We did it!

So when I say we did it I mean we both walked at graduation. Alexis still has to finish a couple of classes online and I still have to turn in some paperwork. Let's not let that take away from the excitement, at commencement on Thursday Cecil O. Samuelson bestowed bachelor's degrees upon everyone who's name was in the program...that is me.






Now here is something you don't see everyday, four generations of women. I think this is so cool.












Here is the whole fam damily out for the occasion. What a crew.

Classic.

We had a pretty full day on Friday. We graduated at 8 a.m. and then we blessed our sweet little girl at 2. It was a little stressful, especially when nobody from the bishopric showed up and I had to call one of the counselors at home while he was doing yard work...good times. It all worked out in the end and it was an awesome experience.








Alivia's great-grandma Jordan made this amazing blessing dress. You can tell it has been a long day for Alivia. She was a trooper.











Uncle Ky caught this candid shot of Alivia deep in thought, contemplating her blessing she just received... She is the freakin cutest kid ever.











I guess Alivia wasn't the only one that was worn out at the end of the day.

Bringing home baby!

Here's Alivia's first picture after she was cleaned up in the nursery. I know, I know, she's the cutest baby you've ever seen... We like to think we did a good job!

Here is one of Matt's first moments with Alivia. Matt pretty much wins the best husband ever award. He stayed with Alivia from the time she came out until the time I finally got to see her. I may or may not have seen one too many Lifetime movies where babies are stolen from the hospital - so he was on strict orders to be at her side AT ALL TIMES!

And here's my mom with Alivia. I don't think I would have made it through the whole C-Section ordeal without her. She was there while I was recovering right after surgery. She stayed at the hospital overnight with us for the first two days - Best Mom Ever Award also goes out to Nance Pance. Also you can see this mohawk thing going on with Alivia's hair - the nurses claim it was a curl of some sort... Matt was just excited that they had matching faux hawks.

Okay so Alivia was freaking awesome the first night. She needed to be fed twice but then she slept for a five hour block! Then the second night came around - I think Matt and I got a total of three hours of sleep. So here's Matt the next morning. Both of them are recovering from a bit of a stressful night.

Here's a cute pic! I know you're not suppose to mess with pacifiers because of nipple confusion and what not but Alivia has zero problems with that. She happens to be the hardest sucker of all time - the lactation nurse actually laughed when she saw Alivia latch on. She had never seen a baby suck as hard as this little sucker...

Gotta have a little feet shot! Matt laughed so hard because she got my feet - there's a ginormous gap in between the first big toe and the rest. I'd like to thank my dad for passing that onto me and now poor Alivia must suffer. But it's great for flip flops!

Here's the little baby bin Alivia lived in for the first couple of days! She's so cute when she's sleeping...

And we finally came home, thank goodness. I don't like staying in the hospital - but we did have awesome nurses. As you can tell, last night was also a bit crazy, so Alivia and I caught up on some much needed sleep the second we got home.

We had to clean Alivia off today because she peed and pooped all over Matt while he was changing her (HILARIOUS) and then we put her in her first outfit ever. When I finished dressing her, I thought she looked so funny, but I couldn't stop laughing - which totally sucks with the incision. I have to do this weird creepy laugh so I don't die! She's so little - everything looks ginormous on her! It's so funny - also mittens are hilarious to me.

So Matt and I tried our hardest today to keep Alivia up so we get rid of this whole nocturnal way of life. She will not wake up for the life of me! I tried moving her around, tickling her, THE WORKS - she slept through it all. At this point I decided to sit her up to try to get her to budge but instead she just fell asleep on my hand - she's hilarious - unfortunately tonight will not be as funny!

The hospital

On Wednesday we got called up at 6:30 AM and they told us that we needed to be at the hospital at 7:30. As soon as we got to the hospital they had Alexis lay down and went ahead and gave her an IV. Her first one ever! Like half an hour later her OB/GYN came in and broke her water. It was really happening. We asked when she should get her epidural and he said she might as well do it right away because it would take a while to take effect. Not long after the epidural took effect, the contractions started and Alexis never even felt any pain.







