Uncle Sam!!

No not the government uncle sam (although it is fun to say it that way) Jace and Nellie have an actual Uncle named Sam and they got to meet him this last weekend. Steven has 3 half brothers from his dad's first marriage and Sam is the youngest of the brothers. He was in town for training for a new job and I guess he heard our air mattress calling his name so he had to come stay. We had a lot of fun getting to know him. Jace especially, since Sam has a little boy himself he and Jace were best buds.

We all went swimming at Callie's condo

Hi Uncle Sam =)

Jace of course loves to be in the water he played long after we were all ready to get out. I swear that kid would be made of water if he could

This was nellie's first time actually getting in the water while swimming. We tried once before but it was too cold. I think she likes swimming...she looks pretty happy

Nellie also got to hang out with her buddy Eden. Such cute swimsuit models

Nellie's first time in the pool. I think my kids were supposed to be fish. They love the water.

Finally a Garden!

Saturday was Gardening time (kinda like hammer time but with more dirt and less gold pants) We have been working on our back yard ever since we moved in 6 months ago. Steven has been working so hard on it we moved a ton of rock, rototilled the whole thing (destroying our sprinkeler system in the process) Then fixing the sprinkelers, we planted trees and grass and now it was finally time to plant the garden. Steven got me some railroad ties to be a super cool border around my garden and we filled it up with dirt from my Mom's. We did about half plants and half seeds. We did Tomatoes, peppers, basil, parsley, corn, beans, pumpkin, cantaloupe and Im hoping to do sweet potatoes here soon too. I love having a garden it makes me feel so frugal and organic and the fresh veggies are awesome too.

Jace of course was the perfect little digger helper. I think we are going to get him a dirt box of his own so he won't dig up the plants. He LOVES to dig. He's a boy =) and I think we've already established that Boys love dirt
Nellie was helping too. She was trying to eat the dirt though so she spent most of the time in the stroller silly girl
I don't know why he thought that would be a good idea.

At least she doesn't have any teeth yet

I have the sweetest husband in the world. I mentioned to him that I wanted a flower garden so he made me one. And he bought me my favorite flowers to go in it. Lillies I even have 2 different kinds now. Thanks baby

I went out to check on my flower garden this morning and my lillies had opened up for the sun. They are so pretty I love my garden!

My big little helper

Lately Jace has been wanting to help me with everything. It is almost like he feels left out if I am doing something and not including him. I guess I should be happy about him helping me so much. It just is hard to be happy when everything takes 5 times longer when he is helping. He helps me sweep, unload the dishwasher and now even feeding his baby sister. He is such a big helper especially when it comes to Nellie. He just loves her so much and it is so cute to see him taking such good care of her.

Happy Birthday Jace

My sweet little boy turned 2 yesterday sigh... I can'tbelieve he is so big so fast. I feel like he is still my baby but he's not. He is a little man now. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday. We had a little party for him at the park by our house. I was trying to plan this elaborate party and go way over the top (you know me) but I didn't even get to do any of the things I planned and I think the party turned out better because of it. Two year olds do not have a very long attention span and me trying to wrangle them all in for a game would have been frustrating and lets face it futile. So instead we just played at the playground, ate hotdogs and my glorious cupcake pops then cake and presents. It was perfect. All the kids loved it and I think Jace did too.

This is the amazing awesome cake that Steven's Mom made (looks like something I would do=) she is so talented I was seriously impressed

Jace and daddy enjoying the cake. This was one of our days we could eat sugar (one of only 10 we get this year) I think I went a little overboard with the sugar. I felt seriously sick afterward. But it was just so good I couldn't resist

Jace's favorite part of the party was blowing out the candles. It was so windy that I think he only got to blow out one but he still had fun.

Jones got in trouble and was sent to timeout. I guess his brother and cousin wanted to make him feel better so they did a group timeout it was so cute

Nellie didn't need cake to have a good time. I can't believe she kept those sunglasses on. I think it was all the attention she was getting. Either that or she really is a girly girl that loves her accessories. I think its BOTH!

I love that tongue she always has it out. Me and my super cute little baby girl

Oh and Happy Birthday to Penny her Birthday is today

We Love you Penny!!!

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