What a weekend!

The weekend started off in the most amazing way with the arrival of sweet Matthew!

I borrowed this from the hospital's website.  They took the sweetest pics and yes, he's wearing an Auntie Ver hat! :)

It's been so special getting to see pics of Kristin's new little boy!  Makes me almost want to have another but then reality strikes when I realize that a) we made the permanent choice not to have anymore babies (the thought of that sometimes still makes me sad)  and b) three kids is more than a mom like me can handle! Seriously, I will prove it to you!

Alivia has been keeping me on my toes and is by far our most mischievous child ever!  If I'm not trying to take her off the toilet, where she's standing to turn the sink on all by herself, she is opening the fridge door and helping herself to a fruit!  If it isn't that, she's ejecting a DVD midway through the big girls watching a movie! The list goes on!

Her latest adventure was this weekend, when she walked into my room (and yes the door was closed), sat down at my desk, opened my laptop and proceeded to rip several keys off for fun!

10 keys in all!

I'm sure she would have kept going had Audrey not discovered what she was doing and came and stop me as I was vacuuming the living room!  I tell ya, the only thing saving this little girl is her sweet smile and the fact that she just learned how to call me "Mommy" instead of only saying "Momma!"

The other highlight of my weekend was that Alyssa lost her third tooth! I know most people probably don't care but for me it's one of those moments that really make my heart smile so big!  Another thing that made it so neat was that this was Alyssa's first TOP tooth to fall out! That darn thing was jiggly for months until finally in the last couple of weeks it got really loose.  I asked Lyssa to let me check it right before bedtime and I realized that it really didn't have much more until it was gonna fall out.  I probably could have left it alone, but I told her we could try a little dental floss to help it come out!  I know this probably sounds weird, but something special like losing a tooth was something I really hoped would happen at home, instead of school or somewhere else where she could potentially lose it.  We played with her tooth for a few minutes and before we knew it, it came out!

I made sure to take this picture of her right before we left for school!  I've been so bad at manually recording things these days, so I for sure thought I'd better blog about this so we won't forget when it happened!

Her other front tooth is jiggly now so I'm thinking that by the time it falls out we can sing that song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" and it'll be for real! Haha! :)

Just Like Old Times (only now I'm married with three kids)!

I have so much to share about what we've been up to lately so I'm thinking today I'll start with something fun we got to do last Friday and then work my way through the past weekend in the next few posts!

On Friday I had the fun chance to get together with a sweet friend from high school.  We reconnected through Facebook last year and have been talking a lot on there but hadn't actually seen each other in person in 13 years!  The funniest thing about it...we live in the same town! She actually moved away and then came back and well me...I've been here the whole time.  I'm so boring! :)

Nightingale loves photography and asked me a while back if I'd be interested in letting her come over to photograph us to capture what a typical day looks like.  After several months of talking about scheduling a meet-up, we were able to finally able to make it happen! The girls and I had such great time visiting with "Miss Nightingale" and they felt completely comfortable with her, which was so great :)  Visiting Nightingale was like old times and we agreed at the end of our visit that we are pretty much both the same people we were back in high school...only this time around, we're both married and I have THREE kids! We laughed together when she said to me that she still couldn't believe that I have three!

What's so cool to me is that Nightingale, or "Nightie" as we always used to call her, is also a blogger!    After our day together, she wrote up a really neat post on her observations of the day and it was cool seeing what she captured and reading about what our life looks like from the "outside.  You can go HERE to read it! It would mean so much to me if you went over to her blog and checked it out! While you're there, please try to ignore my yucky hair!  There was no time to style it that day, and I am way over due for a haircut so I've pretty much gone into lazy mode with styling it!

Well, I'm really looking forward to more chances to hang out with Nightingale and maybe even get to meet with both her and her Hubby together!

P.S.  When you hop over to Nightingale's blog, you'll see the mommy shirt I'm wearing.  I've been meaning to blog about it for ages but just hadn't done that.  Jodi made it for me and I love it!

All over the board

I've been in sort of a funk over the last couple days and I'm just not sure why.  I've been tired and unmotivated and just down for some reason.  I'm hoping that I'll snap out of it soon because I have lots to do and this coming weekend is going to be a busy one for our family. 

Last night I made it out to a girls night out with my MOPS group.  I decided I would make some cupcakes to share with the girls and decided to go with a fun girl color!