Most of the day was spent just like this...me eating wheat thins, fruit roll ups and cookies, while Alexis just laid there all numb and puking up anything that touched her stomach (mainly blue gatorade). Good times.







After hours and hours of contractions and check after check by the nurses, things weren't progressing as well as we had hoped. Dilation was happening but the baby needed more oxygen so Alexis was forced to have this mask...she really liked it.







After a while we realized that Alexis was losing quite a bit of blood. The doctor and nurses thought that the placenta may be detaching and it became a race against time. To add to the problems the baby was posterior (not breech), so her head was facing up rather than down like it is supposed to. The doctor said that as long as Alexis was fully dilated that he could twist the baby around and deliver safely. Time kept passing and Alexis just wasn't dilating all the way on one side so the decision was made that we couldn't wait any longer...we had to have a C-section. I don't know if you can tell, but this is the most scared I have ever been in my life...





15 minutes after the decision was made we had our beautiful baby girl and Alexis was being stitched up. Alivia Maria Wiseman was born at 6:06 PM on April 9th. She was 7 lbs 2 oz. and 19 1/2 inches.

Bad Guys... and a baby update

I HATE being home alone. When Matt first started his job where he had to stay late and sometimes overnight, I use to not be able to even go upstairs because I was so scared! Why? Because of the bad guy pictured here - this is who I think is ALWAYS around the corner when I'm home alone. Every tiny sound that my house makes is a bad guy upstairs waiting to get me! I understand that it's out of control paranoia and I seriously need help!

Tonight a neighbor knocked on my door to borrow something and I couldn't reach the peep hole and so I was too scared to answer the door because of course, in little Orem, UT - on the other side of my door was a crazy killer and if I answered the door he'd barge his way in and kill me! Ahhh! (Yes, I still know I need help!) Anywho I finally answered the door and felt like a complete idiot... Help!


In other news...

Here's the latest pic of my belly - along with my lovely mother. This was almost two weeks ago and if you can believe it - I've gotten bigger! I honestly didn't think it was possible, but now I'm pretty sure that I'll be delivering quite the chub! Wish me luck!

Also, I went to the doctor's office again today! It was my last visit!!! Woo! There were a couple of events worth mentioning. First, it was the very first time I was able to pee in that dang little cup without getting it everywhere! Is that sad? I don't care - that is the most difficult task I've ever been given - and at my LAST appointment I finally nailed it! Woo! Second, I found out that I'm dilated to a 2 almost 3. BLEH! Two weeks and I only get to a freakin two! But he did say the cervix was thinning, so that's always fun. And then he had the nerve to tell me that if I were a 3 or 4 he'd induce me today! I didn't actually let him finish that sentence, fearing I might choke him. That's about it. Now we just wait for Sunday. And if she's not here by then - I'll be induced on the 9th!

Hooray for school!

It has been brought to my attention that it is my turn to post on the blog. Apparently we have a competition to see who gets the most comments on their posts. I lose every time as it turns out.

Well let it be known that I am no longer trying for dental school. I have decided to pursue an MBA instead. I will most likely be applying shortly to the Executive MBA program at Westminster College in Salt Lake. Hopefully college will in fact be the best 7 years of my life. Later on I plan on being the CEO of some major corporation...just wait.

In other news, still no baby. It looks like we are down to about 9 days and that little girl just doesn't want to come. We have tried driving on bumpy roads, lavender baths, spicy food, and everything else short of drinking castor oil (which we won't try because it can be dangerous). This baby is going to be strong-willed just like her mom...heaven help us all.

That is about all I have to say...let me know if you know of any other good places to earn an MBA while still working full-time to support a wife and baby.

The day the dentist won...

The Doc

vs.

The Dentist

Although I'm sure that the doctor and dentist always have the best of intentions (except for the weirdies), their appointments are always the most dreaded. But people usually don't hate both, it's one or the other. Matt, for example, hates the doctor. He refuses to see the doctor unless he's sliced his arm open and needs 13 stitches, which actually happened a week after he complained about having health insurance that he "doesn't need." I, however, have always hated the dentist. And now that he's my father-in-law, it makes for a very complicated situation!

