March for Babies raffles off a 2012 Ford Focus!!

Joel and I are the Thurston County March of Dimes Family Team Chairs. Last year we raised almost $6,000 walking in Bennett's honor at the 2012 March for Babies walk here in Olympia. This year we are very excited to be part of All Star Ford's donation of a Ford Focus!

Click here 2012 March for Babies Ford Focus Raffle, or the link on the left to see all details and turn your donation into raffle tickets via paypal, cash or check.

As many know Bennett's pregnancy and first year was very difficult and he has overcome many obstacles to be the bouncing happy kid he is today and I know the March of Dimes strives to have this for all babies born into similar situations.

To win this Ford Focus just purchase raffle tickets for $10 and wait for the June drawing. We can not wait to see who wins. 100% of the raffle proceeds go towards this great cause that our family truly believes in.

Come out and walk in the honor of Bennett and many other local babies!

(because Bennett's Daddy works for All Star Ford, we got to sit in the car today)

Lily goes to Bennett's New School!

With the new baby coming I have been attempting to find an activity that will be just Bennett's, something he can be excited about and he doesn't have to share with his little sister. When he turned three back in December he "graduated" from the birth to three program because he was deemed "developmentally average" (who would have ever thought "average" would be such a success... but after everything Bennett has been through it was quite a celebration). Sadly, with this celebration they also took away Bennett's preschool opportunities through the program. I was pretty excited to start looking for new preschools for Bennett but was suddenly very intimidated by all the choices and requirements.

All I have heard is that the Children's Museum is awesome and I knew it was on the top of our list especially because they are building a huge new facility near the Farmers Market. The preschool programs usually start in September but over the last couple months we have been going to a toddler group on Fridays at the museum in hopes that Bennett would love it and they would be open to letting him in this Spring... it is still up in the air but we are hopeful.

So yesterday we decided to head into the toddler group and see if our cousin Lily would like to go with us. Bennett woke up first thing and said "no breakfast mom, going to go get Lily for Bennett's NEW school!" He was nearly exploding with excitement as we arrived at the Children's Museum about a half hour early.

We went for a quick walk around the capital building in the sun and I couldn't believe how beautiful it was out!

The kids loved the toddler group and Teacher Betsy, who will hopefully be Bennett's teacher this coming September. They made a heart art project and ran out to play in the rest of the museum.  They had a blast running between all the rooms and I must admit I was getting pretty tuckered out trying to keep track of them and their changing ideas every 5 seconds.

Showing off their heart art projects!

 They LOVED the water table station

It wasn't difficult to wrangle them once I promised ice cream for lunch! We sat outside, enjoyed the sun and Lily and I enjoyed a cup of ice cream while Bennett shoveled his in so fast I could see him quickly discover the brain freeze... ouch

We headed home around 1 where I could tell we all were nearing exhaustion... and when I got them both to nap I felt like I had some magical super power. I sat down and quickly fell asleep... I will say that I did not want an early baby but I have an enormous respect for those ladies making it full term now, it is a whole new type of tired! It was a quiet house for 2 hours!

We spent the rest of the day playing outside and enjoying the "warm" weather... Thank you Lily for coming to play with us.

 When it ran out of batteries Lily quickly convinced B to push her :)

 Some well deserved hot chocolate!!

Our lil photographer

I have no idea why, that with the countless hours I have chased my poor child with my camera, it has never occured to me to get him his own camera. His Auntie Jania brought him this Cars present that had a camera and some bath time tattoos. He is a huge fan of both! He is all tatted up with 4 tattoos on his arms and loves taking pictures just like mommy. I have been mad at myself for not taking more pictures of myself while pregnant with Bennett and I know these pictures are not that exciting but it is fun to look back and see how, just when I felt really huge, I got bigger!

So here are some of the pictures we got out of our photo session tonight. I am sooo looking forward to a sleeping, still newborn to photograph and not a jumping running and "helping" 3 year old... but fortunately he is super cute and makes up for all his craziness  :)

On another note... we are FULL TERM! I am 37 weeks tomorrow and officially having a baby THIS MONTH! I would love to say I am being patient and waiting for her to come out in her due time... but I am so excited to meet her I cant stand it!!!

Our photo shoot quickly turned into a "jumping on the bed session"

37 weeks!! I cant believe it!!

He thought taking pictures in the mirror was pretty neat!

