Crib!

We finally put up our crib! Norm and Rand gave us their crib a few weeks ago and we finally put it together this weekend. By "we" I mean that Matt did all the work and put it together.

We put the crib up in our room because Nicole is still really little and I couldn't handle her being in a different room during the night. We took down her little playpen/bassinet and we are putting it at my Mom's house so that Nicole has somewhere to take her naps while my Mom watches Nicole. I go back to work in just a week.

Coley Oley seems to really like her crib. The mattress is a lot softer than the bassinet, which felt like a cardboard box. She actually likes to rest and play by herself in the crib, which she didn't do in the bassinett.
Plus, now I can get a battery powered mobile. Nicole loves mobiles and she had one for her bassinet, but it was a wind up. So, I would have to go back to her every two minutes to wind it again. Now that she has a crib, I can get a real mobile that lasts longer than two minutes.

It is a really nice crib. It is the color that I would choose and it has a drawer at the bottom of it to store blankets and sheets. I love it! I'm glad that Nicole loves it too. Hopefully, this will help with her sleeping for long periods issues.

I've been dressing Nicole in yellow and green lately. She looks really cute in those colors! It makes her eyes look like they will go green, not brown. We will see.

Memorial Day Weekend

I love long weekends! I got three whole days with Matt and Nicoley. Unfortunately, Matt was sick on Friday night. He stayed downstairs and tried to avoid getting me and Coley O sick. I had a hard time sleeping because I am used to sleeping with Matt in the bed with me. It was odd. Luckily, Matt started feeling better on Saturday and we were able to go shopping together. I have been doing the grocery shopping alone with Nicole lately and it was really nice to go with Matt.

On Sunday, we made lasagna and had Anne, the kids, DJ and his girlfriend Jana overr. Unfortunately, I was feeling sick on Sunday. But, Matt was super Dad/husband and took care of Nicole and made dinner for everyone. I think that Moms should get sick days like employees do.

On Monday, Matt and I had planned a picinic. We wanted to take Nicole for her first outdoor outting. But, we had massive amounts of food, so we invited the parents and Johnny and Krista.

I dressed Nicole up in a cute little sun dress and shot some pics of her.


But, Nicole missed almost the whole event because she slept through it. I guess the combination of being warm and comfortable made her all sleepy. I woke her up right before we were going to leave because Mom and Krista wanted to hold her.

Matt and I cooked burgers, corn on the cob and had other picinic foods that we prepped before hand and brought to the park. We went to Nielson's park by the Walmart in Orem. It is a really nice park and it wasn't too crowded.
Mom and Dad came and brought fresh cider. Yum! Mom even joined in on a game of frisbee with Johnny, Krista, and Matt.
Krista and Johnny came a little late, but it was good to see them after their long trip away.
Nicole did not like being woken up and did not like the sun. She didn't want to open her eyes at all.
I finally got a picture with me and my baby. I haven't liked the way I have looked for the last month, but I've lost 40 pounds and I feel pretty good, so I posed for a pic.
This was as happy as she got during our outting. Matt played her favorite pasifier game with her and she gave a little bit of a smile despite the sun.
It was a good weekend! I loved my time with Matt even though we were both sick at one point.

Pictures

This is Nicole's outfit today. I thought that it was really cute. It is a little big for her, but I kept it on anyway.

These are her little shoe socks. I really wanted her to wear these so I put her in the too big red dress.

Nicoley kind of let me take a picture of her with a smile. She was unsure because the camera was up.

This was Nicoley yesterday. We were playing a game where I say "Hoo" and then she would copy me. It was funny to me. But, I'm her Mom, so I think that everything she does is funny.

What is the difference between night and day?

(This is the face that Nicole gives me every time I hold up the camera. Silly Nicole.)
I don't think that Nicole knows the difference between night and day. Lately, she has been sleeping a lot during the day and then she does not want to go to sleep at night. We turn off the lights and lay her in her bed after she has been stuffed full of milk and she thinks that it is play time. It becomes her favorite game to spit out her pacifier and grunt (because she doesn't cry, she grunts) until Mommy or Daddy comes and puts it back in. Repeat for hours!

We turn on her little mobile for her and that usually calms and entertains her, but it is a wind up mobile and we then have to keep getting up to wind it up again. This is also really annoying! And, she usually doesn't fall asleep until 11pm or 12am.

Then, she has been waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning for a feeding, then again at 6am and again at 9am. This leads to me feeling very exhausted because I haven't gotten more than three consecutive hours of sleep. I'm so tired.

I don't know how to change her schedule or how to make her sleep for longer intervals. I would feed her more, but she often falls asleep during her feedings and doesn't eat until she is full. And, of course, when she is asleep after eating, I set her in her bassinet and after five minutes, she wakes up. Why?!? She was just sleeping and was completely happy.

But, during the day, she sleeps great! I feed her and she falls asleep and I set her on the bed next to me and she sleeps for hours. I don't put her in her bassinet during the day because it is easier for me to take care of her on the bed where I am. But, maybe I am teaching her bad habits and maybe I am the cause for her nightime troubles because she thinks that our bed is her bed.

