"Missee that's not your bed!"

These are the words I heard Matt say in disgust as he walked in the office minutes ago and found her once again curled up in Ollie's bouncer. I tried turning it on to see if that would make her jump out but she seemed to enjoy it even more.

I had to kick her out again today so Ollie could use it to get some rest. One day she will learn and by that time Ollie will have out grown it and I will be ready to give it to her for a bed!

Poor cat, I think she is a little jealous of all the attention Ollie gets and somehow she is always in trouble now.

"Lay off I'm Starving!"

Took Ollie in for his 2 month check up today. He was so sweet in the office and all through the appointment just his calm little peaceful self. Dr. walked in the room and said- "Well I can tell he likes to eat!" Ollie weighed in at 14.25 lbs which puts him at the 91st percentile! He is 23.75" long- 74th percentile, and his head is 43cm, which is 97th percentile. He's fitting right in with the rest of my big headed family! Our last two visits with the pediatrician were sick child follow-up visits so I was happy to hear that his ears look great- no more ear infection and he is happy and healthy. That is he was happy until he prescribed him 3 shots and one oral vaccine today- I'm bracing myself for a fussy child for the next few days. Here is my sweet little boy before his shots:

I got to hold his little hands while they stuck him in both legs- after the very first prick he screamed and his whole face turned bright red- so sad! The last one was oral- here is the little guy taking that down still red faced and whimpering:

After all was said and done I held him and promised he wouln"t have to come back again for 2 whole months. Then I packed him up and gave him his doggie to make those big crocodile tears go away. He was lights out by the time we made it to the car. Poor little guy.

Shark Attack!

My friend gave us the cutest little shark towel and tonight after his shower Ollie curled right up in it and played around. He has just discovered his hand this week and was perfectly content to lay around in his shark towel while playing with the covers and knawing at his hand. So cute- I think I want to eat the little guy up myself!

Nicole & the boys come to visit

My best friend at BYU was Nicole. Our husbands were both on the volleyball team so we got to hang together a lot, and when the boys would leave us to travel with the team we would kick it together. She was my snowboarding buddy- still remember going on a trip just the two of us while the guys were gone, I had to tie up my own boots because Matt wasn't there to sinch them tight for me, and had to be tough girl when the snow was pelting my face as we rode down the mountain- it seriously felt like needles. I was wearing Matt's beanie at the time and ended up pulling the entire thing over my face and ripping holes where my eyes were so I could face the snow! Then on the way down the mountain we ran out of gas in the Jeep and had to just coast to the bottom where luckily there was a gas station. Those were good times! Although Nicole and Todd moved to California after our Junior year we have kept in touch ever since, it good to have friends in California to visit :) Nicole has also been my friend over the years that has been a listening ear about all our infertlity woes so she has shared in our excitement over having Ollie enter our lives and was so cute and excited to see him. She made a trip out to see her family and we were lucky enough to have her and the boys spend the night with us. They were all so were excited to meet little Ollie too- so fun!

Maddox gave him big kisses and Luke couldn't wait to hold him himself. For dinner Matt made us some delicious homemade bread and I quickly realized anything with red sauce is probably not the best idea for 3 year olds! Nicole and I had good talks all night long, and Matt got to watch a movie with the boys.

Maddox loved playing with the dogs. Monday morning he decided it was fun to jump in dog poop! Nicole apparently had a fun time cleaning that up, luckily my sister-in-law had given me some tennis shoes for Ollie that fit Maddox so he was still able to go on a walk with us.

Luke was such a little cutie. I showed them pictures and videos of Ollie's birth. He is old enough to grasp the concept of what adoption is and had lots of cute questions. One of which was "Is Jess your best friend?" to which I smiled and replied "Yes, she is one my best friends" He also spent all morning trying to negotiate a deal with me to trade one of his beenie babies for Ollie's beenie baby he got in the hospital (the parrot). He pulled out his collection and made some very compelling offers but in the end I decided that since I had taken pictures of Ollie with his little parrot I better keep it for him and let him trade it when he is old enough to negotiate for himself. (Now I know what to get Luke when I see him though!) Luke is such a fun kid and I loved that he gave Ollie so much attention an even wanted to feed him.

