Sunday, November 8, 2009

Catching up: October 2009 - Our Trip to Disney

Okay, I've been a bad blogger lately. I'm going to try to catch up on the last 9 months in just a few posts....
October 2009, we went to Florida for Travis' sister's college graduation. We thought that would be a great excuse for Olivia's first trip to Disney! She had a ball!

Before we got there, she kept telling us she REALLY wanted to meet Pluto. And guess who was just inside the gates....yup, Pluto! She was a little scared at first, but after seeing a few more giant Disney characters, she warmed right up!Olivia LOVED riding the tea cups!

One of our "MUST DOs" for the trip, was to see the Disney Fairies. As most of you know, Olivia LOVES Tinkerbell and her friends. She was pretty excited to see them. Luckily we were there in "off-season" so we only waited in line for about 40 minutes to see the fairies!


Liv with Tink. It was like watching her meet rock stars! She was starstruck!


Liv got to have a pic with the whole gang. For some reason once we were in the room to meet the fairies, they didn't let anyone else in behind us. So, Liv got them all to herself! They really fussed over her, and made her feel so special!
After meeting the fairies, we realized that the line for the princesses was really short, so we hopped in line, and with only a 15 minute wait, we got to meet the princesses too!




We told Liv when we got there, that she could get one pair of mouse ears. Any pair she wanted (they had at least 20 different kinds). Olivia picked out the princess mouse ears! She LOVED them! You can also tell that she LOVED all the stores with so many stuffed animals! She really wanted a Pluto!

Riding "It's a Small World After All". I thought this was somewhat creepy....but the kids liked it!


Liv with Naples Nana and Brooke!


Liv fell asleep just before we got to our lunch reservations, which was a good thing. She got in a good hour of rest, which really helped make her afternoon a great one!


Liv was so happy when she got to meet Eeyore! He's a favorite!

Liv was just giddy with excitement about Pooh and Friends!

And the man of the hour....

She really liked Tigger too!




Olivia even got pixie dust sprinkled on her at one of the stores! She LOVED it!


Sitting in one of the stores with a bunch of Eeyores! She wanted them all!

Riding the Dumbo ride for a 2nd time!


Liv and Brooke posing on the dumbo!


The castle at night was pretty amazing!

Waiting for the fireworks. Olivia showing off her new bracelet!

Watching fireworks with her daddy!

Tink flying overhead!


You can just see how cool she thought that was!


Leaving the park!

She fell asleep before we even got to the car! I had more fun that I even expected! I think that watching Olivia get so excited about all things Disney, was pretty amazing! I now know why they call this the most magical place on earth!

Dinner in the condo the next night. We stayed in and watched the Tigers!

Liv enjoyed watching her movies on the portable player!

And she would fall asleep watching the movies! So cute!


The next day we spent time at Downtown Disney. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.





She was making silly faces!
And she was a little scared of the noises from all the animals around!

Keeping an ever watchful eye!

Silly with Daddy!

We then found a fountain that kids were running through. Since I had a change of clothes for Olivia with us, and it was about 99 degrees out, I figured she might enjoy it.


She thought it was so funny when the water would jump up!



Then we found a dalmatian and she was so excited, she had to have a picture!

More of Pooh and friends!


And she rode the carousel with Daddy!

Eventually she tuckered out!

Disney was fun. But I think Olivia really enjoyed hanging out with her Aunt Nichole! She doesn't get to see her very often, but she warms RIGHT up to her. When they picked us up at the airport, Liv went RIGHT to her! She LOVES her!


Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Olivia is going to be a BIG sister!!!

We're so excited that Olivia is FINALLY going to be a big sister! The road getting us here, hasn't been easy, but we're here, and we're expecting a healthy baby in February!

Most of my friends and family know that we went through two miscarriages in the last year. The first miscarriage was a complete surprise, and we found out at our 12 week appointment (in December 2008) when we could not hear the heartbeat. We were devastated. Our pregnancy with Olivia was so non-eventful, that I never expected anything different this time around. But at 12 weeks, we were given the devastating news that the baby did not have a heartbeat and had stopped developing sometime in the 9th week. It was rough on us. My favorite phrase became "this sucks". Because honestly, it did. My sister rushed from her home (getting her husband to leave work early to come home to be with their kids) so she could be with me and Travis during my surgery, which we were able to schedule for the same day. I was so thankful to have them both with me (Travis really didn't have an option), but my sister didn't even hesitate! They allowed me to be quiet, or talk about it if I wanted. They know me best and knew exactly what I needed that day! They even provided a lot of humor - to keep our minds off things.

So, we tried again, and got pregnant again, very quickly. We were so thankful that we were able to get pregnant so easily - as many couples struggle to even GET pregnant (we were thankful). But shortly after, we began to have issues. I had blood tests every other day, and ultrasounds every 10 days. We saw the baby's heartbeat on 3 different ultrasounds - and we were hopeful that our other issues were really "non-issues". But, just shy of 10 weeks, we went in for our 4th ultrasound (in April '09), and found again, the baby did not have a heartbeat. We were once again devastated. However, we'd been down this trail, and had faith that we would still have a child. After all, we had Olivia and she was perfect! However, since I'm no spring chicken, I opted to have the baby tested to see if there was something wrong there, or with me (after two in a row, you begin to think that your body is not playing nicely).

