Week 6

Hello All! So, we have had quite a busy week! Last weekend we had our first dinner out at a restaurant. She did so well. She was awake the whole time just looking around and taking it all in. Then we took our first trip to the mall on Monday with Sara and our little friend Gracie. Olivia did wonderfully! She slept most of the time and even when she was awake, she did very well!

Yesterday, we had lunch with my boss and a co-worker then stopped by my office to show her off. She did pretty good, but a little fussy screaming here and there. Then we went straight to daddy's office to show off there and we were a bit tired of being shown off and made quite a LOUD entrance into the place! She eventually settled down and fell asleep. Everyone loved her and told us how beautiful she was!

Then, today we had a trip to my doctor's office for my 6-week checkup and she did great there, too! We are starting to get out more and do more things - the change of scenery is good for the both of us!

I also had a couple friends come over last night to make us dinner and hang out - that was very nice. I enjoyed the dinner, but I enjoyed the company much more! Then today another friend came over and watched Olivia while I went to the dentist - then hung out with us for the day. That was really nice, as well. We have definately been very lucky to have such wonderful friends throughout this whole journey and are very greatful for all of them!

This weekend we are going to Huntersville to visit my parents while Grant is off to the beach to do his fantasy football draft with the boys! He said that he is going to miss her very much while he's gone - and we will miss him!

Well, that about sums up our week so here are some cute pictures from this week. She has gotten really good at recognizing us and smiling and cooing at us on a regular basis. She is so cute and we love how she will try to talk back at us when we talk to her and she loves to smile at us when we smile at her! Here are some pictures of her smiles and a short video of them:

Sound asleep in her little chair!

Not anymore!

Still wide awake and cute as ever!

Are you talking about me???

I hear my mommy talkin'

She's funny!

ha ha ha ha

Here's a video of Olivia smling and being happy!

Week 5

Hello everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last posting - it's hard to get time to write these days! Ok, so let me recap the week for everyone.

We had our first road trip with Olivia last weekend and she traveled really well. Better than expected. We had a family get-together with Grant's family down in Shelby, NC so we stayed with my parents for the weekend. It was really nice to see all of Grant's family - and everyone just loved seeing little Livy. It was also nice for my parents to get to see Olivia again and spend some time with her. Here are some pictures from our visit with my parents:

Hanging out with Grandma

Isn't she cute??

Napping on Papa - with a full tummy!

How sweet!

I also pulled out Olivia's toys and started playing with them with her. She can now see a few feet away - so I wanted to see how she did with toys. She seemed to have fun with the rattles and noise-makers. Susan had given her a rattle that had flashing lights on it that she really liked. Here is are some pictures and a video of her playing with her toys and doing her tummy-time (notice that Mr. Chuck is getting braver and coming pretty close to her now - he's warming up):

Not so sure about this "Tummy-Time" thing!

Look at all my toys!

Look at Chuck sneaking up to investigate!

Other than that, there hasn't been much more going on this week, just hanging out with her and enjoying her smiles. She smiles all the time now and even reacts to us cooing at her and smiling at her. That is such a fun time to get her to react to us. Here is a video of me cooing at her and her smiling back (sorry about cutting off the top of her head in part of it):

Look at our smiley girl!

That's about all for now, I'll try to write on the blog at least once a week. Here's one last picture of mommy-daughter cuddling. Have a great weekend.

Mama's baby girl!

First REAL Bath

Hello everyone! Well we are into week 4 and Olivia had her fist "real" bath the other night. Now that her cord has fallen off, she can take "big girl" baths. She seemed to enjoy it much better than the sponge baths that make her freeze. She even looked relaxed and happy. Here are some pictures of the special event:

Who is that baby in the mirror?

