My Baby

Ella's now almost 6 weeks old, so I figured I should get some newer pictures on here. Unfortunately, I don't have many because I just keep forgetting to take pictures of her. Horrible I know, but I guess that's how it goes the more kids you have. As for an update of our lives these days, our baby is doing great and gaining weight. She's eating like a champ and starting to get some decent rolls on her. I think she's even grown out of her preemie clothes now! She's by far the easiest baby we've had, and has already slept through the night (8 hours straight) 2 times, although she usually wakes up once in the night still. Thank goodness, since I've needed all the rest I can get to deal with the other 2 girls. She's starting to smile and is trying to laugh, which we're loving. And I'm finally feeling fully recovered and really good, with no pain anymore. Overall, it's just a fabulous feeling to be done with all that difficult newborn stuff, and know that I'm done with it FOREVER! My sister will be taking more pics of Ella next week when she's here visiting, but until then here's our little peanut:

Posing with the girls' dolls - and yes, I'm aware that the dolls look a little creepy.

If this isn't an Olsen face, I don't know what is!

Just starting to smile a lot

My 3 girls

Green Thumb

I previously posted pictures of my spring flowers; now I want to post some pics of my summer flowers! Last year I discovered the wild and diverse world of growing dahlias. Even though they're a tiny bit of a pain to grow (because you have to dig up the tubers in the fall, pack them in a cool place for the winter, and then replant them in the spring), I totally fell in love with the hundreds of varieties, colors, shapes, and sizes of these amazing flowers. The ones I got last year were some smaller varieties from a nursery, but this year I branched out and ordered some really tall and interesting ones from a website to add to the others. Here's a few of my favorites (although one of my tall ones is still a few days from blooming):

This was my first big one to bloom; the blooms are about 6-8 inches across.

This is a smaller one, but I love the color.

Another shot of one of the above purple ones, not quite fully bloomed.

This yellow one is really fun

This one just bloomed the other day and I'm totally loving it - plus it's HUGE!

This one is my favorite, it's called Tahitian Sunrise - it's about 8 inches across in full bloom.

Brian with my cherry tomato plant. Isn't he mahvelous?? The plant, not Brian, although Brian is mahvelous too.

Ella's Story

Our baby girl is here! Ella Brianne Olsen was born on June 25, 2010 at 10:26 am. She weighed 5 lbs, 14 oz, and was 19 inches long. I had a scheduled C-section, which went well; however, following the surgery my doctor told me that because of all the scar tissue and damage that I had sustained from my previous C-sections, I wouldn't be able to have more kids. Brian and I were kind of thinking that this would be our last, so hearing that basically solidified that idea. At any rate, we're extremely thankful and happy to have this adorable baby girl in our lives. She has been such a good baby so far, with a mellow and content personality. She's a tiny little thing, and getting her to gain weight has been our biggest struggle so far. 2 days after she was born she had dropped down to 5 lb, 4 oz, and we were informed that she would not be allowed to go home until she was at least 5 lb, 6 oz. We started supplementing her with formula, and by the time we were ready to go home, she was up to 5 lb, 8 oz. We're still struggling with her weight as of right now, and it looks like we will have to start supplementing with formula, and perhaps go exclusively to formula in the future. Given my history with the other 2 girls, it won't surprise me. Even though I wanted to breastfeed exclusively for awhile, our main concern is making sure she's healthy and doesn't shrink down to a skinny skeleton, which is what happened to Makayla. Here's some pictures of our little princess so far!

Welcome to the world, Baby Ella! Meeting my baby for the first time. Bonding time with Mom.

Getting her first taste of formula. Daddy and Ella Big sisters were sooo excited to meet Ella! The whole 5 family, as Kylee would say. Home from the hospital, with her flowers

A smile at 5 days old! Ok, she might have been dreaming...

