OLIVIA'S FIRST MONTH

Ok so Olivia. Lets start with a story. First of all you need to understand that Isabella came into the world announcing her presence very loudly and made demands frequently ALL NIGHT LONG. So when Olivia slept peacefully through most of the night at the hospital and barely made a squeak once in a while to ask for food, we were worried. Well let me rephrase. I was exhausted and just grateful, Stephen was worried. At like 3am he finally decided she was deaf and of course needed to prove it right then and there. So he would bang a cup against the metal desk next to him every so often to see if she would react. It's 3am, I just had a baby. So I very nicely told him that if he banged anything again I was going to kick him out of the room and he would sleep in the hallway. If she was deaf there was nothing we could do about it at 3am. Next day the doctor came. And fortunately we found out she wasn't deaf, just very mellow.
Well Olivia has kept up her mellow reputation from day one. Seriously this little girl is chill. She rarely cries and when she does, it sounds like a little puppy in pain. Instead of crying most of the time she groans. We call her our little dinosaur.
I feel like Olivia has a look of her own. She is not quite me or quite Stephen, just has an air of both of us. Sometimes though she looks just like her uncle Adam to me. Those Wells genes seriously! And then there's her wild hair. We also call her our little porcupine. Her mane cannot be tamed. It has a life of its own. Especially after we give her a bath. It just goes Poof! and that's that. She reminds me of Doc from Back to the Future haha. But I love it! It gives her spunk and I find it adorable. She loves it when you rub it softly backwards.
Olivia has been such a testimony to me that Heavenly Father is aware of each one of us and our limits and circumstances. Before having Olivia, We were really nervous of having another kid. We felt burned out and could barely keep up with our overbooked life. We just had a lot going on this past year. Some nights
I would go to bed and think "how in the world am I going to take care of another child?" But little Olivia came and has pretty much taken care of herself. Her spirit is so gentle and calm and just being around her slows me down and helps me breathe.
I have also learned that newborns are a lot stronger than we think. New parents, don't worry if Olivia can survive her crazy sister then your baby can survive anything. Don't get me wrong Isabella ADORES Olivia. Their relationship is soooo cute. But Isabella is a very active wild typical 2 year old and can sometimes get too excited with her jumping, dancing, running, kicking.... Like my grandma says "ay amores que matan". We are working on it...Isabella does do some adorable things though. Instead of being bored by the baby, she pretends Olivia does all this cool things. Since babies have their hands in a fist all of the time, she will pretend Olivia is giving her a fist pump and is so proud of it. She says stuff like "hermana beso me! or hermana tickles me!" Anyways those two are going to be quite the duo. Isabella just wants Olivia to hurry up and grow up so they can take over the world.

CHRISTMAS 2015

 We had such a wonderful Christmas. This year has been an overbooked, overstressful, over everything pretty much haha so Christmas was such a wonderful time to relax and just breathe. Having my mom here has been such a help. She made the girls matching Christmas nightgowns. Bella was so excited to have the same dress as her hermana. We made cookies for the tree (a tradition we did when we were kids), watched Elf, made gingerbreadhouses, and all the other fun Christmas stuff. Isabella is so old she understands so so much more than last year. She would run around the house singing "Santa Claus is coming to town!" She also would smile so big and say "Mewy Christmas!"

I pondered alot how to center Christmas around Christ with all the hoopla of gifts,movies, and activities. I am so into ginerbread houses, Santa Clause, all the cool movies, stockings, lots and lots of good food, family and gifts. They make Christmas so much fun, But I felt gentle reminders all month to make sure to focus on the real reason we celebrate Christmas: Christ. As Christmas approached I felt prompted that our family should dedicate Christmas Eve (so the 24th) as a day to ponder on the birth of our Savior and give him gifts through our actions that day. Then on the 25th we could open presents eat a lot and just let the kids enjoy the stuff they got and watch movies. I wasn't sure how we were going to make this work but when I woke up on the 24th the plan was clear as day. All morning we made tons of cookies packed them up in cute packages and wrote some cards. Stephen and Isabella put their elf hats on and we headed off to the homes of the people we visit teach and home teach (we have alot of families we visit, I have 4, stephen 2) and one of Isabella's best friends, Kali. We put Christmas music on as we drove and talked. Isabella kept saying "another casa! another casa!" and proudly delivered all the cookies. We had a particular special experience in one home. Two single moms live together and I visit teach one of them. One of the little boys fractured his foot and the doctors said it would have to wait to heal. He was in alot of pain. Stephen was able to give him a blessing since they have no priesthood holders in the home. I felt the spirit so strongly as we left. As we drove back home I realized that one of the biggest gifts I can give my children is the gift of giving to others.

