Seeing Double!

The day I learned that we were expecting a baby girl I was elated that Isabelle would have a sister. It was all the I wanted for her and I actually felt relieved that no matter what happens in life, I would have sisters to encourage one another. Yet, all throughout my pregnancy with Olivia I was very concerned that Isabelle would feel somehow less than, once the new baby arrived. I knew she would love her of course, but I feared she would be jealous of her taking mom and dad's time which she had enjoyed all by herself for the last 4 years. Even the last few nights before I delivered, I laid in bed and cried thinking about sweet little Jelly getting the "shove" very soon. Isabelle and I also fretted together over what Olivia would look like and I hoped and prayed that she would look just like her big sister and they would look like they belonged together. Isabelle even said out loud in her prayer one night...please let the baby look just like me and mom and not like dad! (I think she was worried she would be dark and hairy!) However, I stand all amazed after the first two months of little Livi's life just how blessed we are.

First, Olivia looks almost exactly like her big sister! I seriously sometimes look at her and think, is this actually Isabelle? Especially when Olivia happens to be wearing something that once belonged to her big sister. It is literally like seeing double. I am sure there will be plenty of differences between the two sisters, like Olivia is a good napper and Isabelle hated naps from day one. Or, that Olivia is still holding on to some of her dark baby hair and who knows if she will have quite the same light hair shade as Isabelle. Or even that at 2 months old, Olivia is a whole inch shorter and more than a pound lighter than big sister was! No matter what though, I think tiny Livi looks just like what Belle and I were dreaming about for 9 months!

Next, I couldn't have been more wrong about Isabelle feeling jealous or spiteful to her little sister. She is so absolutely in love with Olivia and spends all day taking care of her and making her smile. She tells her all day long just how sweet she is and how she is the cutest person in the entire family. Isabelle is so helpful and always wants to change her diaper, dress her, babysit her, hold her, etc. When Livi gives a shout, Belle rushes to her side and gives her her Nuk and calms her with a song or something. And Olivia shares the affection. She turns her head as fast as her tiny muscles can move when she hears Isabelle's voice in the room and her favorite time of the day is when she gets to sit in the big bathtub with her sister. She will sit in there for a half hour and let Belle soap her up and dump water all over her, all the while smiling and cooing. There has not been one sour moment yet between the two. Again, I am sure those days and feelings will come and go, but so far these two sisters are the best of friends.

In the words of Maya Angelou: I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people work at.

**In the first two pictures, Isabelle is on the left and Olivia is on the right!

Little Bunny Foo Foo, hoppin through the forest...

Every holiday is very exciting when you have small children, and Easter is no different. The girls and I were really looking forward to the Easter weekend and it was just as enjoyable as we hoped it would be. Aunt Tara flew over from Miami to meet sweet little Olivia and Grandpa and Grammie ventured over from Houston to visit all of us! We participated in a neighborhood egg hunt, colored eggs ourselves, and enjoyed a lunch prepared by our youngest Chef, Isabelle. She made Savory Nests with minimal help from mom just as she had previously that week in cooking class.

Isabelle went to bed Saturday night a bit nervous that a GIANT bunny was going to be hopping around our house while we were sleeping but the baskets he left made up for any of the this is actually weird thoughts! If you remember, Santa Clause told Belle in a letter that if she was obedient for the next few months, he would pass along a scooter for the Easter Bunny to bring. (We were surprised just days before Christmas when Isabelle told Santa a scooter was at the top of her list! We had never heard it mentioned before!) Thankfully both Belle was well behaved and Santa spread the news because a Radio Flyer scooter was waiting on Easter morning. Belle was also thrilled that the bunny did not forget tiny sister Livi and brought her some new Nuks and both girls a swimsuit!

Grammie filled dozens off plastic eggs and Grandpa covered our backyard in them early Easter morning. Belle was beyond excited for her very own egg hunt and raced around outside in her PJ's filling multiple buckets with colorful eggs. When you are the only hunter, you get a lot of loot!

How appropriate that General Conference fell on this special weekend and we were grateful for the reminder that Christ Lives and because of Him, we will all live again! Spring has officially sprung!

A 4 year old Bean!

Maybe it is because we have a new tiny baby girl in our home right now, but I have been nearly physically ill thinking about my little Isabelle turning another year older. I am sure she was my newborn baby just a day or two ago and now she is old enough to get dressed by herself, get herself a snack and climb in and out of her own car seat. What happened? I swear I took everyone's advice and never blinked?!

