Happy Valentine's Day

We started February with a surgical consultation. I have to say that the specialist I am seeing and this surgeon have been the best doctors I have ever seen. They are fantastic. If we do decide to go with this surgery I am so glad that I have some doctors that I feel really confident about.

The movie theatre here does free matinees on the weekends. They were showing "Big Hero Six" so we thought we'd try to take little A to her first movie. However, everyone else in town beat us there, and the theatre was full so we went to the park instead. Way better than a movie anyway!

We had a great time playing together! The weather was beautiful!

Little A is getting better and better at swinging on the "big girl" swings. She gets bored with them fairly quickly though because she can't go high.

A while ago we loaned our activity center to a friend for their baby. They recently returned it. Little A has loved it even more than she loved it before! It is big enough for her to fit in. She loves to jump in it and play the little piano on it. She also loves to bounce with her dolls in it; she thinks it is absolutely hilarious! I am loving it because it gets a lot of her energy out so she'll take a nice long nap!

My cousin sent little A this adorable outfit for her birthday. She loves the birds on it. There is also a little bird on her bum. :)

I spoke in church last week. I actually really enjoy speaking in church. It went really well, and a lot of people told me that it was really good. There is a lot of sickness going around our community right now. When I sat down next to the man who was speaking he mentioned that he was just getting over something and I thought, "Oh no. I'm going to get sick." Sure enough the following evening I came down with a nasty cold. Bleh.

They do free exercise classes at our church. I haven't gone before now because little A has been so clingy, and I didn't think it would work out very well. I tried going for the first time this week. She did great! She sat and played nicely for the first 30 minutes! Then she snuck up behind me and I knocked her in the nose with a weight. It was awful! Her nose even bled a little. :(   We went home after that. I am hoping to try again when we're finished with this cold.

Allan took little A out to work on the truck with him. She really enjoyed "driving" it.

I always take A's shoes off when I put her down for a nap. The other day I didn't take them off because she didn't have any socks on, and I didn't want her feet to get cold. After I laid her down I went downstairs to work on a few things, and I heard a couple of thuds. When I went to get her after she woke up I found her shoes on the floor! Ha! She told me all about them and how she needed them back, lol!

A's hair is getting really long. The other day I decided to see if I could connect ponytails. It turned out pretty cute! She only cried a couple of times, once when I accidentally flicked her in the ear with a hair tie. Oops.

We started going to dance class again. A loves it. There is a new girl that is a lot like little A; quiet and gentle. They really hit it off and love to dance with each other.

We made a valentine for A's birth mom. Little A was so pleased with herself!

She made one for Daddy too!

Nana also dropped a valentine gift by. A cute little outfit with barrettes. A loves it!

My mom babysat little A for us so we could go on a Valentine's date. We went to a Thai restaurant that is in a near by town, then went out for ice cream and a little walk. It was so nice to have some time together and be able to talk with out any interruptions.

Since we have been sick this week we needed something other than Daniel Tiger to watch. We discovered Sofia the First. I think it's adorable. Little A tolerates it, lol!

January Happenings

January was a very busy month for us. It started with a trip to visit Allan's family for a baby blessing. While there we went to the children's museum for the first time. I already wrote about that in the last post. While we were there we also sold our Buick

and bought a truck! Allan's wanted a truck for a very, very long time, but we didn't think we would be getting one for a few more years. However, he was praying one day and had a thought come to him to get a truck. He told me, and I thought he was crazy, but I prayed about it too and the answer was to get a truck. We got a great deal on this truck and have already put it to good use.

The following week we had some people over to measure for carpet for our basement and bought a chest freezer that was also delivered that week. We worked on the basement a lot that week, finishing the baseboards and making sure it was completely ready for carpet.

We also had our first date from my year of planned dates. It was to make a work of art. We have a bunch of picture frames that needed to be painted, so we painted those.

Little A and I got out to enjoy the snow as much as we could. It's a good thing we did because it didn't last very long. It had all melted by the end of the month.

We had a couple of fun play dates with little A's friends. They all played kitchen and pushed her wheeled toys around the house.

We also played a lot of bows while little A was getting over a cold. I am so relieved that she can have a little cold and not get an ear infection from it!

I hurt my wrist while I was exercising and had to go to physical therapy for it. I've always had really tiny weak wrists and ankles.

It was warm and humid most of this month. The humidity caused a ring of ice to form around the antennas of all the trucks at Allan's work.