Other than the bath, not a whole lot has been going on here. I did have the worst migraine ever yesterday. Those of you who know me, know that I used to get them quite a bit - but I didn't have to take care of a 3 1/2 week old at the time. I was in so much pain, I couldn't move - luckily I got her to take a nap, then my head got worse - to the point that when Grant called home to check on us at his lunch break, I was in tears and he wound up coming home to take care of us. He has been so helpful and I REALLY appreciated him coming home - as hard as it is for him to get off work - because I was in bad shape and was worried that I wouldn't be able to be there for the little one when she woke up. He has been such a good father and a wonderful husband throughout the pregnancy and since she has joined our life. Anyway, just thought I'd mention how wonderful he has been! :)

Other than all of that - we are going to *try* to go to Grant's family get-together this coming Saturday to see everyone. That is IF she has been behaving herself through this week. We don't want to attempt a road trip if she isn't in a good mood and will not travel well. So, hopefully she will behave and we'll be able to go. We have been doing better with her thanks to the advice of a couple friends. They suggested that her colic is actually gas pains and that she is confusing that with hunger pains so she keeps wanting to eat all the time. Once we tried using that approach and began giving her gas drops and such, she has been much better. Still gets into her fussy moods, but now we have a better idea of how to deal with them. So, maybe we'll get this parenting thing figured out after all! :)

Unfortunately, Grant's cousin (from his other side of the family) is having her baby shower at the same time as the family get-together and we won't be able to do both. So we're sad that we are going to miss the shower and hope to be up in Lenoir to see all of them in the near future. Best wishes Sasha and Jason.

That's about all for now, so here are a couple more Livy pics for you all:

Here is Olivia's new favorite "toy" - therefore, it is Mommy's new favorite toy! (Thanks Stephanie!)

Happy Olivia in her Frog outfit from Selena and Darrell

Just acting cute!

Passed out in her new chair - yeah!

Getting ready for night-night

Here's daddy carrying Olivia around trying to get her to fall asleep. She's just like her daddy, doesn't want to miss a thing!

Week 3

Hello everyone! Ok, so this was my second week alone with Olivia since Grant started back to work. I'm glad it was a short week for him (he's off today and tomorrow) because little Livy has decided that she doesn't like taking naps and pretty much wants to be held all of the time. This is fine (as she is very cute and I love holding her) but makes it very difficult to get anything done (i.e. shower, eat).

Anyway, not a whole lot going on this week except that we made a mold of her little feet on Tuesday night to remember how little she is. We also stamped them on a piece of paper. We weren't going to get the hands done that night as she wouldn't hardly tolerate what we did. So we'll attempt to do her hands tonight. And, of course, after all that fun we had to give her another sponge bath (as her cord was still attached). This was complete torture for her, her poor little teeth (ok, gums) were chattering. We wished we could have given her a real bath in her little bathtub but we couldn't get her cord wet.

.

Guess what, the cord fell off the next morning! ha ha

Here's the mold we made. I painted it today.



Aside from that fun, we also got our pictures back this week from Lundies Photography. I took some photos of it to show you all how cute they came out. Here ya go:

Here's that hands and feet collage that I have been trying to explain. It came out REALLY cute!

Here's a cute picture of Olivia with us holding her.

We also went for our first walk in the neighborhood with her stroller. I had been wanting to try out the stroller and get out of the house, but it has been way too hot for both of us! It went pretty well. She was confused and not really enjoying herself (i.e. crying) the first 5 minutes then fell asleep for the last 35 minutes or so. Hopefully we'll be able to go for a walk a couple times a week, if it's not too hot, for a change of pace and to get out of the house and get some exercise.


That's about all that's going on for now. But I do have some more pictures to share with you all from this week so that you can see how she is growing.

Here's Olivia and Daddy taking a nap

Here she is napping on Mommy

Cute Olivia with Grandmom

Still being cute!

And here is Mr. Chuck who has not been enjoying his new sister invading his home . . . yet!

Friends . . .

We would just like to say a big "Thank You" to all of our wonderful friends that have been so incredibly supportive through both the pregnancy and since we've brought beautiful Olivia into the world! We cannot say enough about how wonderful all of you have been.

