Monday, March 21, 2016

Life is Good

To say that life is good right now would be an understatement.  Things are just....really good.  Really busy but really good.  Matt is loving his new job down in Provo.  Even though he is gone more and the commute is long he is happier there than he ever was at his old job.  But he is gone a lot!  Last week he worked late every night and didn't get home until 7:30 or 8:00.  But the kids and I are adjusting to having him gone more and are making it work. When Matt worked for UPMA he cooked dinner every single night while I bathed the kids or cleaned the house or what not.  Well with him working so much we are having cereal for dinner a lot more but the kids couldn't be happier about it.


Nathan is doing really great too.  He has grown up so much in the last six months.  He was a really hard three year old but has been a fantastic four year old.  He is getting more independent and better about listening and getting his chores done.  He has also gotten really sweet again.  The other day he went to the backyard and picked a few dandelions.  When he came back inside he told me that he picked beautiful flowers for his beautiful mom.  I will admit it, I definitely cried. 


And Logan is talking!  Like seriously talking!  He is saying words like crazy and is putting two and sometimes three words together at a time.  He can say just about any word that you tell him to now.  Logan is starting to have conversations with Nathan and the two of them are playing so much better now that Logan can talk.  He is still working with the speech therapist twice a month but hopefully we will only have to for a few more months.  Logan said I love you for the first time last week and just about melted my heart.  I'm so proud of how hard my little guy has worked at talking over the last few months.


Things have been good with me too.  Work is going pretty good, my boss switched some things around giving me and my coworker more responsibility and more independence.  I'm really enjoying running construction projects  by myself and have got several in the new 111 building that is being constructed.  It's stressful but I feel like I'm learning a lot and getting more confident in managing projects.


Of course the best part of my days are when I'm home with the kids and I got really lucky a few months ago with a schedule change.  I'm doing four 10 hour shifts instead of five days a week and it has made the biggest difference!  I feel like I'm getting so much more time with my kids and can balance everything better.  It is supposed to be temporary but my boss said that as long as no one complains I can keep going with it!  I'm totally looking forward to being able to take the kids to the pool during the week instead of just on Saturdays now.


And the big news......WE ARE GOING TO DISNEYLAND!  Not until June and Matt isn't going to come but my family is all going so Matt agreed to let the kids and I go.  I'm so excited and I think the boys are just going to love it.  Half the fun of a big vacation is getting to anticipate and plan for it and it's so nice to have something awesome to look forward to.


So that's the jest of what has been going on in our lives.  Hopefully I can start keeping this blog updated instead of writing once every four months.  No promises though...

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Christmas

We had the best Christmas ever this year!  I took the whole week of Christmas off and had so much fun just getting to spend time with the boys.  It was nice to not be so busy and have time to do the fun Christmas stuff.  And with the kids getting older it was so fun to watch their excitement and anticipation for Christmas.




Here are my cute boys the Sunday before Christmas.   My mom got them the cutest Christmas ties and Nathan was all about it and couldn't wait to show the kids in primary.  Logan took a big more coaxing but he was a good sport and they  both looked so handsome!




Nathan is such a sweet heart and said okay mom now get one of us together!  I sure do love my little man.


The Tuesday before Christmas we went to the Christmas in Color display at the Olympic Oval and my goodness it did not disappoint.  They said there were almost a million LED lights that were synced to Christmas music.  And you drove through it and put your radio on their station and it seriously took us about 25 minutes to drive through it.  The kids loved all the lights and little Logan kept saying ooo and awwww everytime we turned the car and he saw something new. 





Oh Wednesday we all made sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies and decorated them as a family.  I was amazed at how much the kids got in to it and were particular about which sprinkles they wanted on which cookie.  Logan frosted a bit, then ate sprinkles, then ate his whole cookie and then asked for another one.  I think he went through three cookies!  It was so fun to do it as a family.






On Thursday (Christmas Eve) the boys and I did our yearly trip to Gardner Village to see the elves.  This was our third time going and is one of my favorite parts about Christmas.  Logan was such a ham and would say hi hi hi to every single elf that he saw.  It was freezing so I hustled the boys through everything in about a half an hour and when I started leading them back to the car they both begged to go back through and see the elves again.  An hour and a half later we were all completely frozen but definitely in the Christmas spirit.

