Olivia's a Big Sister...finally!

I know you all know this already but our 2nd little one is finally here! Natalie Rae was born on May 14 around 1:35 pm at a whopping 9 lbs and 11 oz. I will not get into the details but let's just say that I am NOT a big fan of labor or delivery. But all is well now and we are adjusting to life as a family of 4 now. Olivia is doing SO well with having someone else around in her space. She absolutely loves Natalie and hugs her all the time. She always says, "I'll talk to her and you say the words." Meaning, she wants me to pretend that Natalie is speaking back to her when Olivia talks to her. Their car seats are right next to each other and the other day in the car, Olivia leaned over and said in a sweet, sweet voice, "Hi there, Bright Eyes." Natalie is a little colicky and while Mike and I want to pull our hair out sometimes, Olivia just takes it in stride. The little bit of frustration that she does have with the crying, she exhibits in very subtle ways. Like in the car, if Natalie starts crying, Olivia just leans over and pulls Natalie's sun canopy down over her.

Aside from the colic, Natalie is doing very well. She just had her 1 mos appt and she is in the 97th% for height. So she is going to have her Mommy's height but her Daddy's face. She is sleeping so well for us. It's amazing how much more tired I was with just one. Yes, experience helps but being 41 weeks is just so different then being 36 weeks. Natalie was just much more ready to join the world then Olivia was. She sleeps 5 and 1/2 hours at night for us regularly and even slept 6 and 1/2 hours the other night.

Although Olivia is doing well with Natalie around, she is definitely hitting some Terrible Two patches. I thought we were going to make it out of the twos without seeing it but no such luck. I guess we're just lucky that she is putting us through it and not Natalie. If this is a sign of things to come, we better watch our backs because they are going to be partners in crime around here. I'll load you up with pictures this time and don't forget to check out the enlarged versions with better detail at the bottom of the blog. I'll leave them there until I update again.

Perfect Pottier!

Well, I just didn't believe the book I read. It swore that you could potty train a child in 1-3 days and our little angel did it in 2. There have only been 2 accidents since those first 2 days. One of those accidents was very early on....I think she was even caught off guard because she just gave me this shocked look and said, "I forgot I had panties on." Totally understandable, in my opinion. And the second accident was at Babi's house and who has time to think about peeing when that one woman circus is in town?! :) Anyway, that's your potty update, in case you were wondering.

On the baby #2 front....we are one hour away from reporting to the hospital to be induced. My due date came and went so the doctor agreed that there is no need to wait any longer. Oddly enough, I started having contractions this past Wednesday right before our dr's appt. They went on all day and started getting closer and closer together but then they fizzled out. So we're going to get the little one out with some help. I'll try to update you as soon as possible but I'm thinking that we should be a family of 4 some time late tonight or tomorrow. Sorry to keep this one so short but I have my mind on a few hundred other things. :)

We're very busy people!!!!!

I never said I was going to be good at this blogging thing. I just promised some pictures from time to time. Sorry! I've heard from enough of you so here's your update. In my defense, we've been very busy getting ready for Olivia's little sister or brother. The room is painted, the furniture is ordered and Olivia's imaginary baby is doing great. They eat together, they go on the swings together, they play together....so far, she has really embraced the idea of having someone else around. We'll see what happens when we can't just forget that he/she exists for awhile. Cute story...she and I were walking down the stairs the other week and Olivia said, "Let me hold your hand, Mommy, so that the baby doesn't fall out." If only labor was going to be that easy.

We took Olivia bowling for the first time. She had a great time and we learned her attention span....about 4 frames. As you can see from the pictures, they have a little ramp that the kids can roll the balls down so it's not like she was hurling 14 lb balls down the alley but it was a good time.

After being dumped on with snow one more time (see pics), the weather has really turned around. As Olivia told me yesterday, "It is really lovely out here!" So we've been playing outside a lot. Like I said, she gets on the swings with her "baby" and when the neighbor's kids came over and hopped on the swing that "baby" was supposedly on, I looked at Olivia and said, "Uh-oh, is baby alright?" She said, "It's OK, she hopped off and she's on the slide now. She's safe."