We began celebrating the big day almost 2 weeks early when Grandpa Elmo and Grammie came to visit and let her open an early present. It was gardening tools and she spent the first few hours of Saturday planting literally hundreds of flower seeds in her pjs in our back yard. Grammie supervised and just let Jelly plant seeds as she pleased all over the mulch under each of our trees. (We will now enjoy watching if and exactly what may actually grow!) The funny part of this story is that she insisted that her garden hoe was actually called a foo and foo'd all morning long. Jelly was especially lucky because when the dreaded time came and her grandparents had to return home, they left her with a stack of gifts all numbered with a countdown to March 23rd so that she would have a gift to open every day until then. It was a great idea and Isabelle ran downstairs every morning searching for the right numbered gift to celebrate with.

A few days later, Grandma and Grandpa Cosby headed south for a few days to enjoy the Spring weather and to meet little Olivia. Of course being just a few days from Isabelle's birthday, the celebration continued. Since Jelly LOVES downtown, we headed to the city and had fun at the Children's Magic Theatre watching If You Give Your Moose a Muffin. We have read the book so many times and Isabelle loved seeing the story come to life! (And baby sister, just three weeks old, slept through her first trip to the city!) More gifts were opened including a new dress for Sunday and one of Jelly's favorite activities, a puzzle!

Finally the calendar actually read March 23rd and the real birthday celebration began! Jelly ran straight from her bed to ours before 7:00am and exclaimed I'm already four! She was right too since she was born at 3:23am on that glorious day! She was thrilled when she came downstairs and found My Little Pony decorations, more gifts and a donut for a birthday breakfast! Her most exciting present was waiting for her on the back porch, thanks to her Dad working to put it together well past midnight the night before...a City Center Playhouse! It has a different 'business' on each side including a basketball hoop on the back.

Olivia and I tried to make the day full of fun playing and opening a gift here and there all day long. Again we made a trip downtown at Isabelle's request for a birthday lunch at Rain Forest Cafe on the Riverwalk. Ben was able to meet us there and we enjoyed a wild meal with singing and an ice cream sundae for dessert. Jelly was exhausted after a full day of fun and hit the pillow hard dreaming of her My Little Pony party with her friends the following day.

To finish off the several week long celebration, Isabelle had planned to meet some of her favorite friends at the park for a little birthday party with a My Little Pony treasure hunt! Unfortunately, we woke up to buckets of rain but thanks to lots of work by mom and dad and Jelly's sweet enthusiasm, we decided to continue on with the party and made some quick modifications to the plans. Isabelle was out of her mind to see all of her friends and was actually shocked that they had all brought her more gifts. She had so much fun playing with each of her guests and their ponies, breaking a Pinkie Pie pinata and eating snacks and cake! We managed to keep the party under the giant pavilion until the very end when we finally let the girls run out in the rain and when it was time to go home, we stripped the birthday girl down and put her straight in the bathtub to warm up! Despite the rain, her My Little Pony party exceeded her simple expectations.

Isabelle is such a sweet daughter and sister and all of the celebrating was worth every minute of her feeling special and loved. She tries so hard to do what is right and always keeps us laughing...and running. She is so smart and we are continually amazed at how quickly she learns and remembers everything. Little Olivia already adores her big sister and cranks her head around searching for the body that matches that animated voice! What a blessing our little Jelly Bean is!

New Acquisition!

I don't know who is the most in love with new baby Olivia, her mom, her dad or her big sister Isabelle?!

Let's start at the beginning...

Ever since I found out I was pregnant I was concerned that my labor and delivery would go too fast! I showed no signs of labor with Isabelle until the day I delivered her and my mom didn't even make it to the hospital in time for all of her deliveries, having one almost at home and then delivering in the ambulance. Dr. Theis knew my history and was "on alarm" as well so when I went into his office on Tuesday the 23rd of February and still showed no sign of imminent labor, he decided it was smartest to just meet him in labor/delivery on Thursday morning at 7:00am. Luckily knowing a plan a day in advance, Grammie was able to be here from Houston and be on "Belle duty" while Ben and I checked into the hospital.

I knew I was in trouble when the first thing the nurse said to me when she got me attached to all of the machines was aren't you feeling these contractions you are having now? I was definitely uncomfortable but I would never have headed to the hospital yet based on the pain and contractions I was feeling. I could tell by the look on Ben's face that he was glad we were already in the hospital because it was going to be a busy morning!

Obviously the baby had finally decided to arrive because at check-in I was already dilated to 4cm and was well on my way! I was blessed with a very kind nurse who skipped the normal hospital procedures and forced the anesthesiologist to visit me sooner than later as I was progressing very quickly and she and I were both hoping for a little pain-relief. As luck would have it, I was able to get an epidural but the needle veered to one side, so while my left side was able to escape most of the delivery pain, my right side took the brunt of it. (What a weird sensation!)

