Looking back at January

First of all, a big thank you to those of you who reached out to me after my last post in concern about my health. I'd like to say I've been headache free for a certain amount of time now but unfortunately it still comes and goes with no specific reason I can pinpoint yet. On the bright side, I'm thankful that I'm finally experiencing headache free moments! The sunny weather has also been a joy to my soul! 

I feel overwhelmed with how many posts I have swirling around in my head (but in a good way!) and a grocery list length of unfinished posts to publish but the beauty of it is, somewhere along this headache journey I let go of this unwritten time line I held myself to. I've never been under the impression I needed to post for anyone but myself yet for some reason I always had this due date on everything I shared and a great amount of stress that would follow if I did not keep up with that time line. I feel in a much better place and that it is time to share and write again! Here's to looking back at January ...

After one too many days of being cooped up inside, we brought spring to us and had our very own picnic in the living room. My kids LOVE eating finger foods out of a muffin tin so it was a very relaxing lunch for me ... well, until Lyla decided she wasn't into her grape anymore and literally spit it  out "abc style" into my hand. thankyouverymuchlylamae!

Here I am complaining about the cold but honestly, this has been one of the most mild winters we have experienced in years. One day while Liam was at preschool, I took Lyla to the park to play and we were both beaming being outside!

Her poor eyes are always covered by her gigantic hood haha ...

Then finally toward the end of January, Liam got his wish ... he had been begging me every day for snow as if I could conjure some up for him on a whim ...

Sweetest siblings on a sled! (say that ten times fast!!) 

The hours it took to dress these two were absolutely worth it! Babies in snow suits are right up there on my list of favorite things!! It was one of Lyla's first times playing out in the snow and she loved it!

This is the year Liam realized the joy of a good snowball fight! He thought it was hilarious when he threw one and it stuck to the side of our house ...

And Lyla couldn't even pick up her snowball. haha

They opened a new children's museum in our area and we've visited it a couple of times this winter, the first with friends and again with Sita when she had a day off! It is amazing!! Literally a room for every occupation you can think of. An airplane filled with mini luggage ...

My mini pilot!

The cutest Trader Joe's grocery store with play food, mini shopping carts, and check out stands! For the dress up part of this room they had little Hawaiian shirts and Lyla wanted to wear ALL of them!

They had a wooden house complete with every construction tool you can think of. I'm sure Liam's eyes were staying very protected. haha

An adorable garden, orchard, and cow milking area ... Lyla had the place trashed with bark in seconds! ;)

They also had a mini bank with an atm machine, a vet clinic where you could perform X-rays on a computer, a pirate ship, a space shuttle, a pizza parlor, and so many more! It was so much fun!!

Lyla has grown up so much lately. No longer my little baby and so much more of a toddler. Yet when she sleeps she still feels like my baby so I had to capture those pouting lips, tiny toes, wispy hair, and chubby cheeks while she still has them.

The toddler stage is really fun though and she gains more independence every day! She loves to dance ...

To eat (those poor overalls haha)!

She waves at anyone that passes by and I'm certain she is going to be my escape artist as soon as she figures out how to unlock that door (something her brother never really did) ...

She finds the most microscopic spec on the floor and is always carrying something in her hands ...

She adores music (playing the piano and dancing) and is never NOT covered from head to toe in her meal ...

She loves to fit in the smallest of spaces haha and never wants to leave this car and come in from being outside ...

Looking back at January it was both the slowest and fastest month of the year. I've never been more thankful for my camera and the ability to capture the every day moments with them, no matter how small. I know they will be the ones I look back on and always remember!

