MERRY CHRISTMAS

We've been getting snow pretty much every day since Cash was born - gotta love a beautiful, white Christmas!

A day late, but heart felt just the same....MERRY CHRISTMAS! We hope that everyone had a very merry Christmas. Ours was quite low key and enjoyable. JW came up to the house and we opened lots of presents, watched "Iron Man" (what a great movie!) and had a nice Christmas dinner.....

Cash got a bath for Christmas and then proceeded to sleep through most of the day, which made for a fun night. Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts!!!!!

Mika has become quite the mother since Cash has come home - she runs to him anytime he lets out the tiniest peep and can't let him be in a room without her. It's really funny....Windsor and Wesley aren't all that phased by Cash....I am thinking that they are pretty much oblivious to most things as long as they maintain the same amount of attention!

Grandma and Grandpa Hobbs' first visit

I have been slacking a little bit on the pictures and blog. The problem is, we have SO MANY pictures that I haven't gotten them all straightened out yet! My folks were able to come out on Friday (the 19th) to spend the weekend with all of us. Brent and I were both so thankful to have someone around to help out with the 'little things', including Cash. Of course, as new parents, we had a few questions for Mom and Dad! We had a good time enjoying family (and good food from Mom) and were sad that they couldn't stay longer. We're hoping to make a little journey West soon so that we can introduce Cash to the rest of the family. Thanks again Mom and Dad!

Cash's first week

Cash couldn't be doing better and neither could we! We are so happy and excited to finally have him here. He had his first weigh in yesterday....he weighed 8 lbs 2 oz at birth and is down to 7 lb 13 oz. The doc said that's normal, but that he looked very healthy and figured he'd be back to birth weight in under 2 weeks. Sweet, back to fighting weight! :) Another appointment with the doctor today for his one week checkup. We have probably gotten a total of a foot or so of snow in the past few days and it's still snowing. I gotta say, this is the best time to have a baby - Cash and I are just holed up here at home, watching the snow fly! A few trips to town here and there keep us 'in the loop', but I don't think we need to go to town to realize that once the snow hits, everyone goes back to their California roots and lose all sense of what it means to drive in Montana!

Cash loves his Daddy!!!

Cash James Olson

Well, here he is! Turns out Amy really was pregnant afer all. She was beginning to doubt that there was actually a kid in there. That all changed, as did the rest of our lives yesterday at 5:57 p.m. when our "little" miracle came along.

Of course "little" is an opinion that might not have been shared by Amy at the time, but she was a miracle herself when she brought our child into the world. All in all, it was a very exciting day. The first two and a half hours were long and were not very much fun. Amy had some serious "back labor" she decided that an epidural was in order to ease her pain... THANK GOD!!! After the epidural was delivered, things went much more smoothly and rest of the day was very enjoyable. Amy was fully dilated by about 5 o'clock and her time to shine kicked into high gear.

An hour later, our baby was here and our Midwife Nancy hid its "cash and prizes" from us so our dear friend Lisa could get the video camera rolling. Lights, camera, action... IT'S A BOY!!! She kept Cash's identity hidden from us until the last second and she let us see for ourselves the incredible miracle God had given us. We are so, so thankful for our healthy boy, our family, and all of our friends who helped us to realize this amazing event that we will never forget.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife who has fulfilled my life and showed me what it truly means to be strong. I Love You, Amy!!!

3's stuck in there

We had our last doctor's appointment yesterday. Our midwife said that there is NO way the baby could get any lower without coming out - she said she was surprised that I'm not in labor already. That means nothing when it comes to labor though....we made it through the night with nothing happening. If 3 doesn't come on his/her own, we're actually going to have to be induced. I thought for sure that just scheduling to induce was going to scare this little baby right out of there. What do you do? I'm home today - decided to take a day off before the show starts. I have no intention of even changing out of my pajamas! Wish us luck, we're definitely going to have a baby by the end of the week. Seems like just yesterday we were trying to decide if we were actually looking at 2 lines or 1...."What do the instructions say about lines? What do they constitute as an ACTUAL line? Okay, that's a line....let's try another test and see what that one says". Then 5 months of throwing up water and it was time to start growing. Now, we've got our little hospital bag packed and I walk around with my hands on my back and groan all the time. Ah, the joys of pregnancy!





Brent took these photos last night in hopes of them being the last pregnant pictures - we thought for sure we'd be making a hospital run....they're still going to be the last pregnant pictures, there's no way that I could possibly grow that much more by tomorrow morning! Keep watching - the next photos will be of 3!!!! FINALLY!!!!

This one's for you, Jen!

No baby yet! I'm still working, I plan to work through tomorrow (Tues), then take Wednesday off and we are supposed to be induced on Thursday morning at 8 am. I'm still feeling good - just getting anxious to see what Brent and I have created! We went through about 5 hours of 'false, back labor' on Saturday, didn't seem all that 'false' to me. We packed our bags, showered and were ready to roll, but all contractions pretty much stopped sometime around midnight. Darn....just a teaser! At least we know something's actually happening and now we're officially packed and ready. Way to procrastinate, huh?!

Sorry I missed your call Jen! I wish I could call you back, but those darn international numbers just aren't callback savvy - I tried redialing the number that came in, but to no avail. If you get a chance, email me and let me know how I can call you! :) Germany....sheesh. I've been in the back, burning dirt, so just missed you. Nobody worry....I'm still here and the baby's not going anywhere!

3 FYI

Here it is....D-Day....and I'm sitting at work (I'm on break - 15 minutes every 2 hours, or is it every 4?) adding this post to the blog. This would indicate no baby. We had an appointment yesterday and 3 is doing just fine, loving life in there with a nice strong heartbeat to go along with it's nice strong kicks. We talked about inducing and came to this conclusion: if 3 doesn't come out on his/her own, then we will be inducing next Thursday (the 18th) at 8 am, it has officially been scheduled. I am really hoping that 3 just decides to come out because it just seems too weird to 'pick' the day that your baby is going to be born. However, the labor is said to be a little less intense....toughie. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't have to wait until next week - I'm getting short on clothes that fit and am probably getting short on 'good attitude' now that I've started my 10th month of pregnancy. I told Brent this morning that I'm getting closer to the gestation period of a horse than I am a human....he said maybe I'd have a foal. Then we got to thinking that maybe a pig would be better (they're only pregnant for 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days), but in the end you'd have to give birth to 14 little ones....I'll just stick this one out and try not to think of myself as a 700 + pound farm animal! :)

Nothing yet....

No baby yet....don't worry, we promise to call/text everyone as soon as things start happening - actually, if it's the middle of the night we won't wake you with our news, we'll wait until morning at least!

We haven't been doing much of anything. We went to the Griz game this weekend. We had a great time and did some jumping around (in hopes of bringing this baby into the world a few days early). Today we set up the weight machine downstairs. I'm super excited - I'm hoping it will give me that little boost of motivation that I'm going to need post baby. It's way too easy to not drive to town to go to the gym....harder to say no to a decent workout when all you have to do is go down the stairs. I'll keep you posted on that one - this could be just wishful thinking!

Well....everyone, keep your fingers crossed that the baby comes by Wednesday - we don't want to be 'overdue'! Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this baby will come late.....I don't know why I think that.....guess I just feel like that's my luck. But really, what's another couple days after you've been baking a baby for 9 months?!?! We double promise to keep everyone posted - the very latest that my midwife said she'd let me go to would be December 20th. YOU WILL HEAR SOMETHING BY THE 20TH (or I'll go crazy)!!!!! :)