Babies . . .Babies. . . and more Babies!!

Hello again! Well, Olivia turned 5 months old this past friday! Can you believe it! Anyway, Grant and I took some time off to have a long weekend to maybe go up to the mountains, but the weather was pretty bad so we decided to go up to Lenoir to surprise his family for his cousin's 3rd birthday party. It was really fun to see everyone again - there were 4 babies born on that side of the family just this year! Here are all the babies:
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Left to Right: Paula holding Gracie (2) and Sawyer (10 months); Sasha holding Karlee (12 weeks); Becca holding Drew (9 months), Me holding Olivia (5 months) and Jason in the back holding Triston (3) the birthday boy!

Here's Becca and I with the baby cousins, Drew and Olivia:

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And Nana with Olivia:
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We had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone, but unfortunately, I think Olivia must have gotten a cold from one of her cousins because she has turned up sick. Poor little thing has a runny nose and the sneezies - her first cold! Oh- well, babies will be babies and share their germs with each other. No big deal, she'll be fine. She still acts just as happy as always, just with a runny nose now.

Here are a couple of funny pics of Olivia. Grant was playing with her on her little blanket before we left town Saturday morning and all of a sudden Olivia just fell asleep mid-play. How funny!
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We also did quite a bit of shopping this weekend. We had a big coupon for gap this weekend and did some shopping for us, and a lot for baby - we couldn't help ourselves! Here she is in her new baby gap sweater. Isn't it adorable:
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She looks like a little elf with that hood! Such a fashion-ista!

We also took some cute videos of Olivia that we wanted to show you all. The first is of baby beating up her daddy. It is pretty funny - she is really letting him have it.
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Here is a video we took tonight of her playing and having a good old time. She's so happy and smiley these days. It is getting more and more fun with her.
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This last video is an update for you all to see her progress with sitting. She has been working on sitting and has been pretty good about staying up if you put her in position by using her hands to support herself. But this video shows that she can now start to not have to use her hands to support herself and still stay sitting for a bit. She still falls over here and there, but she is making great progress.
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We also went over to Randy and Sara's (though Sara wasn't home) to visit with them Friday night after our shopping spree, to hang out for a bit. I had a great time hanging out with the girls (Gracie and Olivia). They are getting to where they can interact more and more and Olivia is starting to catch up to Gracie in size, too! Gracie is sooo mobile now, she crawls and cruises everywhere and can stand up in the middle of the room for quite a while.

Well, I got Randy to take a couple pictures of me holding the girls. This first one came out pretty cute and they were doing really well:

.Then . . . Olivia scratched Gracie . . . Gracie started crying . . . then Olivia started crying because Gracie was crying . . . oh my goodness!!!

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Well, that's about all for now. I hope you enjoyed the new pictures and videos of the little one. I can't believe she is already 5 months old! Wow, time does fly! Until next time, have fun!

Happy (early) Thanksgiving!

I just wanted to share with you all what Olivia did at daycare today! Here's her Thanksgiving turkey that she made, and OF COURSE, it is now on our refrigerator!

Bananas. . . .and carrots

Hello everyone! Well there has been a LOT going on around here this last week. We have been having some issues with Olivia drinking her bottles for a while now and we thought it may have something to do with having a sensitive stomach. So we put her on sensitive formula (lactose free) and that seemed to help a little, but she still would fight her bottles and not want to eat. She'd get pretty upset sometimes. Well, it got pretty bad so we called the doc and he told us to try soy formula . . . it seemed good for the first couple days, then back to fighting the bottle again. We called him again and had to make an appointment for Saturday afternoon. He said she may have silent reflux, which is reflux without any obvious outward signs (basically no spitting up). So . . . he put her on reflux medicine. She has only been on it for a little bit now and we have already seen a major change in her. She is no longer fighting her bottles and has been doing sooo much better. So it isn't a formula issue afterall! Thank goodness we got that figured out. We hate to have to give her medicine (especially since this stuff is pretty yucky!), but it is doing so well for her, that we are thankful for it. He said she should outgrow it by 9-12 months.

Other than that, Grant's parents came up on Sunday afternoon to see the little one and we went to the big Raleigh flea market for the afternoon. It was a nice day and it was good to get Olivia out to see all the cool stuff and people out there. She also got to ride in her stroller without the car seat part for the first time! She got to be a *big* girl! Here's a picture of her all bundled up at the flea market:


We also stopped over at Carter Finley Stadium (Go Wolfpack!) to show them the stadium. We took a couple pictures with Olivia out in front of the howling wolves:

Go Pack!