I love, love the decorating part of cupcake making and some days I just wish that I could find a hobby that wasn't so fattening!  It's just so hard to make cupcakes without eating them!  I've been gaining the weight back that I worked hard to lose over the summer and I really need to get back on track soon!

Back to the Barn

This week has continued to fly!  It's been full of tons of running around and staying busy!  I've been meaning for days to post about our little trip from over the weekend to the Avila Valley Barn, so I'm finally getting to that today!

Last year around this exact same time, I posted about my trip to the Avila Barn with my sister Yvonne and our girls.  We had a lot of fun there both last summer and during the fall for the pumpkin patch trip, so on Saturday when we had some free time, my Hubby and I loaded up the girls and took the twenty minute drive back to the Barn.

The last time we'd been there was in October for the pumpkin patch and I was excited to be able to take Livvie along with us, since the last time she'd been there was when she was still in my belly! 

When we first got there, the girls had fun feeding the animals they have there.  At first Alyssa was nervous about the animals biting her, but after a while, she got the hang of things and did a great job feeding them.  I think the expression on her face in this picture is so funny.  She was having a really good time.

After we got done feeding the animals, I made sure to get my Hubby to take a picture of me and the girls.  I hadn't really been able to get a good picture of all of us since Livvie's was born, but I think this one might be a new favorite of mine.  I love how Audrey's doing her own little thing with Alivia here.  So sweet...

I even laughed after going back to last years post about the Barn and noticed I wore the same exact gold hoop dangly earrings on our trip out there.  How funny, huh?

After we finished our little photo shoot, it was off to the girls' favorite part...the sweet shop, where they have homemade ice cream and sorbets.  They also sell a TON of salwater taffy!

They also have the best ever cobbler there and of course you know I had to do a redo of last year and get me some olalaberry cobbler a la mode.  It was soooooo good!

 My Hubby was rolling his eyes at me when I took the picture of my dessert.  I'm not sure why he thought I was being silly considering I take pictures of almost everything these days.  Even food! :)

When I'm there, I always love taking pictures of the flowers they sell.  I'll never forget the year I was pregnant and almost due with Alyssa, and my Hubby and I went there for the day to celebrate our anniversary.  He got me the prettiest bouquet of flowers there and we went home and cooked our own lobster tails we'd purchased from Port San Luis Pier, another neat place down the way from the Barn.

Being at the Barn always brings back good memories and I can't wait until October to go back for the pumpkin patch experience!  This time we'll have Livvie to take along with us to make even more new memories!

If you're even in my area of California, taking a trip the the Barn is a must.  It's so much fun and a great place to check out!

P.S.  On a totally different note, I just wanted to say thanks so much for all your help and suggestions about getting ready for school after my post on Monday.  There was so much great feedback and all of it helped out so much!  I was even able to go down to the school yesterday to turn in our paperwork and got many of my questions answered.  We have orientation on the 13th and then three days later, school starts!  Not much longer now!

Great News!

Just a super quickie post to say thanks again for all your prayers for Livvie!  I just got a call from her Nurse Practioner's office and they told me that the test results for her having whooping cough came back NEGATIVE!  Awesome news, huh?  God is GOOD!

I don't have much more time for blogging today since I've been using my spare time to make my new flower clippies.  I am so excited about the way they're turning out!

Since we've been cooped up in the house a bunch lately, my super sweet Hubby offered to stay home with both Audrey and Alivia so that Alyssa and I could have some one-one-one mommy daughter time tonight.  We're going to go see this movie...

It's been forever since we've been able to get out just the two of us and we're so excited!!!

A Livvie update {with a vlog cameo}

It's been a lazy Sunday today and right now it's just me, Audrey and Livvie here.  My Hubby's gone for the afternoon and Alyssa is with my mom at church.

Since I hadn't updated the blog since posting about Livvie being sick last Wednesday, I thought I would pop in quickly to say hi and thank you so much for the prayers!  We really appreciate them so much and Livvie's been feeling soooo much better!  She is still coughing but it's a different kind hacking cough, like the one where you can tell something's loosening up in there, so I'm hoping that's a good thing.  We've continued putting her down for naps and bedtime in her bouncer to help relieve her congestion and it's been working so well.  She's been so calm and now it's not uncommon for her to fall asleep in her bouncer without a fuss.  She's also been sleeping great at night again and you really wouldn't know anything was wrong with her except for the occasional cough attack here and there.  I'm really hoping that by the end of the week, she'll be feeling close to her usual self again!

