take a pacifier, and she weaned herself from it!

Two weeks ago we had to take her to the doctor, she had a 103.7 fever. They couldn't find out what was wrong with her, but they gave her a shot of antibiotics. They also tested for Flu and it was negative, thank goodness. She was better the next day!

Last weekend she started standing for about 5-10 seconds at a time. She is also working on bringing in 4 teeth up top, her gums have been swollen for a little over a week now!

Look what Mommy found!

Hey y'all, it's been quite a while since we last updated this! It's been quite interesting raising Olivia and watching her grow up. Today she is 7 months old! She has no teeth yet, but she's been teething seriously for about a month now. At 6 months old she weighed 18 pounds. She is eating stage 2 foods now, and recently she has tried chicken and noodles dinner, sweet potatoes and corn, and apples and ham. She doesn't care too much for the turkey and turkey gravy, but i've heard a lot of kiddos don't like the plain meat! She's not crawling yet, but she's been "rocking and rolling" for about a week or so. She sticks her legs straight out and her butt goes up, it's so cute. And of course she pushes herself backward all over the room too. Today I sat her in her high chair to have a bottle because she didn't want to go to sleep. I was cooking, then I went into the living room. When I came back, this is what I found!

And since I'm here, I'll add a few more pics. Enjoy!

Happy Easter

Jelly Bean Prayer

Red is for the blood He gave,
Green is for the grass He made,
Yellow is for the sun so bright,
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins that were made,
White is for the grace He gave,
Purple is for the hour of sorrow,
Pink is for the new tomorrow.

A bag full of Jelly beans,
Colorful and sweet,
Is a Prayer...is a promise...
Is an Easter treat!

...Author Unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Easter Parade

Never saw you look quite so pretty before
Never saw you dressed quite so lovely what's more
I could hardly wait to keep our date this lovely Easter morning
And my heart beat fast as I came through the door
For In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it
You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade
I'll be all in clover and when they look you over
I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter parade

On the Avenue
Fifth Avenue
The photographers will snap us
And you'll find that you're In the rotogravure
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet
And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter parade

...Irving Berlin

Make a Smilebox postcard

Olivia is 3 months old!

Hi all! Olivia is already 3 months old (plus a week) Already! She's been sick this past week, but she's getting better now. Because she was sick, we went to the clinic Monday, and they weighed her of course. She gained 1 and 1/2 pounds, and 2 inches in a month! She now weighs 13 lbs 11.5 oz, and is 24 inches long!!! She has been sleeping through the night since right after she turned 2 months old. She is now sleeping in her own room in her crib. She wakes sometimes at night if she kicks her blankie off or something, but as long as she's warm, she sleeps through until at least 7 am, sometimes til 8 or on a good morning, she will sleep until 9!!! That lets me sleep in and get some rest.

Below is a slide show that captures some of the moments from her 3rd month. Enjoy, and please leave us a message!

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Life in General

Hi all. Things are going good. Olivia was only sick and cranky for a day after she got her shots, then the next day she was back to normal! This past weekend we had to drive down to Louisiana, Blaine's grandmother passed away. She was in declining health for a couple years, then got really bad after New Year's and even had a stroke. After that she was in a nursing facility for about 3 weeks before she passed. She was 87, and she is at peace now, so we are happy that she is not suffering any more. Olivia did great with the car ride, one of us sat in the back with her starting a coupel hours into the ride, gave her a bottle, and then we pulled over on the side of the road to get her out and burp her. She only got fussy the last 20 mins or so! Then on the ride back she did great! We got her out a lot more when we would stop, and of course the pulling over on the side to burp!

When we were there, there were sooooo many people wanting to see her and hold her, the first night (after the trip down there) she got so cranky! She screamed and cried for over an hour and nothing would help. Finally she went to sleep, and was fine after that. She missed her afternoon nap, it was too warm in the house for a while for her liking, and there was a lot of stimulation. At the wake and funeral she did great, I kept her in her carrier so people wouldn't be as adamant about holding her. She got her naps in like she needed, and not as many people passed her around, although there was some! She also got her first "big girl" bath - she proceeded to throw up all over her Paw Paw, so I stripped her down and filled the bathtub with about an inch of water, and laid her down flat, waiting to see what happened - and she was fine! She loved it. Then after the bath she threw up all over me! We were wondering where she was putting all of it..... She slept thru the funeral service, I was happy that I didn't have to get up and walk out with her. She was the great-granddaughter, and she got lots of attention. When I get photos uploaded I will post them later.

