Friday Five

Here are some of our favorite/most eventful happenings from our week:

1- Last Friday (pre-stitches), Lydia and I got to go hang out with one of the sweetest people in the world, Rebekah, and her little girls. Bekah just had her third beautiful little girl a couple of months ago - and we were so excited to meet little Norah. Lydia loved looking at the baby and really enjoyed playing with Adaliah and Zizzy. One of my favorite parts of the whole day (other than chatting and catching up with Bekah) was when Adaliah introduced Lydia to their pet dinosaur. They had Triceratops toy that was at least 2-3 feet tall and 4-5 feel long, and looked like a real baby dinosaur. Lydia was really interested and walked up to pet it when Adaliah turned it on. Immediately its closed eyes shot open and it started to roar. Lydia took one look at that thing and took off out of the room we were in, down the hall, and into a bedroom. It was so funny that I could keep from laughing as I followed her. It took her a while to warm up, but in the end she came up to pet his nose. We all had a nice time.

2- Saturday was a really nice day. It would have been absolutely fabulous if David hadn't had to work, but unfortunately he did. I wasn't super thrilled about spending Saturday morning at home alone - and the weather was decent so I hopped onto KSL, wrote down several addresses, and we headed out yardsale-ing. The first couple stops were a bust (in fact, I didn't even get out of the car), but then I found a couple of estate sale-types and really got into the swing of things. I've recently developed a love for all things dishware/glassware and was just keeping my eyes open for something fun. I found a darling little Christmas Morning 12 piece set with a large plate, small plate, and mug for hot chocolate, but I passed it over because 4 place settings didn't seem to be enough for our future little family - but part of me wishes I had just gotten it because it was so darling. I did end up with 8 gold chargers (the large decorative plates that go underneath a dinner plate) for $1 and I am SO excited. I made David go after-Christmas shopping with me to look for some charges just like that and I can't wait to set my pretty gold-rimmed china on them for a fancy meal. I also found a family that had a giant tub full of gently used children's shoes for $1 a pair and I picked up several pairs, some of which are too small for Lydia but looked practically brand new so I couldn't pass them up for future children. After David got home from work (and Lydia had taken her nap after a long morning of yard sales) we decided to head over to the farm. About a week after I got my individual pass to Thanksgiving Point, I realized that it was SO worth it and David needed one as well. He finally had time to come with us during the day so we bought a pass for him, and I'm so excited to get even more use out of it! It was just so nice to walk with him as we followed Lydia around all over the farm and as she showed him all of the animals that she loves.

3- Saturday night (I split this into two because I got so carried away talking about my garage sale finds that #2 started getting a little long) David helped make me crepes. I'd been craving some yummy crepes for weeks, and had even purchased all of the supplies - but every night I would be just so exhausted that I never ended up making them. I was so sad when I realized the last two strawberries and the last banana (that I had been saving for my crepes) had gone bad. David helped me make our pudding, went to the store with me to buy strawberries and bananas (and sour jelly beans) and then after we put Lydia to bed, he helped me make the crepes. I honestly wouldn't have made it happen without him, and I'm so glad that we did because they were delicious! Recipe HERE.

4- On Wednesday afternoon, I took Lydia in to get her stitches removed. Honestly, it was more traumatic to have the stitches removed than it was to get them put in! I was expecting some time to sit in the waiting room and let Lydia get used to being there. She had fallen asleep in the car and was a little groggy as we were walking into the building and as soon as she realized where we were she started crying hysterically. The lady at the desk looked worried and asked what was wrong/what had happened to her. She looked surprised when I told her we were just there to get some stitches removed. Lydia wasn't even 1/10th so upset when we first brought her in, bleeding eye and everything. She had me walk right in and head right back. They asked me a few questions, had me sign something giving permission for them to remove the stitches and then took me into a room. I was literally out of breath, everything had happened so fast. I felt like asking them if I could just have a minute to calm my crying baby. But everything was a whirlwind,  they didn't even tell me how everything was going to happen - a nurse just came in and instructed me to hold down her body while they removed the stitches and two seconds later she was on a table with someone holding her arms above her head to immobilize her, me basically laying on her body looking at her face, a bright light shining in her eye, and a lady pulling at her stitches. Needless to say, she was screaming and crying and it was terrible. Because it was so close to her eye her tears kept covering the stitches and the teeny tiny scissors that they were using the clip the stitches slipped a couple of times and cut her skin - I was so upset, even though I knew that I really shouldn't be. I guess I was just overwhelmed with how quickly everything was happening and I felt like they were going so fast that they weren't being careful with my sweet babys skin so close to her eye! Thankfully it only took a couple of minutes and then they told us we were done and we could go. I sat in the room just holding Lydia for a little while, even though all of the nurses cleared out in the first ten seconds. I felt so terrible for not preparing her more - we had been talking about going to the doctor to get our stitches out ("Doctor? Stitches? Eye?" as Lydia would say), but I had planned to have more time to say "Lydia, this is your doctor... he/she is going to take out your stitches okay? We are going to hold you down, but it will only take a minute". It all worked out in the end I guess, it was just much harder on her and ME  than I expected it to be (definitely more stressful than the first time around). One of the cutest things though is that as she was crying, I was right above her face telling her that I loved her and trying to talk to her. Through her sobs, she cried "Animals?"and I said "You want to go to see the animals? Okay! We'll go as soon as we are done at the doctor's and she finishes taking out your stitches. I promise we'll go see the animals" and then again through her tears she said "Okaayyyyyy." It was so sweet and she actually calmed down for a half second as she thought about the animals. It's true that she loves those horses, cows, and goats!