As for the test results for whooping cough that I mentioned the other day that we had to wait for, I still haven't heard anything back.  I called them on doctor's on Friday afternoon to check up, but they closed at noon so I was too late.  I'll be calling back tomorrow and hopefully they'll be telling me that the results were negative.  I'm looking forward to having healthy kiddos around here again as we're almost at the end of July and Alyssa will be starting school soon and my focus will be on getting ready for that!

I thought it would be neat to end this one with my first "real" vlog ever.  I'm normally not a fan of myself on camera, but I thought it would be neat to play with my webcam (sorry it's so grainy)and say hi and thanks for being there for us.  Please try not to laugh at me...I'm truly not the photgenic type. :)


Untitled from Veronica on Vimeo.

Thanks again for all your prayers!  I'm convinced that that's the why Livvie's recovering so fast! :)

Going missing...and a prayer request, please!

On Monday afternoon and out of the clear blue, Alivia developed a little cough.  By that night, things seemed to get worse and she had a terrible night with lots of coughing, gagging and throwing up.  The past two days have included even more coughing, nasal stuffiness, and general irritibility so this morning I decided it would be best to call her doctor.  They were able to fit us in this morning and after checking her out, her Nurse Practitioner suspects she has whooping cough.  The craziest thing about it is that the rest of us in the house feel totally fine.  Go figure, huh?

At our visit today, the Nurse Practitioner took a swab inside of her nose to get a culture to test and see if she for sure has what they suspect.  In the meantime, they've put her on Zithromax and are treating her as if she does have whooping cough.  They also want all of us in the house to be on the same antibiotic and they want for both me and my Hubby to go and get the pertussis vaccine.  They are super concerned because of Livvie's age and how fast this seems to be spreading in our area.

While at the office this morning, they also mentioned that they would be contacting the Public Health Department since this is a condition that's of major concern right now.  I ended up getting a call from a nurse from the county clinic asking me if she could come by this afternoon.  She did come by, along with another gentleman and they sat and talked with us.  They asked us a zillion questions and took down the girls' previous vaccination information and went on their way.

The doctor's office told me they should have the test results back within the next three days but in the meantime, I'll be giving Livvie her antiobiotic and praying that she gets better soon.  Will you pray for her with us?  We would totally appreciate it so much.  Seriously...seeing your little one feeling yucky is not fun at all.

Here she was today during her one really good nap...

It's only Wednesday and it feels like it's been a long week already.  I am SO behind with blogging, especially blog reading so please forgive me.  I've decided that it would be best if I took the next several days off from posting at least so that I can focus on getting Livvie better!  I hope everyone is doing well and thank you so much for always being there for us!!!

P.S.  Be sure to check out Veronnica's blog tomorrow for Day 5 of her Blogiversary Bash!  Both Kristin and I will be giving away something fun...You'll want to check it out! :)

Guess who's three months old already?

Can you believe it?  My Livvie girl is three months old today, already!  I decided that it called for a little photo shoot this morning to celebrate the day!  I went a little camera happy as usual, so try to bear with me! 

Alivia has been doing wonderful and it's amazing to see her get so big so fast!  My two big girls plumped up quickly and Alivia is following suite!  She's still fitting into some 3-6 months clothes, but I've been starting to put her in her 6-12 months size clothes in the last couple of days.  It won't be long before she outgrows her infant carrier just like her sisters did.  I don't believe my girls made it past the four month marker in the infant carrier!  Crazy!

 It's amazing to me just how much one month has made a difference in her personality as well.  It wasn't too long ago where I was posting about how much she'd cry and wondering if she had colic.  Around the time I started to do better about watching what I ate, it was like I was given a new baby.  The crying pretty much stopped over night and a sweet smily baby emerged.  Don't you just love those big cheeks?

Livvie's also been doing so well when it comes to naps and has fallen into a schedule of her own.  She's even been sleeping through the night for the last several nights already.  I usually put her down somewhere between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. depending on her last nap of the day, and she'll usually stay asleep until around 7:00 a.m.!  Here's the evidence for all that sleeping through the night...

Good ole' mama's milk!  I've had no choice but to pump first thing in the morning the last few days so as not to feel like I just had a boob job! :)  Call me crazy for posting a picture of my milk.  I'm one of those kinds of mom's who's proud that she nurses!  I consider it such a privledge that I can do this!