She's 2 months old!!

Wow! Hard to believe she's two months old already! She got her first round of shots this past Thursday. She turned really red with her face all scrunched up and didn't breathe for a few seconds - the nurses just said "it's okay, she'll breathe in a minute" and boy did she ever! She started wailing! But she calmed down pretty soon after, she did so great! But when she got mad and didn't breathe for a second (preparing for the scream!) THAT's when mommy got teary eyed!!



she weighed in at 12 lbs 2 oz, and 22 inches long! We had to move her straps on the carseat up to the next notch, cause she's getting so big already!
In this picture she was 7 weeks old, she and I have photoshoots a lot in the mornings when she wakes up, she loves the camera!!

This one is from when she was 6 weeks old. Done in her nursery, I love how it turned out!

Hello

So Olivia is almost 2 months old, the time has flown by!! We have an appt this week to check her weight, and get her first shots :( Will update more later!

Olivia is 1 month old!

Hello all!

Wow, it's hard to believe that our baby girl is already 1 month old - where did the time go? She is getting so big already! Her umbilical cord stump fell off at exactly 4 weeks, so now she's officially "done" lol. She also had a check-up at 4 weeks, and she now weighs 10 lbs 2.5 oz. She had lost more weight at first than the doctors wanted and wasn't gaining like she should, but now they say she's doing great.

We took these pics last night, some of them were before she got to eat so she was understandably a bit fussy. You can see her finished belly button in some of them too. Oh, and in the last one, she is smiling! She has been smiling for over a week or so now, not laughing just yet, and not cooing or vocalizing, but she sure does smile when we play with her! she just loves it!

First Professinal Pictures

So I know this is the third post in the same day, but we had some catching up to do! Today we picked up Olivia's first professional pictures, and they came out so great!

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Olivia's First Christmas!

So this is Olivia sleeping while we were visiting with her Paw-Paw, he came up for the holidays. You can see her beautiful hair in this pic!

Then there's her first picture with Santa - she looks so small and far away in it, because the Santa was so big, and we didn't think to get a close-up shot of it all. She was just 6 days old in this pic!

This is our first Christmas together. Definitely the cheapest Christmas Santa is ever going to have!

Welcome Baby Olivia

Well hello everyone! It's been awhile since we posted on here, we have been so very busy since the last post!

We had an original induction date set for Dec 16, but an ultra-sound showed that Olivia was already getting even bigger, so they moved the date up to Dec 9. They tried induction for two days but it did not work, I just would not progress farther than 2 cm dilated. Then they went ahead with a c-section, which we knew was a good possibility. WEll, let's just say it was awful, quite an experience. The anesthesiologist argued with me when I told him I could still feel some pain, and said they had to get started because the spinal would wear off soon. By the time they got to the deeper cuts I could feel everything and was screaming, so they put me under and had to get the baby out fast. It was an awful experience, and I was out of it for the rest of the day/night.

She turned out perfect though! She was 9 lbs, 6.8 oz, 21 inches long! She is just gorgeous, has a head full of beautiful hair that has natural highlights! EVERYONE who sees her says this! When it's wet it's curly like mine, but when dry is straight. Eyes are blue for right now of course, we're waiting to see if they are like mine and Blaine's!

Since this is a bit late, she is already 4 weeks old, will be a month old on Sunday. Can't beleive how the time has flown, but I have slept through half of it, and wished I were sleeping through the other half. It has been crazy to say the least.

Now that things are getting somewhat back to normal, we will be posting more often.

We got an Induction date!

I met with my real doctor for the first time today finally, I've been working with my gestational diabetes nurse for the past 3 months. I discussed with the doctor about having the baby come early because she is getting too big (based on the ultrasound last week) and that we really don't want to have a c-section. She discussed it with the attending on shift and they agreed, so we got a date to be induced! She said if nothing natural has happened by then, they will admit me the night of Dec 16, begin the first round of meds, then go from there and on the 17th start the other meds, and we'll have the baby that day if all goes well!! We are so excited. We know something could happen sooner, but we also know that they are willing to intervene and do an induction because the baby is so big. I have to stay the night that first night for the induction and then I have a mandatory 2-night stay after delivery because I tested positive for the Group B Strep, so minimum 3 night stay for us.