5-Would you expect anything less than an update on our March Madness brackets for our #5 today? I finally buckled down and got our 2014 poster made, so we can follow along with the NCAA tournament. We've enjoyed watching basketball games together (even if David and I have differing opinions on which teams you should cheer for, regardless of who is on your bracket) and are looking forward to another weekend filled with yummy food and basketball games. David is picking me up some Costa Vida on his way home from work today, and then he is going to get some Carls Jr for his dinner. Then a fun evening filled with cheering on our "favorite" teams.

Also, after last night - David is killing me in points and I am grumpy about it.

Details - Baby #2

First of all, we are thrilled to finally have shared the news of our new little baby, set to arrive in September. There has been an unexpected outpouring of love and support from friends and family alike, and we feel so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people.

Several people have mentioned that they can't wait for more details to appear on the blog - and I am one of them! At Melissa's wedding, my Aunt Kim and I were talking and she mentioned that she was excited for the wedding to be over so that I would have time to start blogging again because she'd noticed my blogging absence. We laughed, and then I told her that the real reason for my blogging slump (okay, in addition to the wedding) was that we were expecting a baby and that it's hard to write about things when you can't include the thing that is the very most important/special! (My sweet aunt was so excited for our news that she started to cry, just another example of the amazing people that we have been blessed with in our lives.) It's so exciting to be able to share this news with everyone and I'm excited to be "public" with our news and be able to start sharing the little details of our lives again. However, this post has turned into something that may have more "details" than some might have bargained for. You have been warned.

I do want to add, many of you know that we've been wanting to add a new baby to our family for quite a while. We've experienced so much love and support through the past year and we are grateful to be sharing our joy with you now. I have several friends who are battling infertility, and I want you to know that my heart goes out to you and my prayers are with you. As excited as I am for our family, my heart aches for you and wishes the same thing for your future.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a really personal and emotional post about the thoughts and feelings that David and I have experienced over the past year as we struggled with the difficulty of wanting to add another baby to our family. It took us a while to get pregnant with Lydia (including a miscarriage before her successful pregnancy), I don't know why - but I wasn't expecting it to take as long the second time around. I figured that my body had figured pregnancy out and it would do just fine. I didn't originally mean for the post to be so packed full of emotion, I just wanted to include a post for journaling purposes about the fact that we'd been trying for a baby for about ten months and our feelings about not being pregnant still- but as I started writing it all just poured out. After I published it and people started reading, I realized that the emotion was more raw and personal than I intended and I wasn't prepared to actually have people read it. (Those of you who did read it, I'm eternally grateful for the love and support that you showed.) I ended up un-publishing it, then re-published it earlier this week. Looking back, I don't know exactly what prompted me to write the post - I mean we'd gone ten months without me feeling the urge to write down all of my feelings. It may have been super crazy hormones, or it may have been something else - but I'm so glad that I did. I wrote about buying a pregnancy test at the store that week - and how originally it had been purchased out of fear (fear of not being pregnant again and not knowing until I started my period) but how it had given me hope that soon we would be pregnant. Just over a week later - I used that pregnancy test and found out that we were in fact pregnant.

I can't express enough how stunned and excited we were. I had been feeling all sorts of crazy emotions the week leading up to my expected period, and even after I was later than I expected - we didn't get our hopes up (TMI, but I've never been very regular which added to the frustration of trying to get pregnant). I didn't want to take the test too early and have it be negative and then have to take another test. (I thought that might do me in.) Finally, one morning I woke up and I knew that I couldn't go another day without knowing one way or the other. I declared to David (remember, I was feeling all sorts of crazy emotions - and "declaring" seemed appropriate) that I was going to take the test and that he better be ready for the results. He and Lydia waited for me outside of the bathroom and when I came out I was so nervous that my hands were shaking. The test almost immediately showed positive.  I think the pregnant line showed up before the other line. I was so excited, but also a little surprised. David was cautious because the instructions say that you are supposed to wait for a certain amount of time before reading the results, but after several minutes - they still showed the same thing: Pregnant!

We were so excited all day, and celebrated that night by going out and buying the biggest pizza we could find! (We actually had a "Restaurant.com" gift certificate to Big Daddy's Pizza so we drove all the way to West Valley to use it. Because we were driving out there, we called and ordered ahead and decided to splurge and get one of their deals. We didn't realize the pizza would be SO huge, I mean - how big is 18" anyway? It was totally worth it and SO delicious.)

My mom came to visit the next weekend and basically asked me point blank if I was pregnant. I hadn't prepared a response - and even if I had thought about it I probably would have decided that I didn't want to lie to her, she's been such a huge support to me this year - so I spluttered out that yes, we were pregnant and she was SO excited. We facetimed with my Dad and little brother Jacob (because he happened to be home) later that night, and then went to David's parents house to tell them in person. Everyone was so happy and excited for us. We slowly started telling all of our family members, and then gave my mom the okay to tell whoever she wanted (she was dying to talk to the people that she works with, and wanted to be able to tell people at the wedding). I have mixed feelings on "keeping it a secret" for so long. On one hand - it's crazy to have such a huge thing be happening in your life and have no one know about it. On the other hand - having everyone know so early makes being pregnant for the whole 40 weeks seem to drag on. We talked about a lot of things, but finally decided to start telling people if it came up but wait to post on Facebook until we went to our first real appointment.

