Since we've been home

Here's just some random pictures of our life since we've been home from the hospital. :)

 Adorable Olivia with a bit of a smile.  She smiles quite a bit, but they're hard to catch with the camera.  :)

There was one day where Aiden insisted on wearing these glasses and Mike's scout hat all day.  He of course didn't want his picture taken, but I insisted.  

Did you hear about our adventure?  Read about it here.

 Aiden was so excited to be so close to the fire truck.  :)

 Just some of the trucks from the gas company.  Oh and take notice of the guy next to the tree.  Yellow hoodie with overalls.  Totally reminded me of a Despicable Me minion.  :)

 Late night snuggles with Olivia while I was waiting for Mike to come to bed.

 Early morning snuggles with Olivia while I was getting in a little light therapy.

 A couple days after we got home from the hospital I came down with the flu.  This flu was beyond nasty, so I had to try to limit my contact with Olivia.  For the first couple days I would pump and my mom would bottle feed Olivia for me.  It was so hard not being able to snuggle and hug my baby.  After the first couple days I would wear a medical mask whenever I held Olivia.  There was a lot of hand washing and Clorox wiping going on.  Oh, I forgot to mention that I got asthmatic bronchitis and an ear infection too.  Thankfully my mom was here to take care of all of us.  I literally couldn't have done it without her.  :)

 Grandma Smith sent the girls these matching outfits.  So cute!

 Aiden wanted a turn holding his sister too.  Super cute too!  :)

 My sister made this hat for Olivia.  It makes me giggle with happiness every time I put it on her. :)

 I'm not sure why she decided she needed her glasses this day, but Esther insisted on wearing her glasses when she went out with Mike one day.  :)

 So Aiden insisted on wearing his glasses too, although he hates getting his picture taken most of the time.  

 My mom with Olivia.  

Isn't my mom so beautiful?  :)  I was so glad to have my mom here to help.  Thank you again Mommy (and Papa).  I know it wasn't easy for you two sweethearts to be away from each other. :)  My Papa mailed cute cards to my mom almost every day she was here.  Isn't that so sweet?  My parents are such a great example of what a great eternal marriage looks like.  :)

Playing with shadows

When the kids woke up on our first morning home from the hospital, we invited them into our bed.  Mike started making finger shadows on the wall and then things got a little crazy.  We were all in giggles within a few minutes. :)

 Mike's shadow hand would eat Aiden and he'd collapse to the floor in giggles.  :)

Been a little MIA

Right after we got home from the hospital my computer crashed.  It wasn't working at all.  The 11 year old son of a friend said he could look at it for me.  And guess what?  He totally fixed it!  Ha ha ha!  :)  It did involve wiping the hard drive clean, but he fixed it for me which saved me a trip to a computer repair shop, to say nothing of the cost of it all!  :)
So now that I have a functioning computer again I'll try to update everyone on how life has been since our beautiful Olivia joined our family.  :)

Anecdotal post script

There are a few random things I wanted to remember about the experience in the previous post.
*Plowing the driveway didn't even work! Our driveways are so old and uneven that not even a third of the snow was removed with the plow.  When the guys who did the plowing realized that their supervisor was coming, they hurried and shoveled the driveways.  Mom and I had a good laugh about that. :)
*When the firemen stepped out of their trucks with axes in hand Aiden froze and just watched wide eyed. I'm pretty sure the moment was going in slow motion for him like an epic moment in a movie. The whole time we were in the van he filled our ears with updates on what the firemen were doing and ideas on what they should do next. Even after they left he asked if we could have a fire on our roof so they would come back. Ha ha ha!  No thanks buddy. :)
*It got really dark rather quickly and really cold.  The utility workers were all wearing neon yellow hoodies with blue or black overalls.  They all had other layers on underneath to stay warm. They also had lights strapped to their heads so they could see what they were doing.  They totally looked like they were minions from the movie Despicable Me.  :)

Never a dull moment

This afternoon I was sitting in my recliner snuggling my baby when I looked outside to see a pickup truck with a snow plow on the front pulling into our driveway. Our landlady has a company that she's hired that comes to shovel or snow blow the driveways for us. Today they decided to try to make things go quicker by just plowing the driveways.  The problem is our driveway is only just barely wide enough for cars and vans to fit through with little room for error.  Our house is right up against one side of the driveway and our neighbors house is up against the other side.  As they tried to plow the driveway I commented to my mom that this seemed like a bad idea to me.  They finished our driveway and went to do the neighbors' driveway (also owned by our landlady) on the other side of our house, which is also skinny and flanked by our homes.  As they were clearing that driveway we heard a crash and crunch and thud.  They had hit something on the side of our house.  As I wondered aloud about what they had hit Esther said she could smell something.  I immediately could smell gas. My mom and I leapt up to get the kids out of the house as the smell very quickly filled the house.  As we were getting bundled up to go outside in the 14 degree weather there was a knock on the door.  The worker asked us to evacuate because he had hit the gas line.  He called 911 and we loaded up into the van.  We ended up staying parked in the driveway with the van on to keep us warm.
In just a couple minutes there were 3 fire trucks, an ambulance and a half dozen police cars in front of our house.  Aiden was in heaven! As we played in the car, Mike was our runner talking with the emergency workers and eventually the gas company.  Aiden was through the roof when the firefighters went inside our house to check it out.  Thankfully the smell of the gas is much worse than it's toxicity.  Since we were aware of the leak immediately and the fire department came so quickly and stopped the leak, the gas levels in our home didn't reach dangerous levels.  This was comforting to know even though we were just hanging out in the car.
It turns out the guy clearing the driveway didn't just hit the gas line, he ripped it right out of the house below the valve.
Eventually the emergency vehicles all left and the kids got bored.  Thankfully at that point our landlady called and said to go out for dinner on her.  Did I mention our landlady is awesome? So we went out for Panda Express while they continued to work on it.  When we got back there were several more utility trucks on site and a guy in a hole up to his shoulders working on it.  By this point Mike went inside and said the gas smell had mostly cleared out.  Since it was way past the kids bedtimes we headed in and got all kids to bed.
It has taken several trucks worth of utility workers working on it for 5 hours to get it fixed.  At least I  think it's fixed since the heat just finally turned on. :)
It's definitely not an experience I'd wish on anyone but I am so grateful that we were blessed with safety through it all.  I'm also grateful that the guy who did the initial damage had the presence of mind to get us out of the house right away and call for help.  Olivia didn't hardly cry except for a few minutes when she was first buckled in her car seat. :)  And they were able to fix it tonight so we can sleep in our own beds with a heated house instead of having to stay at a hotel. :)