A bit of inspiration...

So I've been a posting like crazy lately, can you tell I'm putting off writing a paper? Anyway, I've seen this person's blog via numerous blogs lately and I wanted to post her blog on here for any of you that have never heard of her.

This woman lost her 14-month-old daughter, Camille, about two months ago and she decided to use her blog as an outlet to discuss her entire journey through the grieving process. It sounds kind of depressing, but it's not. It's so inspiring. I'll sit for hours at a time and read what she has to say and just bawl like a little baby, Matt makes fun of me.

I guess every time she talks about Camille, I think about Alivia and I can't fathom ever losing her, but this woman couldn't fathom losing Camille, either. She shows that there is life after the death of a child, and even though it's extremely hard, it's possible to keep living after something like that.

She's kind of become my hero over the past couple of days. She's an incredible writer. I really recommend you read it, especially if you're ever feeling defeated, this blog has the power to put everything into perspective and uplift your spirits. Here's the blog. Enjoy and make sure you have a box of tissues at your side.

WHY TEAM U.S.A. WHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so my favorite, up until now, has always been the women's gymnastics, until we freakin' choked!!! What!?!?!?! They're a bunch of hooligans! And I don't even know what a hooligan is! I am so peeved right now!

First, we can't even mount the beam - come on! And then say goodbye to staying in bounds on the floor. I wait four freaking years just to watch this event and kick China's butt, but instead I'm left with an empty hole inside of me that will never be filled! What a kick in the pants!

Here they are before ever taking off to Beijing... If only I could send them a message from the future:

LOOK OUT! YOU'RE GOING TO FREAKING CHOOOOOOOOOOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh hey, I have a tongue!

...And it's freakishly long! So Alivia discovered her cute little tongue yesterday and she's been playing with it ever since. She's always sticking it out and I finally caught it on camera! Get ready for an awesome series of pictures...

Here's another look at the crazy long tongue that she got from her daddy:

What a freakin' cutie!

My kid loves the Olympics and the Ivins

So Alivia loves the Olympics. I'm not even joking. She particularly loves watching the swimming events. I'll sit her down on the couch and she'll just sit there for minutes at a time - it's the longest she's ever chilled. And then she'll start to talk to the swimmers - it's so cute.

Here she is with her eyes glued to the T.V. She's taken over my role as master of the remote...
I love how the remote is almost the same size as her torso.
Two fanatic Phelp fans watching him in awe as he crushes his own world record.
Alivia's showing Reece that having a baby could provide him with fun-filled, tender moments as she holds tight to his finger.
This picture might lead you to believe that Alivia just loves to chill and is so happy all of the time... what a little tricker...
Also I just looked at all of these pics of my cute baby and noticed that she looks like our little white trash baby who never wears clothes. Well, it's the truth. She pukes so much that Matt and I have given up dressing her altogether. We've also given up on dressing ourselves. In fact, I was actually puked on while doing this post...

And this pic is just for the Ivins. I was able to document their first enchanting encounter with Rock Band - and now they're hooked!

Cousinly Love

So this weekend I was able to see some of my cousins from my dad's side that I haven't seen for years! It was really exciting - we're all newish moms and so we were able to have all of our little ones finally meet each other. We were also able to get a picture with my grandma and all of her great grand children that she currently has.

This was the best one we could get. There was at least one child screaming in each picture. This one featured Berlin as the unhappiest baby of all! So on the top row is Rocky, Owen and Sienna. And then there's Berlin and Alivia on Grandma Boley's lap.

Alivia was so chill this afternoon - it was crazy! We weren't sure it was even our baby. I don't know if she was just overwhelmed by the massive amount of people in the same room, but she was just chillin with anyone who picked her up. Also, she was never the one crying during the picture taking extravaganza. She's so funny sometimes.

Here's me with Sienna. She was so fun to play with! It makes me really excited/terrified for Alivia to get bigger. She'll be fun to play with, but she'll also have the ability to take off when I'm not watching! Ah!

Always keeping us entertained...

So one night Matt and I were getting Alivia ready for bed and we ran across a couple of hats that we didn't know we had. So we decided to play dress up for a little bit. First - this brown one was hilarious! It looked like some gross brown wig! We were laughing for hours.