Alivia's also starting to recognize faces and has started to cry when she's held by someone she doesn't see much.  Last week when I took the big girls to my MIL's work (she cares for a super sweet elderly lady in her home) while I went to the doctor, she freaked out when her Grandma held her.  My sweet and happy girl turned into this and yes, I took the picture!

As soon as I got her, it was like a switch was turned off.  Just when I wonder sometimes if my girls love me, I get my answer when I hold this sweet girl.  She knows who her mama is!

In addition to smiling up a storm lately and showing us how strong she is, moving her head all around, she also laughed for the first time last week.  It was SO cute but of course no one else was in the room to hear it.  I can't wait until she starts laughing more! :)

And that's about all for our little home photo shoot this morning.  I did manage to get one more pic of her with Audrey while Alyssa was gone this morning to Vacation Bible School (more on that later this week).

These last three months have passed so quickly and it seems like just yesterday that this was us...

                     

Going Home~April 12, 2010 from Veronica on Vimeo.

(Please note...Up until now only a couple of close friends have seen this video and I don't think even family's seen it. I thought it would be fun to share this since I've never really posted a video of me looking at the camera. Maybe if I get brave enough, I'll post more in the future. Please also don't mind my Hubby talking in the video. He was being so sweet)!

Hope you're all having a great start to your week and I'll talk to you all later!

Two months!

First of all, just wanted to say thanks for the sweet comments on my hair yesterday.  They were really encouraging considering that when I got home from that haircut appointment that day, my Hubby was not happy.  He didn't have any issues with me nursing at the salon ( I made sure to mention that I'd promised my hairstylist that I wouldn't expose myself and I didn't), but he did have issues with the length.  He's always liked my hair longer but I just never have the patience to grow it out.  It's taken a few days to get used to this new look but I'm actually starting to like it being so short.  I even bobbi pinned it up in the middle today and it turned out looking pretty cute!

With that out of the way, I finally wanting to get to posting about Livvie turning two months old!

On Saturday, my baby girl turned two months old and my Hubby and I got to doing a fun little photoshoot using the new camera during the big girls' naptime.  At first, she wasn't really enjoying the papparazi flash of the camera as you can see here.

My Hubby just kept taking more pictures

and eventually she warmed up a little and decided it wasn't so bad after all!

I know I keep saying this but I can't believe that my baby is two months old already!  She's growing so fast and it's been so fun to see her change over the past couple of months.  It seemed like it took forever for her jaundice to go away and I'm so glad it's finally gone.  I've also been loving the sweet little smiles she's starting to give us!  Talk about melting your heart! :)

Yesterday I took her to her two month check-up.  The Nurse Practitioner was really happy with her progress since at her last check up at two weeks old, she'd only gained an once more than her birth weight.  It's safe to say that she's thriving off of mama's milk since she now weighs 12 lbs 14 oz!  While we were there yesterday, they also gave her two shots and one oral vaccine.  I was so surprised when she only cried just a tiny bit and then was totally fine as I was putting her pants back on.

Well, my sweet girl, you're growing bigger and bigger every day and we're so happy you're a part of our family!  It's amazing to us how you look everything and nothing like your big sisters all at the same time! 

Love you lots my sweet Divvie Divvie, as your sisters like to call you!

New camera, new do!

Hello blog.  I've missed you!  It's been days since I've been able to get on here to sit and write and now it feels like I have a ton to get caught up on!

So what all has happened since the last time I blogged?  Well, let's see here...

On Wednesday I finally decided which camera I wanted to buy and ordered it online.  I was so excited when, on Friday I got an email saying that it was going to be delivered that day!  It was perfect timing because it came just in time to take some pictures of the weekend's events which included my sister Yvonne's birthday dinner and Alivia turning two months old! 

 
I ended up going with the Canon Rebel T1i like I mentioned the other day.  I still have to make time to sit and figure out what all it does but so far I love it!  I especially love how it captures the exact moment I'm phototgraphing, without having that delay I was getting with my point and shoot.  I will have to spend some time reading the manual so that I can learn more about the camera.  In the meantime, I've been pretty much just sticking to taking pictures in the "portrait mode."