Christmas Eve we headed out to Lehi to the annual Kasteler fondue party.  I didn't get any pictures but the boys had so much fun playing with all the kids and Nathan loved the chocolate fondue.  Logan wasn't feeling great so we headed out early which was perfect because the boys were in bed by 8:30.  Nathan was so cute on the way home from the party, he kept saying "Mom, did you hear that?  I think I just heard Santa's bells!"  He went right to bed and told me to go to bed too so that Santa would hurry up and come.









Christmas morning was so much fun.  The boys were so excited to come down the stairs and see that Santa had eaten their cookies and drank their squeeze-it and left so many presents under the tree.  We did their stockings and every present Nathan opened he would yell Thank you Santa or Thank you mom and dad!  Santa brought each of the boys a build a bear, paw patrol dogs and color changer cars.  Matt and I gave Nathan a remote control car, a light saber, books and Legos.  Logan got a kitchen, dishes, a toaster and a color pad.  We did cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Nathan couldn't eat fast enough so that he could try out his color changer cars.  I think they were his favorite gift this Christmas.

The rest of the day was spent visiting our parents and spending time with our siblings.  We got home around 5 that night and spent the rest of the night playing with the kids and relaxing.  The kids went to bed by about 7:00 that night and Matt and I watched a movie and went to bed early.  It was such a great Christmas! 

Monday, December 28, 2015

2015

I've been wanting to post for awhile but haven't known what to say.  2015 I'm sure not sad at all to see you go.  This year has been so hard! Everything has turned out okay but it has just felt like it was a constant struggle after struggle after struggle.  It has been funny with the end of the year coming to see how many of my family members have had the exact same thoughts about 2015 and are just as excited to see this year end. 


So I haven't posted since May.  I feel like I don't even know where to begin.  Well Logan had his hearing test at the end of May and found that his ear drums weren't vibrating.  This was probably due to scar tissue from all the ear infections he had last winter and this was causing him to not be able to hear well.  When the speech therapist came and evaluated him he was performing at less than 1% of the things he should be doing. 


The therapist we got has been so awesome though, she comes twice a month and worked with him on comprehension and socialization before speech.  We started with sign language and he caught on really quick and has learned a bunch of signs.  The comprehension part of his therapy was the most difficult part, his therapist thinks he wasn't understanding us at all when she started working with him.  His speech was still nonexistent until about a month ago when actually started saying a few words!  He had another hearing test in November and his eardrums were vibrating at a normal rate and he is totally understanding us.  Logan is getting easier every day and is babbling and working on sounds like crazy.  He has come so far but we still have a long road to go.


Lets see what else, so radiation was harder on my mom than she was expecting.  It zapped her energy completely and that on top of recovering from chemo pretty much put her under.  She went to work, went home and went to sleep.  Even after radiation was over she has still been so tired.  Summer was pretty rough on her and she spent most of it resting.  She is getting stronger and stronger all the time but still gets exhausted after doing anything and none of us expected her to still be recovering at this point.


And then there have been issues with me.  In July I went in to see an eye doctor because my vision was blurry.  After not being able to get my eyes up to 20/20 they dilated my eyes and noticed that I had swelling on my optic nerves.  They thought this was caused by swelling in my  brain and sent me to get an MRI and a spinal tap.  Getting news like this really rocked my world.  Getting tested for brain tumors and horrible diseases and thinking the worst possibilities is so terrifying.  Two days after we got this news a letter came in the mail telling us that our house appraised for $40,000 more than we paid for it.  Matt and I freaked thinking holy crap what if this is happening so that if I have cancer and die Matt will be financially okay with the kids.  Of course that's totally irrational but we were scared to death.


The MRI came back clean which was a huge relief so they did the spinal tap to test the pressure in my brain as well as to test me for MS, Crones disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis.  The spinal tap came back normal as well and they discovered that the pressure in my brain was actually too low which caused the swelling. 


I did not recover well from the spinal tap at all and got a horrible headache.  I was down in bed for five days before the doctor let me come back in to get a blood patch over the place where they did the spinal tap.  When I went in for the blood patch they did an x-ray on my back and noticed that the area I got my last epidural at was not sealed and was covered with scar tissue.  The doctor did a blood patch on that area as well and my headache went away within just a few hours as well as all the back pain I have had since I had Logan.  The doctors discovered that my headaches, back pain and failing vision was all from the bad epidural.  It has taken several months but my migraines are almost gone, I'm not having back pain anymore and my lost vision has come back.