On a MUCH more fun note, Olivia has been enjoying eating her solids so much! I told you all that we started with applesauce - she liked that ok, but was still confused about the whole spoon feeding thing. Next we tried bananas. She really liked them a lot. This week, we've been doing carrots and my goodness, she is a carrot piggy! She absolutely loves them. When we bring the spoon near her, she leans in and goes after it like a little piranha!! Here are some pictures and a video of her eating her carrots. Keep in mind that Daddy was feeding her and, . . . well . . . he does his best, but let's just take a look at all the fun places we wound up having carrots . . .

Can you recognise her under all those carrots?? :)

Notice the carrots over by her ear . . . and up her nose!

Watch her go after that spoon! It's a good thing she doesn't have teeth yet!!!

Here are some more pictures of her taking a bath this week.

Yummy butterfly!

Here are a couple pictures of her hanging out and playing! We love this baby blanket that Aunt Sue got her. It is so adorable and we get lots of compliments on it.

Olivia has also taken to log rolling . . . a lot! She moves all over the place now. She can spin in place and she is starting to scoot a bit and has been trying to get her knees under her! She likes to log roll all the way across the room and if you leave her for a minute now, there's no telling where you'll find her!! Guess we need to get moving on that whole baby-proofing thing!

Here's a video of her log rolling across the floor. She'll often roll until she gets stuck against something to where she can't go any further. It's pretty funny because she'll keep trying to roll, even with something in her way!

Aside from all of that, we are both working a lot and going about the daily grind. My project has ramped up to full speed and I am burning the candle at both ends! But it's always fun to come home and see that smiling face - makes it all worth it! :)

Happy Halloween!

Hello again! Ok, so Little Olivia was the cutest little pumpkin ever for her first Halloween! We found the costume on sale at Babies-R-Us a couple weeks ago and it was just too cute not to get for her. We didn't go out anywhere, just dressed her up for the trick-or-treaters that came to our house. Here are some Halloween pictures for you all to see.


Grandma Noreen got her this cute Halloween outfit (it says "Peek-A-Boo") for her to wear:





Grandmom Susan got her this cute pumpkin bib to wear, too:

Ok, Ok, I know you all want to see her in her costume. Here is the cute little pumpkin:

(See her sitting by herself! Ok, so she can't do it for too long, but she's getting there!)

How Cute!!!

Isn't she just the cutest little pumpkin???

Yum Yum Yum!!!

We had baby's 4-month doctor's appointment (she's actually 4 1/2 months old) on Halloween (mean mommy and daddy made baby get shots on Halloween!). She did really well with the shots, though. The first one she didn't do anything (almost like she didn't feel it), then the second one she didn't do anything at first, then made an upset face and the nurse and I quickly started talking to her and she smiled without even making one peep! I was so thrilled at how good she did.

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Here are her stats for 4 1/2 months old:
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Weight: 15 lbs 4.5 oz (75%)

Length: 25" (75%)

Head Diameter: 16 3/4" (80%)

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She went from 25% to 50% and now 75% - she's growing like a weed!

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Unfortunately with as well as she did with getting her shots, she wound up getting pretty sick that night. After we had been home for several hours and had her cute little costume on (see the next blog), she started vomiting pretty bad. She threw up so much that she didn't have anything left to throw up - but she kept right on anyway. She had a little fever for a bit then she felt cold and clammy. The poor little baby, we were so worried for her. Fortunately, she wound up sleeping well and woke up feeling MUCH better today! Apparently 1 in 50 babies have that sort of reaction to the vaccines. Still much better than getting what they are vaccinating her against!

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AND the big news was that she was cleared to start some solids. So Grant and I went and got her some cereal and some fruits and veggies to try out over the next few weeks. After we got home from the doctor's office and the store, she was still in a pretty good mood and getting hungry so I mixed her up some rice cereal and put a little bit of applesauce in it for flavor. She did really well with her first couple bites. She ate a little bit of it then started losing her patience, so we finished off with a bottle. Baby steps. We tried again tonight and she wasn't in much of a mood to try it so after a couple attempts, we gave up. We'll try again tomorrow or in a couple days. But, overall her first couple bites went well. Here's a couple pictures of the very first bites so you guys won't miss anything (I have a video - but it's not uploading for some reason!):

I'll do another halloween post after this one so you all can see how cute she was in her costume. But before I leave you this time, I have a couple more pictures to share with you of her that I took the other night before her bath:

Look at that Stinky Foot!

Yup, she's found her feet! She started this about 1 or 2 weeks ago. The doctor told us that she is early doing this. (It is usually a 6-month thing!)

Look at that chubby girl!