By now, Isabelle and Grammie had made it to the hospital and had come in multiple times to check on me! Isabelle was very hesitant to touch me at all as she was skeptical of my IV, heart monitor, etc. At about 11:10am I was dilated to 6cm and I asked my nurse when she thought I should call a friend to come pick up my toddler so that my mom could be in the delivery room for the birth. She said it was impossible to tell because some people would lay like this for hours and hours while others would move a bit quicker. However, I could tell labor was moving very quickly at this point and decided it might be best to make the Isabelle drop-off soon. Ben called our great friend Jaimie and she began to head to the hospital to pick up big sister for a few hours. While Ben was out in the waiting room getting Isabelle ready to go the baby decided she was ready to come NOW and made a giant move which set off alarms and had nurses running in to put oxygen on me and monitor the baby closer. I was now 8cm dilated and about 5 minutes later I was 10cm and ready to go!

Ben came back in shock only being gone a few minutes to find me hooked up to more machines and ready to deliver. The baby was serious about being born immediately and while Ben called my mom, the nurse called Dr. Theis in panic-mode. The nurse was holding the baby's head IN and trying to encourage me to breath but NOT PUSH. She and Ben could both see her cute little head and were commenting on her hair while I laid there praying the doctor would get there SOON! Jaimie pulled into the hospital moments later and my mom literally threw Isabelle to her and raced up the stairs and into my delivery room with Dr. Theis running in right behind her. He was shouting, just let me put on some gloves, and about 60 seconds later, Olivia Cosby was born at 11:30am on February 25th, 2010.

She weighed 7 lbs and 11 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long. She was perfect and pink and cried right away wondering what just happened?! She has the same brown hair Belle was born with and looks just like her sister in the face! After getting a scolding from both Ben and the nurse about if there is ever another Cosby baby, I MUST get to the hospital earlier, with or without pain, we finally made our way to recovery!

Ben picked Belle up (big thanks to Jaimie) as she was very excited to meet her new baby sister and we spent the rest of the day enjoying the new sweet baby in our family. The quick labor and delivery agreed with both me and Olivia and we were able to return home the next afternoon. We were lucky to have Grammie with us all week (and Grandpa and Aunt Alee and Uncle Nick for the weekend) and Olivia made the transition to life outside the womb with grace, sleeping and eating just as she should. Big sister too has been charming picking out what Livi wears each day and surrounding her with toys to play with. Olivia already posed for her first photo-shoot with www.jaimiehaleyphotography.com at 7 days old and we can't wait to see the newborn pictures of our sweet baby.

Of course with all good comes some bad and on the second night home from the hospital we were up all night with Belle and a stomach bug and then a terrible head cold all week long which left her grumpy and tired. Livi has already tried out her first prescription as well for conjunctivitis which apparently goes hand and hand with ear infections. (Can I just say NO right now? Isabelle did have it too when she was a newborn if there is any connection.) However, Belle is finally sniffle free and Livi is 14 days old today and is now weighing in at 8 lbs and 2 oz so all is well.

We are so grateful for little Olivia and know that she will be a great strength and blessing to our family! She is absolutely smothered with love!

**On a side note, a few weeks before Olivia was born I had a picture frame made for Ben's office that reads New Acquisition. It just seemed so appropriate!

All you need is love

Maybe it's a girl thing, but Isabelle and I love Valentines Day! We wish everything was pink and red with ruffles, bows and lace all year round...and at our house they pretty much are. Jelly had a great idea this year and planned a party for her and three of her friends to celebrate the holiday. She worked on invitations, decorations, gift bags, activities and treats for days beforehand and could hardly stand the anticipation when the glorious day finally arrived. She carefully set the table, complete with crowns for her and all of her friends and watched out the window as each of her guests arrived.

Like all good things, the time went by too quickly and when her party was over she said to me very concerned but I planned a much longer party! It was a great afternoon and Jelly and all three of her friends were disappointed to see the fun end!

Fortunately, the Valentine spirit was alive and well in the Cosby home for several more days. Aunt Tara made a quick 48 hour trip to San Antonio to help us celebrate and we had fun eating waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for dinner and answering the door multiple times to find special Valentines left for each of us including flowers and jewelry from Daddy! Sadly now the holiday is officially over for this year but thankfully...all you need is love!

Let's Rodeo San Antonio!

The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo is something we look forward to every year! This year we figured we better get tickets for the first weekend since we weren't sure how much longer we would be a family of 3! Lucky for us, Tim McGraw was the Saturday matinee concert so after a little bit of time enjoying the rodeo grounds, we feasted on "rodeo food" and watched the 5th-time in a row Large Indoor Rodeo of the Year! Grandma and Grandpa came with us and Isabelle decided she wasn't interested in participating in the Mutton-Bustin but rather preferred the Calf-Scramble! What does she think we would do with a calf in our backyard?


*Concert picture taken by Isabelle.