Matt also started a new job about a month and a half ago.  It has been an absolute blessing and he loves his new job but changing jobs is always hard.  Matt has been staying home with the boys on Tuesday mornings  ever since my mom got cancer and then brought them to work at 11 and I took them home.  Well with the new job this wasn't an option anymore and luckily my boss has let me switch to 4 10 hour shifts.  The job is also in Provo so figuring out how to get the boys to and from daycare with me going in to work so early has been a little tricky but I think we have gotten a good system down.  Matt is so much happier and so it has definitely been worth it.


Nathan has been the only one without issues this year and has been such an amazing kid.  Right before he turned four it was like he grew up over night.  The past few months have been amazing with him and he has been so well  behaved and fun to have around.  There have been times this year where I have almost lost it and Nathan has given me a big hug and told me to be happy and it has made all the difference in the world.  There have been times where I have looked at him and just thought, Heavenly Father really knew what he was doing when he sent Nathan to our family.


So I guess all is well that ends well.  It's almost like everything rough this year got tied up in a nice pretty bow for the end of the year.  This Christmas season was really different for me, I guess you could say that I finally got the true meaning of Christmas.  This year was so rough but I'm so glad that I wasn't alone and that we had the Lord guiding us through it all.  To see how we have all grown through the challenges is pretty amazing but I sure would never want to relive the last year again.





Friday, May 22, 2015

Life Lately

Life lately has been good, really good.  I feel like the turmoil that has been the last six months is mellowing down and we are starting to get back some sense of normalcy.  Here are the main things that have been going on lately.

My mom finished chemo last month which was HUGE!  She did so amazing and was able to finish all 8 rounds on time.  The last four treatments were pretty rough on her but she made it through.  She started radiation last week and it seems to be going much better than the chemo.  She will be done in four weeks and we are all so excited for her.

Matt has been so busy lately.  Between getting the trailers and machines ready before we went to Topaz to building the side by side with his dad to all of the things that need work at our house he has been absolutely slammed.  The people we bought our house from let the backyard grow wild and Matt has spent many nights out there cutting down weeds and pulling out dead bushes and trying to get the grass to grow back.  He has done a great job and I'm so glad he takes care of all the yard work.

Nathan is growing up more and more each day.  He's causing less trouble and amazing us with how independent he can be.  Nathan loves making his own decisions and is so good about getting himself ready in the morning and at night.  I feel like my job with him is getting so much easier.  He has always loved music but lately he is obsessed with the radio!  I swear he knows 90% of the songs that play and sings his heart out whenever we are in the car.  He is going to preschool at daycare now and is doing fantastic.  Nathan seems to do much better when he is focused on something so we are going to put him in swimming lessons this summer.

Logan has definitely been the more difficult child as of late.  A lot of that has attributed to how  much he has been sick this winter!  Stomach flu twice, croup three times, four year infections and cold after cold after cold.  I can't complain too much because he has handled it really well but it still isn't fun to have a sick kid.  Logan has become a toddler through and through and loves to see how much mischief he can get into before we notice.  Logan has worried us the past few months because he isn't learning how to talk and at his 18 month appointment his doctor recommended we get him tested to see if he needs extra help.  He had his evaluation this week and qualified for the program so a speech therapist is going to come to our house twice a month to work with him.  They are also going to test his hearing in a few weeks to make sure everything is all good.  I'm so glad he qualified to get this help and that his doctor encouraged us to do this now.

Things with me are all of the sudden so much better!  I finished up a huge project for work that I have been working on since last fall and has pretty much occupied my life.  I finished it up last week, turned it in and can now go back to just doing my regular job.  My stress levels are so much better my headaches are gone and overall I feel so much better.  So glad that it's over!

Matt and I are getting ready to go on a camping trip without the kids!  It will be the first time we have gone by ourselves ever and we are so excited.  It is way past due and we are excited to get to spend the time together.  My sweet sister Brittany is going to keep the kids for us and Nathan is already so excited he keeps asking when he gets to go.

That is about it.  I'm so glad I got the project finished at work before summer hit so now I can just focus on enjoying it with my boys.  Our pool passes are purchased, our camping trips are planned and I think it is going be an awesome summer.


