How Olivia got her name

Here is the clarification on how Olivia got her name. It was a long process, and after many arguments and vetoes, the decision was made.

My mom was born in Maslinica, little village on island of Solta in Croatia. This is my favorite spot in the whole world, and when Karen first came to Croatia she fell in love with it as well.

Maslina means olive tree in Croatian, and the village got its name after many olive trees that surround it. Farming olive trees, along with fishing is what people did to make a living in Maslinica throughout history.

Olive trees are known to survive in toughest of conditions, extreme heat, with not a lot of water.

We decided on Olivia's name weeks before she was born, not knowing what kind of a fight was ahead of her. But just like the tree, baby girl survived in toughest of conditions, and made us all proud.

Here are some pictures of Maslinica:

Olivia's weekend

Olivia had a busy weekend. On Saturday night she had her first dinner at the restaurant. We all went to Norton's in Highland Park and sat on the patio outside. They didn't have milk on the menu, so she had to oder it "a la carte". Here she is with grandma looking at the menu. After she had her dinner, she excused herself and went to sleep.

Olivia je bila prilicno zauzeta ovaj vikend. U subotu navecer je izasla prvi put na veceru u restoran. Izasli smo u Norton's restoran u Highland Parku, sjedili smo vanka na teraci. Nije bilo mlijeka na meniju, pa je morala narucit "a la carte". Na slici je sa bakom, gleda u meni i trazi sta bi jela.

Nakon sta je pojela veceru, ispricala se drustvu i otisla spavat.

Then on Sunday morning we all went to the beach. Olivia was under the sundome, enjoying herself.





U nedjelju smo isli malo na plazu. Olivia je bila ispod satora, da je zastiti od sunca. Iz prilozenoga se vidi da joj je pasalo. Mora bit da je bila uvatila spli'ska fjaka.








Sunday afternoon, we spend some time in our backyard and watched some soccer games on the fields behind our house.
She didn't express much interest, we'll have to work on it as she grows. Or maybe she didn't care cause her team "Hajduk" wasn't playing.


U nedjelju popodne smo gladali nogomet na igralistu iza nase kuce. Nije je puno interesiralo, mozda je nije bilo ni briga jer nije Hajduk igra.

More Pictures (Slike)

Here are some more pictures of our little Munchkin.
Evo jos neke slike od nase djevojcice

Some new pictures and videos (slike i video)

This will be a bilingual blog, so we can satisfy the demand from Croatia, after all she is 1/2 Croatian.

She is doing well. Karen's mom and dad are here with us and are a big help to us. They will stay till beginning of October, and then my mom will come over to help out. Below are some pictures and a video of her since she came home.

Olivia je dobro. Mama i ocuh od Karen su s nama i bit ce tu do 10. miseca, a posli njih ce moja mama doc. Ispod su neke slike i video od Olivie otkad je dosla doma.

Olivia is home

After 93 days in the NICU, Olivia came home on Tue, Jul 8th. She was 5lbs, 10oz (2570g) when she was released from the hospital. As usual, first couple of nights went sleepless for us, not because she didn't sleep, but because we wanted to keep an eye on her. Karen is little more relaxed than I am, it will take me some time to get used to the fact that she doesn't need constant supervision anymore. But we must be doing something right, cause on Thur when we went to see the pediatrician, she was weighing 6lbs 1oz (2750g). Since she got into her schedule of sleeping and eating at the hospital, we are trying to maintain that. We feed her every 3-4 hours, and let her sleep in between. She is now taking anywhere from 4-5oz of milk (120 -150 ml) per feeding. To compare, when she left the hospital she was at 3oz (90ml) per feeding.

Some of you requested to see some pictures of Olivia. This is one of the reasons that we started this blog, so we can keep posting new pictures as she grows. So for those of you that haven't seen her picture yet, here she is: