Introducing Miss Olivia

I am so excited to introduce you all to Miss Olivia, the newest member of our little family! I am sure you will agree that she is as cute as a button, but I will also add that she's a lively and feisty little thing!

A little over a week ago Cory had to drive down to Myrtle Point to pick up some newborn calves, so I decided to go along for the ride. I'm a sucker for baby animals, especially cows, sheep and kittens - I don't know what it is, they are just the cutest and most fun little things. I had always wanted to own my own little herd of cows but never really thought it would happen...

So, along I go for the ride, pretty content to just get to oooh and aaah over the babies, and then something happens when we get there. Cory sees me almost drooling over the babies and decides that I should get my own little calf. He said he was pretty sure his Dad would let us pasture it with his own cattle and so we didn't have to worry about not having the room right now... So, I pick out a little girl - Miss Olivia! She's half Angus, half Holstein - she's 100% beautiful!

While we were at the dairy we didn't have any cell service so we hadn't been able to check with his Dad before buying her, I was just hoping it was ok.... So, we bring Miss Olivia and the others home and talk to his Dad. He was fine with it and said she'd be just fine in with the rest of the babies and Momma's.

So, we get our three into their new pen and give them a bottle feed, then Doug took the other two calves up the road to the friend we were picking them up for.

Miss Olivia turned out to be a character - she was feisty, thirsty and craving attention - she's a funny little thing, so much personality!

She loves it when Cory comes to visit her during the work day for loves and when he goes to leave she always gives him a playful nudge on the butt as if to say "one last rub down before you leave".

The last few days she has been taken under the wing of one of the other Momma cows which is just amazing. She has her own baby (Shep) but she's happy to feed Olivia too and to look out for her. I'm so glad Miss O has found her place in the herd!

Here's some more pics - I couldn't resist, she's just too cute!

 

hello again

Well, I haven't really been good about blogging lately, actually, I haven't really been good about anything lately!

Things have picked up since I turned the 18 week mark... the sickness started to subside, I now have just a day or two of sickness per week and while it's still fairly frustrating to be sick on a regular basis it's no way near as bad as being sick all day and night. That was just plain exhausting, not to mention frustrating!

I'm at the 23 week mark of my pregnancy now and it's exciting and fun to be able to not only feel the baby moving, but to actually see the baby move inside my belly. At first that was a little weird, I must say... but now it's just exciting and fun at the same time.

We had our big ultrasound up in Portland a few weeks back and that was just plain amazing. We got to see the baby in such detail - we got to see and count fingers and toes (YAY, we counted 10 of each), we were able to see the baby moving and jumping and flipping all over the place and we got to see a profile shot of the baby's beautiful face.

I am just so excited to see that cute little face in person, to kiss those little lips and look into his or her eyes!

After the big ultrasound we talked with a perinatologist, and he was one of the most amazing Dr's I think I may have ever met with. He took as much time as we needed to talk through with us all the concerns he had due to my thyroid disease, and he reassured us that everything was perfectly on track, but that between him, my OB and my midwife they would be keeping a very close eye on me & baby and would be doing blood tests and ultrasounds every 6 weeks to make sure everything was good, and that way if anything went even slightly off course they would catch it quickly.

Since then my belly has been growing quickly, some days I wake up and can't quite figure out if the baby had a growth spurt in the night or what happened? My belly feels huge, and honestly, it's fairly uncomfortable some of the time but having our baby wriggling around inside of me is the most amazing feeling ever - I am starting to feel like a Mum already.

We've been working on the baby's room - we have a bird & tree theme going on in there that I totally love. We have also started slowly buying the more expensive items so they don't all have to come out of one pay check, it's good to find a nice deal or a bargain on something too - you know me, I hate to pay full price for anything!

Here's some pics of my growing belly in the last few weeks - it's crazy how much it's growing :)

19 weeks

20 weeks

21 weeks