Welcome Aiden! (and other news)

Before I share photos and stories of our fabulous new baby, Aiden, I have to provide a little pretext to his birth. So I was going along fine, enjoying my time off before the big event, wishing every day that I would go into labor because I was a sore, exhausted, bloated whale, until I had to go pick up my mom at the airport the Thursday before my due date (39 weeks pregnant). I am literally a block away from picking her up, sitting at a stop light, when out of nowhere this limo crashes into me. The force of the impact was so strong that it pushed my Nissan Pathfinder (not a small or light vehicle) into an airport shuttle bus in front of me that also ended up damaged. Needless to say, the 39 week pregnant women went into complete hysterics. An incoherent and hysterical 911 call, fire truck arrival, police brigade onslaught, and ambulance ride later…I spent most of the night in the hospital but everything turns out “okay” at least from the perspective of not pushing me into labor, rupturing the placenta, etc. Although my upper back and neck were killing me and my lower abdomen where the seatbelt was started cramping/contracting. And it turns out that while the baby was head down just the week before at my last OB check, he turned into breech…pretty sure the accident caused it since it was basically like having an external version (which I know, since I have gone through that experience with Evan). The picture the left does not look as bad as it looked in reality. The left door no longer opend and the seats in the back were pushed up from the frame being pushed in. Pretty crazy.

Sooooo....I had a terribly rough week/weekend prior to the birth. I was completely bummed ALL day the Friday after the accident because the baby was now in breech. I broke down in front of my OB at my appt. on Friday. She said I had to schedule a c-section.

As a result...Aiden Peter Ogilvie arrived via c-section on February 11, 2001 at 9:47 am. He weighed 8 lbs.1 oz. and was 19 inches. We lucked out in having another buddha baby. He fusses just a tad more than Evan, but generally is very easy going. He is smiling already and loves to look at all his surroundings. He tends to have a constant look of amazement, which makes him look kinda funny, but we still think he is adorable. Evan is also very wonderful with him. He loves to give him kisses and hugs and wants to hold him a lot. There are many photos on the picasa sight, so enjoy!

Getting Ready for Numero Dos

Evan turned two on August 5th! We had a wonderful two weeks in Chicago filled with 4 (four!) separate days of parties, cakes and presents for Evan. Needless to say, he was on a sugar high for two weeks. Can you believe he is now almost 2 and 1/2??? Yikes. Where has the time gone. Sigh.

In other news, we are expecting a new addition to the Ogilvie family. The baby is due February 10th (right between my birthday and my sister's birthday!). We are having another boy and are super excited, but Evan has no idea what is coming his way. I am sure he will be an awesome big bro though. Other than a minor incident involving pulling a ligament that was severely painful for a couple weeks, this pregnancy has been much like Evan's and so that is good. Let's hope this one has his head down though! At last ultrasound check it was. :)

Evan is growing quickly. He is talking a lot more these days and asserting his "wishes" more forcefully. We are experiencing a little of the terrible two's. But all in all, not too bad. I am extremely paranoid that Karma will kick in with #2 and I will have many nights of no sleep with screaming baby and all sorts of other shenanigans involving painting walls with chocolate pudding and decorating all of the furniture with band-aids (...umm, yeah I did do those things as a toddler...or so my mother reports).

Evan's first Halloween in which he actually went Trick-or-Treating was entertaining. He did not really get it until we gave him a piece of candy and he suddenly had a come to Jesus moment when he realized that he was getting free candy by looking cute. We went out with Bobby and Connie who have a 3-year old, Justice, and baby Atticus. Evan loves playing with Justice.

Thanksgiving was a blast (other than the strained ligament situation). We drove up to visit Amy, Rich and Drew in Sacramento. Evan had so much fun with Drew that it made us super excited to see how he will be with his new brother!

Check out more pics on Picasa and new polls to the right!

Severely Overdo Update

I know my diligence in maintaining this blog has been worse than pathetic. However, I think I have some pretty darn good excuses for being a slacker - sometimes I feel about how Evan looks in this picture. To say the least, a lot has happened in the last year. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly:
· Economy takes a grueling dive into the asphalt from outer space.
· Aaron laid off with the masses at LifeScan, but has to stay working there until March 2009.
· Julie gets eye laser surgery in February (yay!)
· Evan has his first trip to Hawaii in March (pictures/blog in previous post).
· Slight panic occurs at the realization that the best job prospects are NOT in the Bay Area. An opportunity for Aaron arises in Salt Lake City, Utah instilling further hysteria as our sole research on the area (i.e. HBO’s Big Love) reveals that Utah would not be the place for us.
· Evan starts becoming extremely mobile – lots of crawling around and rolling everywhere.
· We are saved from Utah when Aaron is offered a job in beautiful San Diego with Covidien. Julie is extremely lucky because EDAW has an office in San Diego and they were very enthusiastic to have me transfer down there.
· We put our house on the market at the absolute worst possible time to do so.
· Aaron starts at Covidien in June 2009 while Julie and Evan stay in the Bay Area.
· While Aaron was gone, Julie had possibly the worst month of her life (yes, worse than law school). Here’s why:

