My Beautiful Family

We have this amazing park that is literally right across the street from our house. It is a great place for the kids to play and a place for me to work on my photography skills. It might just be me but I can't believe how adorable my kids and my husband are. I'm so lucky to have my beautiful little family. Enjoy the pictures I sure am. (especially since I'm not in any of them one of the perks of being the photographer =)

Thats what little boys are made of...

So the nursery rhyme goes...

"What are little boys made, of made of...

What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

Thats what little boys are made of"

Well in the case of my little boy we need to add another ingredient to the list of what he is made of and that ingredient is DIRT

We Figured it out... well mostly

So after lots of doctors visits and even a trip to Phoenix Children's Hospital we finally figured out why Nellie got so sick. It isn't a normal occurrence for babies as young as Nellie to get a urinary tract infection or in Nellie's case a Kidney infection. My pediatrician was worried that there could be something more serious going on and that was causing her to get the infection and it turns out she was right.

We went to Phoenix Children's on Thursday last week to have a few tests done. One was an ultrasound to check to make sure her kidneys weren't damaged from the infection and the other was a VCUG to figure out what the heck was going on. The VCUG is a really cool procedure (it would have been so much more fun to watch if it wasn't my baby on the table) What they do is insert a catheter into her bladder and fill it up with contrast material. Then they take periodic x-rays to see how things are flowing in there. It turns out that Nellie has vesicourital reflux a condition where her urine backs up into her kidneys when it isn't supposed to. Fortunately it wasn't a severe case only being on one side and it was a level 2 out of 5 for severity. So our treatment is preventative antibiotics for 6months! Then they redo the VCUG to see if she has grown out of it yet. I'm so excited that the fix is so simple and easy just 3/4 of a teaspoon of medicine at bed time but I'm seriously worried about my baby being on antibiotics for 6 months. And if she ends up getting another kidney infection while she is on the medication they might have to do surgery. Yikes! Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Ok the bad news isn't over yet it gets worse... So I got the most terrible call from my doctor yesterday. She was taking a closer look at Nellie's x-rays from the vcug and she noticed something wrong with her hips. She apparently has pediatric hip dysplasia. My niece Emma is actually having surgery next Tuesday to correct the very same thing. I found out that is a genetic trait that runs in families in baby girls. I'm trying my hardest to look at this as a blessing. Since we had the test done for a different problem we were able to detect the hip problem early so she hopefully won't have to have surgery like Emma. We don't know the full extent of it yet we don't have our consult with the pediatric orthopedic surgeon until next Friday. Funny enough we are seeing the same doctor Emma is.

I'm sure everything will work its self out (at least thats what Steven tells me) but i'm sure your prayers wouldn't hurt. I'll keep you all updated as we see doctors and learn more.

At least she is still as cute as ever

Happy Baby Back

I am so happy to finally have my happy baby back! I feel like she has been missing for a whole week. The reason she's been missing is a stupid sick bug took her away from me and left me a grouchy moody baby instead of my sweet happy one.

It snuck into our house on Friday night giving Nellie fevers off and on all afternoon and into the night. Usually if it is just a cold or flu bug the fevers last a day or so and then go away. But this was a nasty mean bug and it kept giving her fevers all weekend so by sunday she was seriously sick and not to mention seriously grouchy. Well you would be too if this sick bug bit you. I even almost took her into urgent care on Sunday night. She made it till Monday and we got the first available appointment with the Pediatrition.

When we walked into the office the first thing everyone said was how pale Nellie's face was. This was a serious bug and you could tell by the way she was acting that she was miserable. The doctor and lab people poked and prodded her all day trying to figure out what was wrong with her and which sure didn't help. The doctor poked her to get a cath for some pee and the Lab people poked her twice to get her blood. But thankfully it was all worth it. She had a urinary tract infection bug a pretty bad one. Almost bad enough to take her to the hospital but thankfully not. She got a shot of antibiotics on monday and a perscription on tuesday. But her tummy didn't like the perscription so it was back to the doctor on Wednesday for another shot and another perscription. Finally today she had beat the bug back enough to start feeling better.