Baby is doing good, everything looks okay still for now. Be sure to post here if you have any questions or comments. You can post as "anonymous" and not have to sign up for an account, and then at the end of your comment just put your name after it so we know who you are. Love y'all!

34 week Update

I had my ultrasound (u/s) yesterday and last regular appt with my nurse practitioner yesterday before I start seeing a real doc next week. I am 34 w 3 days, and the baby is measuring at 39 weeks 1 day!!! Weighing in at 7 lbs 13 oz, which the tech said the u/s can be up to a pound off, so even with that the baby is AT LEAST 6 lbs 13 oz, which is still too big for a 34 weeker. Right now it's not a huge problem, it just means that I will definitely not make it to the full 40 weeks, and I said that if I can get to 36 weeks (first week of December) I'll be happy. OB wants to get me to 37, we'll see. I start meeting with my real doctor next week and then we can find out about an induction and when we can expect this baby to be here, but I'm looking for about 2.5 more weeks!

Some of y'all may not know yet, but last week at my normal weekly appt I was having a bit of a twinge/pain in my side, but didn't think anything of it since I get that pain a lot when I walk too much or stand for too long. She hooked me up for my weekly non-stress test (to monitor baby) and HELLO I was having contractions! In the 20 minutes she monitored me I had over 7 contractions, but they weren't hurting me at all. She wheeled me strait to Labor & Delivery and I wound up being there for about 5 hours, with contractions the whole time. They were coming every 3 to 4 minutes and got much stronger as the night went on. They gave me IV fluids and two rounds of meds to stop the contractions, and they finally did go away about 10 that night. The visit itself was awful because of the way the doctor and the countless nurses treated me and my family, and even my sister said she was appalled at how they treated us (it's a long story that I won't go into now). Since then, I've been fine, just some small cramps and/or contractions here and there, but nothing serious, and I wasn't dialated, so the doctor was happy about that.

I told my NP about the fiasco with how they treated me last week when I was in L&D contracting for the 5 hours and how awful it all was. She went and talked to the physician’s attending who was in the clinic at the moment, while I was on my NST, and came back and said that this particular doctor who treated me that night has had several complaints against him, so it will definitely be addressed. She also said she would address the other issues with the nurse manager and at least let them know my comments and concerns. She was really nice about the whole thing, then gave me her personal card and told me I had better call her when we have the baby cuz she wants to see her and us! It was sad because she’s been treating me for almost 3 months now, and now I’m done with her. *sigh*……

Everything is good, the NST showed the baby is fine and I actually had 1 or 2 contractions while I was there, but I didn’t even feel them and it wasn’t enough for her to get concerned about either. My sugars are doing good too, unless I indulge in too much dessert lol.

32 weeks along, Jenkins' baby shower

Blaine and I drove down to Louisiana for the Jenkins' baby shower this past weekend, held at Blaine's parents house. We got some things we needed for the baby, and we got some money as well so we can buy things we still need.

My friend Kim was able to come at the last minute and be there for my baby shower! I hadn't seen her in a few years, and we've been friends since the 9th grade. It was so great to have one of my friends there!

This is me at the baby shower, 32 weeks along officially. That makes me right at 8 months along, still have at least 6 weeks left, and look how big I am already!

Visit to Parker Homestead, October 18, 2008

A slideshow illustrating a recent trip out to the Parker Homestead during their Fall Festival, October 18, 2008. There were so many things to see and do, and we all had a great time. Click below to view the pictures, and be sure to leave a comment to let us know what you think!

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Welcome!

Hello everyone! I just made my first official blog ever (besides what I've done on MySpace) so I am still learning how this works. Blaine and I wanted to have a place where all our family and friends can go to check out updates about us and our baby as they happen. You do not need to have an account, and anyone can view this (this is my understanding). We will use this place to post pictures of ourselves, our adventures, and definitely Baby Olivia as they become available. I will also use this to post pictures of my scrapbooking for my scrapping friends to see as well. Be sure to visit often, or better yet subscribe to this blog (on the right here) and you'll be updated when something new is added! As we learn more we will post more for sure.