We've done a lot of playing kitchen and piano. I love having her little kitchen in our kitchen. She does a really good job of "cooking" in her kitchen while I'm cooking dinner. We've had a lot of fun with the tea set that Grandma and Grandpa gave her for her birthday. 

When little A doesn't want to play kitchen while I'm cooking I ask her to play me a song on the piano. She is always happy to oblige. I love watching and hearing her play!

I already mentioned in the last post that little A's birth family came for a visit to celebrate her birthday. A loved the food she got and they were all amazed that she finished almost all of it. She is a really good eater and has out eaten me a few times. However, she has started to slow down recently.

She has also loved to pull her toys around in her Lego wagon.

It's been so warm out that we've pulled all of her outside toys out into the yard again. She loves to sit in her chair,

play on her play set, and draw with the sidewalk chalk. We have a cement walkway and patio in our yard and have made good use of them! She has also mastered going down the slide and going up the stairs to our back porch by herself. We also run around in the grass a lot and talk to the neighbors dog over the fence. It drives her crazy that she can't see the dog, but she loves to go over and talk to it.

I've mentioned before how much she LOVES picking out her own clothes. She almost always chooses a matching outfit, but every now and then she gets a little crazy. One day she was very insistent that she wear a certain pair of shorts. It is still a bit cold for shorts, especially in the morning, so I put on some leggins under them. She also chose a flower printed shirt and a purple animal vest. It was pretty awesome!

Another day she was very insistent that she wear two different pairs of shoes, lol! That was our errand day and everyone at story time and the grocery store sure got a kick out of her shoes!

The third week of January the contractors came to put carpet in our basement! Hurray! Right after they got there they tested to see if they could nail the tack strips in or if they had to glue them. The person who came to measure earlier that month was supposed to have done that already, and before he left our house I asked him specifically if they could nail the tack strips in, and he said they could. (It costs a lot more to glue them down.) So the contractors come up and tell Allan that they have to glue and that it is going to cost almost four times what the quote was. Eesh. Fortunately Allan has learned some negotiation skills at work and after a couple hours of talking Home Depot acknowledged that they had made a mistake on their end and stuck to what they quoted us. Phew! 

The baseboards that Allan worked so hard on are pretty beat up, but the carpet is fantastic! We love how it looks, and it is so cushy! We have already moved most of A's toys downstairs and play most of the day down there. I am loving that my dark wood floors look so much cleaner!

When Nana and Pops came back from Disneyland we had them over for dinner and they brought little A her birthday present - some adorable Osh-Kosh overalls and shirt! I am in love with them. She had just out grown all but one pair of her overalls, and they are her favorite things to wear so it was perfect timing too!

When we took all of her toys downstairs I pulled out a box of dolls that I had been saving for her. They were mine and my Grandma's. She has fallen in love with the Grandpa doll. This doll, and the matching Grandma doll, was made by my mom for my Grandma. Little A was thrilled that they were both wearing overalls, ha!

After a disappointing phone call with the specialist I am seeing Allan brought me home some flowers. When they were on their last leg I let little A have them. She loves to rip them up and rub them in her hands and on her face. She also loves to taste them, but does a pretty good job of refraining.

Allan is such a great father. He loves to be with little A and tries to take time every day to play with her. There are a lot of days that he comes home really tired, but he pushes through and plays with her. She has really started to love the time with him. 

Especially when he lets her drive the car. ;)

At the end of the month we headed back to visit Allan's family again so we could go see Beauty and the Beast. Little A took a nice long nap on the way there. She is so darling!

We stopped at the children's museum again, gotta make that long car ride worth it! She loved this swan this time! We played with a baby boy for a while too, and she LOVED that!

I've said before that Little A is a very sweet girl and when other kids take things from her she just goes and finds something else to play with. We were playing in the "store" at the museum and a little boy ran over and grabbed her shopping basket right out of her hands! She actually tried to take it back this time, but after a couple of tugs she let go and walked away to find something else to do. She never once looked upset, but she did give the boy quite the look, like "well that was a weird thing to do." The boy's poor mom was so embarrassed. Allan went to find another basket for little A, but she took off to another area to play. By the time he found one we were long gone. Poor guy. He's such a good Dad!

We took her up to the helicopter this time. We weren't sure how she would feel about it because it is loud, but she LOVED it! She thought it was the coolest thing ever! While we were up there she made friends with another little girl, and they played blocks for a while.

Beauty and the Beast was really good! Allan and I had a lot of fun. I am so grateful that I have a husband that enjoys going to musicals and other performances. 

