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:)