Shhhishkabob, Shhhawshank Redemption, Chhhicago!

I couldn't resist putting that title on this blog post...it is from the movie Ace Venture: When Nature Calls. No, I didn't just put that on there for no reason at all...Aaron and I just celebrated our 5 Year Wedding Anniversary on the 29th of May and we went to Chicago to celebrate! We took Alivia along with us and we had such an amazing time together! We arrived at the Inter Continential Hotel on Michigan Ave late Friday night. Saturday we walked everywhere and went shopping for a ring for me. That was Aaron's present for me and so he let me go in and out of shops and pick one out that best suited me! Well, it of course had to be in a certain price range, I couldn't get too carried away! Ha! For lunch on Saturday we saw a place on The Food Network channel's episode of Diner's, Drive-Inn's and Dives. The place is called Hackney's and it has really good burgers, fries and onion rings. It was really good! That night we went to Cheese Cake Factory and then of course hit up Ghiradelli's and Hershey's. On Sunday we walked and shopped some more and then ate at PF Chang's. It is completely sad when we schedule our trip there around where we are going to eat! We had an amazing time together as a family in Chicago. It is crazy we have been married 5 Years already and have a little one.

Alivia continues to change daily and grow up! She is very active and rolling over and over everytime we put her down. We love her deep laughs. Mommy sings silly songs to her daily. She likes to sit up like a big girl in her Bumbo. I keep thinking that it won't be long before she is scooting and crawling all over the place. She likes to tuck her legs under her butt and try and scoot. At night it is adorable to watch her because she likes to do this and stick her butt up in the air. So adorable!

Nana and Papa are going to be visiting us for Father's Day weekend. I know they are super excited to see Alivia because it has been a while! They didn't want to wait this long to see her so they will definitely be spending lots of time kissing and loving on her!

"Roll Over, Roll Over send Alivia right over!"

Ok, so clearly this is not correct, but if you hang out with my husband long enough you too will learn to switch words to nursery rhymes! Another favorite of his is "I love you, you love me, were a happy family, with a knick-knack patty wack give the dog a bone, this old man came rolling home!" Well, that is not the highlight of what is going on in the Wood household, but it sure keeps us entertained!

Alivia will be turning 4 months old tomorrow! I cannot believe how fast she is growing up! She has now learned to roll over and is doing this quite frequently now. The only thing that frightens me now is the fact that she still likes to be swaddled and I don't want her to roll over on her belly at night swaddled. I am only swaddling her from her waist down now so that she can use her arms to push off if needed, but I still worry! She is also talking and giggling like crazy! I absolutely love it! She is such a good baby and we are so blessed. I am enjoying the fact that she is sleeping 11 to 12 hours at night now and I am hoping that mom can do the same shortly! :) By that I mean I still go and check on her to see if she has rolled over on her face. :) I need to completely give my worries to God because he is in control of everything. I have to keep telling myself that.

There are so many exciting things going on right now in this stage. I am so thankful that I am able to stay at home with her and catch these wonderful moments. We are staying busy being at home. We usually have something to go do everyday. Dad is now playing softball so we enjoy going and watching him play from time to time. My mom is coming to visit us this Memorial Day weekend and we are so excited to have her! Alivia doesn't get to see her grandparents very often but when she does she gets lots of lovin from them all!

I will do a better job of keeping everyone informed of her and our family. I am sorry I haven't been on in so long!

6 Weeks Old

I cannot believe that our little girl is 6 weeks old already! Man...the time has gone so fast! We are enjoying this stage of smiles and cooing. It is amazing how much they seem to grow up so quickly right before our eyes and yet we have no idea how that has happened!

daddy's little girl!

Alivia LOVES her changing table! She will begin crying and as soon as we put her on that table she starts smiling and laughing! Part of this is because she absolutely HATES wet diapers. The minute that she wets herself she starts to cry and she wants to be changed. We are hoping that because of this she will be easy to potty train...I hope that is not wishful thinking! We like to sing songs, talk about the Sesame Street characters on her diaper and speak in high pitched voices (ok...only mommy does that!) to get her laughing on the changing table.

Every Wednesday mommy and Alivia go to the mall and meet up with a few other new mom's to walk...ok, sometimes we just go to Starbuck's and we don't walk. She has met a couple of new friends...Ethan Billman and Cole Lovelady. When we come home and I tell daddy that Alivia went walking with her new boyfriends, daddy quickly corrects mommy that Alivia will not have a boyfriend until she is 30!

We suddenly find ourselves as parents questioning everything that we do with her and wondering if we are going to ruin her life...Should we let her cry, or should we run to her side when we hear those sweet little cries? Will she become too spoiled if we do or will she resent us for not running to her rescue? This worrying, I'm afraid, will only get worse as she gets older. Every book that we seem to read only seems to cloud our view of what to do. Sometimes I would like to throw them all out the window and just do what I think is best. As they say, mom's know best, yet I always seem to second guess myself. How funny, when I look back that I thought my parents had all the right answers in life and yet now that I am a parent myself I find that they really didn't...they just went with their gut instinct. Our children will ask me for advice one day and they will think the same thing and they will have no idea that I am contemplating myself of what is right and wrong. One thing is for sure...no one has done this perfect and no one ever will. We will inevitably make some wrong decisions, but we pray that we make more right.

