Baby Sadie: One Month

SADIE ANNE

Our beautiful baby girl turned one month old! (okay technically she turned one month on July 29th... its just taken me a while to get around to blogging about it!) The last month has been a roller coaster of emotions! I have never been happier, or more tired, in my life! It amazes me how cute and perfect someone can be in only one month of life! So here's the update with a few (okay more than a few) of our favorite moments from the last month! 

We had an amazing photographer come and take pictures of baby girl when she was just two weeks old! We will always treasure these beautiful pictures!

Nicknames:

Mama calls her Little Stink, Sweet Pea & Sadie Baby

Daddy calls her Little Miss or Misses, or Fiend

Likes:

She loves bath time! Especially when we pull her out and snuggle her up in a towel! There is nothing better than a freshly bathed baby!

Sadie is getting better at tummy time and can keep her head up for over a minute now!

Sadie's favorite place to nap is curled up on her Mama or Daddy's chest. She sleeps like her Daddy ... HOT! When she passes out she becomes a little heater! Those warm little naps are the BEST! 

Dislikes:

Although baby is a happy and adorable baby most of the time there are a few things that she dislikes....a lot.
The number one offender is her car seat.... she HATES her car seat. Anytime we strap her in she screams bloody murder for a good 15 minutes.

Another offender is pooping. I've never seen a baby that hates pooping as much as she does. She can't stand having a dirty diaper and we have to change them IMMEDIATELY. And the only thing that seems to make her happy when she has a dirty diaper is to poop or pee on whoever is changing the diaper. (Hence why I call her Little Stink)

My Favorite Things:

The rolls on her thighs...Cutest thing ever!! Every time I change her diaper and lift her legs I have to stop and chuckle at all the rolls and dimples in her chunky little thighs!

When Sadie is tired or fussy sometimes the only thing to calm her down is her binky. Her binky always has to be in arms reach... because the one time I couldn't find a binky was the worst twenty minutes of her life. At least I assume it was the worst twenty minutes because of how sad her cries were. When she sucks on her binky she gets this intense scowl on her face while she concentrates on sucking on her binky. I keep telling baby girl that she is too pretty to frown, but she insists! 

One of her most adorable features is when she is drifting in and out of sleep and she smiles and laughs. Watching her laugh in her sleep is one of the sweetest things ever!

Last but not least her "stretch" face. When she wakes up in the morning or after a nap she arches her back, throws back her head, puckers her lips and stretches! The face she pulls when she stretches is my favorite!! My absolute favorite!

So long story short. My baby girl is beautiful, snuggly, perfect and all mine! Well...mine and G's ;)

ITS A GIRL!!

Hooray!! Baby Sadie Anne O'Brien finally made her debut on June 29th at 1:28 pm. Boy oh boy was I surprised when we found out she was a girl! My "mother's intuition" was positive she was going to be a little fella. I have never been more excited to be wrong before in my life. I am totally and completely smitten by our little beauty and have already begun planning the many adventures we will have together.

Baby Sadie only 3 hours old!

Sadie is perfection. I have such a hard time believing that something this perfect and beautiful was given to me to take care of. Not only is Sadie generally a pretty relaxed and calm baby, but she already has a radiant smile that she loves to show off whenever she can. I spend most of my day just holding her and staring at her perfectly round face and watching her little chest move up and down as she breathes. (pathetic and sappy... I know!) Right from the very beginning of her life people were amazed at how beautiful our Sadie is. Because she stayed for so long in the womb she had none of the cheesy grey varnish most babies are born with, leaving her skin a beautiful pink color immediately after birth! Sadie was also blessed with a beautiful round head (no cone heads for us please). The nurses kept telling us how lucky we were that Sadie was such a beautiful baby. (I'm sure they say that to all the parents, but I like to believe Sadie is exceptionally beautiful) Sadie was born with a good amount of dark hair with a small silver lightning bolt shaped birthmark of blonde/silver hair (we hope the birth mark stays permanent... its so darn cute!). As she grows older her hair seems to be lightning up a bit and even gaining some reddish tints, but I hope it stays dark like her mama's hair! Her eyes were a dark grey, but just like her hair seem to be lightning up fairly quickly to a blue/grey color just like her daddy! Sadie's little face is a perfect circle with a tiny button nose right in the middle and perfectly pouty rosebud lips. She was in the 50th percentile for both height and weight when she was born at 7lbs 8oz and 19.5 inches. Another of our favorite features are her long arms and legs. Her long skinny little legs always dangle out and hang when we hold her in the cutest way! At the end of those long chicken legs are the BIGGEST feet a newborn has ever seen! Both G and I have quite large feet and it looks like Sadie inherited that from us right away! When the nurses took her away to be weighed and bathed they took a minute to print her feet... only her feet barely fit on the ink pad!! Everyone got a huge kick out of that! Along with her long legs and big feet she has long arms and big hands (the big hands I can't take credit for, she gets that entirely from her daddy!) Her long arms can stretch and touch together over her head (which apparently isn't normal for newborns? People keep freaking out over it!) Her big hands with long fingers will make perfect "piano hands" when she grows older. And last but not least... her bum!! Don't even get me started on how cute and little and adorable her little bum cheeks are!! 

