Olivia Jane's Dedication

Mark 10:13-16 tells us that, “…they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them.  But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.  Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."  And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.

In May, surrounded by our families and members of our community group, Miguel and I dedicated Olivia to the Lord. It is important to Miguel and me to raise Olivia, and future children, to know Christ and to be raised in a household that honors the Lord. We recognize that she is a gift from God and we want to honor Him by teaching her about her heavenly father. It is our hearts desire that she accepts him into her heart and lives a life running after him.

Our church doesn't do baby dedications during the services, but encourages us to do one within our community group. We asked our group leader to officiate and invited family and and members of our CG to attend. Miguel and I wanted such an important moment to be in a beautiful location that also felt like a church setting so we decided to have the dedication at the pretty Tybee Island Wedding Chapel.

We were so grateful that both our families made the long drive down to Savannah to be at the dedication and to witness us present, first ourselves, and then Olivia to the Lord for both His blessings and our surrender for His service.

During the ceremony our community group leader, Mark Stivers, asked us the following questions:

1. Laura and Miguel, by coming forward before God and his people, do you hereby declare your desire to dedicate yourselves and Olivia to the Lord?

2. Do you today recognize this child as the gift of God and give heartfelt thanks for God’s blessing?

3. Do you now dedicate Olivia to the Lord who gave her to you, surrendering all worldly claims upon her life in the expectation that she will surrender her life wholly to God?

4. Do you pledge as parents that, with God’s gracious help, you will bring up Olivia in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, making every effort, with patience and love, to build the Word of God, the character of Christ and the joy of the Lord into her life?

5. Do you promise to provide, through God’s blessing, for the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of Olivia, looking to the Father for the wisdom, love and strength to do so?

6. Do you promise, God helping you, to make it your regular prayer that, by God’s grace, Olivia will come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of her sins and for the fulfillment of all His promises to her, even eternal life; and in this faith follow Jesus as Lord and obey His teachings?

Miguel's brother, Juan, and my sister, Sarah, graciously agreed to be Olivia's godparents. They pledged to fulfill the vow we made by becoming Olivia’s godparents and to help us in our duties as Christian parents.

"This candle represents the light of Christ in Olivia’s life. Parents and godparents, this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. May Olivia walk always as a child of the light. May she keep the flame of faith alive in her heart. When the Lord comes, may she go out to meet Him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom."

Our friends, family, and community group members also made a pledge of commitment :

"So that Olivia may walk in the abundant life that Christ offers, do you pledge by God's help, to pray for and encourage Laura and Miguel in their effort to raise Olivia in the fear of the Lord, so that Olivia might receive our Lord's guidance and instruction?”

And finally, we all gathered around our daughter and family laid hands on us as we prayed the prayer of dedication over Olivia.

“Olivia, together with your parents, who love you dearly, and these people who care about the outcome of your faith, I dedicate you to God, surrendering together with them all worldly claims upon your life, in the hope that you will belong wholly to God for ever."

Afterwards we invited everyone for some yummy treats to celebrate Olivia's special day.

The very talented Izzy Hudgins captured images for us that we will cherish for the rest of our lives! 

Did I forget to mention that Olivia cried during most of the ceremony? 

Aunt Jessie!

Amador Grandparents 

Uncle Jason

Aunt Sarah

Godparents!

Lolly and G-Daddy!

Olivia is wearing a baby dress of mine that I wore at her age! 

Thank You Izzy Hudgins Photography for the beautiful photos!

 Tybee Island Wedding Chapel

LuluCakes 

Olivia 5 Months!

Princess, you're almost half a year old! I keep thinking back to this time last year when you were still a teeny tiny little thing in my tummy and only a handful of people knew you existed. I would imagine what my life would be like a year from then and try to picture life with you here. I didn't even know if you were a little boy or girl yet. But you're here now and it's so much better than I could have ever imagined! Life has new purpose and meaning and I've experienced a deep level of love and joy that I didn't know was possible. People always say you don't know how deep you can love until you have a child of your own, and there is really no way to prepare yourself for the truth of that. I love you so much it can sometimes make me physically ache!

You're getting so biggie! At your 4 month well visit you were almost 15 lbs and are finally measuring over the 50th percentile on growth charts. I've started to take you out of your carseat when running errands because it's just so heavy with you in it now! Plus, you prefer to be carried anyways. I am so grateful to your Aunt Sarah for lending me her Ergo! 