Trials are worth it

Rifle Paper Co. image

I'm getting emotional as I sit down to write this because the last few months have been a hard journey for me. The first week of December I woke up one morning with a headache ... it felt like your general run of the mill, I'm about a to get a cold kind of sinus pressure, so I ate some breakfast and popped a couple ibuprofen like I do if I'm in a situation like this (very rarely). Thirty minutes went by and right about the time I'd typically be feeling relief there was none. So I waited it out, the 6-8 hours before I could take a second dose and the same thing. A few days later Nic and I went on a date to the movies, the first movie we'd seen in a theatre in years, and I could hardly sit through it I was so miserable. The lack of lights in the room, the bright light of the screen, the over-the-top booming voices coming from the speakers were beyond my limit. It was then I realized, I'd gone about 4 days straight with a headache that never went away and no cold symptoms after all. As a mom of two kids does when life goes on I pushed through it. I pushed and pushed and pushed all the way until that next Wednesday when I noticed additional symptoms of blurred vision and disorientation as I was driving home from preschool. As you can imagine, with two kids in the car, it terrified me. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to them because of me. The next morning Nic got up for work and headed out the door and I figured I'd just try to relax with the kids and turn on a movie for them. A couple hours into the morning, I couldn't even see straight and I called Nic in a panic because I knew something wasn't right.

After two hours in an urgent care and a huge amount of disappointment, the PA on staff told me "welcome to the club" and labeled it my first migraine. He sent me along with a prescription and told me to go hide in a dark quiet room and get some rest. So that's what I did ... for the next 3 days. Every morning I'd wake up thinking, this is it! This must be the day it will be gone! Then that dull ache behind the front of my forehead would be there the moment I opened my eyes. In December being that it was Christmas time, the Bishop at my church challenged everyone to think about the impact Christ had on their life. I spent those days in that dark room in constant prayer and thinking of Him. The one thing I kept coming back to is that in every trial in my life He was always there. He'd never left me and I knew He wouldn't this time either. 

 By that Sunday it was very obvious that particular medication from the urgent care was doing nothing for me so the next step was the ER. I at least knew they would do a much broader work up than the urgent care did. I NEEDED to find some answers. Neurological exam, normal ... blood work, clear ... head ct, clean ... pregnancy test, negative. Again, their diagnosis, a migraine. They gave me what they deemed a "migraine cocktail" of 3 medications and had me wait there. When they came back to check on me 30 minutes later and asked how I felt, with tears in my eyes I said, "the same". My options at this point were to stay longer if I wanted to and take the next dose of medication there after several hours or head home and do it there, so I opted to go home. I'd much rather be in the comfort of my own bed than in a freezing hospital room.

Because one of the medications was benadryl, the sleep delirium it would put me in made it impossible to take during the day so I took the medications before bed. They mentioned to switch from ibuprofen to tylenol and it took at least a month and a half to discover that when my pain level decreased, that was the only thing actually helping me along. I have a decently high pain tolerance so it wasn't excruciating but just really effected my quality of life. I'd try to stay positive but I never once felt like myself. The list of things that made my headache feel worse were growing by the minute, many of which were things that brought me joy ... I hate to admit it but my noisy kids, playing the piano, listening to music, looking at a computer screen to blog, being in my cold garage to exercise, playing with my kids in the snow, etc. The list of things I "shouldn't do" felt longer than the things I could. It was maddening! 

In the midst of that I continued to press on, paying close attention to my diet, taking long breaks from exercise to see if anything made a difference. I went to bed earlier getting as much sleep as possible, tried meditation and yoga. With every possible cause I could think of, I would be determined that this would be it! Like going to see an eye doctor for example. With the blurred vision I was convinced that the headaches were related to a sudden onset of poor eye sight (something I've never had before) and maybe all I needed were a pair of prescription glasses. Even that came back normal. Which I'd like to think is pretty impressive of these baby blues with blurred vision. haha 

For a while I thought maybe it was hormone related ... I had stopped nursing Lyla a month before and maybe postpartum depression could explain crying myself to sleep at night because another day with this dull ache living in my head felt like torture. 

I saw a very passive aggressive neurologist who again, deemed the source of the chronic headache from you know where a migraine and started me on yet another couple of new medications. SO.MANY.MEDICATIONS. I was sick of it. I tried all of them, for long periods of time, some that came with horrible side effects that made me feel like I was drugged at a rave and none of which ever helped except for tylenol to reduce the pain level. Of course, that one and only medication that seemed to make the headache more bearable, the neurologist told me to wean off of. 