Surprise Admission to L&D and a New Jog stroller!

At 36 weeks yesterday we had a big day planned. We had scheduled one of Bennett's Children's Hospital check ups at 8 am. It went great and Bennett told us as we pulled in the parking lot "mom I play with tractors here" and ran in the door in his footy pajamas and showed us the play room with lots of toys where the kids and siblings can play waiting to see the Dr's.

After leaving there we headed to Grandma and Grandpa Olsen's to drop Bennett off where he played outside for hours and was one pooped boy after a day of working stacking some wood with Grandpa and his Diego gloves :)

We went in for our 36 week Dr apt. I have actually been counting down to this day for months. This is when my Dr was to remove the cervical stitch and do our final ultrasound to see about how big our little lady is. The growth scan went great. She was practicing breathing and was measuring 37 weeks and weighed in at around 6 lbs, 7 oz! I was shocked to hear that!

Then the Dr removed the cervical stitch and I was actually 1 cm dilated. Since I had the stitch with Bennett up until birth I have never been dilated so that was kind of exciting to hear! The procedure didn't hurt and I felt great! I left feeling wonderful and we were headed to check out a double stroller we found on Craigslist and I was stoked! I started feeling a bit strange upon leaving the hospital but ignored the slight bleeding. It didn't take long for me to realize the bleeding wasn't stopping and there might be some concern. I called my Dr's cell as I started to black out on the freeway. We quickly turned around and headed back to the hospital. They admitted me right away, stopped the bleeding and gave me 3 liters of fluid.

I ended up loosing quite a bit of blood, and it was a bit scary. I thought for sure we were going to meet our little girl yesterday, but after 4 hours of recovering I was feeling a ton better. My contractions stopped and after many tests and watching baby girl they let me go home. This is definitely not expected from the small procedure but they don't think it will be anything to worry about going forward, just a blood vessel acting up that was quickly fixed by the Dr.... Just lots of rest is the ticket, Our baby was showing off and being perfect on all the monitors, This little lady is going to be a busy girl!

So after all the craziness my husband, being the sweet man that he is and wanting to see this mama smile, called the couple from Craiglist and met them near the hospital to pick up my jog stroller. Joel rolled it into our living room so that I could check it out today and I am sooo excited about this! Thank you Auntie Pam for finding this gem on Craigslist!!! I cant wait to be pushing our little team around in it before we know it!

Who turned out the lights?!

So our "winter wonderland" quickly turned from playing in the powdery snow with Bennett to ice, power outages and scary winds.

It has been a rough week. Last Thursday morning the Lil' Olsen family woke up to no power. We took it in stride as Bennett and I played Lego's and read many many books about tractors in front of the fire. But since it is just a propane fire place without a fan and our house is primarily heated with an electric furnace it was getting chilly fast. Later, Daddy got home with some take out and Bennett and I "cooked" some snow so that we could do dishes (yep with a well  we were also out of water).
So we snuggled in for the night. Bennett spent his first night in our bed cuddled up in between us and loved every second. We rocked out to our wind up radio, which strangely played mostly Journey, from an emergency kit and actually ended up sleeping quite well.

These pictures do the ice no justice at all... The trees were breaking under the weight of the snow and ice with loud cracks all night long... actually kinda terrifying. I was too scared to go out and get better pictures so these are through the window at our front bushes.

You can't tell in these pictures but it is pitch dark in the room and the flash on my camera was the only light...

We stopped by our dark house on Saturday and couldnt even get in the driveway...

Upon waking up bright and early Friday morning we quickly realized we had to find another option than our freezing, water free, fridge free home. We called Grandma and Grandpa Jones and Grandpa was quick to come rescue us. So we set up camp in Grandma and Grandpas basement not knowing exactly how long we would be there. Turns out Grandma runs quite the B&B. We woke up every morning to pancake egg and bacon breakfast (which Bennett would eat so much I thought he would pop), spent the days playing with Grandma, making cookies, and the evenings snuggling with Grandpa and Daddy watching Gold Rush. It was all actually quite relaxing.

 Mom was a huge help with Bennett as I am getting bigger and having a harder time chasing him. I am just thakful I am still getting around on my feet and being able to "enjoy" these last few weeks big and pregnant!

