My darling girl has not always been a wonderful sleeper. For the first 8 1/2 months of her life, she woke up at least 1 or 2 (and sometimes many more than that) times a night. For awhile now, she has been sleeping about 12 hours straight. It's amazing. I need my sleep. If you know me, you know that's true. :) For the past three nights, Olivia has started rubbing her eyes around bedtime. When I ask her if she is tired she says, "Yah..nigh, nigh." Then she proceeds to grab her duck and her baby. After that she either starts walking to her room or reaches for us to pick her up. We take her into her room, give her a few sips of milk, and then she says, "Nigh, nigh" and we lay her down. We don't hear another peep from her until the morning. The other night she wasn't feeling very well. I thought I would get some snuggle time and I started to rock Olivia. She looked up at me and said, "No..nigh, nigh." I hope this bedtime routine continues! The first few months were rough, but sticking to our routine/consistency definitely paid off! I love that my daughter asks to go to bed and I hope (and pray) that she will always be like this.:) If she is anything like me, she will continue to ask to go to bed-haha!
On another note, she started saying, "Of you" this summer. When I say, "I love you" that is her response. It may be the most precious thing I've ever heard.
Ah...the joys of being a mommy will never end. I adore her and am so lucky to be her mommy.:)
My heart is content and I'm feeling the best I've felt in months. Praise God-what an awesome feeling! I don't know the last time I've felt so at peace and truly happy.
First off all, I have been taking care of myself. Throughout the past many months, I haven't worried about me. I have worried about my husband (although he may not agree..hehe), my daughter, my students, my family, and the list just goes on. I know many moms feel this way, but I needed to do something about it. As some of you know, I was pretty depressed last summer/beginning of the school year, and I wanted this summer to be different. I've started running/walking every morning before Olivia wakes up. I even woke up at 5:30 this morning before Jeremiah left for church to go out and run (We'll see how long this lasts..ha!). I've found that working out first thing really puts me in a great mood for the day. During these runs/walks, I've been connecting with God. It feels amazing to start my day off with quiet time. In addition, I've been trying to eat healthier. It's working right now, but again, we'll see how long it lasts. I've already started craving Mountain Dew and it's been one week.:)
After making these changes, I can tell a difference in my attitude. I actually feel like I'm being a good mom and wife for once! I LOVE taking care of my family. I wake up every day excited to be with my baby girl! It's been so fun being with her this week. I can honestly say that this week has been one of the happiest weeks of my life. Nothing special happened. I just hung out with my girlie all week. I am trying to savor every minute of my Livi time because I know summer will go by quickly.
Also, I've been keeping our house clean and cooking. It may seem silly to you, but these are great achievements for me!:) In the evenings I don't feel as tired and Jeremiah and I have been able to spend more time together. I'm finally getting back to my old self.
We sang a song by Chris Tomlin at church this morning and I almost started crying. This is one of my favorite songs. I know that the reason I'm feeling so content and happy is because of my relationship with God. So, I guess right now I'm just singing his praise. How many of you feel content with your life? If you don't, what can you do to achieve this goal? I know it's easy for me to say right now because I have the summer off. I understand that I probably won't always feel this way, but it is an AMAZING feeling right now!
"How Can I Keep From Singing"
There is an endless song
Echoes in my soul
I hear the music ring
And though the storms may come
I am holding on
To the rock I cling
How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting Your name
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing
I will lift my eyes
In the darkest night
For I know my Savior lives
And I will walk with You
Knowing You'll see me through
And sing the songs You give
I can sing in the troubled times
Sing when I win
I can sing when I lose my step
And fall down again
I can sing 'cause You pick me up
Sing 'cause You're there
I can sing 'cause You hear me, Lord
When I call to You in prayer
I can sing with my last breath
Sing for I know
That I'll sing with the angels
And the saints around the throne
First off all, I have been taking care of myself. Throughout the past many months, I haven't worried about me. I have worried about my husband (although he may not agree..hehe), my daughter, my students, my family, and the list just goes on. I know many moms feel this way, but I needed to do something about it. As some of you know, I was pretty depressed last summer/beginning of the school year, and I wanted this summer to be different. I've started running/walking every morning before Olivia wakes up. I even woke up at 5:30 this morning before Jeremiah left for church to go out and run (We'll see how long this lasts..ha!). I've found that working out first thing really puts me in a great mood for the day. During these runs/walks, I've been connecting with God. It feels amazing to start my day off with quiet time. In addition, I've been trying to eat healthier. It's working right now, but again, we'll see how long it lasts. I've already started craving Mountain Dew and it's been one week.:)
After making these changes, I can tell a difference in my attitude. I actually feel like I'm being a good mom and wife for once! I LOVE taking care of my family. I wake up every day excited to be with my baby girl! It's been so fun being with her this week. I can honestly say that this week has been one of the happiest weeks of my life. Nothing special happened. I just hung out with my girlie all week. I am trying to savor every minute of my Livi time because I know summer will go by quickly.