On Friday afternoon I got a whim to go and get my hair cut.  I've been needing a new haircut for a while now and hadn't gotten one since the day before our baby shower for Alivia.  My sister Yvonne was nice enough to offer to watch the big girls for me while I went to the salon.  I took Alivia with me since I'm nursing and don't really like to be away from her for too long.

It was my first time ever taking a baby with me to a hair salon and let me just tell you, it was an experience I'll never forget.  Let's just say it involved me breast feeding in the salon while my male hairstylist was cutting my hair!  It was probably the strangest place I've EVER nursed a baby!  I was completely out of my comfort zone but I guess that's what I get for taking my baby with me!

Since Livvie fussed for a good part of the haircut, I paid no attention to what my hairdresser was doing when he cut off a TON of my hair!  My original request was for something fun and shorter but not so short I couldn't put it back in a ponytail.  What I ended up getting wasn't exactly that, but it still turned out okay, I guess.  I think something got lost in translation between fussy baby and "let's cut off some of the length so I don't feel like an old lady anymore," but whatever.  I'm thinking it'll work out okay for summetime...

Well, I've got lots going on this week since Alyssa's birthday party is this weekend already!  I'm going to try to work on separate posts this week for my sister's birthday party and Alivia's turning two months.  I have a ton to get done this week so hopefully I'll have time to blog as much as I want!  I also have a giveaway for some sweet hair clippies from Trinity's Treasures this week that will be fun too!

 Hope everyone's having a great start to their week!

P.S.  Just wanted to mention that I am so happy to share that I've been doing really good on my new "lifestyle change" of eating better.  Would you believe that when I weighed myself yesterday I found that I'd lost SIX pounds since last week already?!?!  I cheated a little bit over the weekend, but today I'm back on track and I'm already feeling SO much better.  Even the baby is not as cranky!  I'm fitting into some jeans I hadn't been able to wear in a REALLY long time and I am soooooo excited!!!

The dreaded "D" word, a special gift, a winner

I've been meaning to post these last few days but it's been super busy around here!  I know I was supposed to announce the winner of my giveaway from last week yesterday too but between all of life's happenings, I just hadn't been able to sit down and write.

The biggest happening of the week is the fact that I finally decided to buckle down and go on a DIET.  I have a horrible track record for starting diets that I never finish, but this week I've been determined to make some MAJOR changes.  I did lose all of my pregnancy weight so now the goal is to go back to what I was when I first got married.  I've never been skinny, so that's not even what I'm looking to achieve.  I just want to be healthy and be able to look in the mirror and like what I see.

What got me started on this whole thing was last week when Kristin and I were talking on the phone about how she was working with Kari to get a health plan that would work to help her feel better.  She shared with me what the plan was and I about died when I read the list of all the CAN'T eat foods.  Seriously, everything on that list was things I eat on a regular basis!  Anyhow...this week I decided to start fresh and eliminate all the bad stuff.  My first goal was to stop drinking sodas, which is a HUGE thing for me to do.  I LOVE, LOVE my soda but know that I would love to feel better about myself more.

The plan this week is to elimate all of the stuff I usually love to eat like bread, chips, crackers, etc,

and eat lots of fruits, veggies and things with protein.  Today is Day three and I already feel like it's making a difference!  I'm looking forward to looking and feeling better.  The first two days were CRAZY tough considering what a carb addict I am, but I have to keep reminding myself to take each day one at a time and do the best I can do to make good choices about what goes in my mouth.  I know I can do this! :)

-----------------------------------------

In other news, I also wanted to share the sweetest gift I received in the mail this week.  It's a handmade blanket that Sarah made for Alivia.  I love it!

If you are anyone who either crochets or knits, you know that blankets are truly a labor of love.  They take lots of time to make and it was just so special that Sarah took the time to make this for our girl. 

I think it's safe to say she loves it too!

Thank you so much Sarah!!! :)

Well, I guess I'd better get going for now.  I've got a baby girl crying for Mama.  She had a fussy night last night and she's been having a hard time napping today too.  I'm thinking it's just one of those days, because over the last week, things have gotten SO much better!  She's been going to bed somewhere between 8 and 9 p.m. with little or no fussing and sleeps for a good six hour stretch!  Hallelujah!!!

P.S.  The winner of the snacks and Costco gift card goes to...Sarah from Gives and Takes!  When you get the chance Sarah, please email me with your address so I can forward that to MyBlogSpark!  Thanks! :)

Following up

I've been busy doing chores and have-to's today but I finally got a break in now that the girls are napping and wanted to come back and update you after last night's post.