You give me this look (above) a lot. This is your serious face. You are super observant and prefer to spend your time looking around and taking in the world. You are curious and serious and I think (totally mommy-biased) that you're really intelligent. After a couple of different big events filled with lots of family and people time, I'm starting to think you may be an introvert. People seem to overwhelm and drain you quickly. It takes you a bit of time to recover from trips and family time. 

However, you do save a lot of giggles and smiles for mommy and daddy. You think it's hilarious whenever you're on your changing mat or when I put you on our bed and sing to you and lean over and "fall" on to your belly. You laugh and laugh and I do it over and over again until it wears me out. I usually sing a version of Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Dink-A-Dink, Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Doo, or Baa Baa Black Sheep to get you to smile and laugh. 

 

You're sitting up pretty well on your own now! I'm so proud of each milestone you achieve and am glad for you because you so want more independence. You will still randomly nose-dive after sitting up on your own for a while so I still sit near you while we practice sitting up, but you've got some impressive endurance and strength. 

You are sitting up in the bath now and you splash and splash and it's adorable. I love watching you learn new things and experience new things like playing in the tub! You also have discovered the bathwater duck thermometer and try to catch and eat it. 

Putting objects in your mouth is definitely a marker of this month. You've pretty much abandoned chewing on your hand in favor of picking up anything in sight and putting it in your mouth. Which makes sense because you are teething! In fact, you have a tooth! It popped up one afternoon! Teething is no fun, it's made you have some rough days and nights. You love to suck on the bottom of cold La Croix cans and have practiced sipping small amounts of water from a baby cup. You also really enjoy grabbing onto puckered lips and noses. Which is adorable, but can be dangerous because you have razor sharp nails that grow at an incredible rate. BUT, mommy is finally more confident when it comes to trimming your nails! Yay!

You are sleeping much better and mommy and daddy are SO, so, so, soooooo grateful! You wake up about once a night now around 1 am and then are up for the day between 5 and 6. We wake up and play for about an hour and a half and then you go down for a long nap (about 2 hours - again, thank you!) and mommy is able to get a nap in too! You're pretty cute when I go in to rescue you from your crib, you arch up and look at me and then smile and I LOVE it! You can move all over your crib now and it's always a surprise to discover which direction you're facing in the morning. You're going to be so happy when you can crawl. 

You still love the jumperoo and are using it to jump, jump, JUMP, more and more. You can spin yourself around in it now too. We've hung a bunch of baby links and teething toys from the top parts and you really enjoy that. 

Oh, baby girl. I love you so much and am so glad you're my baby! Each month is better than the last (especially now that we are sleeping a bit better!!) and I still wake up every day with excitement that this is my real life and you're here! Love, love, love, LOVE you Olivia Jane!!! 

Olivia Four Months!

Precious, precious girl. You are FOUR months old! I can't believe how fast the past four months have gone (I know I sound like a broken record saying that on each post). I feel like you've always been a part of our family and I have a hard time remembering life before you were here. 

It was a year ago this week that we found out you existed. It's amazing to see you so happy and healthy after the surgeons and doctors said chances of you surviving after mommy's surgery was slim.  You are a miracle and I thank God daily for you and for your health! You are strong and a survivor. 

You've made some big advancements this month. It's truly crazy how fast you change. People say that about babies all the time, but witnessing it is incredible. 

Right after you turned three months old you began to roll over from your back to belly. We were visiting Lolly and G-Daddy for a week in Milton and you actually rolled over for the first time when we were FaceTiming with your daddy! What a gift that he was able to witness that big first even though he was 300 miles away! 

You now prefer to roll onto your belly anytime you have the opportunity. You roll over and try your very hardest to propel yourself forward. Girl, you want to be on the move so very badly! You often fuss out of frustration because you can't move when you so obviously want to. The desire to always be on your belly made taking photos of you next to the Teddy that your Granny and Papa gave you very difficult... It's also made us be much quicker to steady you and we now have to hold on to you while doing things like changing your diaper. 

You've been waking yourself up multiple times a night by rolling yourself over onto your tummy. You're no longer swaddled, so we tried many different things to try and keep you sleeping on your back. We tried swaddling you but leaving your arms free, a sleep sack instead of a swaddle, and even rolling two swaddles up and kind of barricading you in in between them. Nothing worked very well. Thankfully, in the past few days you have just started to sleep on your belly from the get go and I'm hoping it will help you sleep more comfortably and for longer stretches. 

