And to all a good night...

We had a nice, quiet Christmas.  Olivia ended up getting to open gifts 4 times, so she was pretty pleased, ha!  She especially liked getting to open Paige's gifts, too.  Some pictures:

 

Paige was especially excited about gifts:

 

 





Olivia really wanted to make a gingerbread house.  We ventured to Wal-Mart one night and grabbed the first box we saw that looked like a gingerbread house.  It turned out to be a chocolate house- one that you melt the chocolate, pour it in a mold, then let it harden.  It actually turned out much better than the gingerbread houses we've made in the past!

 

Paige was really excited about the chocolate house:

 

 

We got Olivia a Cinderella dress with "glass" slippers.  She was pretty excited:

 

 

She was even more excited when her cousins Maggie and Aubrey passed down more princess dresses they had outgrown! 

 

Daddy once again enjoyed putting together all the plastic toys:

 

 

We are so blessed to be close to family!  Thank you to everyone that has visited and sent gifts to our sweet girls!

 



One last Olivia funny.  We had an empty picture frame.  She asked me if she could pick out 2 pictures from the ones we developed when Paige was born.  She wanted to put them in her room.  Here are the 2 pictures she picked out:

 

 

The first one is of her and mom the first time she met Paige.  The second one is of Michael in his scrubs right before the c-section!  Silly girl.

 

Paige's 2 week picture:

 

 

 

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

 



 





 



 

 

Adjusting

I will probably regret this, but Paige is a really good baby!  She only cries if she's hungry and I can usually hear her stirring around to eat before she actually cries.  She's sleeping well at night- I had to wake her up to eat the past 2 nights.  She is jaundiced, but not enough for treatment.  She weighed 5 lbs, 12 oz. when we left the hospital (Sunday), was up to 5 lbs, 14 oz. at her appointment Tuesday and was 6 pounds even Thursday.  I am so relieved to have a baby that is gaining weight appropriately! 
Olivia is in love with her new sister.  However, we have had family visiting since we got home from the hospital.  Michael's mom is leaving today and we have a few days by ourselves before the next shift of family arrives.  She has been getting loads of attention, so not sure how she's going to handle a "normal" day.

Some pictures:

Does this look familiar?

And for fun, here's Olivia at 1 week (tiny little thing!):

 

 

Introducing...

Paige Marie Wexler
12/14/12 at 6:36 a.m.
6 pounds, 2 ounces
18 1/2 inches long
She has lots of dark brown hair and a dimple in her left cheek!  Olivia is in love with her new little sister.  We are both doing great!  More later...

 

We made it!

We will officially have a full term baby!  C-section is scheduled for Friday- hard to believe!  Here is the 9 month picture:

 

Funny fact- I gained much more with Olivia, but I look bigger with this baby.  Oh well, we'll see how much she weighs in FIVE days (can you tell I'm a little nervous- her arrival always seemed so far away and now BAM it's here!).  Dr. Brody guessed her weight at 5 1/2 pounds 2 weeks ago.  I go back tomorrow for my last appointment, hopefully we'll get another guess.

 

Here's the progression pictures:

 





 





Crazy how much your body changes! 

As for Olivia- she is more excited about Christmas than her baby sister.  Well, Christmas and all the family that are coming to visit!  "Elfis" (our elf on a shelf) reappeared last week and she loves looking for him in the morning.  I am not one of these overly creative Elf on a Shelf people.   Our elf usually goes from sitting in the Christmas tree to sitting on the t.v.  I did put him in a bag of sugar one day and she thought that was the funniest thing ever.  She's pretty easy to please right now!

 

We did manage to get our tree up AND outside lights hung. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We rag curled her hair again last week and she insisted on a picture before school:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She is currently on her second round of antibiotics for bronchitis.  Her cough sounds awful!  She's acting fine, but her doctor decided to try one more round with the baby coming.  Michael and I have been sick, too!  Hopefully everyone is back to normal by Friday.  C-section is scheduled for 5:45 a.m. (I know, how crazy is that?  I tried to get it changed, but no luck).  Next time I post we'll have a new baby!

Gobble, Gobble

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  We enjoyed a quiet day at home.  I did go a little overboard with a Thanksgiving meal.  Michael kept telling me:  "You know there's only 3 of us, right?"  Ha!  We have plenty of leftovers!  I have to admit, I was pretty proud of this turkey:

 

 

 

 

 

I watched about 5 videos on how to properly cook a turkey!