Christmas morning was a blast. Santa Clause came at 2 in the morning ate his cookies and left the girls some awesome legos. Stephen and I have decided we don't want to buy a bunch of gifts for our kids, we would rather keep it simple. BUT we have no problem with grandparents spoiling them soooo the girls still had a TON of presents. That's what happens when there are barely any kids in each family. Olivia was just happy to watch her big sis play.

Now we have to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again! It is most definitely the most wonderful time of the year.

OLIVIA'S BABY SHOWER

My friends Kate and Michele from church threw me an awesome baby shower for Olivia. We had tons of fun. I love baby showers. They are like birthdays but on steroids cause you get so many gifts AND mine are filled with adorable little girl stuff. Olivia is one lucky lady everyone was so generous and gave her some fun stuff.  My favorite part of the baby shower was of course the food (I was  8 months pregnant so food was all I thought about haha). Michele made copy cat waffles from Awful Waffle in Utah. She had cookie butter (why oh why is that so good?!!!) nutella, strawberries and whip cream. I had my share and some more...My friend Marisol took some awesome pictures:

^^

Isabella tried cotton candy for the first time. She DID NOT like it but I was more than happy to eat it:)

OLIVIA ELIZABETH WELLS

I used to think those crazy labor stories you see in the movies with hysterical pregnant ladies rushing to the hospital were so fake.

Well it happens. And it happened to me.

