Easter 2014

Hard to believe Easter was almost a month ago. I have been slacking with my blogging but I hope to get caught up and stay that way. I have a couple years worth of blogging to turn into books still. There's just not enjoy hours in the day.

Back to Easter. Josh and I took the girls' to the STV Farmer's Market & Bazaar. What a joke. They got their picture taken with the Easter Bunny and rode the train.

When the EB went to get on the train his head almost fell off. The look I saw on one girls' face was priceless. It was like the moment she realized the EB isn't real :( I'm pretty sure our girls' saw it too but didn't say anything.

And if they still believed after that, they had no reason to after seeing the EB at our community egg hunt.

WOW! The community has got to upgrade the costume. It's BAD! The girls each got a few eggs during the hunt at the park and then we went back to Grandma's to dye eggs.

The girls had fun and it's funny to see their lack of patience when deciding the eggs are colored enough and want to move on to the next. Not sure where the lack of patience comes from.....

Everyone came over for dinner and it was super yummy. I made fun of Mom for trying new recipes but surprisingly, most of it was delicious. I love big dinners like we have at the holidays. We need to do it more often.

(Place Settings)

Sam and Mat brought a pinata over and the girls had a blast beating the EB!

Then it was time for an egg hunt at Grandma's!

After that we played board games, hung out and played Just Dance on the wii. Dakota partied right along with us all night. Lot's of fun!!!!

And that was just Saturday night.....Sunday the girls woke up to baskets overflowing with stuff. Books, puzzles, kites, jump ropes, sunglasses, tattoos, bandaids, hats and candy to name a few things.

Kona also got her very first Easter basket and she loved her little bunny.

The girls did an egg hunt first and then we tried to see if Kona was as smart as Jackson and could find eggs, open them (without breaking the plastic) and eat the treat. Surprisingly, she did it! I swear she is Jackson's twin sister. So many similarities.

That afternoon we took the girls to Outback since kids ate free and then we went to see Rio 2. It was a wonderful weekend spent with family.

Bridging from a Daisy to a Brownie

A couple weeks ago (ya I am way behind), Haylee bridged from a Daisy to a Brownie.

She has loved being in Girl Scouts and has made a lot of new friends.

She earned her petals and a lot of other fun badges too.

Her biggest accomplishment was selling 714 boxes of cookies.

 (Her Prizes)

We learned that only 20 girls in the entire Cactus Pine Council sold over 500 boxes and got to go to Sunsplash.and 4 of those girls were in our troop!

This was the first year for everyone (leaders and girls) so for being a trial year everything was awesome. We now know what to do and what not to do when it comes to cookie sales next year and we're making some improvements in other areas too. I'm officially a co-leader now and was awarded the "lifesaver" award last night at the leader appreciation dinner. I'm excited to see what fun things we're going to do as Brownies!!

Update on Haylee's PANDAS journey.

Haylee first showed signs of strep with a fever on Tuesday 3/18 (this is the first time she's had strep since the PANDAS incident). The next day I took her to the Dr but her throat swab showed up negative in the office. Her Dr sent it to the lab to double check and I got a call the following Monday that it turned out positive. So she was put on Biaxin again (3-23 thru 4/6) and had a follow up throat swab on 4/10 that was negative. She had her ASO Titer checked on 4/28 which cam back high (480). I've since learned that doesn't tell you much and getting her ASO Titer checked isn't necessary unless she is showing symptoms of PANDAS again.

I met with Dr Cook, a pediatric neurologist yesterday and although I didn't receive a lot of concrete answers about PANDAS (since it's a new disorder), I felt good about the appointment. He is one of the very few doctors in AZ who specializes (and believes) in PANDAS so I'm thankful I was able to talk to him. So basically we just wait to see if symptoms ever return. And even though it's been 7 weeks since the first sign of her latest strep infection, it's not too late for her to show symptoms. Also, even if symptoms don't appear this time, they still can the next time she has strep. He told me "she is a lucky girl" and that is when I almost lost it. I told him "I know, she had a lot of people praying for her and it was the worst weeks of my life." She is lucky her symptoms weren't more severe and she's lucky that antibiotics alone took away her symptoms. He did say reoccurrences are usually less severe but I am praying we never find out. 