I know at times I can sound all drastic but I just want you to know that today we're doing awesome!  We made it through last night with some BIG help from your prayers and some colic tablets (thanks to Mimi's suggestion...thanks Mimi)!  The tablets really seemed to help out a lot and even though it took the usual long while to get Alivia down for the night, there was a whole lot less crying!

I don't know why I hadn't thought of using these before, considering that I've used their teething tablets and Vitamin C tablets on the big girls with lots of success in the past! 

Anyhow...I just wanted to say how thankful I am that I can come here and ask for prayer and know that there will be people who will do it! Even more than that, I'm thankful that the Lord hears those prayers and comes to help us when we're going through the rough stuff.

This sweet girl had a great night and only woke up once to eat and first thing in the morning, she was my happy little girl again!  It's amazing to me how big she's getting and I keep reminding myself not to get overwhelmed with the bumps in the road because this first year will go by so fast.

How is it possible that this chubby cheeked girl is almost seven weeks already?

Well, I hope you all have an awesome Memorial weekend.  We don't have any big plans but I wish we did.  We were wanting to go and visit my Hubby's brother down south but we've decided to postpone that trip for a bit.  I'm so excited that summer is finally here though and next week I want to share what I'm working on for Alyssa's birthday which is right around the corner.  My big girl will be turning FIVE, already!  Woo hoo!

The hardest part of the day

Last week I mentioned how evenings were getting kinda rough over here with Alivia and how I had to take her for a late night car right just to get her to stop crying.  I was hoping that things would be getting better but they haven't.  I'm starting to see more of a pattern with her fussiness and I'm just praying that this whole thing isn't here to stay.

See, we can go through the entire day with a super happy baby, and then come 6:00 o'clock, things start to go south.  We can usually make it through dinner hour and then before we know it, Alivia starts in with the crying.  What makes it even harder is that she wants nothing to do with anyone but me.  I've been down this road before but for some reason the thought of that doesn't make things any better.  I was hoping that after experiencing the horrible crying we had to go through with Audrey and her acid reflux when she was a baby, I wasn't going to have to go back down this path. 

I'm trying to remind myself that this stage won't last forever but in the thick of things, it's hard to see clearly.  Last night I broke down and did what I never do and tried to give Livvie a bottle of formula, thinking that maybe she was still hungry.  At that point, she'd nursed for a good hour straight and I was feeling a bit raw to say the least.  To those who know me well, you know that formula is something I don't do, but I was feeling desperate.  Well, turns out Livvie hated it and ended up throwing up all over both of us.

We're getting closer to that particular time of day when things get tough and I'm starting to dread what's to come.  Do you think you can do me a huge favor and pray for us?  Pray that Alivia doesn't have the dreaded "C" word and that we'll get through this stage quickly.  I know she won't be little for long, but it's times like these that feel forever in the moment.

I know we'll get through this and just for proof to Daddy (who doesn't believe me that this little girl isn't always crying) here she was this morning during breakfast...

She might look serious here, but at least she wasn't crying!

P.S.  Just in case you're wondering if I know about the Five S's, yup, I do and I've tried them.  I'm also trying to give her gripe water but it's not doing anything quite yet.  Tonight I'm going to try the white noise thing and see if that works.  It's just getting her to down for the night that's tough and thankfully she's down for a while.  Thank goodness for sleep at night!

Happy early Anniversary

Last night my Hubby and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary a little bit early by going out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  It's called Palazzio and it's in Santa Barbara, which is about an hour south of here.  We actually went there last year too!

It was sort of a spur of the moment type thing, since we ended up sending both of the big girls with my mom to her church and hadn't originally planned to go anywhere to celebrate until Tuesday, which is our real anniversary.  My mom has been taking Alyssa to her church (which has afternoon service) for the last couple of months and we just decided to give it a shot yesterday and let Audrey go with Grandma too, even though church was during her usual nap time.

The girls ended up doing well and we enjoyed a casual early dinner with Miss Livvie...

She did so well during our meal, and woke up once, only to go back to sleep in my arms.  She was such a good baby!

At the end of our meal, I made sure to ask our waitress if she'd take our picture.  This was the one and only that we had her take, since I didn't want to be a pest and have her take too many!  I was pleasantly suprised at how the picture turned out (even though my hair was all messy and I looked totally mommy'd out---wish I would have had time to do my hair--oh well)! 