Also, I've been keeping our house clean and cooking. It may seem silly to you, but these are great achievements for me!:) In the evenings I don't feel as tired and Jeremiah and I have been able to spend more time together. I'm finally getting back to my old self.
We sang a song by Chris Tomlin at church this morning and I almost started crying. This is one of my favorite songs. I know that the reason I'm feeling so content and happy is because of my relationship with God. So, I guess right now I'm just singing his praise. How many of you feel content with your life? If you don't, what can you do to achieve this goal? I know it's easy for me to say right now because I have the summer off. I understand that I probably won't always feel this way, but it is an AMAZING feeling right now!
"How Can I Keep From Singing"
There is an endless song
Echoes in my soul
I hear the music ring
And though the storms may come
I am holding on
To the rock I cling
How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting Your name
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing
I will lift my eyes
In the darkest night
For I know my Savior lives
And I will walk with You
Knowing You'll see me through
And sing the songs You give
I can sing in the troubled times
Sing when I win
I can sing when I lose my step
And fall down again
I can sing 'cause You pick me up
Sing 'cause You're there
I can sing 'cause You hear me, Lord
When I call to You in prayer
I can sing with my last breath
Sing for I know
That I'll sing with the angels
And the saints around the throne
In just 8 days I will be off for the summer!! I CAN'T WAIT! Don't get me wrong, I will miss my 3rd grade kiddos. I've grown to absolutely adore this class and I'll be sad to say goodbye to them on June 3. However, I am giddy just thinking about being off with Olivia this summer. I can't wait to spend every day with her.
This morning I took Olivia on a walk. We felt the warm breeze on us and it reminded me of summertime. It reminded me of all the fun things Olivia and I are going to do this summer. Oh, I just can't wait! Can you tell I'm excited!? Ha!:)
This picture was taken before our walk this morning.
This morning I took Olivia on a walk. We felt the warm breeze on us and it reminded me of summertime. It reminded me of all the fun things Olivia and I are going to do this summer. Oh, I just can't wait! Can you tell I'm excited!? Ha!:)
This picture was taken before our walk this morning.
The past two weeks have been kind of annoying and stressful for Jeremiah and me. Now, let me start by saying that I KNOW we are very blessed to have a healthy (for the most part) little girl. I know that we could have it much worse and for that, I feel very blessed.
The week after Olivia's first birthday, we started to notice a small pimple on her cheek. We thought nothing of it until it started to become bright red. A few years ago, Jeremiah had a staff infection that started out looking just like the pimple on Olivia's cheek. We decided to take Olivia to see the doctor on call at Carle. The doctor said, "Well, it could be staph. But..I think it's probably a bug bite or a pimple." I was so ticked. I knew it was staph because I had seen Jeremiah's arm a few years ago. That night we went home and put the cream on that the doctor prescribed. The next morning she woke up with a half swollen eye. It was red, puffy, and it looked pretty bad. Now, the pimple/infection had spread from her cheek (it was right by her eye) to her eye. Jeremiah took her to see our pediatrician and right away she said it was staff. She gave Olivia some "heavy duty meds." because she didn't want the infection to spread into her eye and hurt her eyesight. We started giving her the medication and then two days later she felt better. We were able to take her back to Kelly's house since she wasn't contagious after 24 hours of being on the meds. The pimple hadn't completely gone away but it was starting to shrink.
Two days later, Olivia woke up with a fever. I stayed home from school and took care of her. She was pretty miserable that day. Olivia has never been a cuddle bug and she was. It was actually kind of nice.:) For the first time, I let her watch Sesame Street and she loved it. I was so bummed though because we were having a joint birthday party the next day with Ava and Grace. I wanted Olivia to be able to go to her birthday party. The next day she woke up a little cranky, but she didn't have a fever. We decided to take her to the party and she was cranky the entire time.