I also went to see "Into the Woods" with a couple of my sister's in law. I love this musical and thought that they did a really great job with it! I was a little disappointed that they left out some songs, but it would have been forever long if they'd kept everything in.

Happy 2nd Birthday Little A!

She is such a cutie pie! She is almost always happy and is communicating better and better every day. It's funny because a few days before her birthday it was like she had suddenly become a little girl. She seemed to suddenly understand things and was able to respond to them correctly. She also got a whole new energy overnight! She's always been an energetic child, but her energy has always been quieter; suddenly she discovered a hyper side of herself. 

She chose her outfit for her birthday and let me put pigtails in her hair.She wasn't that excited about taking pictures. She has recently started pretending to blow her nose, and that is what she is doing in the picture above.

Since we are close to family now we tried to have a birthday party, but everyone was either in Vegas or Disneyland. Maybe next year. We had cupcakes and ice cream after lunch. I did red velvet because red is her favorite color. She was super excited about them.

She didn't really get the blowing the candles out thing, but she loved the smoke in the air after the candles blew out. Then we gave her a cupcake and ice cream, and she refused to eat them, lol! Allan and I tried to convince her to eat it and then we stopped and said, "Why are we trying to force her to eat cake? That makes no sense."

So for her birthday she had two Starbursts.  Because that is what she wanted. She did eat some ice cream the next day, but she never would eat a cupcake. It looks too much like bread I guess.

After we got all of that cleaned up we opened presents. We got her a piano (I got a really good deal for it on cyber Monday). She LOVES to play the piano. Before her uncle left to serve a mission she would sit on his lap, and they would play together. She was absolutely thrilled with her little piano and plays it all the time.

She also got an adorable tea set from Grandma and Grandpa. We also play with that every day! She especially loves the spoons and forks that came with it. After presents Allan took her on a Daddy daughter date. They played outside for a while and then went to the store so she could say hi to everyone. :)

We had Mac-N-Cheese for dinner that night because she loves it.

The following day her birth family came for a visit and loaded her up with some more gifts. They gave her some cute clothes, Legos and a Lego wagon, a book that she now likes to read every night before bed, and a counting cookie jar. She has loved all of them. She really likes to mimic the cookie jar, and take her dolls on rides in the wagon.

We went out to eat with her birth family, came back for cake and ice cream, and then went swimming. Little A loves to be in the water. There is a fun kids pool near where we live. We went the week before with A's friends. There are two little girls that were born on the same day four days before A was. It has been fun to get them together.

Little A is still growing like a weed. She flew through size 24 month clothes and is now in 2T. Her feet are still an infant sized though. She is in between an infant 3 and 4 right now in shoe size. She is starting to look tall and lanky.

She really loves to play with her toys and is especially delighted when it's warm and we can go outside. She loves going to Nursery on Sunday. She is still such a nice sweet little girl. She loves to say "hi" to everyone.

We worked really hard on pointing at things, and she will now point to her body parts (nose, eyes, etc), and to animals and other things in books when I ask her too. She knows what most things are and is slowly starting to say what they are. She will make the elephant, dog, and bear sounds.

She is as stubborn as she is sweet. If she doesn't want to do something there is no making her do it until she is good and ready. Whenever we try to make her she regresses, but if we stop and let her go at her own pace she always does it on her own. She did this with crawling, walking, throwing food on the floor, and, for a short time, sleeping through the night. The most recent example of this is potty training. We stopped potty training because she started refusing to go. The more we sat her on the potty the more she regressed. We put the potty away and put her back in diapers, and are hoping to start again in a month or two.

Chronic Pain Update

We went to a specialist in December this is what he said

1. If the mass hasn't shrunk considerable then I could have cancer and will need to have surgery soon.

2. If it has shrunk then I most likely have functional cysts that can be helped with contraceptives, or I can have surgery.

3. Go get another ultra sound to see.

I had another ultra sound, and the mass had shrunk from 17cm to 8cm so that was good. The ultra sound tech's reaction was pretty priceless. He put the wand on my abdomen, his eyes bulged, and he said "Whoa! Do you need some pain meds, cause I can get you some really strong ones! How are you walking!?"
That happens a lot at the appointments I go to.

Because it had shrunk so much they could see better what was going on and they are pretty sure that it is hydrosalpinx still (fallopian tubes are blocked and filled with fluid). Although I also have 3 other masses that they think are cysts.