It will be fun to look back on this particular year and remember it was the year we spent our anniversary dinner with our new baby!

While we were there, we also met a special couple who was there celebrating their 35 wedding anniversary!  It was so neat getting to meet them and as we left the restaurant we talked about how amazing 35 years of marriage really is!

Well, this is gonna have to be a super quickie post since I'm kinda behind with my Monday have-to's.  I'm hoping to do a "real" anniversary post tomorrow!  I love you honey, and I'm so glad to be on this journey with you!

Growing, growing!

Well, after a funky week over here, I'm glad it's Friday!  The girls are finally starting to feel better and I am so happy about that!  It's never fun to have sick kiddos and I'm so thankful that things are looking up!

I was sitting here nursing Alivia this morning and realized I hadn't posted any new pictures of her on the blog in over a week!

She's growing SO fast and I just can't believe that she'll be SIX weeks old already next Monday!  The time seems to be going so fast and on most days I'm not walking around like a zombie anymore!  We're all finding our groove around here and the coolest thing is that I'm feeling more confident in my mothering skills than I ever have before.  There are still days where I feel overwhelmed with all that must be done, especially when I'm doing something like making dinner and then the baby starts doing her fussy thing.

But, I'm totally enjoying the times where we can just be one-on-one!  I'm trying to hold them in my heart because I know it won't be this way forever.

I keep telling my Hubby how funny it is that I'm still trying to get used to Alivia being my little dark baby.  She's seriously the darkest of all three, and in all honesty, I just wasn't expecting that.  I know it's not a bad thing, it's just something different.  Don't you just love her little Mohawk?

 She is starting to be more alert and just yesterday she smiled at me for the first time while she was awake!  Talk about melting my heart!  I love this little girl!!!

Well, I hope everyone has a great weekend.  Thanks for being there this week through my craziness.  You guys have helped me think things through about my hat business and venturing out to meet new moms and I'm feeling hopeful!

One month, already!

I can't believe that at this time exactly one month ago today, I had just given birth to this sweet girl!

( I finally got around to checking out Picnik today and was able to make this cool collage. It was so easy)!

Alivia is doing great and is such a good baby!  She has her fussy time every day somewhere between eight and ten in the evening but other than that she is a pretty happy baby!  We laugh and talk about how much she must be used to all the screaming from her sisters from when she was in my belly, because she can sleep through mostly anything without being phased!

She still has jaundice but I think it's finally coming to an end soon, thank goodness!  She also continues to be doing well in the breast feeding department too, which makes me so happy to know that she's growing healthy and strong with Mommy's milk!  She's also continued to spit up a bit after a few feedings here and there but from what I can tell, we won't have to be going through the reflux like I mentioned I had been worried about.  Thanks so much for the prayers on that!

Today was also my last check up at my OB's office.

I had my exam and was given a clean bill of health.  I'm still healing but I feel great and I was so excited to find out that I'd lost all 20 pounds of my pregnancy weight!  Now I just need to get focused and lose all my after marriage weight, LOL!  Just 30 pounds to go!!!

While at my appointment, the Nurse Practioner made sure to touch on the subject of birth control.  Like the last few visits I had there at the office, they asked me again what my thoughts were on the subject. I know I haven't talked a lot about this whole subject here on the blog, but I really feel strongly (and this is just my personal preference) against putting chemicals in my body that aren't necessary.  We practice Natural Family Planning, where we basically chart the fertile window in my cycle, and we feel are comfortable with this method.  Anyhow...even after the conversation with how I didn't want to be on tradtional birth control, the Nurse Practitioner still wrote me this scrip.  I just had to take a picture of this because after looking at it when I got home, I was shocked to see what kind of birth control she was trying to prescribe to me.  Does anyone see anything wrong with this?  (And yes...I did mark out all my personal info).

Well, this past month has flown by crazy fast!  Things are getting so much easier, and think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this new life as a mommy of three!

Hitting the wall

At Alivia's first check up a couple of weeks ago, her Nurse Practioner asked me how I was doing.  It was only my fourth day in as a Mommy of three and I told her I thought I was doing pretty good.  Sure, I had barely made it to the appointment on time and I never did get a shower that morning, but I was feeling like I had a pretty good handle on things!  She asked me if I was getting enough help and reminded me that I needed to make sure to get plenty of rest and to sleep when the baby slept.  I thought that was pretty funny considering that I have two other little ones that sometimes have their own agendas which don't always involve napping.