The next day she woke up with a fever and a rash on her body. I called and the nurse said it was probably just an allergic reaction to her staff infection meds. I knew something wasn't right but I thought I should go along with what the nurse said. Olivia was again miserable throughout the entire day and very clingy. The next day she woke up with a bright red rash covering her entire body(including her face!). She kept scratching and crying because she was in such discomfort. Jeremiah took her to the doctor again and this time Olivia was diagnosed with roseola. I know this is a common virus, but it's hard to watch your tiny little girl feel so miserable. She would just start screaming because she itched so bad and couldn't make it feel better. We had to give Olivia an oatmeal bath, benadryl, and do a few other things to try to make her feel better.
After the rash cleared up, Olivia was back to her normal happy self for about 4 days. This past week, I picked Olivia up from Kelly's house on Wednesday and noticed that she had a little red pimple on the EXACT same spot that she had the staph infection before. We decided to just watch the bump. On Friday, Jeremiah worked from home and took Olivia back to the doctor. The doctor said that Olivia has another staph infection! This time we think we caught it super early, so they gave us cream to put on it. The doctor doesn't know why it came back.
In addition to these minor sicknesses we've been dealing with, we now have a new problem to worry about. Olivia has had a blocked tear duct since she was born. I've never been worried about it until recently. It looks like Olivia is constantly crying out of her right eye. When Jeremiah took Olivia in for her 2nd staph infection, I had him ask our doctor about the blocked tear duct. Doctor S. said that she was glad we said something because the duct should be working by now. Dr. S. said that if a baby still has this problem when he/she is 12 months it is a problem. Dr. S. said that we will need to take Olivia to an eye specialist. We will talk to this doctor about having a surgery done to unblock Olivia's tear duct. Dr. S. said it's a small surgery but they will put Olivia under for it. They need her to be perfectly still when they unblock the duct. Dr. S. said if we don't do the surgery, Olivia may have problems with her eye/eyesight for the rest of her life. So, Jeremiah and I are going to meet with this specialist in May. I REALLY don't want my baby girl to have surgery or be put under!! I'm really going to have to give this up to God! I'm such a worrier and I have already started to worry about this. I assume we'll be able to wait to have the surgery until June (when I'm done with school). Jeremiah said Dr. S. said we needed to have the surgery done by the time she was a certain age (he can't remember the age) or she would always have problems with her eye.
Okay, I'm done with my annoying/stressful week post! Olivia has been sick many times over the past year. It seems like she can't catch a break!
Now I want to end my post on a high note and write about a few of the darling things Olivia does these days.:)
*Olivia says, "Cack-er" when she wants a cracker or cheerio. She will constantly repeat it until she is given one.
*She puts her hands up (looks like she is saying I don't know) and says, "Done" or "All done."
*Olivia can say the sounds that these animals make: Cow, horse, sheep, dog, chicken, duck, cat, and monkey. Sometimes she can make the elephant sound. She also has started making the kissing sound and fish lips.
*In addition to saying our names, she sometimes says, "Gaga" when she sees a picture of my mom or dad.
*One of the highlights of my day is when we wake Olivia up in the morning. Jeremiah and I both go in every morning when we hear her wake up. Every morning she smiles when she sees us and then she dives onto her mattress. We always start laughing and then she stands up and dives to the other side. She is trying to hide and play a game with us. By the time we pick her up, she is giggling.
*Olivia picks up her little phone and mimicks us saying, "Hello."
*Olivia has been walking since the middle of March. Now, she is trying to run. It's very cute!
*Everywhere we go, Olivia waves and blows kisses to people. She is very friendly.
Olivia is such a funny girl. She keeps us moving and laughing all day long. Even when she is sick, she tries to make us laugh. How can we be annoyed/stressed out when we have this precious little girl trying to make us laugh? We can't. It's as simple as that. God is good and we have been so very blessed!
