Just some pictures...

um...an update

I didn't get any pictures of Thanksgiving day, unfortunately. I just never seem to remember my camera these days. It's painfully slow and the battery just never stays charged. Plus I'm beginning to realize how old fashioned my once top-of-the-line camera is. (4 megapixels used to be high quality, you know!) Not that I'm complaining... I still think it takes great pictures. Perhaps the real reason I don't use it is simply that I don't have much time for it and have gotten out of the habit of using it. ;)

Thanksgiving morning we went to my parents house for breakfast and worship, and to say good bye. As you know, they are going to Israel where my dad will continue working on a project with the Trinitarian Bible Society. You can visit my mom's blog to follow their new life there. (I'm hoping there will be tons of pictures!)
We then went to the manse where the Smith families + Jesh, Sharon, and Ben, met for lunch, games, and of course lots of visiting.

Olivia started sitting up about a week before five months and now sits very well. She also is scooting places with her elbows and toes, and occasionally even uses her knees to push herself around. It's interesting how her personality is changing... she used to be very mild, but she has gradually become more energetic and very intense. She loves interacting with people!

She has started eating solids and I've also been supplementing formula. She just is not getting enough food, and she's so small! She fits into her age group for most clothes, so I don't always realize how petite she is. I had her weighed the other day for the first time since she was 6 weeks old, and she's not even 13 pounds yet. I'm beginning to realize that all the difficulty with her fussiness probably had (and has) to do with hunger.

Mark and I have come down with a cold... I'm not looking forward to a sick baby, especially since she's never been sick and I don't know what to expect! She's not gotten it yet, but it seems inevitable she will catch the bug too.

I cropped as much mess as I could out of this photo. We did have company over the night before, and Saturday mornings aren't generally a tidy moment.

I love this picture of Mark acting unimpressed.

life of a mother

Are you familiar with the countless little odds and ends that add up for that "last trip" when you move? On Monday I went back to our old home to clean and gather the last couple items. At least, I thought it was just a couple items. While Matthew ran around like crazy in the empty house, thereby entertaining Olivia, I began cleaning and getting things together. (Turned out that cupboard above the refrigerator which I was certain was empty had a nearly full box of brand new silverware from our wedding gifts that we'd stored for later use...)

Pretty soon Olivia was ready for a nap, and also a diaper change. The prepared mother I am, I simply opened up my purse/diaper bag to get the changing necessities-- to discover I'd forgotten to put new diapers in my purse. (I know, right?!) Since there is a Kroger just across the street, we got into the car and headed over to buy some diapers. As I was lifting Matthew into a basket near the Kroger entrance, I realized that he had apparently at some point during the day put his pants on backwards... but I couldn't exactly fix them there. *sigh* Fortunately Olivia had fallen asleep on the way.

Back at the apartment I resumed cleaning after eating some lunch. By the time I was ready to go, Olivia was ready for another nap. With just a couple items to take out to the car, I'd simply put her in the carseat and head out with an armload, right? Wrong. About five trips later, and while carrying a tired baby with me each time, (please bear in mind this is an upstairs apartment and you have to walk a ways to the parking lot) I had the car stuffed full and we were ready to go at last.


Olivia has reached the age where she really wants me -- all the time. I really do not hold her all the time, so I don't think I have trained her to always want attention..! She can be totally happy when she first wakes up or if she's playing by herself, but if I walk into her view she gets very excited and then cries if I walk on past. Matthew is very helpful in keeping her happy. He's often talking to himself and playing with his Legos nearby her, which keeps her entertained for quite a while. She also likes having someone in the backseat with her in the car!


On to some pictures:

I tried to get some photos of them together, but Olivia either wanted to sit up by herself...

...or sit back...

and play with her feet!

By the way, the clothes you sent fit her well, Evelyn! Thank you!

moved

We moved in one day.

I think unpacking is going to take a lot longer than it did to pack. ;)

new blog layout

I went through the trouble of making a header and finding a new background only to discover I can hardly even see any of the background! Hmm..perhaps those with larger screens can see more of it. ;] It's also pinker than I originally thought, so I'm not sure how long it will last.

By the way, if anyone does not want their blog linked to on the side, please let me know and I will remove it.

answers!

What a relief! The tests have come back, and the (new) doctor said that yes, Mark has adrenal fatigue -- and a hypothyroid. It explains his severe food allergies too, because you need a strong adrenal gland to fight antibodies in food. We are so thankful to finally know what the problem is! Hopefully now he can be on the road to recovery.

I took some video of Olivia yesterday morning. I had no idea it took so long for videos to upload on Blogger! I had more but I don't have the patience to wait for them to upload.
I realize her hair is kind of everywhere and she's not dressed... but she'd just woken up and was quite happy and I wanted to catch it on camera.

Lately she's been rather fussy during the day. She's having difficulty sleeping long enough in her naps and as a result has been very overtired and very sensitive to sound and movement during the day. I'm beginning to see what other mom's experience when their child is exhausted but just can't go to sleep! Thankfully her nights are still relatively peaceful. She normally sleeps about 12 hours and wakes up twice to feed.

moving

Playing with her "baby einstein" toy that plays classical tunes... which she has a lot of fun with!