Our Little Graduate

I thought I should get this post done before the baby gets here (which can't be soon enough, quite frankly). Kylee had her kindergarten graduation ceremony last week, which she was super excited about. The classes sang a few songs and the teachers talked a little and then they gave out a "diploma" and flower to each of the kids. It was all very cute, but Brian and I probably had the most fun making fun of the many families who acted as if this was their child's high school graduation or something, judging by the flower bouquets, balloon bouquets, bags of presents, and great-aunt Mabel they hauled there. It's just kindergarten, people!! Ok, sorry, gotta keep those grumpy preggo hormones in check. Anyway, in other momentous news, I'm very proud to announce that Brian successfully completed and defended his Masters Thesis the end of May, so he's our other big graduate in the family. PhD, here we come!!

My big graduate!!

Me and the girls. Hey, it's the Rosenberg clan in the background! Hi Rosenberg's!!

Dad with his girls

Kylee with her teacher, Mrs. Kober

Makayla always seems a little reluctant to let Kylee hug her. Last day of kindergarten. 1st grade-here she comes!

The Other Tooth

Well, the tooth living next door to the one that Kylee recently lost apparently felt that it had also had enough of living in Kylee's mouth, and therefore wiggled itself loose enough last weekend to demand that somebody braver than myself pull it out. Oh brave Puller-of-Teeth, Brian is thy name! Thank goodness for a husband who's willing to do anything gross I don't want to. Kylee was, of course, ecstatic to lose another tooth (that's putting it mildly). I heard she tried to go up to the microphone in Primary the next day to announce to everybody that she had lost a tooth. I gotta admit, the spunk and shameless self-promotion of my girl sure makes me laugh sometimes!

Pull it out, push it out, WAAAAAAAY OUT!!

Success at last!

Another random picture, I know. But nothing says summer like a butterfly soaking up the rays on a leaf in your backyard!

Kylee's Tooth

Ok, I admit it, I'M THE WORST MOM EVER!! The truth is, my first-born child lost her first tooth WEEKS ago, and I haven't posted one single solitary picture about it yet! Does that win me the Worst Mom Award or what? The thing is (and here's my dirty secret I've been hiding from the world), I just don't get very sentimental about stuff like this. I'm the kind of mom who gets excited about events like this instead of sniffly and sad that they're growing up so fast (c'mon now, please tell me there's another mom out there who's happy their kids are growing up!). Ok, now that I've gotten that off my chest, it's kind of a funny story about how Kylee lost her tooth. That darn bottom tooth of hers had been loose for so long I had practically forgotten about it! One evening about a month ago, we went to pick up a futon we had found on Craig's List. I was standing next to the car watching it being loaded up, when Kylee called from the window "Mom, my tooth is really loose!" I took a quick look in her mouth, and sure enough her tooth was sticking straight out and it was turning black! I told her not to touch it and we would yank it out as soon as we could. So, on the way home we decided to stop at Wendy's for dinner. We went into the lobby, and Brian got a napkin and yanked out the tooth right there on the spot. Kylee was freaking out with excitement, and she ran into the bathroom so she could look in the mirror. Brian and I were still standing in the lobby and we could hear her in the bathroom whooping and laughing and singing with happiness. Oh man, I can't tell you how hard we were laughing! I'm glad we were the only people in there, because even the people up at the counter could hear her and were laughing. That night she was excited to put her tooth under her pillow, even though she wanted to keep her tooth. I told her maybe the Tooth Fairy would leave the tooth for her, and she said, "But mom, I thought you said there were no such thing as fairies!" DOH!! Oh well, she got her dollar and got to keep her tooth and is super excited to lose more teeth. Now if I could just get Makayla to stop asking me when her teeth are going to come out. :)

If you're wondering what that bump is on her left eyelid, it was an infected something-or-other that she had to use medicated drops for, but it's about gone now.

This is a snake eating a rat at the zoo. I thought it was a grody picture and just wanted to throw it in.

A Few of my Favorite Things...

One of my favorite things about spring is all the beautiful flowers, especially tulips. I went ahead and planted a bunch of tulip bulbs last fall, and I've been so excited to see them coming up the past few weeks. The tulips and I had a photo shoot today so I could share how pretty they are. I'm especially loving my walkway, where I planted purple phlox and purple tulips (and yeah, it probably doesn't make sense to do all this in a house we're renting, but hey, it's a lot of fun!)

Phlox and tulips

I really love these purple and yellow ones! All the variations of tulips are so interesting.