People have been asking me how I've been feeling - and honestly, I feel awesome. Just a tiny bit of nausea when I wake up in the morning, but other than that and being more tired than usual - I really feel great. So great that there was a little part of me that was worried that I would go in for my appointment and they would tell me that I wasn't really pregnant. I mean, I still get pretty queasy occasionally... It's just so different than either of the other first-trimesters that I've gone through. Everyone keeps telling me that it means that this baby is a boy, because boys don't make you as sick as girls do... but I don't know if it's that or if it's just that I have such a different lifestyle right now than I did before. Waking up at six in the a.m. and then teaching high school all day is much more taxing than sleeping in until eight and being able to set my own pace for the day. Even then, if I could sleep past 8 on weekend and such - I felt much better all day. It's almost like if I can sleep past a certain trigger-time it reduces my nausea drastically. Similarly, on mornings that I have to get up and get going super early and have to be high energy all day - I feel much more sick all day.

We had some issues with our insurance (which is way too long to write about in this post), but long story short: We just started with a new insurance company in January because of the HBM/Eide Bailly merger. We thought that my doctor (who I absolutely adore) wasn't covered, and after weeks of careful research and many many many phone calls, we finally got the assurance that she was, in fact, covered... hopefully. So I joyfully called to make my appointment with the wonderful Dr. Cloward, only to be told that she was completely full for September babies. I'll be honest - I started crying on the phone right then and there. The poor receptionist. She had no idea that I'd been on the phone for the past three weeks with her billing department and my insurance to get the whole mess worked out, never thinking that I should just make an appointment to reserve my September baby a spot. She told me that all of their doctors were fabulous (which they are - Dr. Jones delivered Lydia and he was great) and to get online and do some research and that she could schedule me with one of them. But I just love Dr. Cloward. I love that she's female. I love that she's so kind and personable. I love that I feel like she knows me when I come to her office. I love that she never makes me feel dumb and always makes me feel informed and prepared. I love that she was the first doctor that I'd ever been to that didn't make me cry before the appointment was through. I just wanted her!  I hung up in tears and them immediately called back to see if I could get on a waiting list for her. The receptionist that answered said that the girl that I had previously talked to had just headed back to talk to Dr. Cloward's nurse to see if there was any way to squeeze me in. She got on the phone and said that Deanne (who is the nurse who helped me through my miscarriage week after week, calling to check up on me and make sure that I was doing okay) was going to talk to Dr. Cloward and call me back the next day. Which made me cry again. Deanne called the following day saying that they couldn't let me go to another doctor and that they would do some shuffling and squeeze me in. This is just another reason why I love this doctor and their whole office SO much. I honestly do not feel like a number - but a person that they care about and are invested in. I'm so grateful that they were willing to fit me in and that everything worked out with our insurance to be able to continue working with the Legacy OB and Dr. Tennille Cloward.

When I was pregnant with Lydia, all they did at the first appointment is talk to you and then let you listen to the babies heartbeat. David is still in one of his busiest times of the year, so even though I knew that he'd want to come - I took whatever appointment that they had available. (Also, remember - they were squeezing me in so I wasn't about to be difficult with my appointment times!) Now I especially wish that David had been able to come, because in the last little while - they've started to do ultrasounds at that first appointment to measure and make sure everything is progressing well. I didn't find out until we were actually at the appointment. Lydia had done great in the waiting room, but the second we walked back into the actual doctor area/rooms she lost it. She was really upset. I thought that I had prepared her by telling her that we were going to the doctor, but that it was for mommy and not for her, but apparently she hadn't internalized that at all. When the nurse came in to take my blood pressure she started crying and holding on to me as tight as she could. She didn't like the nurse touching me, or talking to me, or really... being in the same room as me. After the nurse left - Lydia calmed down but I was really concerned about how she would handle the ultrasound and what we were going to do. I gave her an orange and told her that she was going to sit on the chair while mommy sat on the table, but she wasn't having any of it. Finally, I pulled her up on the table with me and held her until she calmed down and just hoped for the best. When Dr. Cloward came in, she was so kind. She talked to Lydia and got her to smile. She let her pick a sticker, and then let me hold her on my lap while we talked. When it was time for the ultrasound, she encouraged me to keep Lydia with me so I pulled her up by my side while I laid down and put my arm around her. She started to tear up when Dr. Cloward pulled out the ultrasound, but as soon as the monitor turned on and we started looking for our baby - Lydia calmed right down. As the baby came on the screen Lydia was absolutely entranced. She didn't make a peep for the rest of the time, only once to say "baby" after I asked if she could see the baby. It was amazing and I wish I could express the feelings that I had as I watched my first baby "meet" my second baby - because sure enough there was a perfect, tiny, little baby on the screen. I hadn't expected the ultrasound to show such a.. baby. I've never had an ultrasound at 12 weeks before, only at 8 weeks with Lydia (to make sure that things were developing at our very first appointment - a precaution they took because I had just miscarried) and then the ultrasound at 20 weeks. At 8 weeks, all that there was was basically a blob, a little gummy bear. Then at 20 weeks there was a giant baby. But this 12 week appointment, it was incredible. You could see so clearly this tiny baby with arms and legs, fingers and a nose, and you knew that it was only 2-3 inches long! As I mentioned above, I've been feeling so good that sometimes I forget that I'm even pregnant - and I was concerned that they were going to tell me that I wasn't. But seeing this baby, I felt an instant connection that I hadn't felt/allowed myself to feel yet. You could see the baby wiggling around as she swiped the wand from one side to the other. The technology is so miraculous, and the miracle of this tiny baby was so overwhelming. And on top of that, my Lydia could feel the special feeling that was so abundant in the room and she was engaged in the whole process. It was so sweet and special and I hope that I never forget.