Photos of our little girl

My first outing to my doctor's appointment




I am perfectly content in my daddy's arms




This is a cruel world...I want to be warm again!

She's Finally Here!!!

I started to have contractions on Sunday, January 18th...Alivia's due date. It was 6:00 p.m. and I started having back contractions about every 5-6 minutes apart. Aaron went on to Youth group at the church and called me every 30 minutes to check on me. I assured him that this could go on for hours and that I would be fine. Finally at 9:00 p.m. I took a long hot shower in hopes that it would tell me if I was having true labor or not. In my mind I knew it was, but in the back of my head I thought, "what if this is all fake and I go to the hospital and they laugh me all the way home?" Well, I got out of the shower and soon learned that this was not fake, my contractions were now stronger and 3-4 minutes apart. Since it was back labor, I had Aaron pushing on my lower back with each contraction and it was black and blue by the time this all ended! Boy was he the best labor coach in the world! I am so blessed to have this man in my life!

Aaron finally convinced me at 1:00 a.m. to call the doctor and see if I should go in. Dr. Martin told me to get my bags and go to the hospital. I finished up some last minute things and we headed to the hospital.

We arrived there at 1:45 a.m. and before they could admit me in the hopsital, they had to check to see how far I was dilated and then if I didn't progress after 2 hours then they would send me home. That night they had 5 girls arrive before me and they had sent them all home and I was now the 6th girl. I was not about to let them send me home! At 4:00 a.m. they checked me once more and sure enough I had dilated to a 3 at this point. They went ahead and admitted me then. I knew at that point I wanted drugs. I thought I would see how far I would get before I asked for some, but who was I kidding? I knew that there was a thing called an epidural and I wanted to be on that bandwaggon now!

Once I was admitted they tried to put an IV in me so that they could give me an epidural later on. They had some complications and it took 6 tries and 2 nurses to finally get one in. Boy was I relieved! The King of the hospital (a.k.a. The Anesthesiologist) finally arrived at 9:45 a.m. and gave me the relief that I was looking for! They checked me right after that and I had dilated to a 5 so they went ahead and broke my water and gave me potossin. After 2 hours they checked me again and I dilated to a 10! We all couldn't believe it! The next shocker was that she was so low that I could start pushing even if I didn't have the pressure to push. After 3 contractions and 10 minutes later, our little angel arrived at 2:10 p.m. It was a moment filled with awe and amazement of how you can fill with so much love for someone that you just met and for Aaron, it was love at first sight. He now knew what love I had for her in my body.

That night about 9:30 p.m. I started to hemorrhage. This was by far the scariest thing that I had to go through in my entire life! I literally didn't know if I was going to die or not. I felt completely helpless, as did Aaron, and without getting answers from the nurses right away, I screamed and bawled the entire time they kneaded on my stomach. They put me on 2 bags of potossin and needless to say, my night of recovery was not fun at all. Praise God that I started to get better the next morning. Thankfully I didn't need blood, but my blood pressure did sky-rocket and they had to watch me all throughout the day and night.

Now we are home and we are truly blessed with this miracle that God has given to us. I can't believe that he actually loves us more than we love our own children! How is that possible?!? It is and for that I am learning how amazing all of this is!

Could it be???

The day that I found out I was pregnant was on Mother's Day in 2008. What a memorable day that was! I knew that something was different and that I could possibly be pregnant, but my husband, being the "budget friendly" guy that he is didn't want me to take yet "another pregnancy test" because A. he didn't want me to be disappointed and B. he didn't want me to waste money by peeing on a stick that cost $10. So, I went in the bathroom anyways and took the test and shut the door quickly so he wouldn't see! Ha!

I went back in after about 3 minutes and sure enough...it was positive! After Aaron was quick to read the instructions to see if I had done this right (I'm not sure how many ways you can screw this up...) we went to bed that night and talked about the "what if's" that lie ahead. The next morning we took another test to make sure the first one was correct. :)

I made my first appointment at the doctor's office and when we left there, Aaron asked me when we would get the test results back. I asked him what results he was talking about and he replied, "You know, to see if we are pregnant or not." I love this man! I quickly realized through this whole process that this pregnancy is not real for them until she comes out and they can physically see them for themselves.

I had a really wonderful pregnancy. I was sick for the first 4 1/2 months, but then I really did love every minute of it. I was very uncomfortable at the end, but what pregnant woman isn't?

Hello World!

Hello everyone! We have officially decided to enter the "blogging" world so that we can keep in touch with all our friends and family now that we have a little one. Aaron and I have been blessed with a little girl named Alivia Faye that entered this world on Monday, January 19th at 2:10 p.m. It is amazing how much your love grows for someone that you hardly know! Hopefully we will keep everyone up to date on our journey of parenthood and all the ups and downs in between!