January Wrap-up

Hi 2 friends that read my blog and don't just look at the pictures! (We all know it's true) I'm an awful blogger, but whenever I look back on past posts, I still enjoy it. So here goes 'Start blogging more often' attempt #47. I'm noticing a trend on some other blogs I follow where they're doing quick monthly or weekly summaries. I think I'll give it a try, with a few pictures in the mix.

January seriously flew by. We're in 2012, what the wha?

#1: Started it off with a new years party at our place. Was it really a party? We talked, played half a game of cards, ate pizza, LARPed, lit sparklers, and the boys of course played some StarCraft. Pretty insane partying goes on at the Sheen's, trust me, I know.

#2: Absolutely loving my new job at Banner Ironwood in the Emergency Department. It literally takes me 4 minutes to get to work, it's less stressful than my last job, and the people I work with are pretty awesome! And the shift... It's from 3pm-11pm, 4 nights a week. I get Deacon in the morning, Mark gets him at night. Perfect for us!

#3: Celebrated our Anniversary! We've been married for 3 years! My mom babysat the Deac while we saw Sherlock Holmes 2 at the IPic Theatres, ate dinner at Grimaldi's pizza, and spent the night at a hotel in Scottsdale. It was a nice, relaxing evening. I'm not gonna get all mushy about our love or anything, I'll just say Mark is a pretty righteous husband! (Yep, Bringing that 80's term back)

#4: My brother Royce and his wife Sophia blessed their baby Alan Royce Wilkins IV. Baby Alan and Deacon are best friends/cousins, and only 5 weeks apart! Baby Alan was so cute on his blessing day.

#5: Went to see Joel cross the finish line at the PF Chang's Marathon. It was a lot of fun. Spent the day with friends at the event, then had lunch at PF Chang's to celebrate Joel's accomplishment. I'm pretty sure... no, almost positive I would die if I ran a marathon.

#6: Celebrated Jenny's birthday and Joel's birthday a few weeks later!

#7: My cousin Joni and her husband Travis were sealed in the Mesa Temple! My mom and I, and a lot of their family were able to go through the temple with them, then we had lunch at Olive Garden to celebrate.

#8: In Deacon news - the little guy rolls over now from tummy to back all the time and from back to tummy a couple of times. He notices Bokey now and loves it when Bokey gets near him so he can feel his fur and laugh at him. He knows how to hold objects much better, and passes them between both hands. He started eating rice cereal, took him some time to get used to it but now he loves it! Deac has been super happy lately, laughs and squeals all the time! I have a million pictures and videos, can't get enough of it!

#9: Mark is back in school, getting his Masters in IT through Harvard University Online. He's super busy with school and work, but he's doing awesome so far!

#10: Had a girls night with some friends at our house. Too bad not everyone could make it, but so great to see such awesome friends! Also, Deac got to spend some time with his best friend, Luke!

And that was January!

1 month old

Seriously, it's been over a month since my little dude was born! He's no longer a newborn. Deacon is changing and growing every day! He's 85th percentile for head circumference, 81st for height, and 30th for weight. Yep, he's our tall, big headed, skinny boy. I saw his first real smile on Sept 28th. He smiles occasionally and it melts my heart every time. He's been lifting his head for a few weeks, and he can hold it upright for a few seconds now and move it side to side. He makes eye contact with faces and objects. He gets pretty gassy sometimes and throws some crazy fits, poor guy. He has peed on his changing table and all over me, many, many times. His sleep at night is pretty random still, but we've had some good nights with 5-7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. His left foot twitches as he falls asleep. He loves to sleep on his daddy's chest. We're pretty sure he has a dairy sensitivity. I've been trying my best to avoid it, it's nearly impossible! Almost every food label has some sort of dairy byproduct in it. And have I mentioned how much I love dairy?! It's worth a happy baby though. A few times while I've been changing his diaper, I've watched him frantically grab at the air and he gets a hold of his own hair and screams soooo loud like someone's hurting him. I have to pry his little fingers away. It's a little sad, but mostly funny. He loves music, especially when his daddy sings to him. One of his favorite songs is The Imperial March (the dirty diaper song). He has the best sneeze ever. He does a sneeze, then the cutest sigh afterwards. We've been trying to catch it on video, which is not an easy task. I caught the end of one here...

Sorry to go on and on about him, but I want to be able to remember all these little things. Pretty much, he's the cutest kid and we couldn't love him more. He's super sweet, and he really brings so much love and joy into our home and our family. 

Here are a few outtakes from his 1 month photos.

My Labor Story...

