Venturing Out...

After being holed up in the house for two weeks it was time to go on a road trip. Olivia was so excited by the thought she tired herself out and slept the whole time. We went to Target to grab a few things. We were so nervous to bring Olivia into the store because we were scared of germs. Armed with hand sanitizer we went head to head with the germs. It's weird looking through the eyes of a germa phobe parent but they were lurking everywhere. They mostly disguised themselves as old cute women. There were a few that looked our way and thought about coming over and squeezing her cheeks but I put my hand over my sanitizer and they thought twice. It was like an old fashioned show down outside the saloon. One of the things we needed to grab was Shawntel's hair dye. Before we got pregnant she started dying her hair dark and it looked great but she hasn't done it in quite a while. Olivia is going to think that mommy has been replaced.

Last night was Olivia's first time in her swinger and she loved it. She started to cry last night and we went through the checklist. Her diaper was clean, we just fed her and I had a soothing episode of curb your enthusiasm playing for her, and yet she was still crying. So I laid her down in the swing and set it on the highest setting. It was so cool she immediately stopped. I think she loved it and she ended up falling asleep. I think that if she could talk she would have said cool thanks Dad.

Busy Day

Today we had two Dr.s appointment one for Olivia and one for Shawntel. Both of my girls are wore out. Shawntel's Dr. says everything is looking good and reminded her to take it slow. She said that the best therapy would be to clean the garage for her husband and I couldn't agree more. I was going to do it but, I won't argue with the Dr.. Today is the two week mark for Olivia and the Dr. said she should be back to her birth weight. So they called us back and asked to strip her down and come over to the scale. While I was carrying her over she peed all over me. I couldn't believe it, how come she couldn't wait until after she got weighed. She needed all the weight she could and she lost a half ounce on the way to the scale. We gave her to the nurse and started cleaning up the mess and when we were done we looked at the read out and it said 7lbs 5ozs. AWESOME!!!! The Dr. gave us the thumbs up and gave us some more good news. We don't need to wake her up during the night anymore she said to let her wake us up. Bonus!!! So to reward her we'll feed her breast milk and we'll have taco night.

Peace out umbilical...

Shawntel noticed that Olivia's umbilical cord was getting ready to go and yesterday was the day. I was changing diaper #197 and I looked down and something was missing. I did one of those double takes and saw her cute belly button but I couldn't find the cord. I yelled for Shawntel so I could get a couple extra eyes looking for it. We flipped the changing area upside down looking. The last place we checked was inside of her diaper and there it was. Something new for her baby book. I just know that when she's 18 she's going to see the stuff in that book and think that her Mom and Dad are the biggest nerds. Who cares its pretty cool putting that book together. We're headed to the Dr. tomorrow for her two week check up. Fingers crossed she'll be back to birth weight. I don't think she'll have any problem with that, her legs and cheeks are starting to get a little meat on them and just in case I'll put a clump of Vaseline on her hind end. That should give her a few extra ounces. From there we're going to pick up her birth certificate. Kinda cool. Olivia met Cat today she loves the flowers and a stuffed animal she brought her. She has had so many visitors and is having so much fun seeing everyone.

Olivia's announcements

I finally ordered birth annoucement for Olivia. I never knew how many different types and styles there was to choose from, and of course I wanted the very best for her. She is getting so big already, see is following Jonathan and I with her eyes and I swear she is smiling at us.... I know that she probably just left us a present in her diaper but it is so cute the faces that she makes. I never realized how much you could love something so much and so quick. We are having so much fun, even during her 2AM feedings. I cannot wait until Friday when she goes for her weight check with Dr. Williams. If she is up to her birth weight then we can let her tell us when she is hungry during the night; maybe we can get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time. But she is worth every sleepless minute. I know she has put on some weight because she is starting to get cute chubby cheeks and chuncky rolls on her legs. We took her for her 1st walk on Sunday, it was beautiful out. She liked it, but got fussy at the end because it was too close to feeding time.

First sunset...

It's so cool everything we do with Olivia is a first. Yesterday was her due date so we decided to take her out to go see her first sunset. Shawntel found on the computer that 6:25PM was prime time to watch the set. Perfect Olivia feeds at 5:00 so we'll feed her and have plenty of time to get down to the beach. Wro-oong.. Olivia wanted to make it memorable so she waited until after she ate to have a little fun with us. While Shawntel was changing her she waited for her to have a nice clean diaper ready to go and she pulled the trigger. So Shawntel threw it away quick and grabbed another and again she ruined that one. Third time was a charm. So with Olivia clean she was tossed into the car seat and off we were. On the way down to the beach we kept looking at the sun watching it get lower and lower. We were about 5 minutes out from the beach we were going to and we lost the sun behind the trees. When we pulled in the sun was just touching the horizon so with lightening fast maneuvers we grabbed Olivia's car seat and headed for the beach. The sunset was so pretty. We had about five minutes to get a few pictures and bid farewell to the day. Since I'm talking about first, we had our first full diaper genie bag. When I opened the thing up to take it out I was hit with a really bad stench. Each diaper by themselves stunk a little but once in the diaper genie the diapers united. It was horrible and it looked nothing like a bunch of sausage links(this is what I'm told it is supposed to look like and was the reason it stunk so bad) it looked more like a giant diaper kielbasa. Sounds tasty right? Thank god for youtube it's saved me so many times and it did so again. I never thought that I'd be searching for a diaper genie videos. You gotta give the thing a twist I figured with a name like genie it should twist on it's own. No dice but I'm on track now.

Olivia's performance enhancer

Today was Olivia's second Dr.'s

appointment and we were hoping that she put on some weight so the Dr. wouldn't take any of our parenting points. Shawntel has been working hard to get her ready for the weigh in . Shawntel actually fell asleep at the pump last night. I wish I would have gotten a picture but I didn't. She told me to go on to bed and she'd be in in a minute. So I did with pleasure but after awhile I got to thinking that Shawntel should have been in by now. When I walked into the living room she had her chin in her chest fast asleep with two breast pumps still doing their thing. It all paid off because Olivia tipped the scales 4ozs heavier. Aside from just her weight she seems to be more lively. It's pretty cool I think she can actually see us and can make us out too.

Change of pace

After being home for three days we've figured out that it's a better idea to make a schedule for Olivia rather than let her make one for us. It's been hectic trying to keep up with her and trying fit in everything we need to get done. It's hard to believe that a cute little 6 pounder could shake things up that much. Today is the first day we're using the new schedule and it's working awesome.

At birth Olivia weighed 7 pounds but she's dropped a little more than 10% percent of her weight because she wasn't eating. I think we have ironed that out now so hopefully she has put on a little weight. The only thing that concerns me is that she took a poo today that looked like it might back her down to about three pounds. Pampers called and said to monitor her activity because if she does that on a regular basis they want her to test out new products for them. I always thought that changing diapers would be gross but quite the opposite, it is so fulfilling changing those diapers. There's no doubt that some of them are gross but I've never seen anything like it. When she's gone to the bathroom it's almost like her world is just crashing all around her screaming, kicking and crying and here comes daddy with a new clean diaper to fix every thing. It's so cool!

Last night we ate our first "Let's Eat Dinner" meal. Stuffed pork pasanna, it was out of this world. Tonight though or tomorrow not sure which night we will be eating Kenny's famous jambalaya. Thank you Kenny for thinking about us. It sure is a time saver just being able to pull from the freezer and heat something up. Yum yum!!!