We found out that this baby, a girl, had a chromosomal abnormality that made her "incompatible with life". My doctor said that this is a common result of miscarriage, and had no indication that it would happen again.

That's when we decided to take a break. We had been on this baby kick and getting pregnant kick for a while, and honestly, I was exhausted thinking about it. So, we didn't. Well, yeah, you guessed it, that's when we got pregnant! We had planned to wait until fall to try again, however in June, after returning from a fun weekend in Las Vegas, I found out we were expecting again. It gets hard after two miscarriages in a row to get too excited about getting a positive pregnancy test. I was guarded, but excited. I just so badly wanted this baby to be healthy!

So, now here I am 21 weeks along, and we found out two weeks ago, that we're expecting a healthy baby BOY! I cried when we saw him on the ultrasound! It was the best sight ever! Travis and I had agreed a long time ago, that when we did finally have a child (and we knew we would) that we wouldn't have THAT child if we hadn't gone through the losses. Although they sucked, they were part of the process to bring the right child into our family. I'm really looking forward to meeting our son in February. I just feel so blessed. And once you've gone through something like this, you realize how precious and miraculous this whole process really is. It has made me more thankful for Olivia and the miracle she is, as well as this new baby, still growing strong!

So, here are a couple of pictures of Fletcher James for you to view....I think he's got Olivia's profile!


Olivia is coming around about having a brother. At first she was really upset, she was set on having a sister - and she told EVERYONE!! So, now she's getting there. It did help that Fletcher asked me to buy her a couple of stuffed animals for her while we were at Disney last week! She tells me "Fletcher got me Eyore and Pluto"! So, even if he's bribing her already, I think she's going to be a GREAT big sister!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Olivia's photo session

We had a great photo session with Touch of Love Photography! Our friend Kari is an amazing photographer! Here are a few of my favorites!!










Misc. Summer pictures

7.27.09 - Olivia as Cinderella (costume she got for her birthday)
08.02.09 - Olivia fell asleep on the floor watching a movie...she was so sweet and cute!
08.05.09 - Olivia was sick with a nasty virus for about a week, and this was the first day, so I stayed home with her, and she just laid on the couch all day and watched movies....so sad....

08.13.09 - Olivia got a crown, wand and new Tinkerbell necklace for her birthday - so here she was modeling!
After the modeling show, we went to the fair! Here is Olivia eating the carmel from my carmel apple!


Olivia and daddy on the carousel.


Olivia LOVED riding the monster truck! She thought this was great! I just love her expression!


08.18.09 - Olivia and mommy in Liv's room just before bed!


Cute as a button!

08.21.09 - Olivia having fun on her swingset!

07.26.09 - Olivia's 3rd Birthday Party

So, I haven't updated in quite some time, and I figured I had better.....

I have a few posts to add, and we'll start off with Olivia's 3rd birthday party! :)

Our theme was Wizard of Oz this year, and even the weather cooperated, it was REALLY windy! I had gotten Olivia a special outfit for the day - a Dorothy pillowcase dress. It turned out REALLY cute!
Olivia, her cousins, Julia and Jimmy and her friend Meris all tried to see how loud they could scream in the playhouse! :)
Liv and her buds!


Cousin Julia and Olivia! Julia was "pink Dorothy" so Olivia could be "blue Dorothy"!



The kids had a good time playing on Olivia's new playscape! This was Olivia's birthday present from us! She sure does love it!

Her Grammie made the cupcakes for her party too!


It was so windy, we weren't sure if Olivia was going to be able to blow out the candle, but we were able to block enough wind to do it.



Enjoying cupcakes!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Olivia's baby blues.....

We entered Olivia in a photo contest with a friend of ours, who is an AMAZING photographer!

If you get a change, please go out and vote for Olivia at: http://touchoflovephotography.blogspot.com/2009/08/let-fun-begin.html. You can only vote once, per computer (so if you have a home and work computer - you can vote once on each).

She is #8 - lucky for us she got her daddy's eyes! If we win, we get a free session with Kari!

Thank you!

Travis, Libby & Olivia!

Friday, July 24, 2009

Happy Birthday Olivia!

For Olivia's birthday this year, we took a trip to the Zoo! We all really had a good time!
Olivia checking out the zebras and the giraffes!


This is when she was being grumpy because she wanted to go back and see the giraffe, but I told her she had to eat at least half her sandwich first, she was NOT happy!


She MADE Travis get in the picture with her! She told him he had to ride the big dog!

Checking out the seals.


The bib gorilla actually scared her, so I was surprised when she wanted to have her picture taken on the statue!



She has been OBSESSED with watching Finding Nemo! She was so excited to find "Dori" in the aquarium!

We watched Dori swim for about 15 minutes!
Olivia Octopus!

Olivia - being the dog!

Leaving the park with her souvenirs!

This is about 10 minutes into the ride home...I knew she'd fall right asleep!