You can't see the arms and legs in this picture, because she was trying to get a profile shot - but throughout the ultrasound this little baby kept kicking it's legs and bringing it's hands up by it's head. It was amazing to watch such a tiny perfect thing moving around.

After we left the doctor, and for the next week - Lydia kept talking about the doctor over and over again. She would ask me about the doctor, tell me that the doctor was nice, and then say "baby?" It was so sweet. (Since then we've been to multiple doctors for the stitches by her eye - and we've lost some of the magic about our doctors visit where we saw our baby - but she still will sometimes talk about the doctor and her baby.) 

This post has gotten a lot longer than I originally intended, but it's nice to have so many of the things that we've been feeling and going through written down in one place.

 And now, to finish off this post with some Baby #2 FAQ's! 

(I know that this is really what you all came here to read...) 

How far along? 13 weeks (and two days)

Food cravings/aversions? I've been totally craving weird things like hamburgers and hotdogs. Mmmm. Hot dogs. (My doctor gave me the go-ahead to eat hot dogs as long as I cooked them until they were steaming. I've been microwaving the guts out of my hotdogs and enjoying each and every one.) I've also eaten spaghetti-o's like 5 out of the last 8 days. They seem to settle my stomach more than anything else - so I eat them at like ten in the morning. Breakfast of champions, I say. During the olympics, McDonalds kept showing this delicious looking chocolate covered strawberry shake that I wanted SO bad, but it turns out that it's a McCafe thing and appears to have coffee in it or something. Lame. I went through an entire bag of chocolate covered jelly beans (and helped finish off a bag of sour jelly beans) in less than three days. I don't remember having so many food cravings with Lydia - pretty much everything just sounded terrible. The only things that I've really had an aversion to is chicken. I haven't been able to handle eating any chicken in large quantities (which is hard for a girl whose dinner rotation centers around chicken). But we've had a lot of meatless meals, hamburger based meals, and chicken meals where I can pick out the chicken pieces and just eat the rest of it. I am very proud of myself though, because there have only been a couple of nights that I haven't fixed a nice, full dinner. The first time around I basically didn't cook dinner for an entire three months (which again, I think can be credited to the fact that I'm not working full time and so I have much more energy). 

Hoping for a boy or girl? Obviously, we'll be happy either way - but I would be lying if I didn't admit that we are all kind of hoping for another baby girl. I'm just so close to my sisters and I love having the three of us in a row. I would really love that relationship for Lydia. And, if you ask Lydia if she wants a little brother or sister she'll reply with "sis-ter". (Which is really cute, but I think it's mostly because Carson calls Elsie "sister" all the time, and she doesn't ever really hear the term "brother".) However, my Grandma and Grandpa Knowles have 8 great-granddaughters and they are hoping that they will finally get a grandson to break the trend. 

Thank you again for all of your love and support! We are so thrilled and already can't wait to hold this little babe in our arms. 

A special announcement.

We've been hoping and praying for this and are so glad to share our happy news with you! 

Baby #2 is on the way! Due September 27th. 

We are absolutely thrilled. 

Adventures of the Head Wounds

Last night we had quite the adventure. David had just gotten home from work and Lydia was so excited. (It is easily her very favorite part of the day.) We had spent several minutes playing- David was holding Lydia and I was "chasing" them both around the kitchen, then tickling them when I got them. Then Lydia and David started playing chase while I started making our dinner (Creamy Ranch Pizza). They calmed down a little bit, and David came over to help me with the bacon. (If he's home, he's the official bacon-cooker here.) Lydia was still really excited and happy and after David flipped the bacon, he went after her while she ran into the front room. Seconds later we both heard a crash and Lydia start crying, she had slipped and hit her head/face on the piano bench in the living room. David picked her up and brought her back into the family room, and I walked over to make sure that everything was okay. She looked fine and was already starting to calm down so I headed back to stretching out my pizza dough. As they came into the kitchen I looked over at them again, and David and I both noticed at the same time that there was a little bit of blood by her eye. I eloquently exclaimed "Is that blood???" Immediately the situation elevated from "Poor girl, bumped her head again. Well.. she'll be fine." to "I think that we need to go to the Emergency Room."

{No pictures were taken at this stage of our adventure. Which is really a shame.}

But let's backtrack just a tiny bit. Last Wednesday we had another adventure that almost ended in the ER. We were (again) making dinner. My sweet sister Jenna was staying with us until Melissa's wedding, and she had just gone upstairs to put Camille to bed. Lydia got a little impatient and tried to climb into her highchair and somehow pulled it over on herself. David and I were both there within seconds pulling the chair off of her and picking her up. We didn't notice the blood on her forehead until Lydia reached for me and we transferred her from David's arms to mine. Then he saw the blood and grabbed something to try to staunch the flow of blood - because man, oh, man that thing was bleeding. We both know that head wounds bleed so we tried not to panic. Lydia was not happy with the paper towel being held to her forehead so we ended up just getting a bandaid and sticking it on top, hoping that it would stop the blood enough to actually inspect the wound. It stopped bleeding and we started cleaning her up a little bit, then realized that we really should take a picture. So here she is - taking one of the bloody paper towels to the garbage can and then showing us her banana.

