Something we promised ourselves we'd never do...

I know, I know! It looks horrible, but it keeps her so happy! And she loves Little Einsteins almost as much as Matt does! Seriously, he'll sing like five songs from that show - it's awesome. It really is an awesome Bumbo Baby-Sitter when I need five minutes to finish something - like this post, for example.

Also, I wanted to show you all of the amazing new adventures in the Bumbo:

Here she is as I prepare to make some Livers stew.

Here she is just lounging around.
Here she is in her Bumbo trying muddy buddies for the first time. She freaking loves this stuff! She would suck on it so hard and then later on, she started to bite it! It was so funny! Who can blame her, though? It's delicious!

Here she is in her Bumbo being romantic with me. She loves to interlace fingers lately. Oh Alivia.

Here she is attempting to escape the Bumbo. Doesn't this picture look funny? We knew it wouldn't take her long to discover that it actually constrains her...And here's just something funny. Earlier today I was sitting, taking care of some stuff on the computer and I looked over at Alivia and here's what I saw:

She was peeking at me from under the table (while sitting in the Bumbo, of course)! It was so cute! I love this kid.

Who's excited about some real food? ...Not Alivia

So we finally decided to try Alivia out with some rice at night. She keeps trying to eat our food so we thought it was about time. Our first attempt ended with a lot of tears and angry feelings all around - Alivia was mad at me for giving her gross food, Matt was mad at me for SUPPOSEDLY talking to him in a derogatory way, and I was mad at Matt for being a butthead.

So then we put her in her bath and she was super happy and I thought, why not try the food now!? And it worked!It was a genius set up! She would get all messy and then I'd be able to immediately clean it up! And she slept longer than she ever has that night! Woo! We eventually moved this act downstairs and into her new Bumbo! I love it! I've been wanting one forever and Matt finally let me get one at Wal-Mart the other day! Woo! It's so funny! Bumbo pictures are the best!

Who knew you could get Henna tats at the SLC Farmer's Market?

After our first adult slumber party ever, we went with the Ivins to the Farmer's Market in Salt Lake. It was really cool. There were some really fun characters there. To which Matt gave this face...
Also, Jessica and I sprung for a little henna tattoo action. What's that you say? Isn't this my second henna tattoo in a month? Why, yes it is. I've reverted to my teenage ways.So I got into this lovely position for my ankle tattoo. What you can't see in this picture is the agonizing pain I'm in. My thigh started to cramp up immediately and I was too embarrassed to move. Oweeeeeeeee!So not only do I win the larger tattoo competition(on the right), but also the whitest leg - it was a close one though.Here's how Matt felt about the Hawaiian music playing in the background! There were some skilled singers.After the fun people-seeing adventure, we headed to a little pub for lunch where we got the worst service in Salt Lake City. Again, waiter, I'm sorry for thinking I could order water. I don't know what I was thinking. I should call my mom and tell her she did a horrible job raising me.By the end of the Ivins/Wisemans extravaganza we were all pooped, especially Livers. She got into her seat, grabbed tightly to Mr. Pug and was out for the whole ride back home to wonderful Utah Valley...

Here's what happens when Matt's in charge of dressing Alivia...

Thank you, Dad, for buying this jersey for Alivia. Who knew she'd actually be wearing it out in public, thanks to her daddy! Also, thank you, Andrea, for making the entire ensemble possible with the cutest frilly shorts ever!

Celebrating 2 beautiful years with our good friend, Jack

August 18th was our two year anniversary! Woo! We decided to go to the Jack Johnson concert to celebrate. We went with Matt's sister, Amy, and his brother, Ben, and his wife, Donnie, and some of her family and friends. It was really fun to hang out with everyone. Here's the happy couple that has made it through a whopping 2 years of marital bliss. We've become relationship experts...
Here's our awesome anniversary dinner. They claimed it was Papa John's, I claimed that it wasn't and that it was AT LEAST a week old.Jack was pretty amazing in concert. Here he is:
Okay, obviously we had lawn seats... The opening acts were pretty awesome, too. We took Livers because I didn't want to leave her for such a long time. She was pretty awesome the whole night. She fell asleep right before Jack came on - it was lovely. Here she is camouflaged under all of her little blankets and an OK! magazine postcard.Before the show, she demanded her own blanket...
She loves playing with us now and is starting to giggle! It's awesome.She also has a love-hate relationship with her Aunt Amy. Here's the love:
And here's the hate:At first we had her in her Rock Star outfit that she likes to refer to as her "concert outfit" or maybe just Matt and I do. Then we put her in this sweet outfit for night time.
We didn't end up getting home until like 1:00 in the morning thanks to the worst parking layout EVER in the history of amphitheaters and rude, crazy, drunk drivers. Here's Livers when we finally got home, poor baby.

A hilarious series of pictures...

So Alivia loves to watch us eat and has, on several occasions, lunged her whole body forward in hopes of getting at least a little of whatever we're eating in her mouth. She attempted this trick at our cool, new local hangout Hello Yogurt.

(Side note: this place has been opened about a week and we have been there at least 5 times. Someone actually recognized us as "regulars" which has been a long time dream for Matt and I - we were pretty excited to say the least.)

Here's Alivia longingly watching Matt try a sample of the raspberry flavor...

Un-freaking-believable...

I'm at a loss for words. Well not really since I'm venting in this post, but I am so upset! So I've been blogging my feelings towards women's gymnastics lately and this will be my last and final post regarding this subject matter. (There is a warning... if you have any feelings whatsover about China winning the gold then you are going to be furious.)