The big news....and I don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched, I just want you to all say a little potty prayer....we're working on potty training. I read about this 4 day aggressive process and bought into it hook, line and sinker so I put it into motion just this past weekend! The first part of the day one was rough. And wet! But then all of a sudden, while I was on the phone disputing a charge on my credit card, Olivia gave me a look and said, "Just a little came out." So we ran for it and when she sat down, the flood gates opened. It was the most exciting thing and seeing both of our reactions, you would have thought that we won the lottery. We screamed, clapped, hugged and of course got "treats" for finally getting it right. We'll see how it goes. Again, please say a little prayer for us. (Oh sure, I should be asking God for peace on Earth and shelter and safety for the people of Haiti but let's be honest with our priorities, people!)

At this rate, I may be updating when we are a family of 4 but hopefully, I'll give you one more post before then.

Very Merry Christmas...

It was another great Christmas this year. They get more and more fun. Olivia really got into all of the preparations of leaving Santa cookies and carrots for the reindeer. She was so surprised to see all of the presents under the tree Christmas morning and even more surprised to see a big, Calico Critters house set up for her to play with endlessly for the next 10 years or so. As you can see, she was all smiles, all day. She loved playing with her cousin, Lauren, too who was a great sport as she was forced to pretend that she was a puppy all week long for Olivia to lead around by a leash that Olivia tied to her arm.

We got a great snow fall in Dec too. It lasted for 2 days and my thought was that we should wait until it was over to go sledding. But we went out right in the middle of it and Olivia could not have been happier about that decision. She loved going down the hills on the golf course with her friends and neighbors. The only thing that topped the sledding was probably the snow cones that we made when we got in. My experience with syrup making that I earned through years of use with my Snoopy Snow cone maker really came in handy.

We took a weekend trip to Raleigh to visit friends and catch a Hurricanes game. Olivia enjoyed meeting Stormy, the pig and doing all of the fun things that we had planned. But she would have been totally content to stay with her cousin, Waverly, at her house playing with her toys all weekend. For those that wonder if we would ever move back to NC, Olivia made it very clear where her heart lies. She chanted endlessly from her crib one night we were there...."We Are....Penn State!" Atta, girl!

I believe that Olivia has chosen her career path....computer geek. She is on the computer playing her games as often as we will let her. She loves it and it's amazing how well she maneuvers through her game sites. She still loves to sing and dance though so we'll see which career wins out.

We are slowly getting ready for Olivia's little brother or sister. I continue to grow, grow, grow and the baby continues to kick, move and wiggle. Olivia asked us the other night if she was going to sleep in her new room yet so she seems excited about some of the changes that are going to occur. (So far!) I hope to update you before I have 2 to talk about. Sorry! (Don't forget to view the enlarged version of the pictures at the bottom of the blog.)

But why?

It's been a fun month getting everything ready for Christmas. Olivia got all dressed up to go see Santa and it went well, as the picture shows. The next night, we had to go back to the mall for something and when she saw Santa there again, she wanted to go talk to him again. So we did and he said, "So do you want anything more then what you told me yesterday?" It was funny and nice to know that someone else thinks she has a memorable face. The tree and all of the decorations seem to be safe with her around. She likes to have them around but nothing is getting pulled down or played with.

We have quickly moved into the "Why?" stage. I try to have my creative juices flowing each and every day when I answer the endless string of why's but it is exhausting.

She still loves to sing and dance right now. She is usually awake in her crib for about an hour talking to herself and singing every song she knows before she actually falls asleep. I really wish there was some sort of dance class we could sign her up for but they all seem to start when the kids are 3 years old. So her dance career will just have to wait a little longer. Until then, I'll just have to dance home school her. She still loves to read too. The other night from her crib, I heard her say over and over again, "Baby Jesus is here, Baby Jesus is here." I was tempted to go into her bedroom because let's be honest, if Baby Jesus was really there, I wanted to see him. But I realized it was the last line of a book that Aunt Sharon and Uncle Greg got her. The painters are coming next week to paint the spare bedroom that will be hers soon to make room for the new baby. She seems really excited about it so we'll see how all of those changes go.

