Sunday, March 31, 2013

Happy Birthday Sweet Aspen!!

I plan on taking some super fabulous birthday pictures next week while Mom is off....but for now this was my sweet girl on her birthday! Too bad she was sickly. And about 10 seconds after I took these pictures she threw up all over us....sigh.



Friday, March 22, 2013

VCUG

Today we drove to Charlotte to Levine Children's Hospital. Aspen was scheduled for her VCUG this morning at 9:00. Thankfully Lincoln spent the night with Nana so we didn't have to worry about getting him up and ready and out. No matter...we were late anyway. We never got very good directions so we just went by the GPS. Ugh...not always the best plan. Since I've been driving to Charlotte so often with Aspen's little helmet I could've gotten us to Morehead street a lot quicker and easier. Oh well. Once se got there we couldn't find parking...it was like a maze. Tons of buildings and lots of parking but so much of it was labeled as doctors only or staff only...
Once we got into Levine's I must say that our experience was amazing. From the front desk lady who checked us in and walked us all the way to our waiting area, to the sweetest nurse ever (except you, Tori :)) in the radiology department, everyone was so nice. We felt welcomed and taken care of. The nurse in radiology was cheery and talkative and really put us at ease as she talked us through the procedure. If you want to know more specific details about the VCUG go here. Basically they catheterized her to insert some contrast into her bladder. Then they wait and watch as she pees to see if there is any reflux out of her bladder back into her urethra and her kidneys. That could continually cause scar tissue and lead to renal failure...see past posts about Anthony. 
She screamed the whole time. The whole time. But I must admit that on the scale of Kyla.... I didn't even shed a tear. And I thought it was going to be awful! We laid her on the table, they did their thing and they put the x-ray machine over the top of her body. Anthony and I stood at the head of the table and cooed at her and loved on her and tried to soothe her. Nothing worked. But she didn't kick and wiggle and try to get away like I thought she would. She was very tame and just screamed. She actually peed very quickly and we were done very quickly. She was very ready for us to pick her up and she whimpered for a little while afterwards, but no lingering fussiness. She didn't seem to have any problems the rest of the day either. Our appointment was at 9 and even though we were just a tiny bit late we were walking out of the hospital by 9:45. We wouldn't even have gotten out that quickly if we had been at our doctor's office! Simply fabulous. 
Aspen slept all the way through the ride to Charlotte...waking her up at 7 am is definitely a far cry from her usual sleeping in until almost 9. She nursed before we left and then she actually snacked right before the procedure and we offered her milk cup during to see if it would calm her down. It didn't. On the ride home she just thoughtfully looked out the window until about Gastonia, then she knocked out again. Anthony had taken the morning off to go with us, thank goodness. Since we were finished and home so early we decided to have some lunch. So we grabbed Olive Garden as soon as they opened at 11. Hooray. 
All in all it wasn't nearly as scary as I had anticipated. I must say that I prayed all night last night while falling asleep, and when I woke up in the night to hear Aspen crying. Now we just wait until Tuesday for our follow up appointment for the results. Anthony said he watched the whole thing on the screen and didn't see any backflow. So we'll see what the doctor now has to say after they send him a report. We are praying that the test shows that all is absolutely normal and we can just get back to having two beautiful, happy, healthy kids. No more worrying about appointments and procedures. Well, except for the well checks in early April! 

Just a little photo to make you smile...

Sissy is learning to sit in a chair. In fact it's soo cute! She's learning to back up to sit down in your lap or to put her hiney in a chair. And she loves sitting in Lincoln's Thomas table like a big girl! 


She sat down with her book and just kicked her feet. It's precious! 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Busy, busy...and sick, sick, sick

We've just been so busy! It seems like lately we're just running from one place to another. And it feels like we've been sick for the whole winter!! Finally we're clawing our way back to feeling better. Aspen is still on an antibiotic, day 14 of 20. We had to do 20 days since she had an ear infection and a sinus infection. Thankfully she takes her medicine without a fuss now. When she was smaller it was a fight every time. Now she just eats it up. Phew. Thank goodness for simple mercies! Lincoln was on an antibiotic for strep, at the same time Aspen was starting her first round of antibiotics. But thankfully, we're still doing OK and are on the mend. The stomach bug did find its way into our house, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that I'm the only one who will see it this year. It was terrible. Awful. The sickest I've been since I was pregnant with Lincoln. 