o Evan was sick for 3 weeks straight with a fever that hit 103.5 at one point. We made 3 trips to the hospital. He refused to drink any fluids at one point.
o I had to keep the house sparkling for showings, which is nearly impossible with a baby. We had at least 6+ people coming every day to see it.
o I almost killed my cat Bear because she was under the sofabed when I put it back together (mom was staying with me to help out and was sleeping on the sofabed since our guest bed was packed in the garage for showings). More than $800 later for xrays, blood work and emergency vet visits, she ended up being okay with only severe bruising and puffiness (however, this was her 9th life apparently – more below).
o Aaron got sick when he was home for one of the weekends.
o Mom got sick shortly after.
o All of this while I was still working full time and deadlines were naturally crazy during that time. I ended up using all my vacation so that I had to take a leave of absence when we
finally had to move down to San Diego.

· We sell the house and take it off the market.
· We take a desperately needed family trip to Seattle. Pictures are on the picasa site.
· Julie and Evan move to San Diego and we all live in corporate housing for about a week. Evan starts to pull himself up and stand.
· After contingencies are removed, the buyers back out and a fight ensues over the deposit and panic creeps up that it will be nearly impossible to sell an empty house.
· The house is back on the market.
· Luckily we sell again almost immediately and no issues happen with this one.
· We move to an apartment in San Marcos while we look for a house in San Diego.
· Evan has his first birthday! Pictures on Picasa.
· Evan starts walking and saying more words.
· Bear does not return after going outside one evening. Poor Bear-Bear. I made regular visits to animal shelters and we put up signs, but she was never found.

Okay, so now you say to yourself – it has to get better, right?
· Julie gets promoted.
· We find an amazing house in Carlsbad: 10 minutes from the beach and town, minutes from shopping and freeways, across the street from a preserve with hiking and biking trails, large and cozy, and on a cul-de-sac.
· The weather is absolutely perfect here.
· Our friends Amy, Rich and Drew visit over Thanksgiving to help us move.
· The whole family comes to visit for Christmas and we have a wonderful time.
· Aaron and Julie take their 1st vacation together sans family in 3 years to the Yucatan in Mexico.
· Evan is absolutely amazing (‘nuf said).

So now that I have gotten all that out of the way, I will try to be better about posting little stories of Evan (because that’s what we really care about right!) He is currently almost 21 months. He has taken to running everywhere instead of walking. He is stringing together words, like "mama shoe" or "mama juice" when he wants something. We are getting a peak at the terrible twos - he is starting to perfect the Julie-patented stomp and stare. He can read the numbers 1 through 10. He is a pro at eating (but he always was.) And there is lots more to report, but in the meantime, please enjoy the recent photos of him posted on Picasa.

I love kites!

Let's go fly a kite...up to the highest height...up in the atmosphere...up where the air is clear...Let's go fly a kite! It was a beautiful, breezy day this past Sunday. So we strolled to the park and we were happily lounging about, letting Evan roll around and play with his toys. Then the man with the kite arrived! Suddenly, Evan was completely enthralled and super excited. The kite flier was pretty talented - whipping the kite all over the sky, sending it into twirls and spins, and darting it up and down. This is a video of Evan's reaction - you can see his eyes follow the kite all over the sky.

Here is a picture of his total excitement and joy. It's also a great shot of his two teeth!

Family Pics in Hawaii

Evan in Hawaii

Chillin with the mom-ster.
I am not so sure about this sand and water stuff. What are you subjecting me to?

Oh OK, maybe it isn't so bad after all.


















A hard days work deserves a nice long nap for Evan and Tutu.

Bink Control Acheived!

Evan now has full binky control, which means that he can find the binky and put it back in his mouth. He can even do this while sleeping! This is a life changing event as we can now sleep through the night on most nights. Also, instead of having to find his mouth with the binky (which is a difficult maneuver while trying to drive with him in the backseat facing backwards), we can just hand it to him and let him do the rest.

It's a tooth!

Or at least it is if you really blow up the pic. You can certainly feel the future grinders when he bites the fingers. He also drools like a leaky faucet. He seems to be none the worse for wear because of it, other than a slight fever, which doesn't seem to stop the arm waving, leg kicking, and frantic breathing.

He has developed a cold, which has caused a lot of mouth breathing and consternation while feeding....when one cannot breathe out of the nose, one must prioritize....eating or breathing. Both very important.

