Amazed By Our Own Skills...

So on Saturday while Kyle was running a few errands and Bella was taking her nap I was kind of bored.  I was doing the dishes and HATING our faucet, it's been broken for a while now and we had been planning on replacing it almost two years ago.  The entire project was going to be a replacement of the sink as well BUT due the idiocity of the guy who installed our sink it's not possible without replacing the countertop and we're just not ready to do that yet.

I thought, you know, it can't be THAT hard to replace a faucet, right?  I went to work on it telling myself that I would have it replaced by the time Kyle got home, haha, yeah right ;)

The shut off valves for the water under the sink were not working and I was frustrated, I had parts of the old faucet torn apart and EVERYTHING from under the sink all over the kitchen floor AND there was a constant slow flow coming from the faucet that I could not stop.  Kyle walked into the kitchen while talking to him mom and said, oh god, I just walked in the house and Steph had the faucet partly apart and crap everywhere!  I'm sure Ellie probably just laughed and knew that this problem would be fixed, she knows I can't let ANYTHING not work out :)

So I finally found our water meter and main shut off for the water to the house.  It kind of sucked that we had to do that BUT with Kyle's help we did it, and now have a lovely new faucet, YAY!! :)

Bella's First Zoo Trip

We had a really nice holiday weekend, other than a broken foot scare (no worries I'm a-ok) :) Bella, Mindy and I headed to Des Moines on Sunday to help Missy and Ed unload their moving truck at John's. It's going to be so nice having them back in Iowa, I really missed them. Kyle got stuck at home because we failed to remember to find a "sitter" for our big boy.

Bella LOVED the zoo, I think her favorite animals were the tigers, she seems to really like big cats. The tigers were coming right up to the fence/window it was so cool! Bella even touched a starfish, I was so thrilled. I really thought she would be too scared to touch it, but I think it helped her seeing mommy do it first :)

Then we stayed at John's house and had a BLAST! We played some bean bags, Bella even tried her best :) We stayed up late playing board games and cards, Bella slept in on Monday. It was just a really great weekend with family and fun :)

Lucky Girl

My Grandma is 94 years old and now living with my parent's in Newhall.  She broke her hip last winter and just can't take care of herself alone any more.  She loves being with my parent's and I think my mom is truly happy to have her mother to care for until she peacefully passes on.

Today we went through a lot of stuff at my Grandma's apartment.  There was so much cool stuff!  We got a few "new" things:

Our kitchen table we had was just too big for us, so we inherited this one from my Grandma.  The really cool thing though is the table runner, she received this as a gift when she was younger, it's so beautiful.

An awesome small cast iron skillet and some cookie cutters I remember my Grandma using.

This peace lily is very special to me, it's from my Grandfather's funeral, I loved him dearly and am so happy to have this to remind me of him every day.  Bella promised to help me water it so it can thrive :)

The best part of my day was receiving this, my Grandfather's miter box and saw.

I'm a hands-on kind of girl and LOVE to do any updates myself on our home and to be able to use the same miter box and saw I remember such an amazing, special man using is just beyond meaningful for me.

I only received this due to total confusion on my part.  I thought my dad was getting it and today while we were at my Grandma's apartment it was sitting behind my mom's Highlander.  I mentioned how much I loved it and my Uncle Steve said, well then take it!  I said, no I can't take that my dad is taking it!  My mom was like, um no Steph dad was holding it for Steve.  Steve demanded I take it because he has an electric one.  I guess it made me feel so good because mom said they had just wanted it kept in the family and Grandpa would have wanted Steve to have it.  I loved my Grandfather more than words can express and I'm pretty sure he was just as close with me, so I hope he's happy up there in heaven knowing his granddaughter is now the proud owner of his miter box and saw :)

Bella can open doors.....

which means she was able to sneak into the guest room (she was supposed to be in bed for the night) while I was in the shower after volleyball, Kyle was downstairs AND she found mommy's makeup bag....

Good lord, I have such a girl on my hands!! :)  She had mascara actually on her eyelashes!!  She always has to watch me get ready in the morning, I'm going to have to keep my makeup under lock and key!!

I tried and tried to get it all off of her face, with lotion eye makeup remover, soap and water but two spots just wouldn't come off.  She went to school the next day looking like she had a black eye, they all thought the entire situation was hilarious of course :)

Love my independent, curious little peanut!

Weighty Issues

What weight is the "right" weight for each child? How does anyone even begin to know that answer, we are all very different and our bodies process everything differently. There are weight charts to be followed and those that fall below it seem to be picked on while those that hit the top and even possibly go off the chart are not.