We had time to go to the park before they had to hit the road. Luke got out his skate board and I'm not lying when I tell you he was AMAZING! I really can't believe how good he is, he just whipped up and down the street jumping onto the sidewalks and attempting little tricks. He was all excited when Matt caught up to us on the rip stick (he had been working that morning). When we got to the part I jumped on the rip stick- it's really been forever since I've done it so getting started was a little rusty. Luke was very intrigued by it and wanted to try so I had a good excuse to get to play with him for a while as I helped him get started on it. I was pretty impressed that he never gave up and kept on trying to do it. Not so easy to do when you are learning on a sidewalk that has big grooves to catch the wheel. Such a beautiful fun morning. So glad we got to see Nicole and the boys and can't wait for our next little adventure together!

Be my Valentine!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Matt surprised me and took Ollie and I out on the town. We went to Roy's for my favorite dish- Butterfish! They had a rose waiting for me. It was the first time taking Ollie out that it felt like we were eating alone. First there was a poopy diaper- I took him out the truck to change him because I just assumed Roy's wasn't going to have a changing table. After getting back he got a little fussy and instead of interupting all the couple's around us Matt took him to the foyer, so I sat and ate my meal alone :( Not the usual romantic Valentine's but oh well! We still made the effort and having Ollie still makes it the best Valentine's ever!

We were about to head home afterwards but decided we still had enough time to watch a movie- I wanted to see "The Vow". We got in and weren't diappointed- I loved it! Ollie did pretty well, he has yet to cause a big scene, but we're still a little anxious to jump up and get by the door every time we think he might just wake up and be fussy, so we did both take a turn holding him while standing off to the side, but still worth going. After the movie I surprised my boys with a box of chocolates (Valentine's wouldn't be the same without it! Matt and I look forward to sharing a box every year.) and both of them got their own Valentine's cards. (OK, it was a last minute thing that I picked up on the way home, but with all the craziness of the last week Matt excused me.) We wrote Ollie a little card telling him how much we love and adore him and how much we're looking forward to every Valentine's day with him, I'm going to save up all his cards for him to look back on and hopefully know how much we love him. We also took some time to send Jess a pic of her little Valentine- I'm sure Ollie would have enjoyed having her along as his date! Here is the little guy with his card and my Valentine treats.

When we were done taking Ollie's pictures Missee went crazy on the rose. She is seriously obessed with roses, I can't really keep them around the house because she eats them! She devoured this one, but we got a lot of entertainment out of her in the process.

Trip to the Hospital

Thursday night Ollie started showing signs of a cold, he had a runny nose and was getting congested. It is no fun trying to sleep at night when you are worried the whole time about whether or not he is breathing ok. He had a little hoarse voice on Friday that I have to admit was so cute but it was still so sad to see him under the weather. I checked his temperature and he was normal so we didn't get overly close, we just kept a good eye on him. But Saturday morning around 11am when he was trying to eat he barely took anything in and then started to cry- I knew something was wrong. He still didn't have a fever but we decided to take him to the Urgent Care anyway thinking maybe he had an ear infection.