Oh yes, and he started day care this week, part time. He is easing into the schedule this week and goes full time next week! Mommy left the first day in tears, but he seems unfazed by it all (except for not wanting to nap).

Evan Soon to Be Six Months!

The following photos are a smattering of recent adventures that Evan is into lately. The first photo represents Superman time during which Evan loves to be propelled up in the air above our heads and flown around while we are lying on our backs. He also loves to drool all over us during this activity.


This second photo represents an endearing time period. Evan wakes up incredibly early - between 6 and 7 am, so on weekends, we would be so exhausted that we would just bring him in bed with us after he awakened. He would usually play for a while and eventually fall asleep between us. for a little nap There are some really cute photos of this activity on our picasa web album site. This photo was taken during the 1st part of Evan's 5th month and is no longer an approved activity because it messes up his napping and sleeping schedule for the rest of the day. But we sure loved taking naps with him while it lasted.
This third photo presents Evan's reaction to solids. As you can see he didn't quite know what to make of the experience. He would frown and move his mouth as if he was trying to eat the cereal, but pretty much every spoonful would dribble down his chin and end up on the bib instead of in his mouth. We also made a video of the event which I will eventually post on Picasa. He now eats solids like a pro and giggles incessantly between every spoonful.
This last photo catches Evan in the act of rolling over. He does roll over from his tummy to back when he feels so inclined. But he actually prefers to works really hard on skooching and the beginnings of a crawl that he forgets to roll over before he gets too frustrated. As soon as he starts crawling, we are in trouble!

Evan will be turning 6 months this week! Check out the Picasa site for more Evan fun.

Family Visits for Christmas

Here are some pictures of the Majeres clan coming to visit for Christmas. Evan loves his family and misses them!

Here is a picture of the amazing outfit Grandma Majeres made for Evan. It is a reversible jacket and jumpsuit. She actually did this on my sewing machine which is the most finicky machine on the planet - so it was a pretty amazing feat! She also made another outfit using her much superior machine back home. She created patches with images of Baccio and Bear and sewed them on velvety pants.
Auntie TT and Uncle Shawn made these amazing paintings that spell "Evan." E is for Elephant, V is for Viper, A is for Angelfish, and N is for Nightingale. They are hanging in Evan's room above his crib. We are so blessed to have such a creative and loving family!

Happy New Year!

I know, I know, I have been the worst blogger in the world. Things got so busy after our trip to Seattle back in early November - I started back at work, mom (Grandma Majeres) came to stay with us for 6 weeks, Thanksgiving came and went, and all of a sudden it was Christmas, and now it is 2009! What the heck happened?

In that time, Evan has grown so much. The first picture here was taken on our trip to Seattle - he was three months old at the time. At that time, he was smiling a lot and starting to play with toys a lot more. Now he is almost 5 months, and just in that short time he has started to roll over, laugh, grab toys with precision, profusely suck on his hand (his favorite teething object), talk in consonants and vowels constantly, and generally grow more adorable by the second. No, I am not biased or anything. ;)



Our Seattle trip was great. Tutukane (Hawaiian for Grandpa Ogilvie), flew up with me, so it was much easier travelling this time. The Seattle contingent threw a huge party for Evan so that everyone could meet him. We are blessed with an extremely sociable baby - he just loves meeting new people - so he was an angel the whole time despite being greeted by so many new people and passed around all day. The second picture is from the party.
At his last 4 month check-up, he was 15 pounds 4 ounces (50th percentile) and 26 inches long (75th percentile). He must be over 16 pounds by now. His eyes are still blue, so he is still my little Clark Kent/Superman. He is still pretty chunky, but appears to be less so. During month 4, Aaron undertook a project to take pictures of Evan during his sleep every night. This picture is one of my favorites of the collection. His various accoutrements would inevitably become dislodged and strewn all over his crib as the evening wore on. Aaron took the photos and developed a calendar for 2009 for the grandparents and great-grandparents. Quite cute.
Also quite exciting, Evan has started to hold his bottle when he feels so inclined. He'll even take it out of his mouth and attempt to put it back in. He sometimes misses and gets his eye, but 1 out of 5 times he'll get it back in his mouth.

I've posted lots of pictures on our picasa site and I am about to upload some video as well. The group of pics titled "Handmade Onesies" are pictures of Evan in the handmade onesies that he fits in at the moment. Our friend, Amy, organized an art project for our baby shower. Everyone who participated decorated onesies in various sizes for Evan. W have enough handmade onesies to last him until he is well over 1 year! I will continue to post pics of them as he grows into the next sizes.

Enjoy! And Happy New Year!

Happy Halloween and Happy Election Day!

