whoa . . . there's been a LOT going on!

Hello everyone! My goodness there has been a TON of stuff going on around here. I have about 3 blogs worth to tell you all. Ok, so let me first tell you about Olivia's rough time she's had over the last 2 weeks. Well, about 2 weeks ago she started to get a "cold" from a little boy at daycare. No big deal, right? Well, it started getting worse and worse and she was sounding like she had a full blown ADULT bronchitis cough and SHE'S ONLY 7 MONTHS OLD!!! Well, we kept saying we needed to take her to the doctor, but then by the morning she'd seem like it wasn't so bad so we wouldn't go. Then by night she'd be bad again . . . ugh! She had also started wheezing and sounding like she had a ton of gunk in her lungs and throat! She would get so worked up coughing that she would spit up EVERYTHING she'd eaten. Anyway, by last weekend she was running a pretty good fever! So, Grant took her Monday morning to the doctor. Anyway, turns out she had bronchiolitis (an infection of the bronchioles), which can be quite bad! Fortunately, the doctor said she had been fighting it off really well, so that was good news! But, the bad news was . . . she also had gotten a sinus infection! Poor little girl! So, they gave her a script for amoxicillin. Well, after being on it for 2 days, she developed hives all over her body! geez! Yup, turns out she is allergic to the amoxicillin. So . . . now she's on a different antibiotic and she is doing better! No more rash, but still got some crud in her system she just needs to work out. But she is eating better and feeling MUCH better!

Ok, so that was the bad part of the last couple of weeks. The good part is - we are having a lot of firsts lately. Olivia had her FIRST SNOW! They were calling for a couple inches of snow to come this past week, and we got SIX INCHES!!! Wow! Grant's mom had come up to visit Monday night and stayed through Tuesday. She just about got snowed in here! Anyway, we took Olivia out to see the snow for just a little bit (not too long since she was still a little sick) and she seemed to enjoy it. We started by peeking out the window at all the flakes coming down:

Then we went out and she wasn't sure what all that white stuff was, but she had fun checking it out!

Ok, so you all know that she's been "army-crawling" for a while now. Well, she's been trying to crawl up on her knees and is starting to get it figured out. Nothing too dramatic yet, but we're getting there. Here's a picture of her working on it:

Yeah, just as I am typing this she crawled over to me!!! Wow, she's doing so much these days!

But the BIG news is, she has figured out how to pull up! She did it for the first time yesterday morning (Grant went to get her from the crib and she was STANDING!) and by the end of the day, she was a master at it! Woa, don't blink around here! She is now pulling up all the time! Here are a couple of videos of her pulling up - one is from yesterday morning (with Grant) - and one from this morning. You can just see the progress in only ONE DAY!

AND, aside from all of that (and on top of her dealing with being sick), she's getting her FIRST TOOTH!!! Yup, the bottom front right tooth is coming in! I tried to get a picture of it - it is just barely out of the gum-line, but see if you can pick it out in this picture (I tried to put a circle around it to point it out):

Ok, so that should be enough for one blog entry - right (ok, maybe 3 or 4 entries), but with everything going on, I haven't had time to write. I have also been working a lot more lately as my project is coming to a close, we are in a big-time crunch to get everything done! In fact, I really need to get going to do some work today (yes, on a SUNDAY!). And Grant is officially out of his old company and working on getting HIS company started! He has a part time home care PT job starting this Tuesday, but has been quite busy getting everything going for his own company.

Here's just a couple random cute pictures for you all:

So, you all can see, there has been a LOT of exciting stuff going on around here. Hopefully we'll have more fun firsts and no more sick babies! Until, next time, take care and keep in touch!

Happy Birthday - Gracie!

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I last blogged. Things have been crazy here! My work project is in its final phase and I've been pretty consumed with it. AND Grant's last day at his current work is TODAY! Wow! He is venturing off on his own (actually with a partner) to open his own PT Practice. Wow! He'll be doing some home care stuff with a company part time until they get going, but they will be business owners in the very near future! Yeah! And Olivia now has a terrible cold. She has been pretty pitiful the last couple of days - she has a terrible cough and every time she sneezes, well . . . let's just say we make a run for the tissues!

Anyway, ok so what has Olivia been up to these last couple weeks??? Well, the biggest thing is that little Gracie turned 1! Yeah! We went to her birthday party on Sunday and had a fun time hanging out with them. Here are some pictures from the party:

Here are the little friends hanging out!













Here's Gracie with her birthday balloon.














Look at all those toys!!














Here's Olivia "borrowing" Gracie's car














Borrowing some more toys!













Yummy! Gracie really enjoyed her cake!















Gracie with her new Pooh car from Olivia













Isn't this cake so adorable?? Sara made it to go with the Winter 'One'derland theme! How cute is that??













Aside from that, Olivia has learned a new trick - ok, so she stole this trick from cousin Drew, but either way - she's become pretty determined that NO towers shall stay standing anywhere within reach!! Check out the videos to see what I mean:

No obstacle can stop her:

She is also trying to "Crawl" the *right* way instead of army-crawling. She keeps getting up on her knees and testing out the waters. She has taken a couple of baby knee steps, but no real crawling yet - but it will be soon. She is however, getting lightening fast with her army-crawling. She is even starting to try to pull-up now, too. We haven't quite finished baby-proofing our house for her yet. We have gotten rid or the coffee table and end tables and cleared out the living room for her. We haven't gotten our gates up yet (they are on order) but we have a temporary barricade for her using a big box and some tray tables on their sides. It's been working for now, but she'll soon figure out how to pull up then it's all over! Our gates should be coming in this week and we can do some more permanent baby barricading!