Lovely, so there went my tylenol. And on came what I'm sure was an even worse withdrawal headache from being on it for 3 months straight. I am grateful for medication but I kept praying that I could somehow heal my body in a much more natural way ... food, sleep, something ... insert essential oils.

I've always been a huge skeptic of essential oils. I know the power of a placebo effect and I just haven't been convinced enough to try them in my home but here I was praying for a NATURAL remedy and was growing desperate to try anything. My sweet sister-in-law sells them and shared a headache blend with me that I've been using the last couple of weeks. I could hardly stand it at first. On the list of many things, one thing that triggers the headache to feel worse are strong smells and let me tell you what, rubbing very potent essential oils on your temples RIGHT next to your nose ... it was NOT pleasant the first few days. When I reached back out to her she said to try it instead on my feet below my big toe and I've been doing it every couple of hours ever since. Each day my headache has felt a little better, even with moments of no pain at all!! No one is more surprised than me of this or MORE GRATEFUL!

Not only have I been told that neither side of my family has a history of migraines but the most frustrating part in all of this was believing in my heart it wasn't a migraine and being told by doctor after doctor that it is. For so long I wondered if it was just because I wasn't willing to accept the diagnosis which made me not believe it. I still don't have any answers and don't know what caused it in the first place and maybe I'll never know, but if there is one thing that this whole process has taught me it is this: (besides not to be so skeptical of healing that can come from essential oils!) but that prayers are answered. That my trials make me teachable. They make me humble. They put everything into perspective and they change what I value most, how I spend my time, and make me realize what is most important in life. My trials develop my character. They require me to rely on my faith in God and put my trust, my health, and my life in Him. They are important. Trials are worth it!

happy new year

It's 2019, a new year! The happiest so far, it's been not but that's because of this incredibly nasty headache that has been living with me well over a month now and happened to carry over into the new year. I've had a few days of feeling sorry for myself but after a really beautiful blessing, I'm determined to be positive about it. But, it definitely means I can't be on here often or for very long (it tends to make it worse) so a quick recap of our New Year's Eve ...

The beautiful thing about having a 4 year old and 1 year old ... they have no clue what time of day it is so we told them New Year's was at 5 pm! haha Nic looked up an old recorded ball drop from years past on YouTube and we watched it together on the driveway counting down the last 10 seconds! Liam thought it was the MOST fun and exciting thing ever!!

Nic accidentally mis-fired one of our big poppers before anyone was ready (haha!) but the other one and the 6 mini ones we had were sure to do the trick of welcoming in the new year! The kids loved dancing around in the confetti!

We taught Liam to bang on a pot with a spoon and Lyla just stood there grinning from ear to ear and looking absolutely adorable all bundled up!

Later that night I found myself singing Auld Lang Syne to Lyla as I quietly rocked her to sleep. I held her even longer than normal with this very real twinge inside that not only when I laid her down would my kids be another day older but we'd be into their next year of life as well. 

In this season of life as a young mom, the days are long and exhausting but the years are short and slip between my finger tips ... so one of my biggest New Year's goals is to slow down, let the chores go when I can, and play with them more ... because I know all too soon there will come a day when they no longer want to play with me. I also know doing this will create some of the best memories for us and for a person whose love language is quality time, it means everything!

Happy New Year to you! Hope it's your best one yet! XO  

Christmas 2018

My favorite part of the days leading up to Christmas is the Christmas program at church. It was held the day before Christmas Eve this year and as they usually do, the Christmas songs filled the room with the spirit and reminded all of us about the true meaning of the Christmas season. We listened to messages about the anticipation and story of the Savior's birth and celebrated him. One thing I loved about this Christmas in particular was how much Liam understood the meaning of it all. He could help recite the story of Jesus' birth and while he had a hard time with going up to the front of the chapel and singing with the other primary kids, he bravely went up there anyway and wanted so badly to be a part of it. I sure love these two little Christmas angels of mine!