 

Olivia's school had their annual Thanksgiving luncheon/program Tuesday.  She did so good!  It's amazing how much difference a year makes.  She basically stood there terrified last year, but this year, she was really into it:

And a video:

 

 

 

 

We were so proud of her!


Have I mentioned she is into posing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been in a crafty mood, lately.  Don't be surprised if your Christmas present is homemade this year!  I've mainly been working on hats, shirts, and headbands for Olivia and the baby.  I've been making them here and there since we found out she's a girl and I decided to count them:  NINE hats for this baby!  My excuse is, she's due in December:

 

 

Matching shirts for the sisters:

 



 

And a bunch of headbands!  Why, oh why didn't I put Olivia in more headbands when she was a baby?!  She likes wearing them now, so I made her some, too.

 

 

Almost ready for Paige Marie (like her name?) to make her appearance!

 

We did venture out on Black Friday around 1:00pm.  Although we found lots of good deals last year for the house, there really wasn't anything I could justify missing sleep over this year!  We stopped at Home Depot, so Daddy could look around.  Olivia and I hung out in the Christmas decorations, where she started every figure that made music, then danced:

 







 

 

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!

 

 



 

Not much going on here...

We had a little baby scare last week!  I went into pre-term labor last Wednesday and spent the night in the hospital.  They did get the contractions to stop with an IV and some medications.  I'm supposed to be "taking it easy" from now on.  My doctor will not stop labor after 34 weeks (which I will be on Saturday), so we're really hoping that it doesn't start again!  Here is my 8 month picture:

 

 

 

 

 

And for fun, here I am with Olivia at the same point:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoping I get to take a 9 month picture!  

 

 

Halloween and other festivities!

Halloween was so much fun this year!  Olivia was so excited to wear her "Winter Fairy Princess" costume.  She picked it out of the Pottery Barn catalogue.  Fortunately, I found a very similar dress at the Hartstrings outlet when we were in Destin on clearance for $8.  Score!  Downtown Dayton had trick or treating on the Saturday before Halloween:

 



 

She had a good time, but kept asking, "When is the real Halloween?"  Funny girl. 

On Tuesday, she had a Royal Ball at school.  Instead of having a Halloween party, her school has an event of some kind to celebrate.  Last year was Wild West Day and this year was the Royal Ball.  She was soooo excited!  She bought a Tangled (Rapunzel) dress with Halloween money from Lilo and we found a wig and shoes at the Disney outlet.  Here she is before school:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what she looked like when I picked her up:

 

 

Ha!  I think they had an interesting day!  Her teacher informed me that one of the kids found a baby snake in their classroom during center time.  She thought he was joking about the snake, but found it under the play kitchen.  They often prop the outside door open while they are outside and think it must have found it's way in that way.  I love hearing Olivia tell that story, it made quite an impression!

She also has ballet on Tuesday afternoon.  She asked me to make her some leg warmers after seeing some "big" girls with them.  She is so proud of these legwarmers:

 

 

 

On the "real" Halloween, we headed to Ooltewah and our friend Brad and Megan's neighborhood.  They live in a great area for trick or treating and we kind of invited ourselves!  Olivia is all about getting dressed up, especially the make up:

 

 

 

 

Brad had a trailer hooked up to his 4-wheeler to help haul the kids around, which was great!

 





 

She had a little trouble keeping up with the other kids at first.  She insisted on wearing her dress up shoes, so she couldn't walk very fast!  I finally convinced her to put on her other shoes and that helped until she missed a step at one house and fell flat on her face.  She skinned her hands and cried for about 15 minutes, but still managed to trick or treat.  She got a little extra sympathy candy!  We had a great time!  I have been planning a Halloween costume this year for quite some time.  I'm not brave enough to bare a painted belly like some pregnant women, but was pretty proud of what I made:

 

 

Not that I can take much credit!  I found the idea online, then used the freezer paper stencil method to paint it on the shirt.  It turned out better than I thought it would!  Freezer paper will iron onto a cotton shirt, so all you do is cut out the stencil, iron it down, then put a few layers of fabric paint on it.  Olivia thought it was great! 

The leaves have been so pretty, I managed to convince Olivia to take a few Fall pictures last week.  Not that it was very hard, as she is very into posing:

 



 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



No news on the baby front!  I go Tuesday to re-check her growth.  She is still moving like crazy, so fingers crossed!