 We popped her in the sink for a quick bath (due to Camille being put to bed upstairs) and she played like a happy girl while we cleaned all the blood off of her. After we pulled off the bandaid to look closer at the cut we decided that it was probably close - but that we didn't need to go get stitches. It was pretty clean, just under a quarter inch long, and not as deep as we originally thought.

We just stuck another little hexagonal bandaid over the cut while pushing the two edges together and hoped for the best. Let me remind you that we were three days away from Melissa's wedding - but it healed up enough to just be a little scab for the pictures. (We debated putting a bandaid over it for the pictures in order to blend better, but we thought it would stand out more.)

It ended up healing nicely and we patted ourselves on the back for making the right decision under so much pressure. (I should note - some people might think that we should have taken her in for stitches for this cut, and that's just fine. We used our best judgement and tried to pick the very best thing for Lydia. We really do feel like it was the right choice not to take her to the ER for this cut.)

Fast forward to Friday night, ten days later. We have another head wound that we are dealing with. As I said before, as soon as we realized that it was bleeding and we got in close to look at it - we knew that we needed to get it checked out. It didn't bleed very badly, and she calmed down pretty quickly - but it was so close to the eye that we didn't want it to scar or to cause further damage to her eye (or bleed into her eye during the night, because how do you put a bandaid on that?).

I'll be honest - the first time that I looked closely at the cut I thought that it sliced all the way into the eyelid and I was really scared that some serious damage had been done. Then when I realized that it was just a small cut (probably smaller than the one from last Wednesday) I had a brief moment of relief and thinking that maybe we wouldn't have to get stitches after all. But I heard my mom's voice in the back of my head telling me that "you just don't mess with eyes". And I agreed with David that we really did need to take her in. Our pediatrician has "after hours" at the Pleasant Grove office, so we called them to let them know that we were coming, pulled Lydia's darling dress over her head and switched it out for a jacket, strapped her in the car and we were on our way.  I sat in the back to "comfort" Lydia which ended up as me holding her hands away from her eye when she wanted to rub it (which she hated and made her cry more than the actual cut).

We headed into the office, and had to wait a while because we've switched insurance since our last well check and last minute we realized that we hadn't checked to make sure that our pediatrician was still covered. (And we've had some issues with our insurance since the switch, so we especially didn't want to end up footing the whole bill instead of the co-pay.) But after a few minutes of double-checking we were good to go and they got us back. Lydia doesn't particularly like the doctors (read: she hates it), and started some intense crying as we walked back to our room. Luckily we had a good nurse who was really kind, even when she was using some gauze to clean out the wound so she could see it better. She sent the doctor in to look things over, and the doctor told us that she definitely would recommend getting stitches - but that the cut was too close to the eye for them to feel comfortable doing there and that she recommended heading to the ER. We knew that this was a possibility, because the office policy is that they don't stitch anything inside of the eye socket - but we thought that it was worth making the stop at the pediatrician instead of heading straight to the ER. I'm really glad that we went, because part of me was still kind of hoping that they would just give us a special bandaid and tell us that it would heal on it's own. It was good to hear from an experienced doctor that stitches were definitely the way to go. (I kind of feel like the ER would stitch you no matter whether you really needed it or not just because you felt it was bad enough to come to the hospital but the pediatrician would be more willing to tell you if it didn't need stitches.) They didn't charge us a co-pay, but said that they would consider it a "pre-triage" and send us to the hospital. (I later had to look up what triage meant. Google says: Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. Which makes total sense.)

So we headed to the hospital, which is where the above picture was taken, stopping only for a quick prayer in the parking lot that everything would go well. The people there were really fabulous, even though they seemed busy they were all very friendly and very willing to help make us feel comfortable and taken care of. (Shout out to the American Fork Hospital. We've always had a great experience with them.) Honestly, the most traumatic part of the entire experience was during the triage process at the hospital when the nurse weighed her and then attached a blood oxygen level monitor to Lydia's big toe. Lydia screamed like someone was cutting off her leg. Or like we had let a snake bite her and it was hanging on with it's fangs. Seriously. It was intense. But we survived and they moved us back to a bed in the actual ER. At this point I was the most nervous that I'd been all night because I knew that the stitches were coming and that it wasn't going to be happy (and the fact that it the ER looked just like something out of a trauma scene in a movie). But the people that we worked with were fabulous and totally set us at ease. They gave us the option to sedate Lydia, use a LET numbing solution that would take almost an hour to fully kick in, or use a local anesthetic administered by a needle. We decided that just getting everything over with faster with the local anesthetic would be the best bet - and again, I feel like we made a great decision. It was definitely the best option for us.