She is smiling and laughing and making happy faces again it is like I have my wonderful happy girl back and I'm so glad.

What a day, What a day

I don't understand why everything seems to happen all at once. Its like when you actually decide to make plans in advance on a certain weekend and then all of the sudden there are a ton of conflicts on that one weekend you decided to make plans on but the last 4 weekends in a row you were sitting at home on your butt watching re-runs because you had nothing better to do. This always seems to happen to me. So as a rule of thumb I usually try not to make plans but then I'm somehow disappointed when it was the 3rd weekend in a row I absolutely had to go rent a red box to keep from going mad. So now with that glorious introduction let me tell you about the day I've had today.

I don't know how I did it but I've gone about 7 years without having to speak in church. The last time I did I was 18. Steven has never heard me give a talk that's how long its been. So I guess after 7 years it was finally time and it was this Sunday we were supposed to speak. So Friday I start to feel sick. I am achy all over and have fevers on and off. I try to just shrug it off and I can't rest that much anyway since I'm a mom. Well I guess Nellie caught the bug from me and is super cranky with fevers too. Oh and did I mention that Steven and I are the new sunbeam teachers and we have no less than 10 sunbeams in our class. Its also that time of the month which just makes everything worse. Seriously Its bad enough having to give a talk but me and Nellie were both sick. I just wish things could be simple. I guess I will take giving one really difficult talk on a super scheduled day if I only have to do it once every 7 years. But I think my luck with that has run out. They are on to me now

A day of Fun!

I took the kids to the Phoenix Children's Museum today. Well actually my neighbor Kate took us. I guess she had a membership and some guest passes that were about to expire so she wanted us to use them. So it was me Jace and Nellie, Kate and her 2 kids Edgren and Gwen and My friend and Neighbor Callie and her baby Eden. Its funny since we've lived here I've made lots of Neighbor friends something I haven't really done before. But all of our baby girls are only about a month apart from each other.

I've never been there before so it was nice to get to explore new things and we will definitely be going back. They had a little play area for the kids 3 and under and we all had a lot of fun there. And of course we had to get a picture of the 3 girls all the same age. They are so adorable together

Gwen Nellie and Eden

Jace had a ball too with all the fun activities there were for kids to do he loved planting flowers for his mommy He was master chef in the kitchen area. At one point he had oven mitts on both his hands. He wanted to keep them on too. He ran to the next exhibit without taking them off it was super cute.

and of course the little boy loved playing in the race car

And after a long day of playing hard and having fun Jace found a nice place to take a nap with his baby. He loves his babies

A day of Firsts

Today was a big day of firsts for both my kids.

Today was Jace's first time going Potty in the acual potty chair. We have been trying unsucessfully for a few weeks now where he will sit on the potty for 2 seconds then get up and pee on the floor (or yesterday it was my bed). Or sometimes he would make a real effort only to go pee once he was in the bathtub. Today was the day I could feel it in my bones. I sat him down and took some warm water from the bath and poured it on his weiner and it WORKED! He peed. It scared him at first so he stopped really quickly but then with a little more warm water he peed again. It was so awesome after so long of trying to finally make some progress. He got a sucker for a reward and we called daddy to tell him all about it. I know it's only the first step but I'm so happy we finally made it.

Nellie's big first today was that she rolled over all by herself. I've been practicing with her for the last few days. I lay her down on her back and then pull her leg over just far enough so she still has to work to roll over and then let her go. After doing that a few times she was on her tummy and just rolled over onto her back. Just like that.. Like it was no problem at all. What a little pro.

And my first today was getting both kids down at exactly the same time so I had 2 1/2 whole hours to myself. It was amazing I got so much done. I was feeling ambitious and did the laundry and painted a wall in our bedroom. Now if only I could get them to do that every day....