Friday, April 10, 2015

Moments

I'm having a hard time blogging lately and I'm thinking its because I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what I have been feeling lately.  On one hand there is a lot of stress and fear and worry going on about my mom.  There has been so much stress with work that I have to keep reminding myself that it's not appropriate to break down and start crying, at least not while you are at work.  And then the regular challenges with kids, family, church, trying to keep the house sort of clean, etc.  But on the other hand there is so much joy and happiness and feeling blessed that my mom is getting cancer treatment, grateful for the new role and experiences I'm having at work, happy to just be silly with my family.  What can I say, I've been a little bit of a basket case.

I know that it's not always going to be like this.  Trials come and go, I will get a handle on work, the house will eventually get cleaned, etc.  But at the same time my kids are not always going to be like this either.  My boys are not always going to follow me around crying to be held, or begging me to watch Ninja Turtles or sneaking into my room early on Saturday mornings to try and get in bed with us.

Even though life has been so chaotic it's also been really good.  One good thing about my mom's cancer is that we have all learned to enjoy the moments and to not always look at the big picture.  The moments that are so good make going through the tough times worth it.  I swear we really have been having fun!  And one day (hopefully soon) I will get back to blogging but for now I'm just focusing on the moments.









Thursday, January 15, 2015

2015

As it is January 15th I totally know that I am behind the game with the whole new years resolution stuff.  What can I say, the last two months have been pretty much out of control.  But hey, my kids did get fed everyday and we made it to work most days and my house doesn't look like a nuclear explosion went off so I'm counting the past two months as a success. 


2015 is going to be nuts, I can just feel it.  I feel so unsettled and nervous and anxious for this next year.  This last fall was really calm, like way too easy and I swear its the Lord prepping you for the storm.  My mom's cancer has shaken us up in a way that I can't really describe.  She did pretty well with her first treatment but just needs a lot of help.  Between helping care for her, chasing two toddlers, a new calling at church, Matt's calling and work going nutty it is kind of a lot spinning around right now. 


And on top of those things Matt and I are talking about making a pretty big and scary change for our family.  He is jazzed, I'm terrified and the kids screaming and hollering every time we try to discuss it is only adding to my anxiety.  But that's okay, it should be a good change, just a scary one.


As I have been thinking about new years resolutions over the past two weeks the obvious goals keep coming up like don't tell your coworkers to get hit by a bus or limit panic attacks to twice a week or don't quit your job.  But then I decided I should really just focus on goals to help me get through all the changes going on this year.  I'm keeping them so basic and easy in hopes that they will actually help this year go better.  So here we go, 2015 resolutions.


  • Attend the temple four times this year.  (Don't judge, baby steps right?)
  • Read the entire Book of Mormon
  • Exercise
  • Make a Shutterfly book of our Disneyland pictures
  • Put my phone away when I'm spending time with the kids
  • Get a babysitter and go on a date with Matt at least every other month
  • Take time for myself each week
These are all things I should be doing anyway and will hopefully help me to handle all this crazy stuff we've got going down this next year.   



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Mom Cancer Update #2

Well I guess it's time for another update on my mom.  She met with her oncologist last Friday to set out her cancer treatment plan and it actually went really well.  The doctor decided to put my mom on an aggressive cancer treatment plan as long as her heart was strong enough.  So this means that she will do 8 chemo sessions over 16 weeks which means four months of chemo instead of six!  After that she will do radiation five days a week for five weeks and then finally she would do a pill for five years. 


So my mom went for a heart scan on Monday and everything looks really good.  She had a chemo class last night and this morning she went in early to get her port put in.  After the port is in they will send her to the infusion center to get her first round of chemo. 


My mom is doing actually really amazing all things considered.  She is feeling so much better from her surgery and the past week or so she has been up and doing so much more than she had the first three weeks.  She has had a really good attitude too.  Emily and I went with her to pick out a wig last week and Emily got her a couple of hats to wear too.  My mom has been getting really nervous the last couple of days so its good that they were able to start her treatments today.  She keeps saying that after today she will only have seven treatments left and I think she is just relieved to not be waiting anymore.


The good news too is that my mom loves her oncologist.  The doctor has prescribed her a ton of nausea medication and given her a ton of tips for dealing with the chemo symptoms.  We will see how she actually reacts to the chemo over the next couple of days but she has done really well with coming to terms with everything.