The week after Olivia's first birthday, we started to notice a small pimple on her cheek. We thought nothing of it until it started to become bright red. A few years ago, Jeremiah had a staff infection that started out looking just like the pimple on Olivia's cheek. We decided to take Olivia to see the doctor on call at Carle. The doctor said, "Well, it could be staph. But..I think it's probably a bug bite or a pimple." I was so ticked. I knew it was staph because I had seen Jeremiah's arm a few years ago. That night we went home and put the cream on that the doctor prescribed. The next morning she woke up with a half swollen eye. It was red, puffy, and it looked pretty bad. Now, the pimple/infection had spread from her cheek (it was right by her eye) to her eye. Jeremiah took her to see our pediatrician and right away she said it was staff. She gave Olivia some "heavy duty meds." because she didn't want the infection to spread into her eye and hurt her eyesight. We started giving her the medication and then two days later she felt better. We were able to take her back to Kelly's house since she wasn't contagious after 24 hours of being on the meds. The pimple hadn't completely gone away but it was starting to shrink.
Two days later, Olivia woke up with a fever. I stayed home from school and took care of her. She was pretty miserable that day. Olivia has never been a cuddle bug and she was. It was actually kind of nice.:) For the first time, I let her watch Sesame Street and she loved it. I was so bummed though because we were having a joint birthday party the next day with Ava and Grace. I wanted Olivia to be able to go to her birthday party. The next day she woke up a little cranky, but she didn't have a fever. We decided to take her to the party and she was cranky the entire time.
The next day she woke up with a fever and a rash on her body. I called and the nurse said it was probably just an allergic reaction to her staff infection meds. I knew something wasn't right but I thought I should go along with what the nurse said. Olivia was again miserable throughout the entire day and very clingy. The next day she woke up with a bright red rash covering her entire body(including her face!). She kept scratching and crying because she was in such discomfort. Jeremiah took her to the doctor again and this time Olivia was diagnosed with roseola. I know this is a common virus, but it's hard to watch your tiny little girl feel so miserable. She would just start screaming because she itched so bad and couldn't make it feel better. We had to give Olivia an oatmeal bath, benadryl, and do a few other things to try to make her feel better.
After the rash cleared up, Olivia was back to her normal happy self for about 4 days. This past week, I picked Olivia up from Kelly's house on Wednesday and noticed that she had a little red pimple on the EXACT same spot that she had the staph infection before. We decided to just watch the bump. On Friday, Jeremiah worked from home and took Olivia back to the doctor. The doctor said that Olivia has another staph infection! This time we think we caught it super early, so they gave us cream to put on it. The doctor doesn't know why it came back.
In addition to these minor sicknesses we've been dealing with, we now have a new problem to worry about. Olivia has had a blocked tear duct since she was born. I've never been worried about it until recently. It looks like Olivia is constantly crying out of her right eye. When Jeremiah took Olivia in for her 2nd staph infection, I had him ask our doctor about the blocked tear duct. Doctor S. said that she was glad we said something because the duct should be working by now. Dr. S. said that if a baby still has this problem when he/she is 12 months it is a problem. Dr. S. said that we will need to take Olivia to an eye specialist. We will talk to this doctor about having a surgery done to unblock Olivia's tear duct. Dr. S. said it's a small surgery but they will put Olivia under for it. They need her to be perfectly still when they unblock the duct. Dr. S. said if we don't do the surgery, Olivia may have problems with her eye/eyesight for the rest of her life. So, Jeremiah and I are going to meet with this specialist in May. I REALLY don't want my baby girl to have surgery or be put under!! I'm really going to have to give this up to God! I'm such a worrier and I have already started to worry about this. I assume we'll be able to wait to have the surgery until June (when I'm done with school). Jeremiah said Dr. S. said we needed to have the surgery done by the time she was a certain age (he can't remember the age) or she would always have problems with her eye.
Okay, I'm done with my annoying/stressful week post! Olivia has been sick many times over the past year. It seems like she can't catch a break!
Now I want to end my post on a high note and write about a few of the darling things Olivia does these days.:)
*Olivia says, "Cack-er" when she wants a cracker or cheerio. She will constantly repeat it until she is given one.
*She puts her hands up (looks like she is saying I don't know) and says, "Done" or "All done."
*Olivia can say the sounds that these animals make: Cow, horse, sheep, dog, chicken, duck, cat, and monkey. Sometimes she can make the elephant sound. She also has started making the kissing sound and fish lips.
*In addition to saying our names, she sometimes says, "Gaga" when she sees a picture of my mom or dad.