On Christmas Eve morning, we found Banana hanging upside down on the tree. ;) Right next to my new favorite ornament that Liam made for us at preschool this year, him playing in the snow!

Our festive fruit candy canes and reindeer toast for breakfast ...

We spent most of Christmas Eve at my mom's house. I loved watching these two ... she'd grab book after book, climb into his lap, and only sit long enough for one page per book. He is the best uncle!

Making himself comfortable while watching the movie Jack Frost ...

Lyla was killing us all with her dance moves! She pulled this game box over to a chair, climbed on top, and started shaking her booty! haha

Liam was disappointed we had to leave for nap time so we let him open his Christmas Eve present early in the day ... our tradition is typically to get a new pair of pajamas and a book on Christmas Eve but the kids already got their Christmas pajamas earlier in the month so they could wear them even longer. I had to share the sequence of these next 3 pictures together because it was hilarious watching his expressions unfold ... Liam asked Santa for super hero legos for Christmas so when he opened this series of super hero lego books he was so excited at first because he thought from the back of the box that they were actually legos, then when he flipped them over and found out they were books his face dropped. haha So sad! When we showed him that they came with this cool head lamp though he was perfectly fine!

The book Ya Ya got ... it is the cutest story!

After nap time, back to Sita's we went ...

Couldn't forget the annual baby in a mug picture! ;)

My mom made a yummy ham and twice baked potato Christmas Eve dinner and after wards gave each one of the kids a gift to open from her .... Lyla girl got these adorable Christmas finger puppets!

and Liam got a fun game called Pop-Up Pirate he played one day at a local toy store and loved!

Lots of trips back and forth in the car between home and grandparents' houses! 

That night we made sure to sprinkle Liam's reindeer food he made at preschool on our back patio and set out Santa's cookies and milk! We all read The Night Before Christmas together and while the anticipation for the next morning hung in the air, both kids were exhausted and asleep within minutes. Mom and dad watched Christmas Vacation and then headed to bed too!

There is nothing better than the magic of Christmas morning! Our first Christmas in our new home ... there was something so special about having a staircase this year to walk down to find what Santa left. Liam's gasp said it all!

We were lucky he slept in until 7! He was still up an hour earlier than Lyla though so we let him open one of his gifts from Santa, just what he wanted, SUPER HERO LEGOS and then him and Nic built it together while I made a quick snack for everyone.

This was everything I wanted for Christmas right here ...

Another favorite from this Christmas was seeing them gift a present to one another. Liam picked this puppy for Lyla that she absolutely adores, he even helped wrap it for her and covered the top in stickers and wrote his own name on the tag! So cute! Lyla got him a transforming Paw Patrol that he wanted and loves.

Nic taught Liam the joys of how to crack open a chocolate Christmas orange at the bottom of his stocking!

Trying on daddy's new hat ...

Liam flew through presents this year (haha) so after they were all opened we went over to my dad and Edie's house for brunch. Aren't these the cutest cousins?! The best part, next year there will be one more in the mix!

Cute nieces and nephews opening their stockings from grandma and pa and their secret Santa gifts from each other ...

CAAAANNNDDDDYYY!!!

My brother reading aloud a hilarious card from my niece who provided him with all the wise advice he'll ever need in life! ;) 

Sitting on Santa, I mean Pa's lap!

I love capturing reactions to opening gifts and this one was no exception ...

That's going to look REAL NICE on the mantle, Clark! haha 

My dad and Edie made literally the most elaborate amazing brunch in the world ... it had everything you can imagine/think of ... eggs benedict, multiple types of quiches, breakfast bakes, cinnamon rolls, fruit, banana bread, prime rib, etc. We did not leave hungry that's for sure! 

On Christmas night, my mom and brother came over for dinner and we opened gifts from each other. We were all spoiled this Christmas and felt so blessed to be able to spend it together! 

We missed our Pocatello family and a white Christmas we often had living there but thank goodness for Marco Polo and phone calls. Until next year! XO