We never heard back from the bank on our last offer on a house. (It was in short sale, where apparently it takes the bank a long time to get back with you -- which makes no sense to me, because it's supposed to be a "short sale" so the house doesn't go in to foreclosure...) Instead we are moving to a new rent property in November, all being well. Mark has had to cut back on work because of his severe fatigue, so for the time being we are downscaling to a little garage apartment. The kitchen was in desperate need of some remodeling, so we worked something out with the property owner and they will provide an amount of money, and we will supply the labor. Hopefully we can get some volunteers to help us out as Mark could hardly manage it himself at this point!

We are hoping to find the cause of Mark's extreme fatigue. He took a test to see if he has adrenal fatigue and should get the results back soon.

In other news... congratulations to Joseph and Carolyn on the birth of their son, Calvin Austin! He was born on the 9th.

some pictures

Oldest to newest:

Sleeping with her polar bear.

With her daddy.

Notice the one piece of hair sticking up? The next day it was down. In the past two weeks her hair went from sticking up to down.. you'll be able to see the progress as you scroll down to older posts :D

Pushing up on her hands -- she's getting quite strong!

With Sharon at a picnic. (See Sharon's blog for details)

Happy Shona!

After the picnic I met Mark briefly. Olivia really dislikes her carseat so he took her out for a minute to talk to her.

[insert interesting title here]

I'm updating finally... I never like deciding what to type which is why I put off updating for so long. :D

Olivia has developed some habits with her bedtime/nap routines. She likes to have something against her face. If I'm holding her (such as at church) she goes to sleep with her face against her little polar bear. When I put her down in her Moses basket she has to be on her stomach and she often puts her face almost straight down into the cushion. She also will hold her head up and put her face into the side of the basket -- I'll have to get a picture so you can see how strange it is. She will happily cover her face with a blanket also, so I always have to adjust her or move something once she is fully asleep.

It's amazing how fast she is growing up! She's just mastered rolling from front to back. The other day I put her in the middle of our bed and turned my back -- a minute later she had rolled over twice and was near the edge of the bed. I put her back in the middle and she immediately rolled over twice again. I can hardly leave her on the floor very long before she's either rolled or scooted further than I had planned.

Mark had a new allergy test done recently, and he has new and worse allergies. He is extremely allergic to everything in dairy, eggs, wheat, gluten, and soy... which are ingredients that are in pretty much every single processed food you can buy. He's rather allergic to rice, and not only that, he is mildly allergic to potatoes, corn, and various beans as well. Cooking has been a real challenge, to say the least. (Ideas are appreciated!!) He also has a hypothyroid and Epstein Barr virus. He's had a serious lack of energy and has had to cut back on work and we've been trying hard to make sure he's getting more sleep.

Here's some pictures from the past week:Yes, lots of un-baby safe things in that picture... but she was actually far from being able to touch any of them. ;) She enjoys sitting in there and watching me cook.

of teething, and other things

Olivia has just started teething. We (Mark) discovered this yesterday after she spent most of the day crying regardless of being held or not! She had been sleeping through most of the nights since I last posted, but two nights ago she woke up around 5:00 and would not go back to sleep. Even with her pacifier, she would wake up every couple minutes and fuss a little. She was in fitful sleep until 7:30, and then she went back to sleep for a few more hours. (By the way, her pacifier strike is over.)

I bought her some teething things made in China today, and she has been enjoying them quite a bit. Yes, I am paranoid about toxic things inside of them, despite the fine print on the back of the package claiming they have sterilized water inside. But apparently China is the only country who makes teething toys! I figured since she has no teeth and can hardly even squeeze them they will be ok for now.Here she is waking up from a nap. She loves holding things, especially when she's going to sleep. We bought her a little stuffed polar bear for her to hold -- I'll have to get a picture of her with it soon. It's quite cute. ;)

Oh, she rolled from her back to her stomach the other day. She has yet to roll from her stomach to her back, probably because she enjoys being on her stomach too much.

Last week we went on a little vacation for our anniversary. Mark had a seminar near Dallas for a product certification, so we stayed in a beautiful guest house on a lake belonging to a friend of the Blanchards while we were there. After two nights we headed to a cabin we rented in the hill country near Wimberly. The scenery is beautiful, and the town is full of artists so we browsed some beautiful paintings, handcrafted furniture, pottery, etc. We had a really nice time.

...

We've been house hunting! It's very exciting and sometimes frustrating and often overwhelming.

Olivia has recently decided she doesn't want her pacifier for anything, so we can no longer sit through services at church. She continues to be her sociable self. Too much noise and activity, however, upsets her very, very much. I have figured out why she's so fussy in the evenings -- she just needs a short little nap before she actually goes to bed. She does very well at night. The other night she slept through the whole night! She might actually do that more often, but if she doesn't wake up on her own I wake her myself (I guess I'm just paranoid. :D) Apparently the night that she slept through I was too tired to realize it.

Here she is at six weeks. She weighed 11 pounds 1 ounce at her six week checkup.