Anywho, I've felt that I would always be able to count on hating the dentist and not the doctor; but today, the doctor's appointment took a tragic turn for the worse.

The good news: I'm dilated to a one! And the doctor decided to move my inducing date up a week because Alivia is measuring a little bit bigger, but it's probably more due to the fact that I kept begging him to induce me TODAY!

The bad news: how he obtained this information. Today was the first day that he started to check dilation - WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE! Although I kept a brave face - I was thinking, "If I can barely handle this, HOW THE FREAK AM I GOING TO HANDLE LABOR!"

Anywho, he also felt her head today. She's head down which is good, but she's not committed, she moved once he touched her - so now we need to start having pep talks with her -

COMMIT ALIVIA, COMMIT!

Why Leperchaun Day rocks...

This movie is the reason why St. Patrick's Day is so freakin cool! We're talkin Sean Connery in his 20s and singing! I have fond memories (and by memories I mean - I think this may have happened once when I was little) of my extended family on my mom's side getting together and having a big green party and all of the kids sitting down and watching this movie. So last year I made Matt go buy it with me (I intend on owning all old school Disney movies, this being the first of our collection) and now we watch it every St. Patty's day while wishing we both had Irish accents...

We're debating talking to Alivia only in a British accent just to mess with her. And then we're going to give her a little brother named Charlie and have him bite her finger... (If you are not getting this reference please youtube "Charlie bit me" and I promise you'll love my joke after that. P.S. Thank you Michelle, you made my life 10 times better with that post.)

I may have been a bit delirious... I blame the hormones (of course)

So one night I was extremely bored and I kept begging Matt to at least take me on a 10 minute drive. I was like a poor little puppy that had to get out of the house; but of course, he refused to take me anywhere. So then I got a little delirious and thought it would be fun to take some red lipstick that I found on our desk and draw on my face like a Lamanite. Then I went chasing after Matt to Lamanite him, but I can only waddle so I was at a serious disadvantage there.

Anywho, we started laying in bed and watching American Idol and Matt wiped the lipstick off of my face. But then I decided to draw on Alivia. (Do you see how badly I needed to get out?!?!) So Matt and I graffitied all over my stomach. So here's a look at our artistic abilities. It's very impressive.

Then we were trying to capture her moving on camera, but the little sucker would stop kicking right when Matt would start recording. So here's us laying on the bed constantly poking the poor child... and thankfully for me, she's as stubborn as I am... which is incredibly scary. Also I pose a good question in the video - and I'd really like someone to answer me! Pay attention...

So then we got smart and put the remote on top of my stomach. Even though Matt sucks at catching her on camera (you'll see him get reprimanded) we were finally able to catch her moving!

I'm a bird!

So I've been on this kick to clean out our entire house and finally finish the baby's room. Matt keeps calling me a little bird because of the whole nesting instinct. In the past week, I've thrown out 6 full trash bags of clothes and at least 20 boxes full of crap! Matt has been so awesome making numerous trips to the dumpster like three times everyday for the past week. Also, we've mastered getting rid of everything, if we haven't even seen it or thought of it in the last six months, there is no need to keep it. It was really hard at first, I hate letting things go - I'm totally a pack rat. But now Matt and I are freakin' pros - woo!

Anywho, here's Matt FINALLY painting Alivia's room. His goal was to be done by the end of February, which to me meant he'd be done by the end of March, so really he's WAY ahead of schedule! I was even allowed to help every now and then which was really exciting but I just ended up either spilling the paint on the floor, spilling the paint on myself, or I'd just get high with Alivia from the fumes...

No this isn't just a picture of Matt's crotch, these are the famous painting pants. There are holes EVERYWHERE. And now they have green paint everywhere. The best part was that Matt wasn't too cool to wear these outside of the house!

And here's the finished room! It's so cute! The green turned out perfect - it's so happy! We were scared of having the green either be too dark or turning out yellow green and looking like puke. It's so much better from the sick yellow that dominated this room before. I freaking love it! Now we just need to decorate! Go Matt! Woo!