After talking to the specialist again he suggested surgery, but only with a certain team of surgeons because of my health history. He said that contraceptives aren't going to help with the problem I have, so I basically have to decide if I want to just live with the pain or have another surgery. He also said that it would most likely be a total hysterectomy. 

I had a consultation with the first surgeon, and he felt confident that they could do the surgery but noted that it might be a pretty long surgery depending on the scar tissue. He is hopeful that I can keep at least one ovary so I won't have to do hormone replacement therapy. He also said that because of how my scans look the hydrosalpinx are just going to get bigger, and I will eventually have to do a surgery anyway, so it's better (and less risky) to do one now while they are small, I am young, and in good health.

We are meeting with the other surgeon next week.

End of Year Wrap-Up

 To prepare for Thanksgiving Little A plucked the Turkey's we made. Ha!

We had a fun Thanksgiving with Allan's side of the family. Little A loved playing with her cousins E and T. They are quite a bit older than her, but they were so patient and played with her. E even helped her eat some dinner! When Little A saw E she went right over and sat on his lap and was very content to stay there the rest of the evening!

Grandma had sugar cookies for all of the kids to decorate. Little A mostly just ate the sprinkles. :)

Little A came down with a nasty virus while we were there. We ended up taking her to the ER because her fever was so high. They did a chest x-ray to make sure she didn't have pneumonia. That was horrible! They have this padded bar that they sit the child on, then they pull the child's arms up over her head and strap her into this plastic thing that keeps them from moving so they can get a good shot of the lungs. Poor little A was terrified, and it was all Allan and I could do to not rush over to her and pull her out. Gratefully she didn't have anything serious. She was really clingy for the next week though. She refused to sleep alone so we ended up sleeping with her for a few nights so we could get some sleep. This is what our house looked like the following week. Little A loved having the mattress there. It made a great jumping spot.

While she was sick Allan brought us both home some flowers. I gave little A's to her to look at, and she promptly tore it to pieces. Ha! She sure had a blast doing it.

The following weekend we went to my nephew B's baptism. It's a long drive, so on our way there we stopped to play for a bit. We were going to go to the mall (it's December so we assumed it would be cold outside), but we took a wrong turn and ended up at a fun park. Since it was warm out we had a picnic and played on the playground. Way better than the mall! Little A was thrilled to swing on the swings.

We had a lot of fun visiting with my Dad and step-mom, Gram, and my sisters and their families. B did a great job and we are all so proud of him. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost comparing it to the armor of God. He loved the armor, and it worked really well as an example of how we lose the Holy Ghost when we make bad choices.

Little A also got to play with her cousins for a little bit. Cousin J was very impressed that she wasn't afraid of his skeleton shirt.

Little A also LOVED Grandad's four hound dogs. She spent a lot of time running after them trying to get close enough to pet them.

Little A went to our ward Christmas party. Allan had to be with the scouts that night, so A and I went alone. It was a fun evening. The theme was "The Polar Express", and all the kids wore their pajamas. At the end of the night they read the story, and A had a ball sitting in the group of kids and playing with the older girls' hair. They were so kind and patient to let her.

We also spent a fun afternoon with Nana a couple of weeks before Christmas. They had fun playing with Nana's toys and decorating her Christmas tree. We also went through all of the old family Christmas decorations and got to take some home. Yay!

Grandma sent little A home with some Nativity stickers. She had been too sick to play while we were there, so we did them when she was finally better. She enjoyed the stickers but still hasn't quite figured out how to get them off of her fingers. She also loves sugar cookies. We traveled so much during the holidays that I never got around to making any, but our friends dropped some by and Little A was pleased to eat them. Also, she likes to eat cookies with her feet up, lol!

We decorated our little Christmas tree. Next year we are finally going to have a normal sized tree. I am so, SO happy, because this means I can put all of the ornaments on it. Little A had a great time decorating the tree. She was a very good girl and only played with a couple of the ornaments that I told her were okay to take on and off. There were a couple times that I had to remind her, but she really did very well at not touching the tree. We actually put all of the presents out around it too, and she never touched them!

We made the traditional Christmas crepes. Little A helped us make dinner. She loved helping to use the hand mixer.

She loved the crepes too! Well, the berries. We ended up giving her a corn dog because all she would eat was the fruit, and when she does that she gets a really bad diaper rash.