They got out a little backboard with wraps/straps, similar to what they would use for a broken back for transport, and explained to us the whole process. Then we laid Lydia down on the board and they strapped her in. I think that being strapped to the board was worse than the actual stitches, but David and I stood by her the whole time and talked to her about whatever came into our heads. We talked about the farm animals, and facetime-ing with grandpa, and about how much we loved her. At one point David said something about this experience definitely making the blog, to which we both laughed at because pretty much everything that Lydia does makes the blog - and this was definitely a much bigger event and definitely deserved a blog post. But, I guess her first head injury was just going to be added into her 23 month post - so maybe that was what she was looking for after all. The doctor worked fast and was done in just a few short minutes. Three little stitches next to her eye and she was all done. (We'll go back on Wednesday to have the stitches removed.) They gave us instructions, ointment for the stitches, and then we checked out. I've had some issues with our insurance, but our ER co-pay was only $50, and I feel really great about that.

I know that this sounds really silly, but overall, our first ER experience was really successful. Lydia was really content to let us hold her the whole time and really wasn't upset (other than the monitor on her toe and the actual strapped to a board/stitches part) at all. I feel like we made all the right decisions, and that now we have even more parental experience to draw from for the future. We picked up some dinner on the way home, as our pizzas were long forgotten. I got some Panda Express that I shared with Lydia in the backseat on the way home, and David got some Arby's. (I have to add: We obviously didn't grab any coupons on the way out the door, because food was the last thing on our mind - but David totally gave them his sob story that he didn't have coupons because we had just gotten out of the ER with his little girl and could they please give him the coupon deal anyway. They totally did. It was really awesome.) We changed Lydia into her pajamas and she fell asleep in her bed almost immediately, sweet girl. She slept soundly all night, and didn't wake up until eight when I went in to check on her because she never sleeps past eight and I was worried.

All day today she has been talking about "the doctor". She told both sets of grandparents about the whole thing, and talked to me about it at least once every hour or so. The conversations all went something like this-
L: Doctor?
Me: Did we go to the doctor yesterday?
L: Yeah.
Me: Were the doctors nice?
L: Doctor, nice. My toe!
Me: Did they put a monitor on your toe?
L: Yeah, my toe.
Me: Did they help fix your eye? Did they make your eye feel better?
L: My eye! Doctor, nice. My toe.

Haha. Even just thinking about it makes me laugh. The toe thing was seriously traumatic.

I'm also happy to report that she seemed happy and just like herself today. Her eye barely bothered her at all. The swelling and bruising actually went down, which we were concerned would get worse overnight. It looks a little sad, but other than that - she's handling it really well. At least until bedtime when she got really upset and kept escalating her emotions until she was completely inconsolable. I think her eye hurt, and she didn't want to lay down, and she just wanted to go downstairs. But David and I took turns holding, bouncing, and rocking to her while David sang her primary songs and she finally calmed down enough to put her in her bed. She cried as we were leaving the room but fell asleep within 15 minutes and is now sleeping soundly. Poor sweet girl. We love her so much, and we are just grateful to Heavenly Father that the cut wasn't worse, and that the experience was so positive. We are so lucky to have Lydia and we love her adventurous spirit, although, hopefully now she got the whole going to the emergency room thing out of her system and we can avoid any more ER adventures.

Friday

1. Melissa and Blake's wedding was this last weekend. (I am working on a post for that.) I was lucky enough to be able to help them with many of the details of the day, and I loved every second of it. I honestly never felt stressed leading up to the wedding, just busy helping to get everything ready. However, it took me almost three days to recover completely from Saturday. (Seriously, Sunday - David and I could barely move and I basically wanted to sleep the whole day.) When I finally got some energy back, I looked around the house and realized all of the things that had been neglected in the past several weeks (loads and loads of laundry, overdue library books, empty soap dispensers, running dangerously low on toilet paper, etc...) This week has been spent working on all of those things while impatiently waiting for the professional wedding pictures to get back. (We may have neglected to take any pictures except for a few of Lydia in her pretty dress.)

2. Yesterday Sue took Lydia and I out to lunch and then to go clothes shopping for some new Spring clothes for Lydia. (For their Anniversary, Cal gave Sue a gift card to Carters and some money to take us out to lunch because he know how much she loves stuff like that. It was so sweet.) Lydia was definitely one spoiled little girl! (And her mama, too.) We love to spend time with our "Salt Lake Grandma" and I would be lying if I didn't say that I was SO thrilled about the cute outfits Lydia got. We sure are lucky girls. (I tried to get a really cute picture of one of the new outfits we got, and everytime I pulled the camera out she started crying. She'd go from happy and laughing to tears if I tried to make her stand against a wall. I finally snapped this one and at least you can see how cute she is!)

3. I think that I've mentioned this briefly, but for the sake of "journaling" purposes I thought that I'd detail everything out. I've been watching Carson and Elsie on Fridays (from 8 to 1) since August/September when school started. Then in February I started watching them on Wednesday as well. (I'd been thinking about it for a long time - and then things just kind of fell into place.) The same week that I started watching Carson and Elsie for an extra day - I also started watching a 5 month old baby boy, Jackson, on Mondays (from 8-5). Watching Carson and Elsie was totally natural, because we love spending time with them all the time anyway - but when I randomly ran into this other mom who needed someone to watch her little boy (we met through a mutual friend at a birthday party) I couldn't believe my ears when I heard myself telling her that I might be able to help out. But the more we thought about it, the more we realized that it just felt really good. It's just until summer starts - so just a couple of months - but I couldn't deny how right it felt. We are almost a month in now, and although my schedule has gotten much busier - we have been really enjoying all of the time we get to spend with our friends. Lydia adores Jackson and is always quick to give him a toy or try to hand him his bottle. When he's gone she often asks about "Baby Dacks". She also loves Carson and Elsie. She adores Carson and follows him around all day (much to his dismay), and Elsie is her best friend. When I tell her that they are coming over in the morning - she always squeals and runs to the door. She loves having them over to play.  