And then we found this weird little yellow one. I love this face. It kind of creeps me out.
Also, we've been getting Alivia some awesome play things that make my life SO MUCH easier. Here she is in her little gym. She'll only lay under it sideways. Matt and I joke that she teleports in that thing because we'll put her down one way and literally one minute later she will have pulled a total 180 without even crawling! (Can you tell Matt and I have recently got into the series "Heroes"?)
And then we got her this awesome little jumper thing. She loves to stand so we figured she would love this. When we put her in it she found out that if she leans to one side, she'll spin around and around - it's so funny.
And here she is with her favorite parent... I love her little smile.
How cute is this picture??? She loves her daddy!

How'd that taste???

So lately, Matt and I have had this theory that Alivia only likes to puke on him. Seriously, every time I hand her off to Matt, she'll usually puke. So last night, I had finished feeding her and tried to burp her and then handed her off to Matt once again.

About a second later, I hear Matt yell and so I rush over to him thinking that Alivia was hurt or something was wrong and here's what I saw... (Viewer discretion is advised - this is not for the weak stomachs!)

And of course, here is the close up. In case you're wondering - yes - it did go in his mouth, which is actually kind of hilarious because she had just puked in my mouth like a week ago. I think it's because we started calling her bird lately - she now thinks that she needs to regurgitate her food into our mouths...

Cute Baby Jake!

Matt's brother, Ben, and his wife, Donnie, had their baby last week and he is so freakin cute! He has the longest blonde hair I've ever seen on a newborn! Matt was so excited to hold his newest little nephew. It was so weird for us to hold such a tiny baby! Alivia looks HUGE to compared to the cute little one!

So Donnie and I spent a lot of time talking about our pregnancies with each other because our pregnancies were so close; and then there were so many weird coincidences with mine and Donnie's pregnancy and delivery! Here's just a couple:

1. We both had weird little white spots on our arms.
2. We both leaked colostrum at a really early stage - bleh!
3. We both gave birth on the third day after our due date.
4. We both went through many hours of labor and then had to have a c-section because we couldn't dilate any farther.
5. I gave birth in a hospital right next to their house and she gave birth right next to our place.
6. The babies' birth times were both palindromes 6:06 and 11:11 (Matt figured that one out, he's a nerd)
7. We both puked after delivery (not a pleasant memory for either of us)

And those are just a few that I can remember right now.

Also, Matt's shirt rocks my world.
So every time we went and visited them in the hospital - Alivia was freaking out. I think she could tell that all of the attention had shifted from her to her new little cousin. This is clearly illustrated in this next picture. She's mastered the stink eye at such a young age! It's hilarious!

My two little baldies

Here's Matt sporting his latest do... He's on trek this week with the little delinquent boys and the other two guides decided they all wanted to shave their heads. In fact, I think Alivia's hair is actually longer than his in some spots! What I love most about this picture is the fact that the have the exact same expression. I'm a pretty big fan of these two.

Coolest invention ever!!!!!!!!

So I was looking for a cool site to do some online scrapbooking that I could print off and make a little book out of, and I was talking to my sister-in-law and she said that there was a site that allows you to download your blog and make a scrapbook out of it! How cool is that! So here it is! Scrapbookblogger.com - I think this is so cool! I just thought some of you might enjoy it as well!

Awesome pics and videos from Hawaii

So we went to Hawaii for a week with Matt's family. It was really fun - we went to Oahu. Unfortunately we learned some things about Alivia that made Hawaii the worst place to ever take her.

First of all, she is allergic to flowers. The second we landed and you could smell them, Alivia started breathing like a little pug - it was cute/sad/hilarious. Second, she's extremely sensitive to heat - she had to be naked the whole time because any time we put clothes on her, a huge heat rash would break out all over her body.

Also, we took a little mist fan anticipating how hot she'd get at the beach, but we found out that whenever she freaks out - we can put the fan right on her and she stops immediately - it was hilarious. She'd start crying and we'd turn on the fan and blow it all over her body and she'd start to laugh and love life! What a crazy girl.

Here's Alivia on the 6 1/2 hour plane ride there. She was really awesome for some of it - and then she wouldn't stop screaming for a lot of it - poor passengers - I'm pretty sure most of them were giving us the stink eye when they passed us as they got off the plane...




Here's Alivia's first time at the beach - she was telling me about how much she loved it! She has the cutest little mouth!