Baby's super long feet

Her blonde birthmark is on the left side... I couldn't find a better picture of it.
which is strange since I take a MILLION pictures of Sadie! 

Not only is Sadie a beautiful baby but she is an awesome baby! The first few nights after we brought her home she slept a full 6 hours! (Thank you baby girl!) She still sleeps most of the day, but for the few hours she is awake she is totally alert and happy! She loves to interact with whoever is holding her and is super curious about anything that moves or makes sounds. Although she doesn't sleep six straight hours anymore she only wakes up twice a night to eat! (which makes for a very happy mama!) Little baby girl gets hiccups almost every single day! And the crazy part is she seems to love them! She is already the worlds best snuggler (Thank you Dilley family genes!) but sweats a TON when she sleeps. When she wakes up her hair is usually matted down with sweat... gross!  One of her funnier characteristics is how much she already loves her hands! No matter how tightly I swaddle her she manages to wiggle her hands free and has to have them by her face to sleep. What a strange little girl!

She loves her snuggles with Daddy. 

Do you see the pattern? She always sleeps with her hands by her face.
Its pretty dang adorable! 

We love our darling and perfect baby Sadie! Like I said before... Sadie is perfection!

I cannot believe how much I love this little bundle of perfect!

THE BIG POST...

Well... I'm back... :)

To be completely honest I had totally forgotten about our blog. Life got very busy. G and I are both in school, we are busy with tons of DIY weekend projects on our home and yard and most importantly we are expecting the newest addition to the O'Brien home ANY DAY! We were ecstatic and joyful when we learned we were expecting a baby. This blessing is something we have looked forward to our whole marriage. This happy occasion is actually what led me to write this blog post out of the blue. Its almost midnight here and I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights due to the horrendous heartburn I've been plagued with for the last few months. As I sit here in our living room (so I don't wake up G) I stumbled upon my own blog... and realized its been QUITE a while since I updated this old thing... and with baby on the way we all know that means one thing... an overwhelming amount of pictures that I can either flood onto Instagram and Facebook.... or resurrecting this blog to post thousands of baby pictures and stories on without shoving them down the throats of every small acquaintance I know. So here I am blogging again.

Ultrasound at 13 weeks. It was just a tiny little bean!

Like I mentioned, Baby O'Brien is due ANY DAY! Here is what you need to know to be up to date: G and I are what the baby world likes to call "Team Green". Meaning we opted not to find out the sex of our baby and have chosen to be surprised. WHAT WERE WE THINKING? RIGHT?!? Every other day I change my mind from "Best idea ever! I'm so glad we did this!" to "This was a dumb idea, I wish we knew what we were having!" I figure we've already made it 39.5 weeks without knowing so whats a few more days gonna hurt right? After our 20 week ultrasound the ultrasound tech gave us "gender shots" in an envelope in case we ever decided to change our mind. We decided the temptation was too great just having an envelope sit on our table, so I took the envelope to BYU campus and had the pictures sealed into a small aluminum can as part of a Valentines day fund raiser they were doing. So now instead of an envelope we have a can with our secret inside! If we ever change our mind we would need a can opener which makes the temptation a little less intense... but only a little less! 

The first trimester was by far the hardest part of the journey, but I still loved every minute. We  found out by the end of October that I was already 5 weeks pregnant. We had a ward Halloween party that night, and it was SO HARD not to tell everyone our good news!  By 7 weeks I had started throwing up nearly every morning, noon and night. My "pregnancy super powers" were already starting to kick in. These powers included super smell, extreme exhaustion, and paranoia. That semester of school was a pretty rough one for me. My grades began to suffer as I missed more and more class due to nausea and exhaustion. My daily schedule consisted of school in the mornings then coming home to crash for a few hours until G got home from work. From there I would attempt to make dinner (which usually ended up in being sick due to smells from the kitchen), I would try to eat a few bites and keep them down and then turn in for an early night. I would jokingly tell G that we better be having triplets, because I didn't know if I could do this again. I was insanely sick from 7 weeks until about 17 weeks. During that time I lost 14 lbs and doing everyday tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and laundry became giant chores that took me all day to complete. Unfortunately my first trimester spanned over my favorite time of the year, I couldn't stomach much a Thanksgiving dinner, or eat any of the Christmas sweets friends and family brought by. Although the first trimester was hard we saw so many blessings and tender mercies.