Speaking of the new baby, the pregnancy is going very well. We just had an ultrasound that showed everything looking good. We had the option of knowing the sex of the baby at this ultrasound but we officially turned down the offer. Olivia went to a routine ob appt with me and she seemed to really enjoy being with me through everything that was going on until they listened for the baby's heartbeat over the monitor. Then she got a little freaked out like that noise should not be coming from my belly.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and we'll be sure to take lots of pictures to share.

Happy Halloween!

Well, by now you all probably know that Olivia is going to be a big sister. She seems to be mildly excited about it. We got a cute card from a friend with a duck on the front and I told her it was for the baby. So Olivia said, "Awwwww, here baby!" and she lifted up my shirt and put the card up it. I asked her what we should name the baby and she said, "Beluga" which is a word that she recently made up and uses for everything. So little Beluga Blocher will be joining our little family around May 9th and I will be even worse at updating this blog, if that's possible.

Halloween was fun this year. Olivia was a spider. She is not at all into playing any sort of dress up so I was worried that she wouldn't want to wear her costume. But when we got to the mall where we went the night before Halloween to go store to store for candy, she saw all of the kids and seemed to really want to get into the festivities with them.

Generally speaking, Olivia is just the happiest child I have ever met. She loves to pretend. She pretends she is holding baby animals in her hand and asks me to pet them. She loves the part of her library class when the teacher takes his wand and gives all of the kids pretend "reading dust" in their hands. She pretends she is a puppy and has me feed her from my hand. In addition to pretending, she loves to sing and dance. With the singing, her favorites are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Alphabet (done with 99% accuracy). With the dancing, she pretty much just has one signature move where she sways back and forth and kicks her legs from side to side while she is swaying. It's not fancy but it just makes us laugh every single time she does it. Her other favorite thing is running around naked. She just takes off running from room to room laughing when we take off her clothes to put her pjs on. This is NOT something she learned from her parents, by the way.

Don't forget that I put a larger version of the little pictures on the left waaaaaaay down at the bottom of the blog. I remove them though when I update.

Flower Girl Summer Tour continues....

So Olivia had her second run at being a flower girl for Diana's wedding at the end of August and she did even better then before, if that's possible. She actually wore the ring of flowers around her head this time and she partied hard at the reception until 10pm when her mean Mommy and Daddy made her go back to the room to go to bed. She had an absolute blast though. On a side note, on our drive home from the wedding, we saw an RV and pulled over to check it out since we had been casually looking for one for years. We ended up buying it later that week and Olivia absolutely loves that too. She calls it Gus, as in Gus the Bus because she sees it as a bus rather then an RV.

Olivia just started swimming lessons through our township. She LOVED her first lesson the other night. Most of the kids are holding tightly onto their parents' necks and just sort of sitting in their arms. But not Olivia! She is pushing away so that she can kick and move and splash. I'm very happy we signed her up.

She is just talking like crazy. She loves to ask questions already. (I thought that came later.) She is nosey like her Mommy. She says, "What cha doing, Mommy?" "What chu eating, Daddy?" "You drinking beer, Daddy?" "What chu have in your bag, Mommy?" Some phrases need some tweeking but she seems to be able to say anything she wants to to get her point across. I told her it might rain today and she said, "I hope so not." She was calling me to her crib the other night when we put her down and when I finally got there (obviously not fast enough for her) she said, "I no idea where are you?"

She has a great imagination. She loves to pretend she is holding different baby animals and asks me to pet them. She likes to play the ol' "which hand is it in?" when she is eating something small. Of course she holds forward the hand that she wants you to pick which is the empty hand but it's my job to play along so I do.

I promise to be better about this blog for all of you who have been breathing down my neck.