Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was so much fun this year - I'd always heard it was funner to celebrate holidays when you have kids and I can definitely understand why that would be true, even though Kayc was too little to do much!

Saturday started out like a usual day - bottle at 8 in the morning :)

Love that cute face

Milk beard!

Then Kayc helped me make breakfast! She's doing so good sitting in her bumbo, and she's doing great at learning to hold onto things! 

Jake was invited to go riding 4 wheelers with his family, but I knew Kayc was still a little too little for that so while he went riding, we went to the ward Easter egg hunt. She did so great - she ran around and got the most eggs out of all the other kids there. Ok, so maybe she sat and blew bubbles in her stroller with me instead. Either way, it was a blast. 

After the Easter egg hunt, she took a little nap and then it was time to go to the Natural Curiosity museum at Thanksgiving Point. It doesn't open for another month, but Jake's SUPER awesome work got passes for the whole company to go with their families! It was SOO much fun! 

She's having a blast, can't you tell?? 

After the museum, we got some dinner and came home and watched our new TV show Melissa & Joey on Netflix. It's pretty funny - we've liked it a lot.

Sunday morning, we woke up and went to church for Easter!

She really wanted to hold daddy's hand during Sacrament meeting 

Her cute Easter dress

We all took a nap, then got ready and went to my mom's for Easter dinner & festivities. Kaycee got her first Easter basket!

Her very own princess eggs

A chocolate bunny

A gorgeous picture of Christ.
Side note: She was kinda acting uninterested in all the basket stuff until she saw this - she immediately started talking and wiggling and moving her hands around. I really think she knows who He is. 

Pointing at Jesus as she was talking

An Easter bunny!! {Love her face}

Pat the Bunny book - there's fun activities to do in it! We're smelling the flowers

One of the pages has you scratch daddy's scruffy face, so dad leaned over and we scratched his face! 

She loves books :)

Easter picture! 

After Kaycee was done with her gifts, Blake & Rick hid the Easter eggs and then we had an Easter egg hunt. Afterwards, we talked and had a yummy dinner of ham, funeral potatoes & green bean casserole. I had a major epic mom fail & forgot to bring a bottle for Kaycee, so she was SCREAMING by the time the night was over. We ended up leaving before dessert {I brought ice cream & brownies} but everyone said it tasted super good. We came home and got Kayc her bottle and she was back to being a happy girl again, just in time for bed. 

The Easter bunny at our house brought her a mirror for when she's in her car seat, a teething toy I've heard great things about called Sophie the Giraffe {she isn't teething yet, I just want to be prepared} & 3 books: Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, King Bidgood's in the bathtub & You are Special. 

It was a very fun Easter - can't wait to see how fun next year is!! 

Painting the fence!

Last weekend, we painted our fence! We finished building it a year ago, but never got around to painting it. The HOA has been on us for a while about it, and with the weather being so great we decided to jump on it finally!

We have an AWESOME neighbor named Trevor York who is a painter and he volunteered to not only help us paint, but to let us use his sprayer! It went SOOOO much faster with a sprayer!

Safety first

Popper & Brynne painted the posts along the back fence by hand, so that we didn't spray on the rod iron fence 

Our next door neighbor Paul Barth & Jake fixed a few of the fence slats too - it was a super productive day! 

It took us way less time than we had expected, and it looks great! Yay for having a fenced, painted back yard! We also put up a mini gate that connects the fence to the house with chicken wire on both sides so that Max can't sneak out. There's a few spots where he could sneak under the wood fence, but not anymore! Now, when we take him outside to go potty, he can just run around and not be on a leash. It's been AWESOME!! It's making me really love our back yard - can't wait for our next back yard project: extending our patio with paver stones!

April birthday party

Last weekend, we had our family party for those with an April birthday. That means Jake, Jeannene & Popper! We had BBQ with lots of salads and chips & had cake and ice cream for dessert!