4. The day before we were going to go out shopping with Sue, I went upstairs and pulled out all of the summer clothes that Lydia wore last summer to see if she could still fit into any of them. Most of them were given to us by my Mom, which was such a blessing, and some of the shorts were 18 month sizes so they were a tiny bit big last summer. I was hoping that she would still fit into them. I pulled out the box and made Lydia try on several pairs of shorts and capris. Holy cow. I was not prepared for how cute she was going to look, and how excited it was going to make me for summer! Watching her run around in those little shorts was so adorable, I could barely stand it. Now that we have a few more outfits to add to our summer collection, I am seriously ready to pack away all of the warm clothes and start wearing summer clothes right now! (What? It's supposed to snow next week? Well... maybe we'll just stay inside and crank the heat - I'm sure David won't mind.) Haha. Seriously though - I am SO excited for summer! Swimming, park playing, splash pads, Thanksgiving Point, ice cream cones... It's going to be SUCH a great summer.

5. Here's a quick March Madness update:

That's right. Lydia and I are tied at 100. Because we are awesome. David says that these four days (Round of 64 - March 20&21 and Round of 32 - March 22&23) are his favorite four days of sports/basketball of the whole year. We are planning on having a basketball packed weekend - and maybe I'll even make some treats.


Also, as an extra - I can't help but add this picture of my darling Lydia girl and her sweet curls. I just love this girl and all the joy she brings to our life! (And did I mention that I can't wait until summer?)

FHE & March Madness Kickoff

Ya'll know that we love March Madness around this house. The basketball, the brackets, the insane emotional investment in a team that you know barely anything about. So I thought that I'd share our FHE from Monday night.

We started out with a song (we LOVE the primary song player on lds.org/music) about making good choices, "Choose the Right Way", had a prayer, then David taught an awesome lesson about how the choices we make affect our happiness and that we should always try to make good choices, but when we make bad choices - we can use the atonement to repent and get back on the path to Heavenly Father. We talked about some examples of good choices and bad choices (ie. listening to mom and dad vs. climbing on the back of the chair). Lydia was so cute as she repeated the words "good choice" and "bad choice". I love how much she is talking and internalizing. 

We followed our lesson by making our "choices" for our March Madness Brackets! It was so funny. We put Lydia in her high chair and tried to get her to choose the team colors. She would just repeat back whatever color we said last, so then we started using colored pencils to have her choose - and she always chose whichever color was on her right side. So then we got her colored stacking toy and let her stack the rings a million times, and whichever color she picked up first out of the two competing colors was the one that we put down for her. She thought that it was SO funny when I would dump her rings off after just a few seconds. It was very successful! David and I later made our picks and we are all ready to go! March Madness, here we come! 

Also, in the spirit of making choices. Lydia was dressed in a white turtleneck and pink pants, but throughout the day/evening she requested her "coat" and wore it around the whole night. Then right before FHE she came walking up with her hat on her head. She's already starting to dress herself - and I'm sure that many more choices just like that are in our future! I think that she looks darling, and it makes me so proud to know that she picked out her little outfit. 

Melissa and Blake - Married!

On March 15, 2014 Melissa and Blake were sealed in the Bountiful, UT Temple. It was a beautiful day and we couldn't be more thrilled to have Blake as a permanent part of our family! We all love him, and love how happy the two of them are together. I was blessed enough to be able to help them with many things with their wedding, and I'm so grateful that they let me be such a big part of their special day.

Anyone who knows much about me, knows that I absolutely love weddings. I love pretty much everything about weddings. I love looking at them from afar and being involved in them all close-and-personal like. I loved going dress shopping with Melissa and I truly can't believe how well her dress turned out. It was a floor model that she bought for $200, it was pretty beat up and dirty and both my mom and I were a little worried that the wear-and-tear would show. But after  several alterations, a good dry-cleaning, adding new sleeves, removing all of the fuzz-balls/loose threads, and sewing on all of the buttons (all of which I was responsible for - ack!) it turned out beautifully. I'm so glad that I ended up altering her dress for her, because it meant that she had to come over to my house for many, many, fittings so I could make sure I was doing things right. We got to spend a lot of time with M&B and it was so fun to have them over so much. I also helped make her bouquet, make the sash for her dress, and even ended up making all of the boutonnieres and corsages the night before the wedding. I don't include this list of "things I helped with" to be showy or prideful, I simply want to remember all of the things I was involved in and how much I loved each step of the wedding planning process.  

The photographer that she ended up with was such a stroke of luck! I came across Jenisse Photography and sent the link to Melissa in an e-mail along with about 20 other photographers. Melissa liked the style of the photos and so we contacted her to see if she was available. Turns out, she moved to Saint George (cue the "wonk wonk wonk"), but then she said that she would be happy to travel to Northern Utah for no additional charge. She was absolutely fabulous to work with and all of the pictures turned out amazing. This is one of the biggest blessings of the wedding, but it's just one example of how everything just seemed to fall into place for them. The wedding announcements turned out beautifully, the bouquet that we made from flowers at Hobby Lobby is stunning, the dress, veil, shoes, and even the bridesmaid dresses all just worked out so perfectly. 