So here I am in all of my glory at 36 weeks. My mom said I never take serious pictures so that is what I'm trying to accomplish here. I think I look VERY serious. Anywho you can see a couple things here: 1 - I'm trying to grow out my hair and it's taken everything in me not to just chop it all off - I'm proud of myself; and B - I have a new dedication to sweats. I refuse to wear real pants for the rest of my pregnancy. These pants are actually mine, but lately I've been sporting every pair of sweats that Matt owns!

And here is how I feel about being so huge... So it's 36 weeks and now the baby can come ANY TIME! At first this scared the crap out of me, but now I'm so ready for this kid to come out!!! I can't sleep at night EVER and I wake up at 2:54 every morning just to pee - which is never satisfying because it's only like a 3 second stream! I'm so excited at the same time, too. Yesterday I got so excited that I almost puked in the car! It was the funniest feeling! Matt's also WAY excited. He always goes up to her room and puts one of her outfits across his arms and pretends to be holding her! It's the cutest thing ever. Except I'm worried that he thinks that's all you do with babies...

Let the celebration begin!

There are a lot of things going on in this picture. You can see some of the decorations that I woke up at 4:30 to put up for Alexis' birthday. You can also see the sweet glider that my mom bought Alexis for her birthday...it's the only place she sits to watch TV now. Lastly, you can see me in the background preparing the beautiful birthday strawberry shortcake.







There were balloons of all colors...











Streamers...









And beautifully wrapped presents...as you can see no expense was spared.









Check out that cake. Even though I bought the angel food cake already prepared at Target, I feel pretty good about the masterpiece that I created. Look how excited she is, I think I can see the baby making that same face in there.







YOU CAN DO IT!!! She got all but one of the candles and then a gust of wind came and blew out the last one. Good enough for me, I say wish granted. Let them eat cake.

Valentine's Day and Alivia Countdown

For Valentine's Day I surprised Alexis by taking her out to dinner and then to a hotel near Salt Lake to spend a night together. We decided to take some pictures to document the experience...










Apparently we were brushing our teeth the whole time.








Do you remember when you were little and you would make paper chains to countdown to Christmas? That is exactly what is going on here. 50 days until Alivia!








Here it is in all its glory. WOO!

Her eggo is prego

This is a picture of what 32 weeks looks like. Look how happy she is. It is crazy to think that in less than two months there will be a little person living with us. We can't wait. We play music to Alivia all the time, she loves Boston and Journey and every now and then a little old school hip hop. I'm hoping that when she is freaking out we can just put on some of the tunes she likes and it will remind her of being in the womb and calm her down. Anyway it's the final countdown...I guess I should get her room painted.

The Dreaded Soul Patch Phase

So Matt's been bearded for the past couple months and finally got sick of it (thank goodness). So he went upstairs to shave the other day and he came back down looking like this...

At first, I thought it was a joke, because obviously all soul patches are jokes. But no. This thing has stayed around for several days now and I don't see it going away anytime soon... yay.

God Bless Us Everyone

A Little friendly home run derby with my brothers.











Here we are enjoying the sweet swinging memories of childhood.








Everyone was invited to the great feast, but Alexis was the only one who responded.








Here we have Mary and Joseph from the Wiseman Nativity Reenactment. We had a few camera problems, but more or less we have the whole thing on tape. We can show it to you sometime, it will be a real treat. My brother Luke had some choice scenes as the various innkeepers.








Most people looked pretty happy on that blessed Christmas morning. We had to get up at approximately 6 am, maybe even earlier. My nephews were told they could wake everyone up at 6:30...they're still working on the whole time telling thing.




My niece Gabrielle got this little play kennel that had a bunch of cats in it. Amy didn't have many presents this year so she adopted the lonely cats and gave them all names. I guess she is embracing her future as that weird old lady with all the cats.






We escaped for a little bit on Christmas day to the park. My mom had this picnic table dedicated to my brother Adam after he died so we had some friendly hiker taker our picture on the table.





Here is the 27 week picture. Alivia is moving pretty much all day every day now. She is going to be very active for sure. She always stops kicking when I touch the belly though, so I am hoping that will carry over into real life. Whenever I pick her up she is just going to fall asleep immediately.