1 month with Mia

We've been surrounded by expectant mothers this past week. Thursday, April 30th and Friday May 1st, My sister, her sister in-law Jennifer, and myself held a garage sale to get rid of some of our junk and make a small profit. Jennifer is expecting in mid November. Then on Saturday I took the girls with me to Dundee to visit my friend Autumn who is also expecting in mid November. Olivia had so much fun playing with the six, yes, six shitzu dogs there. 3 are Autumn's and 3 are her parents who had come down for the day. It was great to see her whole family again and catch up. On Sunday the girls and I again were around a pregnant woman when we headed to my friend Elizabeth Mettler's baby shower. Elizabeth is expecting the end of May! My good friend Megan Fieberkorn also popped in to visit us the other night and she is expecting in early December. Wow, babies are coming up everywhere. We are excited for everyone. Mia is especially excited because she is looking forward to having some new playmates in her life in the near future.

Andy and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary by going out to eat at Carabas with Mia. Olivia stayed the night with Nana and Papa. It was a nice evening out together.

Mia also had her 1 month Dr. appointment this last week. She weighed in at 9 pounds, 11.5 ounces and was 22 inches long. Both of them put her in the 75th percentile. She has gained almost 3 pounds since her birth! The baby acne just started popping up a bit on her face yesterday, but she's still beautiful.

Olivia just adores Mia and being a big sister. She is getting so smart too. While traveling to Dundee she made an analogy as I was merging onto a highway. She said, "Mom, driving is like coloring. You have to stay in the lines just like when you color!" I responded to her that she was correct, to which she replied, "I know. I'm a smarty pants!"

Cuddling this morning before we head to the Potawotami Zoo for a family day!

Life is also getting a bit better with Vada. She is still hyper puppy, but we are having fewer accidents, and she is much better at letting us know when she needs to go out.

An Enjoyable Weekend

What a beautiful weekend we had. Friday started out getting Olivia ready to go to Frankenmuth for the night with Nana and Papa! She had a great time from what we've heard swimming in the pool and visiting Grandpa Tiny's Farm. She was in awe when they went to Bronner's and she saw all the Christmas things. Andy got out of work early on Friday and wanted to hit the links, so I threw Mia in a sling and we walked nine holes with Andy. Mia and I had fun collecting all of Andy's mulligan shots. Saturday morning we packed up and the three of us drove to Adrian to visit our friends the Roehrigs. They have a daughter Noelle who is Olivia's age, but sadly Olivia couldn't play with her dear friend because she was still with Nana and Papa. They also have an adorable son Max who is almost 16 months, and they just had a baby girl one month ago named Violette. I had a nice time visiting with Natalie (the mother), while Andy and Tom were thrilled to be able to attend a Red Wings play off game against Columbus. They sat right behind the Columbus team bench. Tom was nice enough to take Andy along and they both had a great time! Thank you Tom and Natalie for your wonderful generosity and hospitality. We headed out early the next morning because we had to pick Vada up from the vet's, and I missed my Olivia. Later in the day we went to my sister's to celebrate Asher's 6th birthday. Happy birthday Asher! We also got to see the newest injury to one of her sons. Poor Jadon split his head open all the way to the skull while playing at church and had to get stitches. Don't worry I don't have any photos of that. It was a fun and relaxing weekend!

Mia and Violette hanging out together. Violette is a St. Patrick's Day baby, born exactly 2 weeks before Mia. Sadly we could not get both girls awake at the same time for a photo.

Making funny faces at daddy.

My sleeping little angel.

Easter and more

Sleeping Beauty!

Cuddling sisters

I forgot to take the camera with us at Easter so the only pictures I have are from Olivia hunting for eggs and her basket at our house Easter morning. Above she has found her basket, and below is Mia swinging with her new giraffe that the Easter Bunny brought her. We did church, followed by eating too much at Andy's parents with Aunt Jen and Robert there as well. After, we headed to LaGrange with Aunt Jen and Robert to go to Robert's family's farm. We rode around in the Kawasaki mule, to different family member's farms to see the land and all the animals. It was a fun day, and Mia pretty much slept through her entire first visit to a farm.

Our neighbor, Lauren Sterling came over to take some beautiful photos of the girls as a baby gift to us. She makes me embarrassed of the photos I take, but we can't all have the talent of taking great photos I guess. I highly recommend her for any photography needs you may have. You can check out her work at www.limelightcaptured.com and you can also see the girl's photos on her proof site http://l5sterling.zenfolio.com/. Just click on F. Family photos. I can't wait to get them! Olivia's been back to Jackie's most of this week, and Mia and I have just been hanging out. We run errands almost daily and she is always wonderful when we're out. So far this week we visited with Grandma Potts, did lunch with the Congress teachers, stopped in to visit at Congress, and hit a few stores. I'm enjoying our time together. I am hoping to start a scrapbook for Mia very soon.

Mia's 1st week!

We had our one week check up at the Dr.'s today. Mia weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, and measured 21 1/2 inches long. She's up 9 ounces and grew 1/2 an inch in a week. I thought that was about normal, but the Doctor kept commenting on how great her weight gain was for a breastfed baby. Olivia gained even more than that, so it didn't seem so amazing to me. The Dr. gave her a clean bill of health and said we had a perfect baby on our hands, to which I agreed. I wasn't too worried anything was wrong with her, but it was good to have a medical professional tell you your child is healthy and growing strong.

Aunt Joan came to visit on Sunday and meet Mia. It's always great to see her. I'm so glad we have her living so close now. Olivia was so excited to see her and show off her new baby sister. We also had Marc and Stevie around for the weekend. Steve flew in from Florida because his sister Angie just had a little girl, Anna, and his nephew was having his 2nd birthday party. All our family, friends, and neighbors have been wonderful at stopping in to congratulate us and bringing meals and various gifts. Thank you to all.

