Due Date Day

Today was my due date. And instead we have a 3 week old baby! At this point it's really hard to even imagine life before Olive. She has been such an amazing addition to our family. She's still a good baby. We've had a few 4 hour stretches of sleep so nights are getting a little bit easier. She's snuggly and cuddly and with the weather as cold as it has been we are enjoying every minute of baby snuggling we can get. 

Aunt Lori is here for Christmas and gave Olive this moving musical giraffe. She seems to like it!

Grandma Diane is here visiting us for a few days. She's keeping me nice and cozy warm and I've even been awake some so we can have some nice talks. 

Olive has been wearing cloth diapers most of the time, they're a little fluffy but they are working well. This picture made me laugh since her baby socks are still almost knee highs. The robeez socks actually stay on pretty well!

Olive's Photo Shoot

Olive's first couple of weeks have been great. We're getting into our new routine at home. We've had so many visitors and feel very special and loved that so many friends and family want to say hello and meet Olive. One highlight of our first couple of weeks at home was that Angie Knutson took some absolutely amazing newborn pictures when Olive was 6 days old. We LOVE all of them.

10 Days Old

Edited 3/17/14 to remove last name for privacy purposes.

Olive Kadi Monroe arrived Friday, December 6, 2013, at 8:56am. She was 6lb, 7oz and 18 1/2 inches long. She is perfect and we are totally over the moon in love with her. Choosing her name was tough, we were going back and forth trying to decide until the day she was born. Olive means peace and the meaning of her name won out in the end, the process of deciding to try to have another baby, a relatively uneventful pregnancy and making it to full term at 37 weeks exactly were all a part of finding peace in our lives. Kadi is for her grandmas, Karen and Diane. And Monroe of course is for her older sister who we miss every day. It's a long name, but it all has its meaning and suits her well we think.

This will be a picture heavy post since we have a whole 10 days to cover.

Olive's birthday! Unfortunately Jill had the stomach flu on Olive's birthday and was very sick, but she made it in to see Olive right after she was born and to cut her cord.













Since Jill was so sick my mom was there for Olive's birth too. So nice that Grandma got to be with us.



The weekend after Olive's birth was fun and eventful. She started out a good baby right from the beginning. Jill's family-Olive's Grandma, Great Grandma, and Great Aunt Mary Beth-all came to visit (and I don't have pictures, so hopefully Mary Beth will share some with us!) and Olive also got her first sponge bath. She didn't really enjoy any part of it except washing her hair.



She also wore her first clothes, including a hat that was donated to the hospital. We have lots of appreciation for the handknits!



And her second outfit was this cute sweater suit from the Gap.


By Monday, December 9th, we were ready to head home. We were in the car by noon and it was a very cold day! Olive did pretty well adjusting and she slept about 2 hours at a time the first night.

Tuesday, December 10th, would have been Monroe's 2nd birthday. We celebrated with some cake.



Within a few days Santa came to visit. Olive slept through Santa's visit, but she looked really cute while she did.





Most of the days for my first week at home I spent like this. It was super cozy.



On Wednesday, December 11th, Olive had her follow up appointment. Everything looked great and she was almost back to 6 pounds at 5 pounds, 15.6 ounces. She's getting there after dropping to 5 pounds, 12 ounces at the hospital before we went home. She's still eating like a champ and I think we can already see her growing before our eyes! At a few days old she looked like this, with her sister Monroe's stuffed dog for size comparison.



Thursday the newborn photographer, Angie Knutson, came to the house and took Olive's pictures. We are so excited to see the finished photos. The previews we have seen are totally adorable. Can't wait to share some really good photos.

We enjoyed our weekend, had some visitors and even got to hear the Vikings win (a rarity this season!).



And on the 16th when Olive was 10 days old Jill went back to work. We missed her! Now we'll adjust into a whole new routine again for a few months until I go back to work.

Thanks so much to our amazing family and friends for the support, excitement and encouragement as we shared the news of the pregnancy and Olive's arrival. We are so lucky to have you in our lives! I'll update this as much as I can, but this post has already taken a couple of days to write with a few minutes here and there. And, as if on cue, Olive is ready to eat.