The best 4 years

Yesterday Jamie and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary. It's kinda crazy to think we've been married that long already. Boy, time flies when you're having fun! It seems like not long ago we were poor newlyweds in Provo eating Betos (now Rancheritos) on a weekly basis, going to midnight dollar movies, and living in a tiny basement apartment. It's amazing how far we've come since those days. We now have a little one, a big fancy house....err I mean an 880 sq. foot "garden level" apartment,  lots of money (owed, not earned),  and a late night to us is staying up past 10:30. I'm so lucky to be married to my BFF. We both feel as though the other person got the raw end of the deal:)

Lovers

We had a pretty low-key night since Jamie's busy studying for boards and we generally fail to plan things for "big" occasions. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant, did a little browsing at Old Navy (I got a $0.77 sweater-score!), picked up some Edy's strawberry fruit bars for dessert (yummy), watched a little "Everybody Loves Raymond",  and called it a night. Pretty exciting, I know, but I just enjoyed spending a little time with my boyfriend.

Morning Shenanigans

Catching up

Ok, I know I have not been diligent on posting. The little miss is quite distracting (as evidenced by her cuteness and my constant desire to shower her in kisses and/or eat her cheeks). I had good intentions to blog more because I think it's a fun family record, but my good intentions have obviously fallen by the wayside.
So here's a little bit about our sweetums...
She has a rather large head-which is normal for babies, I know, but her's is quite impressively round. It must be jam packed with brains. For the first month of her life she had an almost unhealthy obsession with her pacifier (yes, I went against the advice of all the breast-feeding czars and gave her a binkie in the hospital, shame on me). As soon as that thing hits her mouth she does this lazy eye-roll thing and is instantly content. However, I swear some of my days have been spent playing fetch with a pacifier. She's a good little eater and is growing much too fast! She starting sleeping 6-7 hour stretches at night before waking up for a feeding when she was 5 weeks old. I must admit I was incredibly paranoid the first time she slept 7 hours straight as most of the parenting/development books I read told me she was too little to sleep that long, I'd lose my milk supply, she'd starve to death, etc.... but I've learned that as long as she's developing well and gaining weight, to just thank my lucky stars. Now at 7 weeks old she's starting to sleep even longer. Last night I put her to bed at 10 and finally I woke her up at 6:30 for a feeding because of my paranoia. When she wakes in the morning she's just the smiliest thing ever (is that even a word?) Marlee really is such a good baby and brings us so much joy. Jamie and I love her to pieces! Here are some obligatory photos of course...

A few pics

Just because I'm currently awake I thought I'd post a few pictures. Sometime I'll write our birth story, but that's waaay too much effort for this sleepy mommy now.

Marlee Jo Olsen

One of the few times she's slept:)

My little cutie

Another Pregnancy Update....

Well, since I'm sitting here in the hospital waiting for labor to progress, I thought I'd write an update. Unfortunately,  much to our dismay, Jamie and I made the decision to go ahead with an induction since I don't seem to be making much progress on my own. I'm currently 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant (11 days past my due date), so my physician thought it would be best to give my body a boost to get labor started. I REALLY wanted to avoid inductions, interventions, and basically anything  "unnatural", but it is what it is. I guess our little girl just needs some motivation to come out! So now I'm sitting here hooked up to Pitocin waiting for the real fun to begin:) Wish us luck!

Here's me this morning in all my 41+ week pregnancy glory!

Quick Pregnancy Update

Well, my due date came and went and still no baby. As Jamie says, "The womb service must be good," so we think our little girl is perfectly happy and content in her current home which is why she's ignored her eviction notice. I however, feel as big as a house and as though my abdomen may just spontaneously explode, so I'm getting ever-so-slightly tired of being pregnant. Like many other women who go past their due dates, I've been researching/trying different at home techniques to induce labor, but so far no luck. I've walked miles everyday, ate spicy foods, tried "acupressure", yada, yada, ya....I swear most of the techniques are just wives' tales and that babies come when they darn well please. In fact, some of the things I read on the internet could be kinda dangerous, so I've definitely tried to use my medical judgement before trying anything. One thing I've decided I would never try is castor oil (why would I want to voluntarily give myself diarrhea!?). I'm pretty convinced this technique does not work and here's why: Earlier this week both Jamie and I had a NASTY bout of food poisoning that actually landed me in the hospital for severe dehydration. Basically, I got 8 straight hours of ahem, "cleansing", and a good abdominal workout, but it still did nothing to induce labor. Therefore, it's my opinion that if food poisoning won't induce labor (it did give me a few Braxton-Hicks contractions) castor oil won't either because it causes the same symptoms as food poisoning. So if there's any pregnant women out there reading this, don't mess with the castor oil....it will just cause you misery. Anyway, there's my plug for the day.

Just say "no"

Well, I know that soon enough pregnancy will just be a fleeting thought as I'll be holding my little bundle of joy sometime within the next week (my doctors won't let me go more than 2 weeks overdue), so hopefully my next blog post will be featuring our new addition!

Late night antics

This has got to be a record for me. Three posts in one month...phew. Well since I'm a regular ol' insomniac nowadays I decided it was time to switch up my routine. I used to lie in bed tossing and turning for hours hoping to fall back asleep, but then neither me nor Jamie got any rest so I've started trying to do at least slightly productive things with my time while I'm up at night. I think I'm going to be totally prepared for sleepless nights as a mother because so far, pregnancy has been training me well.
For dinner tonight I decided to cook waffles. I'm really not a huge waffle fan, but I decided since I was going through the effort anyways, I'd double my recipe and freeze the leftovers for an easy meal. So away I went mixing and fryin' and before I knew it, this is what my stack of waffles looked like (I still ended up with a couple more than pictured....)

Ok, please ignore the woman in the green shirt pictured at an awful angle and look only at the waffles. Today was one of those I'm wearing my husband's shirt, I'm not leaving the house, wearing any make-up, or even showering for that manner sort-of-days (although I did end up showering). And yes, since you asked, I AM resting the plate on my belly....might as well make it useful:)


So anyways, I'm frying up waffles like crazy and in walks Jamie from a long day at school. I believe the one first things he said was, "Wow, are all of those for you? You must really be craving waffles tonight." Glad I can still 'wow' him after over 4 years together.

Oh, I also received some good news about 30 minutes ago, and since no sane person I know is awake other than me right now I guess the only one I can share my news with is Blogger....lame. I now have two new initials behind my name: Amber Olsen, RN. I just checked the Iowa Board of Nursing website and saw my name on the list. Wahoo! Feels good to know I passed my national boards. Alright, well I think I may try to head back to bed now. I ate a little snack, went to the bathroom (TMI?), and popped some Tums so I think I should be good to go for a couple of hours. Goodnight! (or morning.......)