And then she said something that stuck with me.  It's important that you get your rest when you can because if you don't, by week three you're going to hit the wall.  I told my Hubby about what she said when I got home so he could make sure that I never got to that point.

I at least made it into week four but let me tell you, today I felt like I was close to hitting that wall.  The girls were extra rambunctous today and I had a little baby girl who just wanted to be held. 

It didn't matter that today I felt like actually styling my hair and trying to look decent for once or that I had chores that needed to be done.  She just fussed and fussed until I could hold her.  When she started getting fussy again tonight I just sat in her room with her and cried.  I told her I was right here and felt so frustrated that I just couldn't figure out how to comfort her.  I think it was also the tired me just feeling a little beat down.  I've been thinking I can do it all and I don't need to rest, but boy have I been wrong.

Well, I'm thankful that it's the end of the day!  I'm also so grateful for my wonderful Hubby who's been working his regular job and comes home and helps me make dinner and do the dishes even when he's dead tired.  I am so blessed and even though today was a rough one...I am so thankful for this life we have.  I wouldn't want it any other way...

What was your name again?

Well, it's offical, I've become one of them.  You know, one of those mother's who can't keep their kids' names straight, yup, that's me!  I used to laugh at my MIL all the time and wonder why she'd always call everyone by the wrong name.  Turns out going from two to three kiddos causes a person to have amnesia or something because all week long, I've been calling my kids all by the wrong names!

In just a couple of days, my Livvie girl will be turning three weeks old and I'm already wondering to myself where I've been all this time!  Things have continued to go mostly smoothe over here in the transition of life with a new baby in the house.  The girls love their baby sister and sometimes a little too much.  I am constantly having to tell them to give Alivia her space and to "please get off your sister's face."  They can't seem to get enough of her and I'm glad that they're doing well adjusting to having another sibling.

This week I decided to start something new and instead of putting Alyssa down for naps, (which she seems to be outgrowing lately) I let her stay up and put Audrey down for a nap by herself.  During naptime, Alyssa and I have been having fun doing "learning time" and playing games like "Memory."  It's been a while since we've done any alone time activities together and I really think she's been enjoying herself.  I'm thinking that next week, I'll continue on with this new schedule but try to throw in a day or two of naps for Alyssa so that I can get a little nap in myself too!

Some of you have asked me how I've been doing and if I've been getting enough help.  The truth is, this week was a little rough.  On Monday, I took Alivia to her two-week check-up and decided to take all three girls with me.  I'm not quite sure why I thought I wanted to do that, but I did and found it to be extremely difficult.  The baby did wonderful, but it was just my big girls that weren't behaving.  At one point, Audrey was rolling around on the bench while we were waiting to be called back, and in the process, dumped several of her pretzals on the floor.  If that wasn't bad enough, she then tried eating the ones that had fallen on the floor!  I was so embarassed and looked like one of those moms, if you know what I mean.  I pretended to not feel the stares from the other parents sitting in the waiting room and tried to remind myself to take it easy.  After all, I'm new to this mom of three stuff and there will be many more instances that test my patience.  I just have to keep having to remind myself that it's okay to ask for help, and not feel guilty when I can't do certain things alone with all three girls.

Well, there's lots more I could probably go on about, but I think I'll stop here.  I've had a lot on my mind this week and I think it's just the fact that I'm still trying to process the whole "I just had a baby" kinda stuff.  In addition to that, Alivia's been jaundiced since a couple of days after she was born and it's still not gone yet.  She's also been starting to fuss more and has been spitting up a lot.  Both Alyssa and Audrey had GER, a.k.a. "reflux" and I'm praying this won't be the case for Livvie!  Audrey had it so bad that we actually thought she had colic when she was first born and had to be on meds until the time she turned one!  I've been stressing out a lot about these two things but I'm just praying all will be well with my girl.  If you wouldn't mind praying for her too, I would really appreciate it so much!

P.S.  I know I must sound like a broken record, but I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been there for us these last few weeks.  If you've come to vist, sent us a card, or left us a message, please know that we appreciate you so much and we're so thankful to have you in our lives, whether we know you in person or not! :)