Thank you to all of you who have brought us dinner over the last 3 weeks - what a wonderful gesture that has helped us so much in trying to get into the swing of having this wonderful (but demanding) baby girl. We really appreciate all of your wonderful help.

Thank you to all of you that have written into the blog or emailed/called us to share their encouragement and advice to help us through this transition. I have had several friends give me wonderful advice and support throughout to help me out. I really appreciate all of the support and it really means a lot to know that there are so many of you out there that have volunteered to help me out if I need some advice or support in caring for our little one.

We also want to send a general thank you to all of you that have kept us in your thoughts throughout. We really appreciate it. Aside from getting to have this beautiful baby, the best thing about having her is to see how many wonderful friends we have that are there for us and are willing to help us out and have shown so much care and support toward us.

So . . . THANK YOU!

Baby Bash 2008

Ok, so we had a VERY full day of B A B I E S!!! So, Grant's brother and Sister-in-law (Chad & Becca) with Drew and Grant's parents came up this morning. Then Randy and Sara came over with Gracie, too. The guys went golfing (except Grandad Alan) and the rest of us got to hang out with all the babies for the day. It felt like our own Nelson daycare! This was the first time that Drew met both Olivia and Gracie. I think he's quite smitten with little Gracie!! See picture below:

Look at them almost holding hands!

So, at pretty much any given time you could find one baby sleeping, one eating and one screaming. They pretty much rotated this pattern between them all day long. It was quite an eventful day in the lives of the little ones. We all had a pretty good time hanging out. Here are some more pictures of the special day:

A nice mommy and baby shot!

Poor Olivia - she looks so little!

The first picture with all the Nelson crew since the arrival of the little ones.

Here's a short little video of the 3 of them interacting (i.e Gracie stealing Drew's toy as Olivia looks like a tiny lump next to them!)

2 Weeks Old

Hello everyone! Well, little Olivia will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. Wow! We cannot believe it has already been 2 whole weeks! Ok, so this was my first week since Grant had to go back to work - mind you that he's still not working full time, he had some time off here and there - none the less, it was a long week! The little princess can be quite a handful when she wants to be and does have quite an appetite - leaving me little to no time to do anything else! But she IS adorable and I wouldn't change a thing.

So, this past week we got our proofs back from her photo shoot at Lundies Photography. They came out really cute and we are really excited to get the pictures when they are ready. Here are some of the little pictures that we didn't choose to put into the "hands and feet" collage. We still thought these were really cute so we just bought prints of each.

We also had her 2-week doctor's appointment today and she has gained even more weight. She is up to 7 Lbs 15 oz (25th percentile - but growing rapidly), 20" long (50th percentile) and her head is in the 60th percentile.

I did ask the doctor about her new nighttime issues. So anyway, she has been getting really fussy, fidgety and completely inconsolable in the evenings where all she wants to do is eat constantly. Then if we let her eat as much as she wants, she'll overeat and wind up throwing up REALLY bad (I mean exorcist-like). Anyway, the doctor said that it may be too early to tell, but it sounds like early stages of colic to him. (Great!) So, if it is colic, it will get worse before it gets better. Apparently it will continually get worse until 6-8 weeks then get better gradually and can last up to 3-4 months.

Basically colic is when a baby is completely upset and inconsolable for no apparent reason while being otherwise healthy and gaining weight regularly. They usually have episodes 1-2 times a day. She has her 1 episode every evening, usually starting between 7 and 10 and lasting several hours. So . . even though she has been an angel baby up until this, and still sleeps through the night (only waking every 4 hours or so to eat), she does have some testy moments. So, he gave us some tips to try to calm her down, we'll see how they work.

This weekend Chad, Becca & Drew are coming up for the day on Saturday to hang out so that the little cousins can meet. Grant's parents are also coming up for a bit, too. Apparently Grandad is quite smitten with the little one and is dying to come see her again! awww, how sweet! I'll definitely get some pics of the babies together to show you all.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll post some more after the weekend.