A sad day!

Well, it has been 12 weeks and now I have to go back to work! :( I start back tomorrow and I have mixed feelings about it. I look forward to resuming my normal life and having more adult time and using my "brain" again - but I will definately miss my baby! I know that my neighbor, Angela, will take wonderful care of her - but it's just not the same as if I were caring for her myself. We cannot afford for me to quit my job, so we will make the best of this and we have been fortunate to have our NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR care for our little one - I mean how much more convenient can you get than that! But it will still be sad dropping her off there in the morning and everything. I have not been away from her for more than a couple of hours so far - and only a couple times at that! In fact, I have only been away from her a total of 4 times!!! (Twice to Kohl's, once to Target, and one date-night when my mom was in town!!!) I'm sure I will be calling to check on her at least once tomorrow. Anyway, wish me luck as I resume my career and Olivia gets to be a "big girl" at daycare!

Olivia went to the Mountains!

Hello all! So this weekend we went to Stone Mountain with Grant's family and Olivia got to hang out with her cousin Drew. We had a good time seeing everyone and got some cute pictures of Drew and Olivia together. She wasn't so sure about him at first, but then she warmed up a little:

Here are some of the pictures from the trip:

Hanging out with Grandad

We took Oilvia off-roading in the stroller on a trail and it put her right to sleep. Isn't she cute??

Sittin' with mommy

With daddy, Uncle Chad and Cousin Drew

Family photo

Aren't I cute??

Talking to Nana

Wooooo!

Nature Baby!

Other than the trip, Olivia has been doing well. She is getting better and better with using her hands. Now she wants to use them all the time. We can't even feed her without giving her something to do with her hands or she tries to "help" with the bottle (i.e. push the bottle away or to the side or hold it . . .) She just keeps getting more fun and cuter and cuter all the time. Only one more week home with baby before I have to go back to work and join the real world . . . ugh!

Oh-yeah, she slept all the way through the night last night (from around 9:00pm until 7:00am!) YEAH!!!!

Hello all! So, we had some more visitors this week. Olivia's two great grandmothers came to visit from Rhode Island to see her! We had a good time hanging out. Here are some pictures of their visit:

Here's Olivia with Grandma Betty

Here's Olivia with Grandma Lynn

Ok, so yesterday we went to drop off Olivia's medical info (vaccine record/physical) at the daycare since she was due to start there next week to give us one week to get used to the new routine before I started back to work. Anyway, when I went in there I noticed how little attention the kids/babies were getting. There was one teacher and 5 babies and it just broke my heart to see what type of environment Olivia would be in. I mean how can one person give any reasonable amount of attention to 5 babies in between feeding and changing them. So, I was pretty upset about all of it. Anyway, our next door neighbor had mentioned to us a while back that she was going to start an at-home daycare. So, when we got home I gave her a call to check it out. She is only keeping one other kid at the moment and has her mother there to help, as well. She is only planning on having 3 kids there so they would get a ton more attention. Anyway, she said she would be happy to keep Olivia for us and had about the same rates as the daycare. So . . . we are going to do that instead. That makes me feel a lot better knowing that they will give her the attention she needs and she won't be neglected. My neighbor is a very nice lady and is very caring with the children. She said she is excited about keeping her, as am I. I feel much better now!

Ok, so other than that drama yesterday, we are leaving this weekend for a family get-together with Grant's family. So, we'll be on the road again! Also, Olivia has learned a new trick. She has been working really hard on figuring out how to use her hands and has been learning to grab and hold things. My grandma Betty got her a rattle and Olivia has learned how to hold and shake it. She is doing pretty well with it. Here's a video:

Aside from that, we are still going day by day figuring out this little one and counting down my time left until I have to go back to work on the 8th. I will enjoy the adult time again, but will miss my little one during the day. My boss has been great, he has worked it out with my client so that I won't have to be there until 9am and can leave by 3pm so that I can be there to drop off and pick up Olivia. Then I can just finish up my work from home in the evenings after she is in bed. That was very nice of him to arrange all of that for me (all on his own!).

Ok, so I have been really trying to get this picture for a long time. Whenever Olivia gets upset for whatever reason and gets going - she sticks out her bottom lip and it is sooo cute. She is even cute when she's upset. I finally got it on camera for you all to see.

And here are a couple pictures of Olivia in her cute little hat:

And here are a couple more videos for you to see. One of Olivia learning Guitar . . . it was only a matter of time! :) He even had her holding the pick correctly all on her own!! And the other of Grant reading to her.

Week 10

Grandma came to visit this past week! It was nice to have her around to help out with Olivia so that I could take a nap here or there, and shower and eat and, well, the basics! Grant and I even got to go on a DATE!! Dinner and a movie . . . all by ourselves! Thanks mom!