So I found out, yesterday, that THREE of these girls on China's team are younger than 14. You have to be 16 to compete!! I'm talking 12 and 13-year-olds competing! What!?!
I know what you're thinking, DUH!!!! I know it's obvious. I mean look at this picture! Some of these girls look younger than my little 11 almost 12-year-old brother, significantly younger!

Okay, so right now you should be excited and thinking that this is awesome news because now the U.S. obviously deserves the gold. Well the stupid International Olympic Committee isn't going to do anything about it! How appalling is that! NOT ONE THING. China has freaking brainwashed these people! If it were the U.S. that pulled this kind of shinannigan - heaven knows there would be serious repercussions! So why not with China?!

I also found out that the reporters are being censored to a certain extent. They aren't being allowed to access certain internet sites after the Chinese representatives promised they would. These reps have also been screening everything that has been going out. What the freak?? Why aren't we doing something about this!

So, people, HOW ARE WE GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THIS! I'm looking for answers. I'm thinking some sort of huge rebellion. Obviously petitions won't affect China, these people are beyond those. We need to fight fire with fire! There might be bloodshed, but I promise it will be worth it! Our team deserves the gold!

P.S. I was trying to find proof of these underaged girls and came across something interesting... so a random person was blogging about this back in July, here is the blog entry. They quoted a Chinese newspaper that was talking about one of the Chinese girls on their team and how awesome she'll be on the uneven bars at the Olympics.

So for the interesting part - this person quoted the actual article and it said that she is a 14-year-old newcomer. So I went to look at the article at the actual newspaper's website which you can see here. They changed it to 16-year-old newcomer, recently... what dirty tricks...

Pleasure and Pain

We will start with the pain...

Thursday started off pretty good with a visit to the doctor for Alivia's four month visit. We found out that she is quite advanced for a little baby and that she has graduated from the 45th percentile in length to the 55th- can I get a what what! She is now 24 1/2 inches, 14 lbs. 11 oz. (75th percentile), and has a respectable 75th percentile head.

As soon as the doctor's visit was over we gave Alivia some baby Tylenol and headed over to the Public Health Department for the dreaded vaccinations. As you can see from the blotchy red face of the baby and the pouty face of the mom, neither of them took it very well. The good news is that Alivia won't get any diseases- I think if she could just understand that point she would complain a lot less about getting the shots.

All's well that ends well- look how happy she is at the end of the day.

Now for the pleasure...

Friday was the long awaited and much anticipated trip to the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake. It started with a fantastic bird show hosted by some of the greatest showmen Utah has ever seen. There were dead mice being eaten, ginormous birds flying inches above our heads and a Golden Eagle which if it hadn't been shot 20 years ago and lost the ability to fly could have carried Alivia off to his nest (like the big bird in the Rescuers Down Under).

We then moved on to look at some of the birds from around the world. Here we have Alexis gazing longingly at her friends the flamingos. She just loves them.

This is my sister and I chanting U.S.A. and pumping our fists. You may not understand why until you look closely and see the magnificent Bald Eagles in the background. They are awesome to see up close.

What a tender moment shared between my sister and my wife feeding the captive aviators while all the while I was behind them singing feed the birds from Mary Poppins. Good times.

I saw this little kid feeding a duck out of his hand so I thought I would try to feed Daffy Duck here. It was the funniest feeling in the world- that little beak pecking at my hand- me and Daffy became quite close in those brief moments that we spent together.

Little Alivia had a great time at the Aviary-she was a bit drugged up the whole time but look how happy she is. I don't get to spend many mornings with her so I am always amazed at just how awesome she is. You will also notice that she and I have the same dimple on our left cheek. You might not actually notice that since I am not in the picture but you can just take my word for it.

Throw in many hours of watching the Olympics and it was an exciting couple of days.

Redemption for women's gymnastics...

...Yet I still feel a little empty inside. Matt and I have been sitting on our couch all night on pins and needles with our hands covering our eyes as we watched each tumbling pass in the last rotation.

So I'm finally over the fact that these little Chinese girls are nowhere NEAR the eligible age to compete, but tonight's competition brought on a whole new problem - CHEATING JUDGES! What in the world! How many bobbles did they freaking overlook while the little Chinese girls were on the beam? And how freaking harsh were they on little ShawnJohn (that's what Matt and I lovingly refer to Shawn Johnson as).

I was really hoping ShawnJohn would take the gold. She's just so cute and she seems so nice! She's always smiling and bouncing around, literally. Nastia is awesome, but she always looks furious, which you can clearly see in these two pictures... Okay obviously I carefully selected these two pics to prove my point, but still. Also, another point - Nastia wasn't even born in the U.S.!

Come on!

You're gold in our hearts Little ShawnJohn!
~ Your biggest fans, Matt & Alexis

P.S. Bela Karolyi is my favorite man ever, I love watching him give his enthusiastic thoughts on what's going on. The expert did coach the only person to ever get a 10 on the beam (Nadia Comanici is my hero). I also love how the Romanian coach has transformed into an avid U.S.A. fan.

P.P.S. Matt loves gymnastics now.

P.P.P.S. Matt and I kept wishing that the Chinese girls would stumble or fall, but then we'd quickly take it back thinking that their families would disown them or their coaches would revoke their eating privileges later that night or maybe forever.