8 weeks pregnant! 

The second trimester is when the fun started! By 16 weeks my morning sickness started subsiding. I began feeling baby kick and move. My appetite came back with a vengeance! I scheduled that semesters classes later in the day so I could sleep a little more in the mornings. My sister moved in with G and I for the semester and was great at helping with the household chores. I tried to stay active by walking every day and drinking lots of water. I was carrying the baby pretty high so it took a long time before I finally "popped" out enough for people to notice I was pregnant. Second trimester was a breeze! My energy came back and the fun of feeling baby move around so much made every day an adventure. We started playing music for baby and it loved listening to primary songs on my phone. Unfortunately, since I was carrying so high my rib cage became baby's private punching bag. And starting around 20 weeks I started experiencing severe heartburn and acid re-flux. Because of the heartburn I needed to prop pillows up behind me to sleep sitting up and began eating Tums like candy, but other than that experiencing pregnancy was the best part of each day.

20 weeks pregnant! Half way done!

The third trimester came way to quickly! I took a break from school and work during the summer semester so I could prepare for baby to come. G and I were able to travel down to California to meet his sister's new baby. I started having baby showers from friends and family, and it was so overwhelming to see how much love and support this baby already has. Luckily I've only put on about 22 lbs this pregnancy so I've been able to continue to wear most of my shirts and live in my maxi skirts. My sister got married when I was 35 weeks, so other than not being able to fit into the bridesmaids outfits it was a fun and happy occasion. My nesting urge hit hard around that time. Every cupboard and closet has been cleaned and organized. We built up a wall in the spare room to make a nursery. We mud and tapped the wall, sanded, painted and installed new carpet. Nursery is now ready! I stocked the freezer to the brim with freezer meals for after baby comes. I wish I could harness the power of nesting all the time! Now, at 40 weeks G and I are all out of patience!! We can't wait to meet our little miracle! We go walking every night and climb the RB staircase on BYU campus, I've tried every trick in the book to naturally induce labor. I was officially due June 20th and each day that passes we get more and more restless. Still I love being pregnant. A little part of me will be sad when the baby isn't inside me anymore and I can't feel it constantly move. Even though I'm a few days overdue I'm still feeling great, I still have all my energy and mobility. So although our hospital bag is packed and the car seat is in place, I still feel like we might have some more waiting to do.

Going to Cali to meet Baby Owen! 

35 weeks pregnant at Melissa's wedding. 

40 weeks! Baby is coming any day, and we CAN'T WAIT!

Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to write all this down before I forget most of it, and life gets too busy to back track. 

Small and Simple

This weekend G and I had a mini "stay-cation", a vacation where you just stay locally. I tried to surprise him with a weekend up in Salt Lake City. I say tried because he guessed it before I could actually surprise him with it. I guess G knows me too well... haha. But we spent the weekend in the hotel that we stayed at the first night of our honeymoon. It was great weekend everything we needed it to be. We had a great time. No work, no agendas or schedules, just spending quality time together. We played cribbage, watched movies, shopped at City Creek Mall, went out to dinner, and even found time to go to a wedding reception. It was good to be reminded that even though life can sometimes be super busy and crazy we will still always find time for each other. Here are some pictures of the weekend (forgive the quality of the pictures, they were taken with my phone so they weren't as clear as I would of liked them to be!) . Also I'm going to try to be a little more diligent about posting more frequently. (a promise I've made many times before) so please bear with me as I try to bring my blog back to life!!

Driving to our stay-cation

Breakfast in Bed, so nice when we don't have to cook or do the dishes afterwards!

Shopping isn't G's activity of choice. But we walked away with some great bargains,
and he does love to save money!

Salt Lake City Temple where G and I were married a year and a half ago!!

Dinner at Tucanos, G's choice. and a beautiful reception at the state capitol.

Updates and Pictures!

Sorry it took me a while to share these pictures, but better late then never? Ready for the sweet and condenced version? My family and I had the amazing opportunity to take a trip to Florida to visit the Wonderful World of Harry Potter and Universal Studios. After a couple days at the amusement park and the beach we got on a boat and headed for MEXICO!! We had a wonderful time spending time with family and in the sun. When we got to Mexico we shopped and snorkled off of Playas Uvas. Even had time to go visit an aquarium on our way back. Here are a few of the highlights from the trip.

More Summer adventures to come, G and I have been working hard on our new home. Spending as much time as we can with each other enjoying the summer sun!! More to come! 