You're still waking up to nurse 2-3 times a night. I think if I was a little bit stronger in the middle of the night, and let you cry it out, we might make a breakthrough in how many times you wake up. To be honest though, I'm so tired in the middle of the night that I find it easier to zombie walk to your nursery and nurse you and then go back to sleep fifteen minutes later. 

Your bedtime is still around 7:30 after you have a bath and you are ready to wake up for the day around 6:00 AM.  In the morning we play for about an hour and a half and then you are ready to take a nap most days. I've been appreciating this recently as I've been able to get a few naps in myself while you're sleeping! However, as soon as we seem to figure out a schedule you throw mommy a curve ball and switch things up. I'm thinking you may be going through a growth spurt as you've been taking more frequent and longer naps lately. I'm looking forward to seeing your weight and length at your 4 month well visit next week!

Aunt Sarah brought us their jumperoo to let you borrow and you are a big fan. You enjoy being upright and it's great to be able to turn you a few degrees and all of a sudden you have something new to explore. You can also sit in the Bumbo for short periods of time, but you seem to prefer to topple yourself over in an attempt to eat your feet, so we've been taking a bit of a break from that. 

You are very interested in the world around you, spending much of your time studying whats going on and watching, watching, watching. You really enjoyed watching your cousins Karis and Evan play when we visited family for a week earlier in the month. I understand I am unabashedly biased, but I think you are super intelligent. You can look into your eyes and see the wheels turning. 

You've reached the stage of wanting to grab everything within reach and would like to stick everything in your mouth if we let you. Just in the past week you've become even more intentional with your grabbing and it's as though you have just discovered the dogs for the first time. The dogs are very patient with you, but I can speak from personal experience, that when you grab on and pull... it hurts! We are working on being gentle with them - not sure how much of that is sticking as you are only four months old haha. 

You've perfected two yoga moves this month... upward dog and happy baby. It's pretty cute watching you grab onto your feet. Another big achievement you met this month is laughing! Oh my gosh. There is NOTHING better than hearing you laugh. It shoots burst of joy through me that are hard to describe. I will repeatedly do foolish things over and over again if it makes you laugh. 

I think we have decided you must be a people person. You want to be with constantly. If you could be held 100% of the time you would be. You are always very aware of where people are in relation to you. You need to make sure that someone is with you and that you can see them at all times. It's great when we are with a big group like family and there are many hands to hold you and pass you around, but it is slightly exhausting when it is just mommy to entertain you all day long. You don't have much understanding for chores and bathroom breaks. 

You have definitely "found" your voice and talk talk talk all the time. Unfortunately for those around you, much of what you have to say sounds like a screeching eagle. I don't mind however. I hope you always know that I am here to listen to whatever you have to say, and even though it may seem trivial to others it will always be important to me. 

You celebrated your first Easter this month. Such a lucky girl as you received two Easter baskets! One from the bunny and one from your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jared! So sweet and so special. You also attended a church service for the first time and you did really well. I've been slightly anxious to take you because I didn't know how you would do, but you did really well. 

Girl, I think you inherited a love for all things food. You obviously haven't tasted anything but breastmilk, but you are super interested in food. You study it, are fascinated by people eating, and lunge forward to try and reach it whenever possible. I think it will be a very exciting day for you when you eat solids for the first time. 

I hope I'm not leaving anything big out. I'm fighting a bad cold and fever so am not in tip-top shape. It's been interesting trying to take care of you and keep you healthy when I am far from functioning at my best. Thankfully, it's the weekend and we have your daddy in our lives who takes such good care of us. He's been nursing me back to health and has been on full-time daddy duty, letting mommy sleep and get some much needed rest. Being a parent is so hard, and I have so much awe for those who do it on their own. I cannot imagine going through this journey without your daddy's help. I also am so incredibly thankful to have an older sister who has kids and has already been through everything. I call your Aunt Sarah daily - seriously, multiple times most days - to ask for advice. 

Little, precious Olivia, you are so dearly loved. You are a piece of my heart walking and beating outside my chest. I cherish you and am so glad that God made me your mommy. Happy four months baby girl!