Olivia is 3 Months (& 1 Week...oops) Old!

I intended to write a new post on Olivia's actual 3-month birthday, but I didn't quite get around to it until today, one week later. I absolutely cannot believe that she is already 3 months old...it makes me both really happy (to see how far our little girl has come and how much she is growing and developing) and a little bit sad too (to know that my time being at home with her on a full-time basis grows a bit shorter every day and that this is just the beginning of that whole "they grow up so fast" thing that other parents always tell you). But by and large we are thrilled to see her growing every day and making so much progress. She weighs 9 pounds now, and soon enough she'll be in the double-digits...that seemed so unimaginable 3 months ago when she weighed less than 4 pounds! It's great seeing our little girl with some cute fat rolls and dimples where they didn't previously exist!

Life continues to be busy in the Stevens household--we've had lots of follow-up doctors visits these last couple weeks with the various specialists from Texas Children's Hospital, and overall Olivia is doing really well in most areas. Her opthamologist wrote us a prescription last week for Olivia to get glasses to help with her farsightedness, so those should be coming in this week. They are going to be tiny and pink and I cannot wait to see her in them! More importantly, I can't wait to see how she reacts to her new glasses and how it changes how she looks at the world around her. We are very optimistic that the glasses will really help her vision and help her to see her toys, our faces, etc. (basically anything that is at a short range) so much more clearly. You can be sure we'll post some pictures of Olivia in her cute little glasses once she gets them! (that is, if we can get her to keep them on for any length of time...she is, after all, famous for ripping things off her face, like her nasal cannula and her feeding tube when she was in the NICU).

We've been doing lots of developmental exercises with Olivia, and today when I was doing her oral motor exercises (stimulating her mouth/lips/tongue to help with her sucking/swallowing functions and help prepare her for making sounds and speaking later on), I learned that she really likes chocolate flavored lollipops! It was the funniest thing, seeing her licking so eagerly at that lollipop--Chad and I were cracking up watching her. I promise, I'm not giving my infant excessive amounts of candy at this young age--just a few licks to get her mouth stimulated. And I didn't come up with this crazy idea on my own...her speech therapist recommended it and even gave me the lollipop, so if this makes me a bad mom then I blame it all on the therapist!

Here are some of the latest and greatest pictures of Olivia...it's a rare day that goes by that we don't take at least one picture of her!

Olivia opening her left eye nice and wide, while wearing her cute A&M onesie that our good friend Katie Geurin gave her recently


And this is one of the great pictures Katie took while she was visiting, with her awesome professional camera--thanks Katie!


Olivia, a vision in pink. This was from the day I took her to CVS and an old man asked me if she was a girl...uh, no, she's my son that I like to dress in pink onesies and pink headbands...of course she's a girl!


Olivia sitting up like a big girl! (with a little support from Mom) This is one of our strength exercises we do every day, and fortunately she hates it slightly less than she hates tummy time, so there's not as much crying involved with this one!

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...with 2 eyes open!

those kicks were fast as lightning. In fact, it was a little bit frightening.



Olivia has been opening her right eye, the smaller of the two, a lot more. She's also been making even more little noises, which are so fun to watch and listen to.

We caught her in an especially alert mood this morning and took this video. If you listen carefully you can hear a couple of toots too!

Continued Progress

Having a cute little baby is time consuming! It feels like we just put a new post on here and it's been almost two weeks.

Olivia is doing great, she continues to amaze us every day with things that may seem little, but to us are simply amazing. She's started making little noises when she's awake, it's so fascinating to see her discover that she has a voice. She's also started to get much stronger and can control her head pretty well. Her beautiful little eyes are opening more and more, wider and wider, and for longer and longer. I'm sure every parents thinks this, but it's really awesome to watch her soak in the world around her. We always wish we could understand what she was thinking when she experiences or learns something new. I don't know how anyone could not believe in God after having a child and watching them grow; in my mind there's no way a person could grow and develop into the people we all become without Him watching over us.

Every day for us is interesting. I feel like we're always devising some sort of strategy for something new that hits us. Leslie has said that flexibility is the key and I couldn't agree with her more. It's so much fun taking care of Olivia, my favorite is diaper changing! I guess that may change when she starts eating solid food, but for now it's great!