Well, that's about all for now. I do need to scan in some fun artwork that she's done at daycare over the last several weeks to show you all. I'll try to do that in the next couple of days. Until then, here are a couple more pictures of her to hold you over.

Check out Olivia with her cute NC State Overalls that mommy and daddy got her!
































Isn't she cute in her little Polo Ralph Lauren Shirt from Santa! What a little preppy girl! ha ha

Baby's First Chrismas!

Hello everyone! Well, baby had her first Christmas and although it was rough on all of us to travel around so much, we had a wonderful time and Santa managed to find Olivia wherever we went! We started out our holiday with my family coming up to our house to spend Christmas eve and Christmas morning with us so Olivia could have her first Christmas in her own home. Here we all are sitting down to dinner on Christmas eve (except me since I'm taking the picture):

Well, Santa definately found our house alright and spoiled Olivia pretty good for her first Christmas. Here's the tree stocked with presents after Santa came (of course, 90% of it is for Olivia!):

Here I am helping Olivia open her stocking - a nice fun pooh-bear ball . . .

Opening some presents - here's her drum (see the video down below):

Can you all find the baby in all this wrapping paper? She had quite a good time playing around in all that paper.

Here she is in her Christmas dress (with Uncle Sean) getting ready to hit the road to go to a family get-together with part of Grant's family. We hit the road around 1pm to head to Mooresboro to see some of Grant's family. Then headed back up to Lenoir that evening.

Aren't her little shoes cute? That's the first time she's worn shoes and they were so cute on her.

Santa seemed to find Olivia at Grant's parent's house, too. We opened presents there the morning after Christmas. Can you tell that "Santa" had a LOT of fun "making" toys for the new babies!?!?! You can barely even see Olivia behind that pile of goodies!

Here's cousin Drew getting into the Christmas spirit!

Here's the mess we made at Grandmom and Granddad's house:

"Thanks Nana for showing me how to work my new top."

After we opened presents at Grandmom and Granddad's and hung out with everyone for the day, we went down to Grandma and Papa's house in Huntersville that night. Then on Sunday we drove back up to Lenoir for another family get-together. Here's Olivia hanging out with her cousin Karlee:

Here's cousin Drew hanging out with Cousin Triston:

Mommy and baby:

We *tried* to get a good family photo and this was the best one I had. Everyone is at least looking at the camera (except the babies) and is looking pretty decent (except Sasha - sorry Sasha!).

Left to right. Front: Becca with Drew, Sherry with Olivia, Nana, Sasha with Triston, Paula with Sawyer. Back: John, Chad, Mike, Grant, Alan, Jason with Karlee, Tyler with Gracie.

All the babies were worn out by the end of the day. It's been a LONG week for everyone.

Here's one of Olivia's other Christmas outfits. Look at the little Mrs. Claus!

Well we had a great time seeing everyone on our travels and Olivia definately got spoiled by everyone! (Especially the grandparents!) All in all baby's first Chrismas was wonderful and a lot of fun. However, we were very happy to be home again. Olivia had a lot of fun, but did not sleep well at all away from home. She missed her crib and so did we as we stayed up with her and tried to calm her down at 3am. Our first night back she slept almost 12 hours - that was great!

Here are some pictures of her playing with some of her new toys. The first picture and video is of her playing with her new car that Aunt Sue got her. She loves when daddy pushes her around in it. Thanks, Aunt Sue!

Here's Olivia showing off her new Red Sox hat that Papa got her. (and of course, she's wearing her Wolfpack shirt to pull for our guys in the bowl game . . . too bad it didn't help!)

Here's Olivia playing with her new drum. She's already gotten the hang of it:

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas too. Please have a wonderful New Year and be safe as you welcome in 2009!

6 Months Old . . .

Can you all believe that Olivia is already 6 months old?? We can't! She's becoming more and more mobile every day! She's not crawling on her hands and knees yet, but she's getting pretty good at "army" crawling. Here's a little video of her from a couple days ago of her "crawling" around and trying to get into mischief:

Aside from her becomming quite mobile these days (yup time to baby-proof), we've just been hanging out with her and enjoying seeing her learn something new almost every day. She's been a joy lately and we are just smitten with her! She did have her 6-month doctor's appointment this past Friday - here are the latest stats:

Weight: 16 lbs 14 oz (75%)

Height: 26 3/4 inches (80%)

Head Circumference: 17 1/4 inches (80%)

So you see that she is growing like a weed! She has been doing so much better with her food since we've been doing the reflux medicine. AND she just LOVES her solids! See this picture:

We went over to see her friend Gracie on her 6-month birthday. They exchanged their presents that they got each other. Olivia got Gracie a fun spinning top that makes cool animal sounds and Gracie go Olivia some fun balls with animals in them and an NC State football jersey onsie (Gracie must have bought it when mommy wasn't looking!) Here are some pictures from them hanging out:

Here are some other pictures we took of her on her 6-month birthday:

Guess she's had enough:

And here are just some other pictures we thought were cute of her:

Well, that's about all that's going on here. Just trying to get our act together for Christmas. We are fortunate enough to have my family (mom, dad and brother) come to Raleigh for Christmas so that Olivia can spend Christmas morning in her own house to open her toys. Then we'll be leaving town that afternoon for a family get-together in Mooresboro, NC with some of Grant's family. Then we'll be off to Lenoir to see Grant's parents for Christmas night. Then back down to Huntersville to spend a little more time with my family and then back up to Lenoir for another family get-together on Sunday with some more of Grant's family. Yup, we'll be touring NC for the holiday and doing a little bouncing back and forth. Hopefully Olivia (and us) will be able to tolerate all the driving and time away from home. But we've just got to go to show off this little one to everyone this year for her 1st Christmas. It is going to be lots of fun to share Christmas with her and santa might just spoil her rotten!