We read the Christmas story in the Bible and "The Night Before Christmas" as per tradition. Then we got ready for Santa and put little A to bed. Allan and I were pretty much ready for Christmas morning so after a few adjustments with the presents we spent a nice quiet night together.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun! Once Little A realized what was going on she was very excited about everything. We got her a kitchen (from one of my cousins), and she LOVED it! We've played with it every day since then.

Santa got her some Hot Wheels - Allan's parents have a couple of tubs full of cars and they are little A's favorite thing to play with at their house. Santa thought we'd better have some at our house too. Grandma and Grandpa got her a cell phone,

doll stroller, and a cute book. Nana and Pops made her a tee-pee, blanket, and pillow and got her a doll.

Her cousins got her a set of pots and pans for her kitchen and a pass to a fun children's museum. Her birth family got her a chair, a big Minnie Mouse, and some adorable clothes. She also got some ornaments, of course.

Little A was terrified of the teepee at first. She refused to go in it so I sat in it and pulled her onto my lap. She cried. The day after we got it I climbed in there and played peek-a-boo with her and she quickly fell in love with it. It has become one of her favorite places to play and read stories.

Allan and I were also spoiled rotten. Allan got me some metal buckets for the laundry room, a clock (which I exchanged for a picture frame), a table runner, a shepherdess for my nativity, and a child free shopping trip (yay!)

I got Allan a whole bunch of smaller tools for his garage, a saw, and a year of planned dates (I got the idea for it on this blog: http://www.whatsupfagans.com/2014/02/how-to-make-a-year-of-dates-gift/)

We were also given a large crock pot, some glass Tupperware and mixing bowls, some more tools, a picture frame, a scarf, socks, a canvas print of the Temple, an ancestral history, the book "The Infinite Atonement", and I'm probably missing a few things.

The next day, Allan and little A played kitchen until it was time to drive to Grandad and Grandma H's house.

We really enjoyed our time with Grandad and Grandma H, Gram, and K1 and her family. We celebrated Christmas with them and got thoroughly spoiled again.

Grandad and Grandma H got little A a shopping cart and groceries and a cute sweatshirt. A had a ball going "shopping" around their house. Gram got her a puppy purse, her first porcelain doll, and a princess blanket with a crown. She loves the puppy and had to sleep with it for the first couple of weeks. She also loves the doll and begs me to let her play with it. I let her every now and then when she is in a gentle mood. She has already torn the bow out of the poor dolls hair. Little A really hates bows.

Little A is just like me and LOVED Grandad's motorcycle. I'm not sure how she would feel about it if it had actually been on though.  Another highlight of the trip was going to Home Depot. She absolutely loves the shopping carts with steering wheels. Allan commented that if we had a Home Depot where we live he would just take her there for Daddy Daughter Dates, lol! She always cries when we have to leave.

When we got back from our trip we had cousin P and Aunt K6 over for a play date. They had a lot of fun playing with the kitchen, teepee, and dolls. They also shared Cheetos and watched a little bit of "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood". Little A had never seen this before, and she is now in love with Daniel Tiger.

Little A really loves to choose her own clothes. She almost always matches which I think is pretty cool. She always knows exactly what she wants to wear too. We'll go in and I'll open the drawer for her and she'll either immediately pull out what she wants or dig around until she finds it. She picked two different shoes the other day, and I let her wear them because it was just too funny. :)

She has recently gotten into picking out her own bows too. They don't stay in for too long but it's a step to wearing bows, so I'm pleased. ;)

We recently introduced piggy back rides to little A. She is a big fan!

Allan got called to be Scout Master. One day I came home from running some errands and found this trailer on the side of our house.

I called Allan and asked him if her knew there was a trailer at our house and he had no idea. Later that night we saw that the previous Scout Master sent Allan an email saying that he had dropped it off at our house. Good thing we have a spot for it.

On our way to a family baby blessing we stopped at the children's museum we received a pass for. Little A is a big fan of this place, and I love it too. At first she was overwhelmed with all the kids running around. We took her into the 2 and under area so she could have a quieter place to get oriented.

She really loved this truck, especially turning the steering wheel.

She also enjoyed shopping at the little store and even let the little cashier boy check out her groceries. Although, she had no idea what he was talking about when he asked her for money. She looked at him like he was crazy.

After she shopped she calmly walked over with her groceries to the little house and sat down in this chair. She was so pleased. :)

Her favorite place though was the construction site. She was enthralled with everything that was going on there.

She also really enjoyed the water play, but the construction site won over the water. I was very surprised. I really enjoyed seeing her and Allan playing together.