We got word that our power was back on late Monday night and we were ecstatic.We packed up and headed home Tuesday night and I couldn't have been happier to take a warm shower, run our laundry and dishwasher and clean out our fridge (it should also be mentioned that a bottle of chardonnay and two bottles of champagne were the only things that survived a week in a warm fridge). We snuggled into bed catching up on TiVO as our power went out once again. I would like to say I handled this latest hit in stride but no such luck, This prego's hormones went through the roof and I spent a tear filled hour on the phone with PSE.

Somehow it is 24 hours later and I am snuggled up after a hot shower, watching cable and enjoying working wifi. Our power came back late last night after many hours of wind and worry. We spent the day getting thinks back to normal, cleaning up and getting ready for our big Dr's appointment tomorrow.

Tomorrow we head up to see Dr. Wall and get the cervical stitch removed. I cant wait to hear what he says and will post as soon as we know anything so stay tuned :)

Winter Wonderland!

There is nothing that can stress a prego mama with a history of preterm labor out as much as 18' of snow! My anxiety level has been through the roof but when I woke up this morning to a foot and a half of the white stuff covering the entire area and saw the amazement on my toddlers face I kinda got over it and enjoyed the day watching it build up outside! Bennett was super excited and I had a hard time stopping him as he ran out in a T-shirt and boots first thing this morning. He ran out the back door and off the deck and actually disappeared under the snow. This obviously surprised him and brought tears and cries of "snow is scary!!"

He forgave the snow this afternoon when Dad got home and took him out on the quad. I tried getting some pictures but even walking through snow up to your knees is hard to do in my condition.

Here's the official measurement on our front walkway... way deeper around the yard in places... just crazy!

Bennett and I spent the morning in baking cookies. I have completely lost my love of cooking during this pregnancy but I have made up for it in my new found love for baking. I found this recipe for peanut butter oatmeal cookies and honestly they are the best peanut butter cookies I have ever tasted.... oh and Bennett agreed :)

Bennett told me that when he puts the whisk into the flour and then "blow it like bubbles" it looks like "FIRE!" hopefully we aren't looking forward to a career in the circus as a fire blower... Sometimes I question why I let him do these things and take a bunch of pictures before telling him we have to clean up... oh well, nothing a little vacuuming cant fix right?!

Buried in Snow and Pink Baby Stuff...

Today Bennett and I have bundled up and gotten ready to play in snow and baby gear... After this fun weekend we have a ton of baby stuff to find a home and organize before her arrival. A lot of adorable pink outfits that need to find hangers and organization of toys, baby dolls and baby gear ready to be installed!

Bennett doesn't seem to care much about all the new baby stuff and seems to be more excited about the layer of snow in our yard! So we compromised and after he "helped" with some baby stuff we bundled up and played outside... This kid loves the snow and was only convinced to come in after his hands were frozen (the silly boy refuses to wear gloves lately in fear it will damage his shoveling ability) and the promise of some hot chocolate before nap time...

of course he had to climb up on "shawn's tractor!"

Running in to get that hot chocolate!

Topping it all off with a PB&J, hot chocolate and marshmallow on a stick! YUM!

Our Baby Girl Shower

Today I was lucky enough to spend the whole day with nearly every special lady of my life to celebrate another very important lady in my life... our baby girl!

I am fairly certain I have never felt so special and spoiled! I was so excited to get our daughter's room ready to show off to everyone and now it is packed to the gills with a ton of pink fun girlie stuff that needs to find a place.

My sisters, mom and dear friend Jania spent so much time and thought to make the celebration of our little girl fabulous. The food, family and friends couldn't have been a better combination.

After a bit of mingling I started in on the most enormous pile of presents I have ever seen! It took nearly an hour to get through all the thoughtful and fun gifts. It even started dumping snow which made us all worry about our ladies getting home ok.

Thank you everyone for coming to our wonderful day!!

And a special thanks to Aunties Pam and Teri for taking pictures :)

My fellow prego Ange!

We missed all the toddlers that were sent away with the dads... but loved having some cute sleeping babes around.

The Auntie Pam quilt... Beautiful and already on the chair ready for a snuggle :)

I love the hand made gifts... a bag from our friend and Bennett's physical therapist Laurel.

I quickly got buried in pink gifts!

Cousins!

Sisters and mama!

We had a full house of many great ladies...

and many many presents... I was blown away by everyone's thoughtfulness :)

our back yard about an hour after everyone arrived... definitely made our long drivers panic understandably... I am happy everyone made it home safely and thankful for everyone making the trek!