And today:

life

We've had Matthew staying with us for over a week now, for summer vacation. When we picked him up he had two black eyes and a cut on his nose, apparently from jumping and falling on a bed four days before. It looked so terrible we took him to the doctor and had some x-rays done, but everything was fine. He has enjoyed telling everyone his story, of course, sometimes more embellished than at other times. ;)

Olivia has been interacting more and wakes up every morning smiling and talking. She loves her daddy, and sometimes will beam at him when he's holding her even if he's not paying her any attention. She also loves her bedtime baths -- no matter how grumpy she was before, she's happy as can be afterwords. She's still sleeping pretty well at night, although she had a few days and nights where she got completely off schedule (growth spurt, maybe?) and we're back to midnight bedtimes. She fusses a bit in the evenings and I'm not entirely sure why.

We're back home to stay. Mark is no longer working in Austin (except perhaps for a job here or there) and is working for Carl again.

And here's a few pictures from the past week:

This was after we came home from the prayer meeting. Olivia had been sitting so peacefully but by the time the camera came out she was becoming discontent.

This photo amuses me... That's Matthew's "say cheese" face, and Olivia is looking distressed and her hair is sticking up terribly. lol

No pictures of just Matthew... it is hard to get a picture of a two year old on the move, and if he poses you get the face seen above :P

brief update

Finally an update here! I know people were wanting some new pictures; sorry for the delay. :(
We're trying to get Olivia on a proper schedule. For a little while she thought it had to be 2:00 in the morning before it was bedtime, but we've worked it back to 11:00 so far. She sleeps at night for around 4-5 hours at a time. Last night she slept for 5 1/2 hours; however, I didn't get to sleep that long myself. I woke up after a few hours to hear the fire alarms for the apartment complex going off. I was home by myself (Mark was in Austin) and I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't smell any smoke but I didn't really want to get Olivia and walk around outside at 3:00am trying to figure out if there was a real danger or not! I finally just called 911, but they already had received some calls and they had a dispatcher on the way. I was so tired I went back to bed to just "lay awake" for a little bit, but I ended up waking up over an hour later when Olivia did. This morning the alarms went off briefly 3 more times, so I guess maybe they were just malfunctioning.

It's been extremely warm here lately! Last week there was a day in Austin where it was 105 degrees at six in the evening! Thankfully things seemed to have cooled down slightly -- it's been in the 90's for the past couple days. ;) It still seems like the air conditioner runs non-stop to keep home at a comfortable temperature.

...

I'm sure there are a few readers wanting to see more pictures of Olivia, but unfortunately I only have this one from about a week ago.

I spent last week at home while Mark worked in Austin. He came home for our communion on Thursday night. Sadly I only made the Thursday and Friday evening services before getting sick and missing the rest of the communion. :(

We are back in Austin now. There was another hailstorm here, with baseball-sized hail that broke out windows in people's houses, not to mention caused more significant roof damage. It looks like Mark will be busy here for a while!

Olivia has been awake much more lately, and spends most of that time watching things quietly. She is so easy going, however, that sometimes it takes a long, long time for her to finish feeding because she dozes off so much. This has made a few nights difficult because I think to myself she is surely full by now, but when I put her down she wakes up and is of course still hungry. She is very quiet though, and even when she does get upset she has never worked herself into a frenzy. She has a heat rash right now, probably due to my having a fever for the past few days!

a few pictures

I don't have any new pictures of Olivia awake, because all she does is sleep! She's a very easy going baby so far. She hardly cries unless she's hungry and almost all the rest of the time she is sleeping. A couple nights she slept for five hours at a time (until I woke her up to feed her!) If she manages to stay awake through a feeding she spends a few minutes making pleasant, smiling faces before going back to sleep.

Our little girl...

...has arrived!

Olivia Kandace was born on
June 4, 11:59pm
and was 8 lbs, 4 ozs
20 inches long

I started having fairly strong contractions on Monday, but they were irregular and didn't progress. I definitely felt different and I thought maybe I was going into labor. Well, Tuesday and Wednesday came and went and there were still contractions but no baby! It wasn't till Thursday around 6:00 in the evening that I started thinking the contractions were progressing, and by 8:00 I thought we'd better get ready to go. We reached the birth center close to nine. Before I left I wondered if (but was pretty sure) I was in labor. By the time I got there I was positive I was! It seemed like everything started going really fast and my midwife began to wonder if the baby was going to arrive before midnight! Olivia arrived with just one minute to spare.

forty-one weeks...

and I think it's going to be soon. ;)

vacationing on my due date

On Memorial Day, after Mark did a little work in the morning, we went to Pedernales Falls State Park with Neluska and went hiking and swimming.


We went to Marble Falls afterwords to get something to eat before we went home.

:)

the oasis

Yesterday evening Carl and Stephanie were in Austin and we all went out to the Oasis, a popular restaurant on Travis Lake. It's a huge place (it seats over 2,000 people!) with outdoor seating on decks that are staggered at different levels down the hillside.

one of the houses on the lake!

all of us at the end of the night