Here's Alivia's first time in the water. She wasn't too sure about what was happening, but she didn't cry. Also Matt's awesome farmer's tan makes me very happy. In his defense, this was the beginning of the trip - it did improve - sort of...

Two freaking months old!

This pic was taken on her first day home from the hospital.

And here she is two months later! She gets bigger everyday!
The little monkey went to the doc and everything is A-OK! She's in the 75th percentile for her weight and head circumference and in the 45th percentile for her height... was there any doubt that she's going to be a little shorty!?!

So we did the whole 2 months immunization ordeal - worst day of my life! I made Matt hold her while it happened and I totally started to tear up. But then the nurse looked over at me judgingly! So I held back the tears. Seriously, we've never heard her cry that loud and hard ever! Her poor little face got all blotchy with red spots all over! So we gave her Tylenol for the next two days. She did really well! These pics are from her first morning after the shots! The Tylenol knocked the poor kid out!

I think she might've enjoyed the drugs just a little too much...

Some funny things about Alivia:

She's started this whole zero to freak out in 2 seconds thing! She's learning how to manipulate us - she knows we'll come running immediately! Then when we pick her up - she's totally fine.
AHHHHHH!!! Classic!She loves her daddy! Because I'm at my internship from 4-11 several nights a week - she's gotten a lot of one-on-one time with Daddy. But she refuses to let him get anything done. When she's with me in the morning, I can set her down any time and she'll just chill - but not with Matt! She has to be touching him the entire night! It's so cute! And a little frustrating for Matt - but he loves it!
Also, this little one can fall asleep anywhere and she sleeps through the night! It's amazing! We put her to bed every night at about 9:45. And without fail, she won't wake up until at least 6 usually 6:30! And then when she's done eating - she falls asleep again until around 10! I'm so spoiled! My next kids are going to be nightmares... I can just feel it!

And this is just a funny picture. I guess she had given up on life so she had to resort to death by burp rag! Ha! Cute little bugger.

Matt's pride and joy...

Who needs a TV when you have this little one?

Wiseman Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

ROCK BAND!

The government gave us money for no reason...i.e. a stimulus check. So what did we do? We went straight to Walmart to stimulate the economy. You guessed it, we bought rock band. I don't think I have ever been more pleased with a purchase that I have made. Alexis rocks on the drums and I either rock the guitar or the lead vocals. It is pretty exciting, especially when I don't know the songs but sing them anyway. I have to say that we are getting pretty good as a drum guitar duo. I can only assume that we would be that good in real life. There is no way that this game is just giving us a false sense of awesomeness. Yeah...we pretty much rock.

My Husband Rocks!

So Matt is pretty much amazing! And here's a couple reasons why:

1. When he doesn't have to work, he'll take Alivia downstairs in the morning just so I can sleep a couple extra hours.

2. He's not afraid of any of the curve balls that Alivia has thrown at him since she came home from the hospital (including when she pooped on him her first day home). He's an amazing dad.

3. He pays attention to little things I mention and remembers them later. For example, I told him forever ago that I wanted a car racing game for our Xbox because I can't figure out how to play the games we have! And for Mother's Day, he got me my racing game! And the movie Juno - my favorite!

4. He didn't have any time this weekend to go and get me something so, in order to surprise me, he woke up really early in the morning on Saturday and took little Alivia with him to Wal-Mart while I was passed out in bed. I had no idea!

5. He claims he likes to do the dishes and actually does them because he knows that I hate doing that more than anything in the entire world!

6. He always lets me have the remote because he knows that to fight for it would be a waste of time!

7. He takes me on drives (my favorite thing to do) even though he hates it more than life itself AND gas is more expensive than it's ever been!

8. When he has an evening and morning shift right next to each other - instead of staying down at the ranch, he'll come home at night because he knows how much I hate being home alone - even if it means he gets less sleep.

And that's just a couple reasons but there are billions and billions more!

All she does is eat, sleep, and POOP!

My Baby's First Almost Real Bath!!!

So Matt and I decided to whip out Alivia's little tub and give her an almost real bath! She was a little chilly at first but when we splashed her with the water she loved it! Tonight we plan on moving her to her crib. I'm not excited at all! I'll let you know how it goes...

When Mommy and Grandma B. get bored...

So we mentioned that it's impossible to wake this little girl up when she's sleeping, and one night we decided to have a little fun at the poor girl's expense...