So it's about time I share my not so normal labor story. :) I think it's pretty unique and funny. Here it goes...

Sept. 5th at 2:00am, I woke up to a pretty gnarly, painful contraction. In my mind I'm thinking, "This could be the real thing!" Not so much... For the next 20 hours I had contractions varying from every 5-10 minutes apart. When people say back labor is the worst, believe them... back labor is the WORST! So every 5-10 minutes my uterus would contract in the front with some cramping down low, and then it felt like hundreds of burning knives were stabbing my lower back. I kept waiting for them to get closer together, you know, the 5-1-1 rule? I tried sleeping while I was waiting. That didn't happen. Mark helped by rubbing my lower back, but it was still pretty awful. A few warm baths, a lot of exercise ball bouncing, and a lot of moaning took place in the next 20 hours. Finally, Sept. 6th at around 8:30pm I had a few contractions that were pretty bad and were ranging from between 3 and 5 minutes apart. That lasted about 30 minutes so I was ready to go to the hospital. 

Leaving for the hospital.

Assuming 20 hours of contractions had to have progressed me further than the 3 cm I was the week before, we checked in to OB Triage. They hooked me up to the monitor, and of course my contractions went back to about 6-7 minutes apart. :( They checked me and get this... I was still at 3 cm! I couldn't believe it. I was 90% effaced and at station 0. It could still be a while till I would be dilated more so they decided to send me home. But to help me get some sleep, they gave me 2 Ambien and told me to go directly to sleep when I get home because Ambien can give you some crazy hallucinations if you stay awake. We're driving the short 2 minute drive home, and as we turn onto our street, no joke, my water broke! Mark luckily covered the passenger seat with a garbage bag and towel earlier that day. He asked if I didn't just pee my pants, but when I got out and showed him he knew it was the real thing. I changed my clothes and went back to the hospital at around 10:00pm. As I was getting out of the car, I could hardly see anything or walk, I literally felt and looked like I was drunk. Almost everything from this point on is a blur. As we were checking in at the ER, the real contractions started. Man, were they terrible. I pretty much lost it. They got me a wheelchair and I was wailing around like a crazy person. Mark said it was quite a sight for everyone in the waiting room. I could hardly see, and my brain was hallucinating and going in a bunch of crazy directions. The next few hours I was tripping out and acting crazy. Mark has to tell this part of the story cause I literally don't remember most of it. (Ambien is crazy stuff). They hooked me up to the monitor, and checked me again. I was having crazy strong contractions and went from 3cm dilated to 6cm in about 15 minutes. One of those contractions lasted 3 and a half minutes, and the babies heart rate and oxygen dropped. All the nurses became frantic, threw some oxygen on me, gave me a shot of Terbutaline to calm down the contractions, and were yelling out to prep the OR. Mark tells me now how scary those few minutes were. Baby's heart rate got better and the room calmed down a bit. They quickly gave me the epidural and told me to sleep for a while. 

Thumbs up for Epidurals.

One hour later I was dilated to 9cm, 10 minutes later I was at 10cm. They woke me up and started explaining the pushing process. Ambien + Epidural = floating on a cloud... I felt pretty awesome, except I was being goofy and making dumb jokes and I couldn't really stay awake. I was falling asleep as Dr. Kingra was talking to me. I was even falling asleep between pushes! I pushed for about 45 minutes. 

About to start pushing.

Pretty sure I had just said something weird or a lame joke.

Towards the end the adrenaline luckily woke me up more, so that I could remember this part. They told me he was close and to give a really good push. The baby's head, shoulders and body all came out at once and they placed him on my chest. I was overcome with so many emotions as I looked down, saw my baby boy, and stroked his little cheek for the first time. 

They took him to the incubator, cleaned him up then handed him to his daddy. Seeing the look on Mark's face as he held him for the first time was incredible. While the doctor finished with the placenta and stitching, I got to hold my wide-eyed little boy again. Then he was passed around the room to Mark's mom and dad, my mom, and my 2 sisters. 

 I needed to hold him again, so they brought him to me. I laid there with my baby, surrounded by people that I love and was reminded by my mom that my dad was there with us. At that moment I felt it, I knew my dad was able to enjoy that moment with us and my baby gets to have his Grandpa protect him and watch over him from Heaven. Still when I think about that moment, I can picture what my dad would look like holding my brand new baby, the excitement and love on his face. Overall, it was a crazy experience, and one that I will cherish and remember forever. Deacon completes our family, the love and joy he has brought to mine and Mark's lives is incredible. 