I can't believe I'm planning a double birthday party!! Lincoln will turn 3 on April 2 and Aspen's big ONE will be March 28!! It's amazing! I can't believe she's been here for a year. It feels like just yesterday we were bringing her home. All those sleepless nights, since she didn't sleep quite like Lincoln. But hallelujah they're both all-night sleepers now. Most nights. So we're planning a double celebration. Since their birthdays are only 5 days apart we decided to do a together party. I almost hate to do it. My brother and I are only 7 days apart and I remember how much I hated it. Kaleb's old stinky friends coming to my party made me mad. But it really does make more sense. I want everyone to come and celebrate with us and I felt like if we had two separate parties that people would have to choose between which party to come to. So if we do one big party together then everyone can come to both. Does that make sense? 

We're planning a Brown Bear/Pink Owl party. Check out this precious invitation!!


I made it myself. From scratch! I'm so proud of myself! I even made my own cupcake toppers with all the animals on them, and food tents with cute pictures to relate the food to the party. I've got sweet party shirts in the works. Lincoln's is a brown bear shirt, and Aspen's is a pink owl shirt. There's no pink owl in the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? by Eric Carle. So I decided to add an extra animal to make it a little more girly for my sweetness. I can't wait. I love a party! I love having people at my house. I love entertaining. It's just so much fun to spend the day surrounded with the people you love. 

Aspen's been walking like a pro since about 9 1/2 months. She now has 6 teeth. She sleeps through the night almost every night. She takes about 3 naps a day and she's eating like a champion. She prefers table food to baby food. And we just started her on whole milk. She's been drinking breast milk out of a sippy cup for a long time and my frozen stock has run dry. She is still nursing twice a day, in the morning and in the evening. She seems to prefer the morning nursing most. She never nursed to sleep so that won't be so hard to get rid of like it was with Lincoln. She just recently started wearing 12 month clothing. She is wearing size 3 diapers and size 4 Stride Rite shoes. She loves to play with her little purse, she'll put it on her arm and walk up and down the hall! So cute! She loves to read a book and will bring you one and go Bbbbbbbbb. She then turns around so you can pick her up to put her on your lap. Just precious. She's still in cloth diapers about 70% of the time. When we're out and about or if she's at the grandparent's house she's in disposable diapers. But at home we're loving the cloth. We've probably about a third of the amount of money on diapers as we did with Lincoln. It's fabulous. 



Lincoln is amazing. He's always saying something funny. He's wearing 3T clothes, but with adjustable waist all cinched up! He's actually still wearing 24 month shorts because the others are too big! They just fall off. Poor thing. He's wearing size 9 shoes. He's so smart and he loves his cars and trucks and trains. Books are also some of his favorite things. He likes to watch Mickey Mouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Sofia the First, Tangled, Princess and the Frog, and Bolt. That's what we've been watching alot of lately. He and Aspen both love music and still dance anytime they hear it. I'm working with Grammy to get Lincoln started in Kindermusik for his birthday. I can't wait to get him started. I just know he'll love it. We just started Sunday school. In our church you move downstairs at 3 if you're potty trained. So we thought we'd give it a go last week and it was a hit! He loved it. And this Sunday he made a little piggy craft. So sweet! I don't know how I'm going to get rid of any of this sweet stuff. It's only gonna get worse as he gets older and does more fun stuff. But how do you decide what stays and what goes?! I know I can't keep it all, but it's so sweet!

Anthony has been on the kidney transplant list since August...and there's a 2-5 year wait. So that's what we're doing. Waiting. When Shawn wasn't able to transplant we were a little heartbroken. I know his family was, too. So now we're waiting on his other living donors to be tested. Just recently we had a lady from church call us. She said she'd known about Anthony's need for a while but just hadn't said anything yet. She said she was born with 3 kidneys and that she's always felt like there was a reason. She's also A+ just like Anthony. So she filled out the living donor paperwork and sent it in. We're still waiting to see who Baptist chooses to test next. We're just praying a living donor can be found. That transplant last longer so Anthony will be looking at fewer transplants throughout the rest of life. Please be praying with us that a donor can be found. Anthony is such a trooper. He's so tired of dialysis. He hates the time it eats away from his life. Thankfully he's able to do the peritoneal dialysis so he doesn't have to do hemodialysis at the clinic, but it still has to be done 4 times a day at about 20-30 minutes each time. Think of what you could do with 2 extra hours a day. He's back on his bike since the weather has been warmer lately and he's excited for spring to be here to stay.