The birthday peeps {Jake's wearing an origami cash crown from my step brother Richard} 

Jake got a jambox speaker system from my mom that can wirelessly play music from our iPhones throughout the house - it's AWESOME! 

Brynne & Blake got Jake a "new dad" kit with sidewalk chalk, bubbles, a whoopy cushion, farting putty & a velcro catch set!

Brynne & Blake loving on Kayc

Jeannene showing off Richard's origami wrapping of her gift 

Paul Jones made a super funny joke and we were all laughing super hard 

Richard explaining how to use the scentsy/oil warmer . Jeannene got an iPhone 5C from my parents but I forgot to take a picture! 

Love this face haha. Popper got some cute Eeyore stuff & my mom took her to Disneyland for a week, just the two of them. She also got to have a fun date with her friends to the movies & Cafe Rio with a limo!

Jeannene's gorgeous Utah State quilt that Suzanne made for her! 

Me & my princess

It was a super fun birthday party! I love having a joint party every month for all the family members with a birthday that month!

What have I missed?

Because of my lack of blogging lately, I've got a lot of random non-Kaycee updates to fill you in on! 

Workout/weight loss wise {before my whole platelet issue came back}, I was lifting and doing Turbo 5-6 days a week. Results have been slow - scale is barely moving but I'm noticing changes in my clothes. And it took 9 months to put the weight on, so I'm giving myself at least 9 months {if not longer} to get it off. 

I switched back to counting calories to help me with losing weight, weight watchers wasn't giving me much results. So far it's going awesome - like I said before, scale isn't moving but my clothes are fitting differently. In a really sadistic psycho way, I really like logging what I eat everyday. And portion control and watching what I put in my mouth has always been the hardest part for me - I really like food. With the whole platelet thing happening, I'll be focusing lots more on my nutrition since I haven't had much energy to do the minimal workouts I'm allowed to do! 

Like 3 months ago, we bought a Durango! I absolutely love it!! Perfect mom car :) 

My sister Brynne & her hubby Blake moved out of my grandpa "Beebaw's" house last week. It was the last time I'll ever be in his house, and the new owners have plans to re-do the outside so it's going to look different too. Kinda sad :( 

I finally jumped on the "Divergent" bandwagon and loved the series! I was glad I'd been warned that the 3rd one kinda sucked ending wise, but overall I really liked the books! The movie was good too - way different than the book, but still good. 

My cousin Josh got baptized a few weekends ago! I'm so glad we were able to go and support him! 

Jake turned 27 at the beginning of the month! We didn't do much to celebrate because it was on Sunday, during conference weekend but we had all his favorite foods at home - bacon & cinnamon rolls with OJ for breakfast, gourmet nachos for lunch & Stoufers Mac n Cheese with fried chicken for dinner & Samoas Girl Scout ice cream for dessert. We also had a family party to celebrate with my side of the family, and his brother Clint and his wife Macy came over on his birthday to visit! I got him basketball shorts, an iTunes gift card & a Hoonigan shirt on his birthday, along with some cash he can do whatever he wants with. 

I started working a few hours a week as an assistant for my friend Shukria Stewart. She's a Beachbody Coach and fitness instructor trainer for them, and needed help with computer stuff a few hours a week. So far it's been perfect - I can do it from home, during Kaycee's naps and can stop and start as needed if she wakes up or whatever. Super flexible! So thankful for the chance to earn some extra money for us without leaving my mini. 

We celebrated my moms birthday in March! We got her a Willow Tree figurine of 3 generations and she loved it. 

Our Stake split, so we're now in the same stake as my mom & sisters!! It's been fun having people I knew growing up be in my stake again! As a result of the new Stake, Bishop James was called to be in the Stake presidency so we just got a new Bishop a few weeks ago - Bishop Wall. 

Thanks to Dave Ramsey's financial advice & Jake's hard work, we're still debt free after Kaycee's delivery. Felt SOOOO nice knowing we could pay her hospitals bills {including NICU} and not make payments forever! 