Tuesday November 24th, 2015 was supposed to be just a regular day. It was 2 weeks before my due date. I was dilated 4cm but I had been this way for 2 weeks so I didn't think much of it. Stephen woke up at
6:30 am to go to work and as he was finishing getting ready I woke up. The first thing I felt was a strong contraction so I told Stephen but nothing too bad so he said goodbye and left. A couple of minutes later I got up to pee and lo and behold I felt a huge rush of water pour down my legs. I was still too asleep to realize what was happening. And then it happened again. I yelled at my mom "mom my water just broke wake up!" I tried to call Stephen because I knew he was driving into surgery were I can't reach him so I started freaking out a little. Called again three times. nothing. So I decide I might as well take a quick shower. Looking back I probably shouldn't have done this but at least I was clean. So by now contractions started coming in quick and strong. Every minute or so. I've been up for about 10 minutes at this point. Isabella wakes up and I can't pick her up because well I'm in labor. My mom goes in but only upsets her more so she is balling. I put on Handy Manny on my phone (thank goodness for Netflix!) and say a silent prayer that Stephen will call back really soon. Thankfully he decided to stop at McDonalds to get breakfast so as soon as he saw my missed calls he turned around and was home in 5 minutes. We grabed our bags and left. As we are driving the contractions start coming in so strong they make me cry. I felt nervous and overwhelmed, I had been up for about 20 minutes so far and was processing things really slowly. As we drove I prayed asking Heavenly Father for peace, a clear mind and strength, little did I know how much I would need these.  The hospital is 5 minutes away so we got there really fast. As we went in a guy put me in a wheel chair and I felt slightly ridiculous. We finally arrived to labor and delivery. The nurses all smile at us like I'm just coming in for a check up. I try to explain to them how quick and strong my contractions are coming, that my water broke for sure and that I think I'm pretty close. They all just smile, ask me all these irrelevant questions like "what's your address?" "how tall are you?" I'm breathing through the contractions hoping they will catch on soon. Well they take me to my room give me a tour of the bathroom, the two beds, the old tv and every little detail you can imagine.I just sit there breathing in and out. Why was I so nice? I don't know. I get undressed and finally the nurse comes in to check me. As soon as she checks her eyes go wide and she says "honey you are at an 8!" Yeah I've been trying to tell you. Things start happening really quick then. Before I know it there are 3 nurses in the room bringing all this equipment in. During this whole time I have one thought in my head "when is my epidural going to get here?!" I keep asking the nurses "when will i get my epidural?" and they just keep saying "we are going to try honey" well I'm pretty sure the truth was they were waiting for the doctor to arrive so I wouldn't freak out. At this point, we had been in my room for about 20 minutes. Doctor Kurean arrived and everyone starts telling me how to react to contractions and push and all I keep asking is "what about my epidural? Am I really that close?" "is there a line for the epidural?" "I want my epidural!" finally one of the nurses looks at me and says "honey, there is no time for the epidural" I am slightly in shock at this point and before I can process the horrible news, doctor Kurean says push! I am still in denial and I look at all of them and say "am I really not getting an epidural I need someone to tell me that I have to do this natural!" The doctor looks at me and says "Valeria there is no time for the epidural, your baby is coming, now get ready to push" My mind is flipping out. The contractions start coming in so strong the pain makes me dizzy. All of a sudden I want to push! So I yell "I want to push!" they all say "push push!" Suddenly the nurses are no longer the slow nurses who would not hurry up when I got there. They were Tanya, Elizabeth and Jennifer. They all knew how freaked out I was and that I had 30 minutes to process everything. Stephen was amazing holding my hand and trying his best to soothe me but he was also overwhelmed since he had no time to process this either. Tanya tells me to breath in and out hold my chin down and push as hard as I can when they tell me to. The pain makes me so dizzy I zone out some times and the pushing is so so painful. I am having a really hard time focusing and nothing seems real.
Finally I hear a voice in my head "you can do this! your body was born to do this! It wasn't what you planned but you are here and this is it. Now focus and do this." I remember who I am and what I know. I focus completely and decide to push with everything I have. I listen to my nurses and doctor. Everytime the pain felt unbearable I would plead to my Heavenly Father for strength and I felt him right there with me coaching me with everyone else. Stephen got the hang of things pretty quick and helped me get through my contractions and encouraged me to push push push when I was making progress. I was so connected with my body I knew exactly when to push and felt my baby's progress so perfectly. At the peak of the pain, I screamed and then pushed as hard as I could and all of a sudden this overwhelming relief washed over me as the baby slipped out. this was such a cool moment I like to run over it in my head. The pain continued but the relief was overpowering.
I focused on the most beautiful sound in the room, tiny little girl cries. they placed her all gooey on my stomach and although I knew it was all so gross I didn't care she was perfect. Everyone cheered and was so happy and the nurses held my hands and made me feel like the best champ. They brought Olivia to me again after cleaning her up and as I held her I knew she was mine and would be mine to have forever and isn't that the most awesome thing in the world? Did I mention she got a 10 on her Apgar score? Our pediatrician said in his 20 years of seeing newborns he had never seen a 10. Just saying. I soaked in her beautiful face, stroked her soft black hair, held her little perfect hands and decided natural labor wasn't that bad after all.

From the moment my water broke at home to when I held Olivia in my arms, only an hour and a half had passed by. I mean it takes more time to watch a movie! although it was not what we had planned and remembering the pain still makes me tremble, it was the coolest labor and Olivia will have quite the story to tell.

It was all so raw and real and very very painful. Will I go natural again in the future? I don't know. But for this one, I wouldn't change a thing.

OCTOBER LITTLE THINGS

October was a big month for the Wells. First of all we moved. Our new place is smaller but next to Stephen's work so he can walk (i keep the car everyday hallelujah!!) and a lot cheaper. I thought I would have a harder time adjusting but we have all loved it. I have been a crafting elf let me tell you. I think I have done more projects this pregnancy than most people do in their lifetimes haha. Posts to come I'm excited, especially my girls room I went crazy there. I even built furniture, I mean serious crazy pregnant crafting elf over here. let me tell you about October.  