*One of the highlights of my day is when we wake Olivia up in the morning. Jeremiah and I both go in every morning when we hear her wake up. Every morning she smiles when she sees us and then she dives onto her mattress. We always start laughing and then she stands up and dives to the other side. She is trying to hide and play a game with us. By the time we pick her up, she is giggling.
*Olivia picks up her little phone and mimicks us saying, "Hello."
*Olivia has been walking since the middle of March. Now, she is trying to run. It's very cute!
*Everywhere we go, Olivia waves and blows kisses to people. She is very friendly.
Olivia is such a funny girl. She keeps us moving and laughing all day long. Even when she is sick, she tries to make us laugh. How can we be annoyed/stressed out when we have this precious little girl trying to make us laugh? We can't. It's as simple as that. God is good and we have been so very blessed!
Jeremiah knew that I wanted to take a picture of Olivia at 1:40a.m. on March 29. This was the time she was born. I told him that I didn't want to wake her up but I thought it would be neat to have this picture. I decided that I wasn't going to get up. At 1:39a.m., I heard Jeremiah get up out of bed and go into Olivia's room. He is so wonderful!! Jeremiah went in and took a picture for me. He's just so thoughtful and sweet to get up in the morning just to take this picture that I wanted!:)
March 29, 2009 at 1:40a.m.
March 29, 2010 at 1:40a.m.
March 29, 2009 at 1:40a.m.
March 29, 2010 at 1:40a.m.
I took a ton of pictures over Olivia's birthday weekend. I thought it would be fun to compare what I was doing last year on March 28 (day I went to the hospital) and what we were doing this year on March 28. I've decided to only post a few today. :) So, here it goes...
9:00a.m.
March 28, 2009-Jeremiah and I just got back from working out. I decided to call the doctor's office to see if we should come in.
March 28, 2010-Olivia was being absolutely adorable. It looks like she is giving me attitude here, but she was actually being precious! This was taken right before she got in the tub.
1:00p.m.
March 28, 2009-We were at the hospital and had just been moved into our own room. We were waiting for the doctor to come in so we could chat about putting me on pitocin.
March 28, 2010-Olivia was so happy to be eating at Dos Reales! She ate like a champ.
4:30p.m.
March 28, 2009-The pitocin was starting to kick in and I was having horrible contractions.
March 28, 2010-We were playing with Olivia. She LOVES her farm animals and says all of their sounds.
9:00a.m.March 28, 2009-Jeremiah and I just got back from working out. I decided to call the doctor's office to see if we should come in.
March 28, 2010-Olivia was being absolutely adorable. It looks like she is giving me attitude here, but she was actually being precious! This was taken right before she got in the tub.
1:00p.m.March 28, 2009-We were at the hospital and had just been moved into our own room. We were waiting for the doctor to come in so we could chat about putting me on pitocin.
March 28, 2010-Olivia was so happy to be eating at Dos Reales! She ate like a champ.
4:30p.m.March 28, 2009-The pitocin was starting to kick in and I was having horrible contractions.
March 28, 2010-We were playing with Olivia. She LOVES her farm animals and says all of their sounds.
On March 27, 2009 I went to my last doctor's appointment and my water broke that night.
On March 27, 2010 we celebrated Olivia's first birthday with our family. We had a fabulous time! Olivia enjoyed her birthday lunch and LOVED eating her cake. This was the first time she had eaten cake (or anything sweet). I can tell that she is going to be like me and have a sweet tooth. Here are a few. I smile every time I look at these pictures. It was so fun to watch her devour the cake!
She started out touching the cake with just one finger.
And then she realized that cake is yummy, so....
she started using both hands.
And after eating a good amount of cake, she decided she was done. So, she started throwing cake off of her tray.
Here she is telling us that she's done.
Olivia with her grandparents
Opening presents
On March 27, 2010 we celebrated Olivia's first birthday with our family. We had a fabulous time! Olivia enjoyed her birthday lunch and LOVED eating her cake. This was the first time she had eaten cake (or anything sweet). I can tell that she is going to be like me and have a sweet tooth. Here are a few. I smile every time I look at these pictures. It was so fun to watch her devour the cake!
She started out touching the cake with just one finger.And then she realized that cake is yummy, so....
she started using both hands.
And after eating a good amount of cake, she decided she was done. So, she started throwing cake off of her tray.
Here she is telling us that she's done.
Olivia with her grandparents
Opening presents
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