Ok I think that about sums up the random stuff - I'll try to keep up on my posts a little better from here on out!

Blood count update

So I have a feeling I'll have to clarify some of this point in coming days/weeks, especially since I'm tired and it's late but I figured I'd write a post today, since today was the day of my appointment with Dr Wallentine, my hemotologist.

It's not good. He's like really concerned about how low it is. Like I mentioned when this happened 2 years ago, I kinda thought everyone was being a bit dramatic about it. Uh nope. 

I guess people bleed to death from this, with a count higher than me. So that like increases my chances of bleeding to death. From stupid things, like flossing or brushing my teeth. Ya, until my count comes up I can't brush my teeth. Don't get too close to me lol. 

I can't do Turbo. I can't lift. And that makes me feel sick. I'm FINALLY back in my groove, where I work out even on days I don't feel like it because it's a habit. He said I could do lifting if it's with a resistance band, and I can go for walks, so I'll walk on days I should do Turbo and use resistance bands when I do ChaLean Extreme. That should {hopefully} help me not be so upset about all this. Exercise is how I want to get out stress and trust me this is adding stress. The last thing I want is to emotionally eat everything I'm feeling. 

I think the worst part of all this is that he said depending on how things go, we might be done having kids.

Uh, what? 

Apparantly it's like a miracle I was fine with Kayc. The chances of it happening again don't sound great, especially since my numbers are so low this time. He said we will talk about it in a few years, but right now it's in everyone's best interest we not get pregnant or either me or the baby or both could bleed to death. 

We weren't wanting to try for 2 years anyway. My goal is to get back into my pre pregnancy clothes, maintain for a year {since I've never maintained} and THEN try to get pregnant again. So like 2 years from now. But hearing a doctor say that we can't try sooner if we want is scary. And sucks.

Hearing I might never get to be pregnant again is... fake. It feels like an out of body experience, like I'm talking about someone else's trial. Not mine. 

At least Jake and I only wanted 3 kids - I think this would be harder to stomach if we'd wanted a small army lol.

And we'd talked about adopting anyway. Maybe we'll really do it. I don't know. It's years away and although that's scary and sad and overwhelming to think about, it's years away.

He is leaving me on the prednisone, at the dose Dr Scoffield prescribed. Every Wednesday, I'll go to the hospital in AF to get my blood drawn and each Thursday I'll call Dr. Wallentine to see if I should drop 10 mg. That's what we did last time - each week I dropped 10 mg until the taper was over and I was off the meds. 

If it works this time, and my platelets stay high as I go off the meds, great. 

If not, they'll get me back on the full dose, I'll get a few vaccinations to help me fight infections and I'll get a splenectomy. 

Splenectomys are successful 2/3 of the time. If it doesn't work, there's medications I can take for the rest of my life. I seriously do not want that. 

Last time, I felt really at peace about having the surgery and this time I feel the same way, especially since that's his recommendation if the taper doesn't work. It's going to require some time though - we need to try the meds first and do the taper.

After 2 days of prednisone, my count is up to 26,000. So it's more than doubled. That's apparently awesome. My body really reacts to the medicine, which I'm grateful for. At least I have a "quick" way of getting my count up. I just can't take this long term, hence why we have a problem. 

So for the next while, I'm on "be extremely careful" duty. Any cut could leave to bleeding that doesn't stop. It's so weird to think its that dangerous - other than being a little weak and looking like I got assaulted I feel fine! My arms are black, blue or green in 10 ish spots. Jake keeps joking he's worried people are going to think he's beating me. It's exactly what it looks like. 

The other thing that HOPEFULLY isn't related is Kaycee had low platelets when she was born. ITP isn't hereditary, so that's not it. If her levels are still low, it could mean I have something else besides ITP because I passed it on. She has zero indication of a problem right now, so we're going to get her checked at her 4 month appointment instead of right now. If she's still got a low count, then we'll know something else is going on. Dr Wallentine said something about how my low count could have transferred to her through the placenta, so her count would be low at birth but normal now. He also said low count at birth isn't uncommon, so hopefully this isn't a problem she has too. 