First of all cuteness: 

I have to post about our friend Mickey. We visit Mickey EVERY time we go to Walmart. I'm getting used to this new "I don't forget things" kid. we have started a new tradition that makes grocery shopping funner and easier. Isabella get 50 cents each time we go and get to spend it however she wants. most of the time it's spent on this guy, but if she doesn't we still have to visit him and just pretend ride him. Oh the joys of childhood. Checkout that arm around him? I know who is going to die when she goes to Disneyland...

Isabella loves water fountains. If she sees one she has to get a drink. Enough said. 

 Stephen has been studying like crazy this month so we go on girl dates a ton at nights. In West Plains after 6pm that means 2 places: Macdonalds and Walmart. I've learned that Walmart can be really fun when you have no shopping to do and just roam the kid and fun sections. Our favorite spot is the Christmas tree lot. It smells like pine and all the trees make us so excited for Christmas. 

Someone learned to ride her bike! Found this little treasure at the thrift store and Bella learned to ride it with her dad. She cruises around the house like a pro yelling "it works! It works!" She is so smooth on her turns I am so proud:)

Emma has been around here a lot. Her mom is the swim coach at the high school (she swam for BYU so she is a stud in our books). Her oldest son made it to State this year which is in St. Louis 4 hours away so we got to babysit Emma all day. We got a lot of good practice in for when little sis comes.

Sadly this has also been sick month. This poor little girl has been sick with something for almost three weeks. She got a really bad eye infection and we ended up in the doctors office. Along with that we both got a really bad cold. Now she has a bad stomach flu and still a pretty bad cough from the cold. No fun.

On a pretty rough day this week I was going out of my mind, exhausted from pregnancy with a crying sick toddler. Then Nana saved the day: this huge package arrived and it was like an early Christmas. It was packed with pretty much a whole new winter wordrobe for Bella, plus a bunch of other awesome stuff for all of us. It made our day and changed both of our moods around. My heart swelled and I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing mother in law I have. I am not used to her genorosity and thoughtfulness. I have never met a mom who thinks so much of her children and grandchildren and even me. we are always getting special packages, and being far away from everyone it means the world to us. 

HALLOWEEN 2015

I learned some important lessons this Halloween: toddlers really don't like Halloween night that much it creeps them out, and I am letting my kids be whatever they want to be for Halloween (trying to convince a toddler to let you paint their face like a cat or wear kitty ears is exhausting and pointless). If we are not having fun something isn't right is how Stephen put it. Once we settled on pig tails and let Isa do whatever she wanted she was so happy. Lesson learned.

As far as our month of October traditions we had a blast. Bella loved carving pumpkins, calls them Nonagens after watching Curious George's Halloween movie with her dad about 20 times this month. We went to this awesome pumpkin patch nearby run by a local family and it was my favorite thing this year. It had the cutest little pumpkins and lots of animals that Bella loved. Halloween night itself was ok. We started of at a carnival at the library which was a total fail. Bella was terrified. We went trick or treating afterwards and Isa kind of enjoyed it except whenever a monster looking kid showed up she would start crying and run to our arms. I love Halloween but it's going to take Isa a couple of years to warm up to it I think. 

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

Something has happened and I don't know how I feel about it. Somehow this little old run down town has creeped into my heart. Something shifted in the last couple of months. I used to want to pack up and runaway back to my lovely i miss you so much Utah. I felt like a traveler just passing along ready to move back home as soon as Stephen was done with his stuff.

But now I drive down the dirt roads, the massive trees, little shops our weekly spots and it all feels so comfortable and ours. I don't know though. As I see Isabella with her friends running around, hugging them, squealing in delight, little arms flying yelling their names after a WHOLE week of not seeing them, my heart breaks a little. How in the world are we going to leave this place now? I built a nice little wall around my heart to avoid the heartbreak but brick by brick it has fallen down and this small 60's town and it's wonderful people have taken a place in my heart.  For better or for worse, this is home now.