Reflections on being 21

Ladies and Gentleman, I am pleased to announce that this week I finally made it to 21. This week I have been reflecting quite a bit about where I am in life vs. where I thought I would be. When I was just a young naive 18 yr. old (in comparison to the older and wiser adult I am now!) I truly and honestly believed I wouldn't be "one of those" girls who goes down to BYU and gets married. I had big plans for myself: I was going to major in public relations and finish as quickly as possible so that when I turned 21 I could turn in my mission papers. I never thought I would be celebrating my one year anniversary with my husband? I didn't foresee my time off of school, nor did I think I would be finishing my sophomore year at BYU still "open major". I would have laughed if you told me I would choose a career with Victoria Secret (just so you all know how ironic this is growing up my dad used to tell me I was a pirates treasure: because I had a sunken chest...) and I would never have dreamed of being in a financial position in which I could afford to buy a home.  It's funny that even though my life is so far from where I thought I would be, I am still so happy. Life took me to where I needed to be whether I was ready for it or not! Well enough of all this mushy gushy stuff, let me tell you about my birthday!

Thanks to some sacrificing from my friends at work I didn't have to work on my birthday! (quite the luxury!) So I started the day with a relaxing bubble bath, scented with my lavender Doterra oils (still trying to figure out all the fun ways to use them!) after that I got busy! We had cleaning checks the next day so I had to scrub our apt. down from top to bottom! Its amazing how relaxing cleaning can actually be! I received lots of love from family and friends through out the day so Thank you Thank you! When Garrett came home we went to our house (well technically its not our house yet but I like to think it is...) for the inspection. Every thing went well and we got a lot of good information about being homeowners. It sounds like a lot more work then I originally thought! After we finished up G took me out to dinner at one of our favorite places: Tucanos! We ate until we thought we were going to POP! In case you haven't eaten at Tucanos before it is quite the experience! Its brazilian style BBQ every thing is exotic and delicious. Waiters come to you with skewers of meat or pineapple and you eat until you can't eat anymore! When we were done we went to our best friends/ cousins house. Lauren had made me a delicious birthday cake and they gave me beautiful flowers. We went to Grants championship soccer game (which he won) and played some Disney Scene-it (My birthday present from G, my husband knows me too well!) All in all it was a wonderful birthday, much different then most of the world celebrates the big 21 but it was exactly perfect for me! Well I'm off to Cozumel for the next week so stay tuned for some wonderful stories and pictures!



Dinner at Tucanos

Lauren's gourmet birthday cake!




Birthday suprise from my little sister!

Do the DoTERRA!

Earlier this week I went to a DoTERRA house party for our good friends the Trumans.

The Trumans introduced us to DoTERRA about a year ago when I had a muscle cramp in my neck that prohibited me from turning my head to the left for about a week. They gave me a small bottle of Deep Blue essential oil. When I opened the bottle it initially smelled like icy/hot. (which I had already tried and it didn't help) However, since they were so kind to offer this help with out us even asking we decided to give it a try. So every night before we went to bed G would give me a neck rub with the oil. Sure enough two days later my neck was back to normal... better then normal actually, I felt great! The Trumans generously shared their oils with us over the next couple of months: On Guard for when I had a cold, Peppermint before we went to a the midnight premier of Hunger Games to wake us up, they even used Lemon for cooking one night when they invited us over for dinner. By this point I was very curious. So that's how I found myself going to a house party... Well I'm a sucker for sales because I found myself leaving the party with the Family Physician Kit: DoTERRA's Top 10 oils (Lavender, Lemon, Peppermint, Melaleuca, Oregano, Deep Blue, Breathe, Digestzen, and On Guard) and DVDs teaching me how to use my new oils. They even threw in a bonus Slim and Sassy (a best selling weight loss oil).  G was a little skeptical at first so we decided to give it a test run.

My new Family Physician Kit.

Anyone who has talked to me this week has probably caught on to the fact that I get pretty bad seasonal allergies. I have had a particularly difficult week with all the wind and rain blowing those lovely blossoms and spores up into the air. By the end of the week I had absolutely no use of my nose. I couldn't even breath out of my nose if it meant life or death. I've been on every kind of allergy medication Walmart has to offer, and even when I'm all drugged up I still have minimal use of my nasal passages at best. Anyway, back to the story, tonight I finally opened my kit and read all my material and found the perfect test: Breathe. I put one drop of the oil onto my palm and massaged it into my chest... sure enough within minutes I felt my sinuses open up and I could FINALLY breathe out of my nose again after about five minutes. I'm not saying that I'm a true believer yet but it has convinced me enough to do some further testing and investigating. So if any of you out there use DoTERRA or other essential oils. Do me a favor? Let me know some of your favorite uses for your favorite oils. If anyone wants to try some come on over and borrow some of mine... I have plenty!!