Deacon Alexander Sheen - born at 2:37am on his due date September 7, 2011

Weighed 7 lb 5 oz, 20 inches long, light brown hair, skinny little legs, and big blue eyes.

Letters to Little Sheen 4

May 24, 2011
25 weeks. Just got back from a week long trip to New York and Boston! It was your first vacation, and I'm pretty sure you had a good time. Especially considering all the yummy food we ate on this trip! Mommy and daddy had a great time too, and you were a trooper, didn't cause any problems. I had some Braxton Hicks contractions from all the walking, but overall it was pretty good! We realized on this trip how often it is that strangers will comment on me being pregnant and will do extra nice things for me. For example, bathrooms are hard to find in New York City. There were a few times when I was waiting in line at a restaurant for the bathroom, and an employee came up to me and brought me to the empoyee bathroom so I didn't have to wait. Such nice people. (Little pregnancy bonus) :) More than half way done with the pregnancy!

June 15, 2011
28 weeks. You just keep getting bigger every day! I'm not too uncomfortable yet, itching/stretching skin, and annoying Braxton Hicks contractions, not too bad, but my belly is definitely growing. Also, my fingers don't really seem swollen, but my wedding ring is definitely getting too tight for comfort. So I bought a temporary fake ring so I don't have to worry about it getting stuck. I went to lunch with some friends last week and 3 out of 6 of us were pregnant. Seems like a lot of people are right now. One of my best friends Sara is pregnant with a little boy too! I can't wait for you and him to be best buddies and grow up together! 28 weeks is a pretty big milestone. If you were born at this point, your lungs are developed enough you would be able to survive with minimal medical help. Exciting for your daddy and me!

June 20, 2011
29 weeks. I got to see your cute chubby face today!! I had my 3D ultrasound done at the doctor. It was INCREDIBLE. Such an amazing feeling came over me as I watched you kick, move and smile on the screen. I really feel like I'm closer to you now, I can remember your cute little face when I think about you or talk about you. Can't wait till I see you outside of my tummy!

4D ultrasound pictures!

Here's a preview of baby boy Sheen!

It was so fun seeing him kick and move around! Ah, we can't wait till he's here!

Letters to Little Sheen 3

March 31, 2011
17 weeks. Pretty sure I felt you move today. Felt like a tiny little flutter in my lower stomach, unlike anything I've felt before.
April 7, 2011
18 weeks. Now I'm positive it's been you making those funny feelings in my tummy. I have felt it every day for the last week. Also, we had another ultrasound today! It was incredible seeing you in there all squished, moving your tiny arms and legs. The ultrasound tech measured all your body parts and organs, and you're growing right on track! It took a long time because she couldn't get a good view of your "area". So she had me go to the bathroom to relieve some of the pressure from my bladder. She let dad in on a little secret while I was in the bathroom and told him she was pretty sure you were a boy. I got back and sure enough, she found the cutest little boy parts. Daddy was holding my hand through the ultrasound and gave me a tight squeeze when she confirmed that you were a boy. We couldn't be more excited!!
May 9, 2011
23 weeks along. You kick and punch my belly constantly, and they're gettting stronger every week! Dad can feel and see your kicks now too. It really is an amazing feeling. I've been working on the nursery lately. I've painted the walls, bought a crib and dresser, started sanding the dresser today to paint it, bought a carseat, some crib bedding, and lots of cute clothes! I had an appointment today, and got to hear your heartbeat again. Another month and we get to see you again on the ultrasound! Every night I lay my hands on my belly and feel you squirm around inside. It's weird, but I feel like I'm getting to know you, I can feel that you're here with me. Your dad and I are anxiously awaiting your arrival, and we can't wait to hold you in our arms!

April 2011

The month of April completely flew by. I'm always a little relieved when May begins, no more confusion when people are talking about the date or month and I think they're saying my name. We had a pretty fun-filled last few weeks. I'll share some picture highlights.


Gary and Holly gave us this fun "Congratulations, you're having a boy" gift. I'm sorry if some of you think this is cute, I still think it's hilarious and a bit creepy.

Some friends were in town so a bunch of us got together.

Took senior pictures for these cute girls. (My sister and her friend Alison)

Our family dog Bella passed away unexpectedly. :( So we had a family dinner in remembrance of her. It was really sweet, we shared pictures and stories about her.



Mark and I have been doing a lot around the house lately; got the carpets cleaned, fixed broken things, had a yard sale, started painting the baby's room...



My little brother got married to a beautiful and sweet girl, Sophia. It was a lot of fun!

 My sisters and me.

And we've been spending time outside lately, enjoying the amazing weather and spring flowers.

April was pretty fantastic.