Evan was an elf for Halloween, though his outfit turned out looking a little more like Robin Hood. I made little slippers with toes that curled up, a Robin Hood looking hat with feathers, a bow and arrows, and a little green outfit. He was super cute! More pictures are posted on the picasa site. We did not get that many trick or treaters, probably because of our house location and the rain, but those that did come were pretty cute. There were a few more hand-made outfits this year, so that made me happy.

As you can see in this picture, Evan is turning out to be a little chunkster! He continues to be a voracious eater (obviously). I don't have a proper scale to weigh him, but I am sure he is around 13 pounds. I measured him at 23 inches the other day. Tomorrow he will be 3 months old - I can't believe it.

In a final note, I hope you are going out and voting! Don't let the polls deter you - the election is never over until its over. That's all I have to say about that.

Chicago Visit

Evan had his first plane ride a couple weeks ago. We traveled to Chicago to meet the Majeres side of the family and to get him baptized. The plane ride went amazingly well despite the fact that I was traveling alone with two bags, two carry-ons, a baby AND the flight was totally full! Evan was an angel (as usual!) and slept most of the way. I, on the other hand, was a complete stress case. I have never packed more than a few hours before a flight before, but this time I started packing two days in advance. Dear god, I am turning into my mom (don't take offence mom!).
We were also able to meet Hannah Mangan - the new addition to the Mango family - pictured left with the beautiful new parents, Chris and Michelle. She was born shortly after Evan on September 14. The running joke is that we are planning an arranged marriage although the sparks did not seem to fly between the two as Hannah was totally asleep when Evan came to visit her house and then Evan was totally asleep when Hannah came to his baptism. Oh well.
Here is one picture from the brunch before the baptism of Aaron, Evan, Michelle, and Hannah. I have posted more pictures on our picasa site, but since I forgot our camera for the baptism, I will post more pictures when I get them from my sister and mom.

And We Have Smiles!

Evan started smiling more a couple weeks ago and it became obvious it wasn't just gas! He smiles the most in the morning after just waking up. It makes us so happy to think he must be smiling because he is happy to see us first thing in the morning! He also loves to smile when we put him down for playtime. I think he recognizes that it's playtime and he gets to bat things around and watch mommy and daddy make silly faces at him. He is really good at holding his head up now and pushes away from us whenever we are holding him so he can look around. During tummy time, he is constantly moving and kicking his legs or doing push-ups. You can tell he really wants to start crawling and I think we are in for it when he starts!

In other news, Evan had his 2 month check-up yesterday. He now weighs 11.25 pounds, is 22.5 inches long, and has a head circumference of 15.5 inches. He is in the 25th percentile for his age. We also had to give him his shots, which I was really nervous about. We had a really great nurse that did an excellent job this time. He was fussy and slept a lot yesterday, but today he is back to his good old self.

We are off to Chicago next week to show him off to everyone. I am sure Evan will love all the new faces. Evan will also be baptized at St. Isaac Jogues on October 19 at 1:30pm. Everyone is welcome to join us. I have uploaded more pics at our picasa web album if you just have not gotten enough of Evan's adorable face!

Aaron can feed!

Four weeks of solid breasfeeding have passed, so I decided it was time to pump and try the bottle. I also came to the realization that this meant Aaron could feed Evan. Yep, that means I could be really mean and pump enough for one whole night and make Aaron do all the feeding while I at last get a full night's sleep. I have yet to carry out this sinister plot, but Aaron better be prepared!

We have had a busy couple of weeks. Grandparents Ogilvie came to visit, as well as Aaron's uncle Leo and our friends the Stones (see blog link in sidebar). Pics of the visits are posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jeogilvieandaaogilviepics. Other friends Christy Doyle (see blog in sidebar) and Lee will be visiting shortly and my sister is able to make a second visit this weekend. Evan loves new faces! Of course this means he is spoiled rotten by being held all the time. "His feet shall never touch the ground!"

It's a darn good thing that Evan is so adorable and I am totally in love with him. With the sleep deprivation, projectile pooing (yes, he has pooed across the changing table and hit the bedroom door!), fountain peeing all over himself and me or daddy at least every other day, and the daily vomit all over me no matter how much I attempt to shield myself, it's amazing I am still sane. But I manage to laugh through it all and shower him with kisses.

In other news, we had our 1 month check up. Evan weighed in at 9 pounds!!! He had gained 2 pounds in a couple weeks - I guess those feedings every 1.5 hours or so paid off. We also had to give him a Hep B shot, which was more traumatizing for me than him. He cried for about 2 seconds when he got the shot and stopped crying as soon as I picked him up. Meanwhile, I was balling before the shot, during the shot, and for about five minutes after the shot. I am a little paranoid about vaccinations, what can I say? He turned out fine though, so no worries now. I hear the 2 month visit is a lot of shots - I think I may need a valium or something for that one!