So the plan if she gets strep again is to have the entire family swabbed. Anyone that is positive for strep will be put on an antibiotics. If the PANDAS symptoms ever return I will call Dr Cook and he will prescribe Haylee Biaxin along with ordering blood work. He also briefly went over other options of treatments if antibiotics alone don't cure it. Some of which were $10,000+ and insurance will not cover it. But again, I pray it never gets to that point because I pray Haylee will be protected against any further PANDAS symptoms. 

As always, we appreciate all the prayers on Haylee's behalf. We are forever grateful she was "lucky" and had a 100% recovery. We know it was all due to the power of prayer and being blessed by the ultimate Healer of all.

For now we will cherish Haylee's smiles and even her little sassy attitude. I'll take it any day over what we went through last fall!

Natalee is FOUR!

My baby is 4. How did that happen?

It feels like yesterday that Josh and I were headed to the hospital for my induction. I ended up technically going into labor on my own but pitocin help me along too. It was a rough labor, a lot different than with Haylee. I was in labor about 11 hours and had a weird epidural this time. When I first got it it caused a dip in my blood pressure and I almost passed out. Following that was uncontrollable shaking as if I were cold (but I wasn't), a fever, horrible heartburn and then oxygen since Natalee's heart rate was high. And all of this in the first 5 hours. I continued to switch sides throughout the night since I was so uncomfortable and my legs were driving me nuts from the weird epidural. My water was broke in the morning and within 2 1/2 hours I was ready to have her. She entered the world at 9:10am on April 26, 2010 weighing 7 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long.

It's hard to believe she's already 4 and I'm learning that being 4 means terrible 2's x 2! I thought maybe she'd start to grow out of it but I was sure wrong!

This year the girls both wanted a Frozen themed party so we did things a little different. On their actual birthday they will have a family party and then on May 17th they will have a joint Frozen party. 16 little girls have been invited and I sure hope we have a good turn out since I have a HUGE surprise for them!

So back to Natalee's actual Birthday. We invited family over for dinner, presents and cupcakes. Natalee got a lot of cute stuff and she loves it all!

She was most looking forward to her Amber doll and told me she wanted to see what color of panties she wears. She's such a nut!

She had been asking for an ET stuffed animal and I found one on Ebay. That was a surprise for her and she LOVED it.

While we sang to her she was super serious.

And then Daddy suggested she smash her face in the cake and she was not happy about that. So we smashed Haylee's instead.

She made it clear she wasn't doing that this year. Guess she's too much of a little princess! She wanted to go at her own pace and eventually took bites with a fork.

Others weren't afraid to dig in!

Happy Birthday Sweet Little Natalee! I can't believe how much you've grown in 4 years. You are such a beautiful little girl and always make me laugh!

Things to remember-
*You now weigh 35 lbs (50 %) and you are 41 1/ inches tall (90%).
*You love chapstick, money (coins), bandaids, candy and fruit snacks.
*You LOVE fruit.
*Your favorite show is Sofia the First and you love Amber.
*You love the movies Frozen, ET and Monster House.
*You love dressing up.
*You are so independent (which isn't always a good thing).
*You love otter pops.
*You still take naps!!! Usually a 2 hour nap each day :)
*You've started waking up before 6am lately and I'm not a fan.
*You love your Lorax and Bear Bear.
*You play Dr. all the time and poor Lorax always gets shots.
*You also pretend Lorax is your baby like "baby Kota" and you give him a bottle and push him around in the shopping cart.
*You're almost done with your 1st year of preschool and you love all 3 of your teachers. You are starting to write your name by yourself and are doing awesome with the first 5 letters. "e" is hard to write.
*Your newest thing is being afraid of missing Mommy and Daddy while you're at school. Everyday when I pick you up you tell me "I didn't even miss you today!"
*Your favorite friends are Azrielle and Lily (from school). You went to both of their parties this year and you talk about them often.
*You love Kona and Charlotte and are a big help feeding them.
*You love your cousin Timmy.
*You'll fight with your sister all day long and then turn around and be best friends.
*Your favorite things about vacationing is swimming in the pool.
*You love to ride your bike. You ask daily if we can go on bike rides.
*You have the prettiest long, curly hair.
*Unfortunately I still have to keep my eye on you 24/7 because you like to dump glue, cut stuff up, climb the pantry and get into everything!