We didn't do much - mostly hung out at home with baby, but we did go get some pictures taken of baby. I wanted to surprise Grant with a mommy daughter picture to bring to work, so my mom and I went and had those taken this week. Olivia wasn't really in the mood to get her picture taken, but we did get some cute ones out of it. Here are the ones we got:

Also, this week Olivia slept in her "big girl" crib in her room (instead of the pack-n-play in our room) for the first time. She did really well and hasn't missed a beat with it. The only problem is that her room gets a lot more sun in the morning - so she is up earlier. She is still sleeping pretty well. Usually she goes down around 8-8:30, wakes up around 4am to eat then sleeps until 7 or 7:30am. Not too bad.

Sara and Gracie came over last weekend for the evening while the boys went to a concert. The girls got to hang out some and "play."

Sara and Gracie cuddling on the couch

Sara also brought us Gracie's little play-gym for Olivia to use since she had grown out of it. Olivia seems to really like it. Here is a picture of her in it and a video of her playing:

Here is baby playing and having a grand ole' time

Not much else going on right now. My two grandmothers are going to be here tomorrow from Rhode Island for a couple days. That will be nice. Then Olivia will start her daycare right after labor day, which is my last week out of work! :( We wanted to start her a week early to get used to the routine of getting her ready in the morning and dropping her off.

That's about it for now. Here are some more pics of the sweat pea for your amusement!

Scrapbooking

Well, I have been scrapbooking again. My friends and I get together once a month to scrapbook and I wanted to show you all what I have done so far. I have really enjoyed learning this new craft and have enjoyed (even more) the girl time with my friends. My mom just brought me a bunch of scrapbooking stuff to use - now I just have to learn how it all works! Here are the pages I've done so far:

Opening page of the scapbook

Here are my belly shots

The sonograms

My showers at my mom and Grant's mom's houses

My Raleigh showers

The nursery

Here's her delivery!

Here we are in our hospital room and our first day home

Baby's first photo shoot @ 6 days old!

Month 1 pictures

Baby's first bath!

Shots SUCK!

Ok, so we had Olivia's 2-month doctor's appointment today - which was her first round of shots. She had 3 shots and 1 oral vaccine. Let's just say that she DEFINITELY didn't enjoy them! She screamed out in pain and it was terrible to watch. Mommy even cried a bit at seeing the baby in such pain. She was obviously in pain most of the evening and pretty inconsolable. We've been giving her Tylenol and she isn't running a fever, but they are intramuscular shots so I'm sure tomorrow will be pretty rough.

ouchie!

Aside from the shots, we've found out that the little munchkin has been packing on the weight. She is now up to 11 lbs 3 oz (50th percentile). She is 22 1/2 " long (50th percentile) and her head is 15 1/2 " (55th percentile). So she is definitely growing. We knew she'd be above 10 lbs but didn't think she'd break 11. Wow, the little piggy! (but VERY adorable - even when she IS screaming).

Hopefully she won't be too sore tomorrow, but I've had intramuscular shots before and usually the day after is the worst (aside from the needle itself). So say a little prayer that she'll be not too sore tomorrow for her and we'll see how it goes.

2 Months Old . . . already!

Hello again! Can you believe that Olivia is 2 months old already! Wow, time does fly sometimes (and other times it just DRAGS on! - like when she is screaming - ha ha). Anyway, we have her 2 month appointment tomorrow to get her checked out and her first round of shots :( I hope she does ok with them.

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Not much has gone on this week. I have started doing some of my scrapbooking again - finally finished the "pre-delivery" stuff! It is looking really cute. I plan to leave it out on my dining room table so if she is napping or after she goes to bed maybe I can do a little bit. My mom is coming the week after next so we can work on it some together. (apparently August is Grandma month since Susan was here last week, my mom will be here next week then my 2 grandmothers are coming the following week!)

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We are trying to get a schedule established for Olivia for when I go back to work. It is going ok, for the most part. Her bedtime is between 8 and 8:30 and we try to feed her sometime between 7 and 8 for her last feeding of the night. Last night - we didn't exactly follow the schedule too well. She didn't go to bed until almost 10:30 - but she slept until 5, ate and went back to sleep until about 8:00. So not too bad. Although she layed there and talked to herself for about an hour after her 5 o'clock feeding and she is still in our room so I was also up for that hour on top of the 40 minutes it took to feed her. but my wonderful husband did let me sleep in this morning as this is his day off. Man, I needed that!

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Well, I'll try to write more after her doctor's appt. tomorrow (or Saturday) to let you all know about the details and how she handled the shots. Until then, here are some more cute pictures and videos for your viewing pleasure.

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Aren't I cute in my new polka dot sleeper from Grandmom?

Yup, I'm a cutie!

listening to daddy play me a song

or . . . maybe a lullaby

What are you doing to me???? (ignore the baby Buddha belly!)

Another new sleeper

Look at the ruffles on her bottom!

In her cute purple jumper

Isn't she cute??