Nicole Pictures

So, after posting about myself last time, I decided it was time to return to Nicole. So, this is my Nicole picture post.

Here is Nicole in her new dress that Grandma Kimball gave to her. It is almost too small for her, so I'm glad that I put her in it before she grew out of it.


Nicole does not smile when the camera is on her. And, you will notice the burp cloth behind her head because she likes to play spit ups while she is laying on Mommy and Daddy's bed. I think she knows how much we like spit ups on our bed.


The other day I fohawked her hair while we were sitting on the bed together. She didn't really want to smile for the camera, but she did make all sorts of weird faces. Two of her faces are featured here.



Here is Nicole in another dress that Grandma Kimball gave to her. It is yellow and pretty.

This is what happens when Daddy changes Nicole's diaper.


Bath time! Nicole is still loving her bath time and she gets better and better at making sure that she doesn't dunk herself. She hasn't figured out toys in the bath yet, but that is because she is still trying to figure out how to use her hands. All she can do right now is get them to her mouth to suck on.

And yes, I have a very chunky baby.

Working is Lame

So, I'm all back at work now. Work is so completely lame! I've been back for a week and a half, which means that I only have two and a half weeks left, but it feels like forever. Because I am only working for a short period of time, there is not much for me to do at work because they can't put me on any of the long term projects. Which means that I have been editing documents for the last week and a half. Editing is not bad because it is extremely easy, but it is also very boring. Editing doesn't really require very much brain power, so it is boring. I've taken to listening to audio books while I'm editing so that the time passes faster.

My wonderful mother is watching Nicole while I am back at work. I am so grateful that she is able and willing to watch Nicole. I would hate it if I had to leave Nicole at some day care during the day. She is my precious baby and I want her to be as spoiled as I like to treat her. Grandma spoils her plenty, which I love.

After working for just this short period of time, I have a new respect for Dads. Dads leave their kids and wife every day and go off to work. That is one of the hardest things to do! I cry every morning that I have to leave Nicole because I don't want to leave her. I just want to spend all my time with her and take care of her. It is really difficult for me to leave her every morning. Matt is so wonderful for working every day since Nicole has been born. I don't know how he has handled it so well. I am so grateful that Matt has a job that will allow me to be home with my baby.

Before the baby was born, I wasn't sure if I would like being home all day. I was so used to working all day that I thought that I would be bored. I am far from bored! Nicole is constantly entertaining me. Whether I am taking care of her or if we are just playing together, I love being with her all day. I thought that I would want to continue working somewhat because I went to all the trouble of getting my education and finding a profession that I loved, but I find motherhood more fulfilling than any job than I have ever had. I know that I want to spend the rest of my life raising my babies and taking care of my husband. It is the most rewarding and exciting job that I have ever had, I love it!

So, I endure these next two and a half weeks of work and try to enjoy these last days with my coworkers, but I anxiously anticipate the time when I can be home with Nicole again. I hope that this post about me, not Nicole suffices and makes my elder brother happy.

Baby Blessing!

Nicole was blessed last Sunday, June 7th. It was really an unexplainably happy moment to see/hear my husband bless our daughter. The power and gift of the priesthood is a wonderful gift given to us. It was heart warming and beautiful to hear a blessing given to my daughter from my Heavenly Father through my husband. I don't remember everything that was said, but I do know that Nicole is one lucky little girl.


We borrowed a blessing dress from my sister-in-law Jill for the blessing. I considered buying my own, but they are really expensive and she only wore it for 2 hours. She looked really beautiful in the dress though.

It is the same dress the my nieces Amara and Keira wore when they were blessed. It is all long and flowey and completely impractical for any extended period of time. It was difficult to even hold Nicole while she was wearing it because it was all long and slippery. But, she bore it well and tried to eat the dress multiple times.

I put her in the dress right before we went to church and quickly got some pictures of her in it with the afghan that I made for her. Unfortunately, I made the blanket before she was born and didn't realize how impractically big the blanket is. It is way to big to wrap Nicole in and becomes more of a hinderance than a help. So, it is just a backdrop for pictures for now.

I got a picture of me and Nicole because I don't have many of those. She looks better in this pic than she did in the previous pic of me and her. I keep telling her to raise her chin to hide the double/tripple chin that she is sporting.

After the blessing, we had everyone come over to our house for some food. I did not realize that sooo many people like us. We had almost 60 people in our little home. All the seats were taken, AND there was barely any room to stand. So, most people were standing while eating.

We made three pork roasts in the crock pot and pulled the pork and added BBQ sauce so that we would have little pulled pork sandwiches. Anne, Marie, and my Mom all brought salads too, and I made a fruit salad, so I thought that we would have plenty of food. But, I didn't count on the number of people showing up that did. I didn't even get to taste some of the salads because I was slow to go and get food.

Mom and Dad Kimball came down from Washington for the blessing and stayed with us. It was wonderful to have them here. We miss them a lot and it stinks that they live so far away. It makes me grateful when they come and it makes me grateful for having my family so close by.


Grandma and Grandpa Kimball also came for the blessing from St. George. We didn't expect them, but we were glad that they were able to make the trip up. We hardly ever get to see them and we love it when they are here. We will get to see them again in July for the Kimball family reunion.

The blessing went really well and it was good to see everyone. It was just crazy to see everyone at one time. The children got a little crazy in our basement during the party and Benner and Carlitos pulled our curtains out of the wall.

New Mobile!

We got a new mobile!

So, I finally got a mobile for Nicole's crib. It plays Beethoven, Bach, and some guy who's name starts with a 'C.' It also plays Nature sounds and Womb sounds. It also projects cartoon animal pictures into the canopy. And, it comes with a remote control, so I can turn it on and off from bed without having to get up. I love it!


When I first showed Nicole the mobile, she was a little confused. But, after a little while of looking at it, she really likes it. It is nice because I can set her in her bed to play and she has a good time.
At night, I turn on the womb sounds and she settles down and goes to sleep. I love the new mobile. But, despite all the money that I spent on the mobile, Nicole still loves the ceiling fan more. She laughs and smiles and babbles at the fan every time I set her down on my bed. Oh well.

2 Month Appointment

Nicole went in for her 2 month appointment yesterday. I am happy to report that I have a very fat baby. Nicole weighed in at 13 pounds 4 ounces. She is the 95% for her weight. Her head size is also in the 95%. She is 23 inches long and in the 75% for length. She is healthy and growing fine, which makes me a happy mom.

Nicole also got her shots yesterday. She was very brave. She only cried for a few minutes after the shots, but it broke my heart. I don't like to see her hurt. She had trouble sleeping last night. She was up and fussing every 15-30 minutes. Which means that I was up too. I'm very tired today! She has a little fever today, but the doctor said that would be normal after the shots. But, it makes for a cry face baby.

She is such a good baby and rarely cries, so it is odd for me when she cries a lot. I'm very tired, but I know that she is feeling worse than I am, so I am just trying to make her as happy as possible. Just another new phase of being a mom.

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.