I know that this will not last forever and eventually she will sleep in longer intervals, but it is wearing. Plus, I have to go back to work in two weeks and I'm just not sure how I will work for nine hours a day if I'm going off of two 2.5 hour intervals of sleep. Ugh.


This is a classic Nicole face. Oh, and she has red eyes. Don't be hypnotized!
This is what Matt did to her hair last night. I thought it was cute.
Here is a picture of Nicole's best friend. She will lay on the bed and smile and laugh with her best friend Fanny.

My Mother's Day Gift

This is the first year that I got to celebrate Mother's Day. It is a little surreal. I often don't think of myself as a mother. Matt came up with the perfect gift for me though. He built me a linen closet. It is an open shelf linen closet in our bathroom. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a before picture. But, there was just a closed wall next to the vanity in our bathroom and Matt punched holes in the wall to see if there was empty space in there where he could build shelves. Luckily, there was!

Here are the shelves in phase three. It was an open hole for a while and Matt had to frame and drywall the shelves. He is all amazing and stuff.
Here's my man hard at work. It took him only a week to build the shelves, he was determined to finish before mother's day.
Stage four, with the boards up, but pre paint.
Matt also fixed some spots on the wall in the hallway.
Completed shelves! We kept them open so that it would have that "spa" look. I ruined the look with putting a bunch of stuff on the shelves.
I have top and bottom shelves. I forgot to rotate the pic.
Here's me with my new shelves! I had a great mother's day! We relaxed, went and saw my mom and came home and bathed Nicoley. It was a good day.
In other news, here are my latest pictures of Nicole. Here she is sleeping on the bed. I thought she looked so cute with her hands clasped like that.
This pic os from Mother's day. Coley O was smiling for me. It is rare when she smiles, but Matt was able to snap the pic because she didn't see the camera. When shse sees the camera, she usually stops smiling and looks confused.
This is Oley O just hangin' with Mommy during the day. She often gives me this look. I don't know what it means.

My Nicoley Oley

It has almost been six weeks since my Nicoley Oley was born. I love her sooo much! Everything she does is so exciting and new to me. I love being a mom and being able to take care of her everyday. I am often tired and it isn't easy, but I love it because I get to see all the moments of my little girl's life. I am not looking forward to going back to work for four weeks. I'm going to miss my little Oley so much.
Nicole is starting to play and smile. I can lay her down on the bed and she "plays" by watching me make faces at her. Sometimes she will give me one of her rare smiles and it makes my heart happy! Nicole's favorite toy is the ceiling fan. We lay Nicole at the end of her bed and she loves to look at the ceiling fan whether it is on or off. She just stares and stares at the fan and gives it more smiles than she gives me. I'm glad she has a friend in the fan, but I wish more smiles were for me.
Last Sunday, Matt and I went to a baby blessing after party for Carrianne Bacon's son Jason. He was born just three weeks before Nicole. So, we took a picture of them together. It was Nicole's first event with lots of people. I thought I would be more nervous, but I was okay. We just kept Nicole in her car seat and then people didn't ask to hold her.
Here is a picture of Matt with Nicoley at the baby blessing party. We missed the blessing itself because it was at 9am. Getting up and getting myself and the baby ready by that time is not yet possible. I'm going to have to adjust when I have to go back to work in four weeks.
Nicole seems to be getting more personality all the time. She has a lot more expression in her face and she lets us know her likes and dislikes. She loves taking a bath. She is always so happy in the bathtub. But, she really dislikes getting out of the bath. I'm not sure whether it is because we are taking her out of the bath or whether it is because she is cold, but she cries and cries when we take her out of the bath. She is only consoled by eating after a bath. Otherwise, she just continues to cry. Her sad looks break my heart! When she gives me the teary eyes and the quiver lip, I feel so bad! But, it isn't going to stop me from bathing her.

Nicole, my spoiled little baby, loves to be with Mom and Dad on the bed. At night, when Matt gets home, we let her hang out on the bed with us while she is awake, but we put her to her own bed when she falls asleep. She wakes up and fusses, so I bring her back to our bed and she immediately falls asleep. I think that she thinks that our bed is her bed. But, Matt and I always put her back to her bed when she sleeps during the night. Neither of us could sleep with a baby in the bed. Nicoley takes up too much room and she makes noise all night.

I'm sleeping a little better. Nicole only wakes up once during the night, but she has problems going to sleep. She doesn't go to sleep until midnight most every night. I don't know how Matt functions on only 6 hours of sleep, but he does it.

Matt and I are going on our first outing away from Nicole tomorrow. We are going to see the new Wolverine movie and Marie is going to watch Nicole. I'm excited to go and spend time with my husband and I'm trying not to be a paranoid mother who is going to be seperated from my baby for the first time. But, I need to prepare myself for being away from Nicole for nine hours a day when I go back to work. I am the protective/crazy mother that I made fun of prechildren. So, I am sorry to those other mothers that I mocked before. I now understand.