I chatted with our U of I doctor about this and me feeling as though I'm trying to turn my daughter into a "fattie". That's really the only way I can describe it to anyone, I know she won't get too big by what she is eating BUT I'm really getting tired of all this. Dr. Dusdieker admitted that really it's up to the child's doctor/pediatrician wether or not they are concerned with a child's weight. We just got "lucky" and had a doctor that freaked out about Bella's slow weight gain AND a pediatrician who kind of just pushed us to the U of I like he didn't know what to do with us. I mean I will admit, I was a terrified first time mother with a small baby who would not eat and thus not gain weight. I was concerned for her health and wanted to do whatever I could to help her. I just feel as though we've passed that point now, Bella is fine, I know she is.

Bella does have Failure to Thrive, Kyle had it when he was a baby too. I know they take that into perspective and are just making sure she is continuing to grow and are wanting her to grow at a "normal" rate. But my point is, how is there this "normal" rate, it's like it's some law we need to abide by!

Bella was 23.1 pounds yesterday AND she grew an inch! To me you have to take into consideration that she grew a full inch in three months, she has never grown that "tall" in a three month period. But no, it all comes down to the measly 1 gram a day she gained. The "norm" is 5-8 grams a day, so guess what???

That's right, we get to go back on August 11th!

The good thing is that there will be no more dietician appointments, I put my foot down on that. I'm tired of paying $60 for a five minute appointment where we discuss the same crap we discussed three months ago! They tried telling me that the dietician is part of the program, BUT I did it, I stuck to my guns and got rid of that wasteful hour!

Now these appointments should only take up about 2 hours of my day rather than 4, thank god.

Note to any parents reading this, don't get sucked into some program like this unless they can tell you it's something that will negatively affect the child's health/life. The negative impact of this for Bella is - she is and will be small...duh. Now we're stuck until they "release" Bella, we'll just keep chugging along!

Growth Clinic Today

So we have our next Growth Clinic appointment at the U of I today. I'm making this be our last nutritional appointment though, it's seriously ridiculous having it. I think we discuss nutrition for about five minutes. I tell them we are feeding Bella everything we can and adding fattening butter, whole milk, anything to get her fatter. That's the point I'm at right now, I feel like I'm trying to make my petite daughter fat. My insurance doesn't cover the nutritional appointment and it's $60 dollars for my fabulous five minutes! Also due to cuts at the U of I they no longer cover parking, geez so now I have to pay for that too. Not that it's a lot, but still!

Then we'll get to see our wonderful doctor there, I really do love her, she is amazing with Bella. I hope she understands where I'm coming from today when I explain to her that I feel all of this is quite unnecessary at this point. Bella is doing AMAZING, she hasn't been sick since our last appointment, she eats constantly and is happy as can be. Bella is small, I think she will always be small, and that's it.

I just don't know how to get my point across so that they will release Bella from the Growth Clinic.....keep your fingers crossed for us today!

The Heart Is Tired

According to my cardiologist anyway. I haven't been feeling tip top lately, I thought maybe I was anemic, but no that isn't the case.

Last week I had a night of terror, I seriously thought I was going to have a heart attack. My heart was so fluttery (only way I can describe it), I could place my hand on chest and feel the off beat. I went to see my cardiologist the next day and I was dehydrated and had been under some unnecessary stress and he feels that is what brought it on. I am now back on my meds to help me retain fluids, AND I'm taking a multivitamin.

The only bad outcome of all of this was...1. He finally admitted that I WILL NOT outgrow this condition as he told me 9 years ago when this all started. 2. No running for more than an hour :( He feels that running for more than an hour puts a lot of unnecessary stress on my heart. This means no marathon ever, not even a half marathon :(

I was pretty upset by this, but am coming to terms with it. At least I can still run, thank god!

The most upsetting thing for me with this is that it's something I can't really control, I HATE being not in control, especially when it comes to my health.

Damn me and my weak heart and my strange body that processes EVERYTHING far too quickly. Just another quirk to add to my list ;)

Fun Weekend

We had a great weekend, the weather was perfect!!  Saturday Kyle and I started on getting the backyard cleaned up.  During the clean up Kyle accidentally unearthed a nest of baby bunnies.  The mommy was nowhere to be seen and the bunnies started running, so Kyle had to drag Tybalt into the house and we caught them and put them in a pet carrier.  Bella and I took the bunnies out to grandma and poppas to release the bunnies in the pasture.  It was a lot of fun and Bella got to sniff grandma's tulips :)

Then we continued on yard work today, the front yard is all mowed and fertilized, yay!  The backyard is all cleaned up, there were tons of sticks everywhere.  We'll get the rest of it done this week.  

I had gotten a mayday flower from Jonnie, Bella LOVED it so I told her we would plant it in a bigger flower pot today.  I found another flower just like mine when I went grocery shopping and got it for Bells.  She was so excited when we got home to plant them both :)

She's still doing very well outside, it's such a blessing to be able to do these things with her outdoors.  I think it's toughening her up a bit too, her fear of bugs is slightly better! ;)