Really hoping the meds don't make me sick this time. I was fine last time, thankfully. Really hoping they work, but if not I'm not petrified at the thought of surgery. 

The surgery would be free {as long as it's at an in network facility}. That's a major blessing. 

And overall, I feel like the biggest blessing is how peaceful I feel. Last night I had a breakdown and was pretty convinced I was dying. That I'd miss seeing my baby grow up. Her graduation, her wedding, her being a mommy. That my husband would be left to raise her alone. That I'd have to say good bye much sooner than I ever thought. And I was freaking out. Bad. And I just got this really strong feeling as I was rocking Kaycee and bawling that I was working myself up over nothing. That I was going to be ok. That it'd all work out. And that's how I feel. It's all going to work out. I don't know what that means, but it's all going to be ok.

Especially if we're done having kids, I'm grateful for Kayc. I'm grateful everyday but it makes me even more grateful today. 

I'm grateful that I'm still at home and not I  the hospital or anything. That I'm not on bed rest. That I can still take care of me, my baby and my husband. 

I'm grateful I don't work outside the home, that I can take it easy when my body let's me know it's had too much. 

I'm grateful for the peace I feel. 

And I'm grateful for a general conference talk given just 2 weekends ago. I loved it at the time, but had no idea how much it would help me in the coming weeks. President Uchtdorf is becoming one of my favorite speakers. I'm sure it's bad to have favorites but it's true. 

I know I'll be ok. It'll all be ok. 

"It'll all be ok in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end." 

It's back!!

2 months ago, I scratched myself in the shower. Really bad. But it didn't phase me too much - I just thought it was a really bad random scratch. Then I noticed a few days later I had a random bruise on my leg and thought to myself I should try to be more careful. As the weeks have passed, I noticed more and more bruises and scratches and I realized I couldn't argue it anymore - my platelet problem might be back.

For those who are new/don't remember, my platelets were dangerously low in 2012 and while the doctors tried to fix it, we were under strict orders to not get pregnant, even though we were ready to try. In December of 2012, the problem had gone away and they said we could try to have a baby but needed to be on the lookout in case it came back. My midwives checked me throughout my pregnancy with Kayc and it never came back. Until now. 

Last week the bruising got ridiculous and I made an appointment with our family doctor for today. I have approximately 15-20 bruises all over my body, all of which have no known cause. I have minor petechia {scratches} on my arm, back of my throat and back of my neck under my hair line. I became pretty dang positive my low platelets {called ITP} was back.

So I fasted yesterday. Not that I'd be cured necessarily, but that the doctors would work well together {since it's my family dr and a hemotologist}. That whatever route they chose to fix it this time would work, that Jake & I would be on the same page as the team of doctors. {Last time we thought I needed to have my spleen removed, but the medicine "fixed" it. We'd been planning to just have surgery, not try the medicine} 

I fasted for nearly 24 hours. I've never done that before. I suck at fasting to be totally honest. But yesterday was different. I've never had a testimony building experience with fasting, but I think I have one now. 

At my appointment, I was expecting he'd draw my blood and call me tomorrow or Wednesday. But because of my history and symptoms, he decided to have me go to the hospital and have my blood work done there to be faster. He said he'd call tonight or early tomorrow with the results. We went to AF, had it done and called to get an appointment with my hemotologist. They are getting me in to see him in 2 days. He's a specialist - that's unheard of. 

And I got my blood work results back. 

The average person should have 150,000 to 450,000 platelets. 

In 2012, the lowest I got was 29,000 and they were very worried. 

Today, I only have 11,000. 