One of my favorite parts of the pre-wedding busyness is that Jenna and Camille came down and stayed with us the week before the wedding. We got to play with them all week and loved every second of having them down. Lydia loved "Baby Mill" and I realized just how much I loved having my sister close enough to spend lots of time with. Now I am in an active job search for anything that Kevin might be interested in that would get them to Utah. We altered our bridesmaid dresses (that were actually maternity dresses that were on super sale so we bought them, took in the sides, and lined the sleeves), went shopping for last minute wedding things, and just enjoyed spending time together. 

Jenna had volunteered to make the wedding cake for M&B, and she did a fabulous job. She did it in steps over several days: fondant one day, cakes the next, assembling the cakes, then the night before the wedding, she put on the fondant and boxed them up for travel.  Our kitchen was one part bakery, one part floral shop, because while she was working on her cake - I was working on the centerpieces and boutonnieres/corsages. The reception was being held in a gorgeous victorian reception center, and Melissa just wanted the centerpieces to be simple, airy, and pretty - so we went with baby's breath and leather leaves. The corsages and boutonnieres reflected that theme, with billyballs for the boys and moms. This is what I was most worried about, because you make the flowers the night before. You cut them and they don't have any water! I was terrified that we would wake up in the morning, pull them out of the fridge, and that they would be dead. Really, really worried. But they stayed beautiful throughout the whole day! I love the way the looked with the tan suits. They looked so professional, and I was giddy as a school girl that they worked out. But even with as nice as they looked - it was far surpassed by how beautiful and professional the cake looked! Jenna did a fantastic job. Also, a favorite part of the night was that Melissa and Blake stopped by on their way to Bountiful. We loved spending the time with them on the night before their wedding. We knew that they needed to get to where they were going, because they had a big day ahead of them - but they stayed long enough for us to all feel loved and even more excited for them. (I'll always be grateful to Blake who was willing to stay as long as Melissa wanted so that she could spend the time with her sisters before her wedding.)  

The wedding day itself was beautiful. Warm and happy (as warm as a Saturday mid-March can be) with just enough sun to keep the chill off (for the most part) but enough clouds to make for great wedding pictures. Lydia looked darling in her sweet little dress. This dress was another example of things just working out - we actually had purchased different white and green lace dresses but then less than a week before the wedding I walked into Carters and found this beautiful white dress. I had extra fabric from the sashes that I made for our bridesmaid dresses and immediately saw a vision of Lydia and Camille in these dresses with little green sashes and matching bows in their hair. (This vision may have been prompted by a text message picture of the dress that Blake's niece was going to be wearing to the wedding. I was feeling a little bummed that they wouldn't match better, and when I saw these dresses - I knew that it HAD to happen!) She ended up looking so cute, I can't believe that we almost missed out on these dresses by just going with the old ones. I love it so much. 

The ceremony was the most beautiful ceremony that I've ever attended as a guest. It was completely focused on the covenants and purpose of the temple, and was absolutely amazing. It was exactly what a temple wedding should be. So beautiful. After the ceremony we took pictures at the temple and then headed to Eldredge Manor for a delicious luncheon with all of our family. It was a wonderful day and everything really did turn out so wonderfully. I will now dispense with my many words and let the pictures do the majority of the talking (because, let's be honest - it's not like I would be able to keep myself from adding in some more dialogue here and there regardless of how great the pictures are). 

  

What a wonderful family we are blessed to belong to. 

We are so glad that Blake is now officially part of the clan! 

It makes my heart happy to see this picture of my Doctor Who loving family in front of the Tardis (that just happens to be hanging out across from the Bountiful Temple). Melissa introduced us to Doctor Who and it has brought much joy to our lives. It is fitting that there is a tribute to The Doctor on her wedding day! (We may be nerdy, but I love us anyway.) 

 The photographer caught some of the sweetest pictures with Lydia and David. I love them! 

They also caught some amazing pictures of her at the Luncheon and Reception. These aren't even all of the ones that they took, it's like whenever they had a free minute they followed her around because she is just so darn pretty. They did a great job of capturing the reception, everything was beautiful! 

 

 

The only pictures that I took the entire day (the pictures of Lydia at the very beginning are complements of David) were of my little brothers playing the piano between the luncheon and reception. I got a video of them playing and singing, but haven't uploaded it yet. They are so talented and it was neat to see them play together.  

Also, you should know that in order to supply enough picture frames to scatter around the reception hall, our family room collage wall looked like this. My parents bought most of the black picture frames for our wedding, so it was fitting for them to be used again for Melissa's wedding. I teased that our picture frames looked better with their photos than they did with ours - but in all honesty, their photos were amazing and it was nice to have so many of them scattered around the reception.  

The night ended with a sparkler send-off. It was so fun and pretty! In addition, clean up was SO easy. It was so nice to have someone else in charge of cleaning up all of the messes and just have to gather our stuff - basically just picture frames because they supplied all of the vases, tablecloths, and pretty much everything else. It took us less than 1/2 hour to clean everything up (which is amazing compared to the time that it usually takes to clean up after a reception) and then David and I just walked around for a while because we were so surprised that everything was already done.

Several people have asked me if I'll be glad/am glad that the wedding is over because then I won't be as busy - but in all honesty, I'm a little sad. I loved being able to spend so much time with Melissa and Blake and am sad I won't have an excuse to see them as often as before. I am SO happy for them though, and so glad that the day turned out so beautifully! 

We love you guys!