On Saturday, which was advertised as going to be this beautiful day, I bundled up the girls and we went and met Nana and Papa at Thurston Woods Nursing Home for their annual Easter egg hunt. Of course they do it by age groups, and Olivia's was almost the last group to go. Mia and I hung out in the car to stay warm and nurse, while Olivia complained of being cold and went inside the nursing home with Nana to warm up. Once it was time for the egg hunt, she stopped shivering long enough to collect quite a few eggs! She had fun knocking down boys who got in her way of finding every egg she could get her hands on.

Saturday did warm up a bit, and was a day Olivia has anxiously been waiting for. Jimmi Joe's Ice Cream shop officially reopened for the season! I promised Olivia a week or so ago she could go, even if mommy was in labor. Olivia rode her bike over there while Andy walked with her. Mia and I drove over and met them, because we had to leave from their for Asher Saltzman's 2nd birthday party. Olivia was thrilled to get her cotton candy ice cream. I'm sure we will be back to Jimmi Joe's again soon!

No Foolin' It's A Girl!

We are proud to introduce the newest member of our family, Mia Margaret Feyes, born on Tuesday, March 31st at 1:21 P.M. She weighed in at 6 pounds 15 ounces and is 21 inches long. She came very quickly! I had some contractions during the night prior, but still went into work. I called the Dr. and they had me come in for a check up at noon. I was dilated to 6 cm so they sent me over to the hospital. Once I was being admitted I called Andy who came home from work, had to drop off a carseat to his parents so they could pick up Olivia, and he also took Vada to the vet to be boarded. I was admitted into my room at 12:31, and calling to find Andy at about 1:10. Thankfully, when I called him he was in the elevator of the hospital because she was born 10 minutes later. I was not expecting it to go so quickly, but thrilled that it did and we are all healthy. Since it happened so suddenly it has been quite a surreal event. Olivia is so excited and wants to hold her all the time. She has been singing to her and rocking her. We are glad to be home and get life started as a family of four. Thank you to everyone for all of your support!

All Mia wants to do is eat and sleep. I can't say that I blame her.

Proud daddy and big sister holding Mia.

EARTH HOUR 2009!

The Feyes Family officially celebrated Earth Hour on March 28th, 2009. If one were to have driven by our house that evening from 8:30-9:30 P.M. they would have thought no one was home, or that we were having a power outage. Earth Hour is a worldwide effort to get numerous cities and households on board to turn off their power for one hour simultaneously each year. This is the 2nd year we have done so, but last year we were in Minnesota, so it wasn't too hard. We played cards by candlelight and flashlight. At first Olivia was a little upset at the idea of not being able to have power, but she quickly bought in. All though her luck was not so great at Uno for the evening she loved bath time. We lit candles in the bathroom and even had one in the tub. Andy and she soaked while I entertained Vada in the bathroom. Now every evening Olivia requests we pretend the power is out and we take a candlelit bath. It truly was a simple way to get on board a worldwide movement to try and conserve energy. Check it out next year if you aren't participating already! www.earthhour.org

Olivia and Vada posing for a picture. Olivia rarely likes to wear clothes if you haven't noticed.

Looking the part of sweet and innocent. Looks can be deceiving!

My precious little angel sleeps.

Olivia days

Andy and I have been trying to spend a lot of fun quality time with Olivia lately. With the baby coming we want her to know how much we still love her. Andy has also been away a few weekends with swim meets and is currently in Florida for a week visiting Stevie with Marc. Olivia and Andy have enjoyed a few fun "daddy days," which included playing at Jungle Joes and bowling. He took the day off on Monday to hang out with her before he left on Tuesday for Florida. He calls almost every night whenever he's gone and Olivia reads him one of her favorite night time books titled "Pajama Time." It's so cute to hear her read it on the phone to him. As you can see her hair has gotten a little out of control. I don't claim to be any good at doing hair. Hers is so stringy and fine that it just always looks so "trashy" do I dare say. Last Saturday, Feb. 28th, Andy was gone for a swim meet so Olivia and I had a girls only day. We had a hair appointment for her which she was so excited about. Of course after hyping it all up, we got to the salon to find out that there had been a family emergency and they had to close. I felt bad, but try explaining it to a three year old. Of course Olivia burst into tears. I calmed her by telling her we could go see if mommy's hair stylist was open. I am by no means a girly girl and it's been about 18 months since I've had my hair done, so I was oblivious to the fact that my hair stylist was no longer in her building. It was completely vacant. Finally, we found a walk in only salon, which calmed my daughter's tears and she was happy. Her hair is now trimmed, but still is stringy and by no means is it noticeable that we had anything done. Oh well, she was pleased with the process. That would also be why there are no after photos either.

Vada hanging out in the snow. She's getting big, but still is annoying. How long does the puppy stage last?

One of Olivia and Vada's favorite past times is dragging each other around by the rope bone. Vada almost always wins, but they wear each other out, which pleases me. It seems whenever I get Vada calmed down, Olivia wants to rile her up, and then after two minutes she's upset with Vada for playing too rough.

On our Girls only day, Olivia also wanted to go visit Molasses. She's been very emotional about her lately, which in turn gets me going too. We went to where we buried her and Olivia and I planted some tulip bulbs by her. I know it's not the time of year to do so, but hopefully they will come up in the spring. They seemed to be sprouting, so I think they'll work. It happened to be the anniversary date of the day we got Molasses so I thought it was a perfect day to go pay our respects to her. She was a wonderful dog and will always hold a special place in our hearts. Olivia sang one of her beautiful made up songs for her as well. We enjoyed our girls only day to the fullest extent!