Well that sure explains my symptoms!! {I've also had a lot of fatigue - I've slept through some massive weather storms lately and not heard lots of things at night while sleeping}

Dr Scoville, my family doctor, put me back on the medication I was on before, prednisone. It's a temporary medicine though, so I can't take it long term. Not quite sure what to expect Wednesday with Dr Wallentine. He'll probably want to do a bone marrow biopsy - he wanted to last time but my count came up so we didn't do it. Maybe try a new medicine? Maybe do a splenectomy? Not quite sure. 

And I'm scared, for sure. That's like dangerously low. But I feel really... peaceful. I know I'm ok. 

And I just feel grateful. My body fixed itself long enough to get Kaycee here to earth. My pregnancy with her was great and my platelets stayed high enough I could get an epidural {if they're low you can't have one}. I stay home, so having fatigue isn't so bad when I can nap. I have an AMAZING sleeper for a baby, so I'm getting more rest than most new moms. She's also a happy, "easy" baby and it makes it easier to know what up expect, which helps on days I'm tired. 

I know I'll get through this. I knew before I would get through it. I had just anticipated having surgery and recovering before I had a baby. I am so incredibly grateful that isn't what happened. Even though surgery & recovery {if needed} with my little miss will be hard, I'd rather recover knowing Heavenly Father already blessed me with her than waiting for her to come to earth. 

And we've nearly met our out of pocket max for insurance this year, so I think that means this will all be free. Need to call my insurance tomorrow to confirm, but if so this is a HUGE blessing that surgery is happening now and not in 2012 or even next year. It's happening when we've already met the deductible & out of pocket maximum. Amazing blessing right there. 

I'm sure I'll be posting again in a few days after my appointment with Dr Wallentine, but for now just know my ITP is back and that's ok. It'll all be ok. 

Kaycee is 3 months!

Sorry I've been a little MIA on blogging lately - having too much fun with my little miss! She is 3 months old today! As usual, I'll post some updates, but first a mass photo overload!

This onesie was too small by the time I put it on her, but at least she wore it once!  

She's getting taller!! 

Grinny girl

Scratched her pretty face with her sharp nails - we call them her talons 

Sleepy after the grocery store

Holding onto my necklace 

Too bright on our walk

Sleepy buddies

First time in her bumbo... 

15 seconds later haha. She loves it!  

I absolutely love how snuggly she is

Watching Frozen

Stretching after she got her ears pierced. I love how she stretches! 

Her little buddy

Nakey bum!

Shopping at Holy Cow Boutique

Officially discovered her thumb!

There's a zebra in my mirror! 

I put Kaycee on the floor on her blanket, so Max dug at his blanket until it was right next to her and then he laid down too. I about melted - insanely cute!! 

Conference snuggles 

Best of friends 

Dad makes getting dresses so much more fun! 

We tried on her blessing dress and it fits! Can't wait for her blessing!! 

Her first night sleeping in her room on her own - such a grinny girl! 

Playing outside for the first time - she loved it! 

Cheesing at the grocery store

Going for a walk at Neptune park with Jake & my sister Jeannene 

Her Minnie Mouse jammies fit!  

She came to Turbo Kick with me and did awesome - just watched and grinned at us the whole time 

Monthly nearly nakey shot

Some of the outtakes from her 3 month shoot on her chair

I love how he's always right next to her! 

Some fun things from this month: 