The doctor at the urgent care diagnosed him with accute bronchiolitis and a slight ear infection and sent us home with a prescription for anti-biotics and a nebulizer for breathing treatments. She also instructed us to go to the ER if his breathing got worse, he stopped eating, or got a fever. By the time we got his prescriptions filled and got home it had been some time since he had eaten. Matt dropped me off and went to check on one of his jobs while I went to task feeding Ollie. He tried to eat but once again started to cry and this time he started to cough which made all the mucus come up and block his airway so for 4 or 5 seconds he wasn't breathing at all. It felt like eternity to me and put me in a panic! He was breathing but it was so labored- I called Matt nearly in tears and told him to get home. He responded and we rushed Ollie to the ER. On the way I couldn't help but second guess myself thinking maybe I was just over reacting because I'm a new parent. But regardless I knew it was better to be safe than sorry. The ER took him right in and then all the poking and proding began. Poor little guy got his temperature checked in his hinny, he had a temp over 100 degrees so they decided to test for RSV. That meant he got little testers stuck up his nose. They were pretty confident he had RSV so before we even got results back they took him back and sucked mucus out of his airways and lungs. Matt and I had to hold him down while they stuck tubes up his nostrils and down to his lungs. Poor little guy cried but he was so tough through it all. It did wonders for his breathing and was amazing how much they got out. After that we were sent back to a bed where they poked him in his arm and hand trying to get an IV in him, and he got poked in both heels because they needed blood samples. It took three different nurses to try and get an IV in him. I had no idea how they were going to find a vein because you can't even see one on him, but they had lights that they put under his hand that lit it up like a chicks egg. Still no success. I finally asked if I could just try feeding him because he was breathing better and the IV was really just to make sure he wasn't getting dehydrated. It worked, he sucked down the bottle.

We got to know the nurses well, they were all so kind and when they found out Ollie was adopted they were full of questions and wanted to know his story. Everyone tells me I don't even have to mention he is adopted because he looks like us, but I can't help but talk about it I guess because it is such a miracle and to me it makes Ollie even more special. (And I do get lots of confused looks because I don't exactly look like I birthed a baby recently so it helps to offer an explination!)

After that they took chest X-rays. The doctor finally came to see us and told us the RSV results had come back, they were negative, but it looked like he had fluid in one of his lungs so they gave him a shot and decided to admit him for pneumonia. Little did we know the hospital we were at no longer had a childrens wing- they had closed it down. So admitting him meant we had to take an ambulance ride to the children's hospital. It was 9:00 before we got the diagnosis and we hadn't eaten all day so Matt had contacted his friend in the ward who was kind enough to bring us some dinner and meet him at the hospital to give Ollie a blessing. It was only moments after he arrived that the ambulance showed up. Matt and Brent gave Ollie a sweet little blessing and then he camly let us put him in his carseat for his ambulance ride.

It was my first time in an ambulance. Ollie seemed so tiny, and he was so sweet during the whole ride. He didn't cry or fuss, just looked at the EMT with his big bright eyes. They were somewhat surprised that he was getting admitted because he seemed to be doing so well.

It was nearly midnight by the time we got checked in and settled into our room at the children's hospital. We met the doctor whom Matt quickly recognized was one of his clients. It was somewhat of a peaceful night. It felt familiar to sleep on the couch/bed with Matt since we had done it all the nights we were in the hospital when Ollie was born. In the morning they took another x-ray and basically told us they couldn't confirm that he had pneumonia, and his fever had broken so they let us go home. Just as were got the good news and were getting ready to leave, matt was feeding Ollie when he heard a big poop- Ollie had a BIG surprise for him! It got on Matt's shirt and when he realized the extent of the blow-out he suited up to do the job of changing his diaper. The nurse walked in as he was just getting started- she laughed at "Super Dad" and thought it was so funny she pulled in another nurse to take a peak.

It really was his biggest blow out ever! As wer were packing up they told us the hand crochetted blanket was for us, I felt pretty guilty because Ollie already has so many cute blankets but they said if we didn't take it they were going to have to throw it away, so Ollie has one more blanket and a cute little beanie baby parrot to go with it from some kind person we will never meet. We headed home after that, happy for the outcome and grateful once again for a husband that has the priesthood :)

Here are some pics of Ollie wrapped up in his new blanket- Missee is still very curious about him and I thought his little toes sticking out were so cute.

And finally- we finished off by taking his seven week old pictures with his little parrot from the hospital and let him show off all his bandaids and bandages from everywhere the poked him! (the nurse tried to take it all off before he left the hospital but I saved it all for this shot)

Glad you're ok sweet baby boy!

Six Weeks Old

Looking back through the last six weeks it is hard to believe how much he has grown and how much our life has changed. I missed one diaper picture but here is Ollie growing up next to his teddy bear...