black friday deals

This black Friday we got a great deal on a stove! It's pretty fabulous.

One of the things the Serafines like to do on their birthdays is hear their birth stories. Every year Matt requests his birth story, and it's always entertaining. It will forever be known that Matt was born during the NBA finals and his dad was rather interested in watching the game. So here's a Reader's Digest version of Graham's birth story. (Don't worry...I didn't leave out any of the really important details)

On the evening of the 18th, which was a Thursday, Matt had just left to do visits with the Elder's Quorum presidency. Right before he left I made sure he had his phone with him just in case. While he was gone, I cut some vinyl, did a few things around the house, and was watching Good Eats on the Food Network. The episode was about Pumpkin Pie. See? This is an important detail.

While I was watching the show, I felt a pretty strong contraction. Now I'd been having contractions since September which led to my 3-week bed rest in October. At first I thought this contraction was just another one of the same, but it kind of hurt a little more. I tried to stand up and ended up on my knees. The contraction went away, and I sat back in the chair to see what would happen next. 5 minutes later another one came, a little more painful, and a few seconds after it started I felt what I first thought was a really hard kick but once I felt that the contraction got really painful. The really hard kick was actually my water breaking. Once I discovered this, I called Matt. He rushed home, we grabbed the hospital bag, and were off. I was having contractions every 5 minutes on the way there, and they hurt. By the time we got to the hospital, it was about 9:15 or so. We checked into the OB triage and they got me all hooked up to the monitors and such. I was dilated to a 5. The first nurse we saw said it would be about 20 minutes before they got me upstairs and I could get an epidural. I come from a family of quick births, so waiting too long wasn't really an option, but 45 minutes later, were still weren't upstairs and were waiting for who knows what. One of the nurses we saw, though, was wearing a Christmas lab coat. It was clearly a Christmas one, because it had kids all over it making snowmen. Matt asked the nurse if she was excited for Christmas, and she replied that she couldn't even think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. She seemed to have no idea that she was wearing a Christmas coat. Oh well.

After much agony and bugging the nurses, they finally got the wheelchair to take me upstairs. By the time they got me to the elevator I felt like I was ready to push, and by the time I was upstairs, I couldn't help but to push. The nurses on the delivery floor were a little surprised at us coming up in such a state, and were getting things together rather quickly. No one was sure who the nurse was that was actually assigned to me, so one of the nurses started calling orders to the other nurses. I don't know how long the doctor was in the room before I got the okay to push, but the first time I saw him he was quickly putting on his mask with the splatter shield thing. A few pushes later and Graham was born. Fortunately, the entire labor and delivery was so quick that it was over before we knew it. Unfortunately, the entire labor and delivery was so quick that there was absolutely no time to even wonder where the anesthesiologist was.

Although doing the whole thing naturally wasn't really my plan, I'm glad I did and wouldn't have it any other way. Matt was a champ the entire time and may or may not have a broken hand from me squeezing it so hard. But seeing Graham for the first time was such an amazing experience. It makes all the time we spent trying for a successful pregnancy seem worth it.

We're so blessed to have Graham in our little family, and love every minute of having him here.

just because he's pretty cute...

Two Weeks of Graham

It's hard to believe that our little Graham is already two weeks old! Here are some of his stats from recent doctor's appointments...

4 day appointment

Weight: 6 lbs 2 ounces

Length: 18.5 inches

2 week appointment

Weight: 7 lbs 1 ounce

Length: 19.75 inches

We know all parents say this about their own kids, but Graham is the cutest little guy ever. We really love him and are so blessed to have him in our lives. Here are some pictures of Graham's first two weeks at home.

With my mom and dad...Grandma and Grandpa McKenzie

Ready for the BYU game in his giant BYU shirt.

Graham's first Thanksgiving. Because of my awesome timing at having Graham, my family was able to come the whole week of Thanksgiving. We loved having them.

My retirement gifts. I told Matt that when I'm done teaching I wanted a rainbow chip cake with rainbow chip frosting. He and my sister Hannah made me the cake, and I don't know if you can see it, but it says "happy retirement" in red frosting and "Stacy" in sprinkles. Pretty good. Matt would tell me that my retirement gift would be a gold watch. I wasn't too sure about a gold watch, but he had Hannah make me one and it's pretty cute. Thanks, Matt, I love the watch. : )

After a sponge bath, which he wasn't too sure about.

Getting ready to leave the hospital.

A few photos of Graham

Now that Matt has a two-week break from school, he's been finishing up a few projects that have been waiting for him. We had a crib that was dark brown, but the rest of our baby furniture is white so we went back to the Gripper and painted the crib. It turned out really well!

Here it is before...

Matt did all the painting...

And now it's white! It looks great!

We really haven't been up to much lately. Matt finished up finals and I'm back at work after a glorious 3 week bed rest. We did go to a hockey game, and we had some pretty good tickets. Some people in our ward have season tickets and let us use theirs last week. They were pretty good seats.

Our never-ending garden also keeps growing. I planted these watermelon plants in January, and they are just now growing. Who knows.

And we also have pumpkins. I planted them in the summer hoping they would be on in time for Halloween, but they are a few weeks late. Now we have a few good looking pumpkins.

What does your baby look like?

I don't know what your baby looks like, but this is what our baby looks like. He has a pretty cute face, don't you think?


And here he is in 3D. Don't mind the hands in the face. He wouldn't put them down.

And look, he even gives kisses. He also stuck out his tongue and opened his mouth wide so we could see his skills.