• She is officially sleeping through the night, and has been for nearly 2 weeks. There's been a few nights where she woke up, but I think she's officially learned to sleep 12 hours at a time! 
• She's sleeping in her own room! Her first night in her own room was April 4, and she did awesome! Woke up once, and as soon as I gave her a little bottle she fell right back to sleep. 
• If she's sleeping in her own room, then it's probably obvious she's sleeping in her crib. It was like a switch - suddenly she went down for naps just fine and wasn't sad about being in there. Having her nap in her crib is great, especially since I can monitor her so much easier with her video monitor! 
• She likes lotion! No more screaming!! 
• Her bedtime routine consists of a bath, lotion, jammies, a bottle, reading scriptures from her Book of Mormon picture book, family prayer, kisses from me & Jake and then we swaddle her, turn on her white noise on her iPod and turn out the lights. She has her last bottle around 8 PM, and wakes up at 8 AM the next day. 
• She's started eating every 3.5 hours instead of every 3. Her average bottle is 5 ounces, eating about 25 ounces a day.
• Right now she's in size 1-2 diapers from Costco. They seem to work pretty good - we've been pretty pleased with them. She averages between 5-6 diapers a day, which we are pretty ok with - we still haven't had to buy diapers, other than the few $5 newborn packages we bought. 
• She only has 1 newborn outfit that still fits {her BYU onesie} and other than that, she's in either 0-3 or 3 month clothes. And HOLY SMOKES does she have a lot of 3 month clothes. Especially dresses - I'm hoping that she'll at least get to wear them all once, but there might be a few that won't get worn before they are too small. 
• She's sleeping in a Halo sleep sack because she figured out how to get her feet out of a swaddle in the middle of the night. For naps, she still uses swaddle blankets. 
• She's kinda given up on her binky. She takes it every now and then, but if she wants to suck on something, she'll either go for her fist or her thumb. When she sucks on her thumb, she fans her 4 fingers up and rests them on her nose. It's adorable. 
• She sleeps through Max's barking still - THANK HEAVENS! I'd been so worried that he would wake her up - he likes to bark when he sees a cat in the backyard or a golfer, but she sleeps right through it! 
• She's a little chatty Cathy - she loves to talk to you. When she talks to Jake, he acts like she's telling him a story and says stuff like "Oh really? How big was it? No way! What did you do next" It's the cutest thing ever. 
• She has the cutest giggle in the universe. She loves to giggle and does it all the time - especially if you just sit and smile at her. She thinks smiling is the funniest thing ever. At first she just laughed for Jake, but now she does it for every one - she's laughed for all 3 of my sisters within the last week. 
• No sign of rolling over yet, but I'm sure it'll happen soon! 
• She LOVES to blow "raspberries" - she figured out how to do it about a week ago and she loves to practice, especially in the car. She has woken up in the middle of the night and started doing it while she falls back asleep - Jake & I were laughing so hard {we could hear it on her monitor}. 
• She really likes loud music - if she's fussing in the car, turning up the music ALWAYS helps her calm down. Especially if we sing to the music. She seems to really like Roar from Katy Perry, and anything country. 
• She almost always calms down when I rock her and sing Primary songs. Some of our favorites are "I love to see the temple", "I am a child of God" & "I hope they call me on a mission". 
• She LOVES the sound of music and TV. We have to make sure it's fairly quiet when she's eating, or she will try so hard to see the TV that she won't eat unless she can see it too. Especially if we watch Shaytards or CTFXC, the YouTube families we watch daily. 
• Tummy time is still going great. She is really developing lots of strength in her neck and arms. 
• She is conceited little miss - she LOVES looking at her face. Sometimes I turn my phone camera around so she can look at herself and she LOVES seeing her reflection. I want to get a mirror for her crib for her to look at, but haven't got one yet. We attached her mirror to her play mat so that it's right above her if she's on her back and she will just talk and stare at herself for a good 30 minutes and be totally content. 
• She definitely knows our voices - I've talked to Jake quite a few times while he's at work on speaker phone while feeding Kayc and she looks and looks and looks for him because she knows his voice. We've used Facetime a few times, and she loves to just look at him. 
• She's started splashing some in the bath, but for the most part loves to just sit and relax in the warm water. 

I can't believe how much she's grown in the last month - it makes me so grateful for my phone and all the pictures I am able to take of her each day! She's such a happy little baby - she very very rarely cries, and if she is crying there's a dang good reason haha. I'm so grateful for the chance I have to be her mom, and to have her in my life. I really can't remember my life before her. 

Kaycee girl, mommy & daddy sure love you! Keep growing big & strong honey! Happy 3 months of being the center of our universe!