Thursday, September 24, 2009

Flu Shot Obsession

Isabelle has developed an obsession with the flu shot! We went as a family on Labor Day weekend and all got our flu shots now all the girl can talk about is flu shots. On Saturday as we are walking up the balloon fest the first balloon Isabelle sees is this one:

Most people would see this as a First Aid balloon but not Isabelle she yells out "look Mommy a flu shot balloon, I think that is where you go to get your flu shot Collin needs to come here". So now she is starting to worry about people not getting their flu shots and Collin (because she knows he will be coming over in the next couple of days) is the first person she thinks of.

Tuesday I go to pickup Isabelle from school and she tells me that she is REALLY worried about her friend Jonah. She said that he has a cough and a little bit of a fever (he had no fever.. LOL) and she was not sure if he got his flu shot yet. She wanted me to call Mrs. Monda right now, Jonah's mom, to make sure that Jonah gets his shot..LOL I swear the girl is obsessed, but so everyone sleeps well at night Jonah already has an appointment to get his flu shot. Isabelle was so relieved when I told her =)

My little girl is such a carrying person.

Grandma & Collin come to visit

These are two of my favorite pictures EVER!

Tuesday my mom brought over my nephew Collin to visit and spend the night. Isabelle has been begging me for months to have a sleep over, so she was so excited when I told her Collin was spending the night. I wanted to take their pictures in their pajamas so they both climbed up on the bed and posed. Some how the posing turned into cute little midget wrestling.. LOL They looked so adorable wrestling in their little footed pajamas, and I was surprised at how Isabelle was able to hold her own again Collin. Collin is a pretty solid little boy and Isabelle was flinging him around =) When it was time to go to bed I made the two of them a pallet on the floor knowing it was going to be a little bit of a battle getting them to sleep. I read them some books, turned on the baby monitior and left the room to hear what all was being said on the monitor. It is so cute to hear two little people carrying on a conversartion. Collin would tell Isabelle that he wanted his mommy, and Isabelle would tell him that his mommy was at home but she was there to protect him. Then Collin said "I want to go pick up my mommy" Iz "you have a drivers license??"... LOL They went on and on forever until Isabelle asked "are you having a problem Collin, my Daddy said if I have a problem that we can go get him". The next thing you know Isabelle and Collin are outside of the room, blankies in tow and Isabelle tells us that Collin is having problems.. There were a couple of "problems" throughout the night until Grandma finally laid with them until they were asleep.. They had so much fun together, and really enjoyed each others company!



The next day we deicded to have a picnic at Celebration Park. My Aunt Kelly was watching my cousins daughter (not sure what that makes her to me) Cylie, so we called and asked if they would like to join us. Cylie came and played with Isabelle and Collin and had a really good time, I am so glad that they were able to join us!

The Balloon Fest

Last Saturday we took Isabelle to the Plano Balloon Fest, it was a first time for all of us and we really had a great time. The walk from the parking lot to the fest was ridiculous to say the least, but well worth it to see the awesome show! We packed a dinner, brought a blanket and found a spot on top of the hill to watch all of the events. It started off with the sky divers. Isabelle's only question was "why are they jumping out the plane".. Can someone explain that to me, why DOES a person jump out of a perfectly good plane?? I don't know the reason, but it made for great pictures:



After the sky divers Isbaelle started to socialize (as Isabelle does), and of course she found some friends. The people sitting in front of us had a little girl, Sidney, and Isabelle had a blast playing and trying on the hats that she brought with her.


She is such a natural performer!

Ditching Mom and Dad for her friend, I cannot believe it has already started so soon.

The Balloons were obviously the highlight of the day, there were probably 30 of them all within yards of where we were sitting. As they took off many of them flew over us, and the really amazing site was when they lit up after dark.




After the balloon show they had fireworks, which I kind of wish I had not told Isabelle about. Isabelle LOVES fireworks, and they were suppose to start at 9 pm which was past her bed time but I thought it would be ok to be a little late. The fireworks ended up starting at more like 10, so by the time we got home it was 11-11:30. We were all so tired, and Isabelle had fallen asleep in the car before we could even get out of the parking lot.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Catching Up

I know, I know it has been forever since I updated my blog.. That seams to be my normal M.O. lately, I have to start getting better. Today I am sick in bed with allergy junk and completely shut out from the word so I thought to myself, "self, what better thing to do than catch up on the blog" So here is what went on this week:

Monday- my friend Jamie, Kaitlyn brought of Jamie's sister Lori, and her son Hunter for me to embroider a couple of bags that Lori had. I was a little nervous about working with the bags, thinking that I was going to somehow mess it all up and ruin her bags but things turned out beautifully.. Yeah! After embroidering the bags I was in craft mode and decided to whip out a flower barrette for Isabelle. I met someone a few weeks ago who's daughter had one in hair and it was adorable, she told me how to do it and mine came out all right but I think I have a few kinks to work out. Here is what it looks like:

Oh, and normally Isabelle does not walk around naked but she had just "woken up" from her "nap". (As you can tell with all of the quotations she clearly did no sleeping) When she takes her "nap" the only thing that she has left to play with is her clothes so she changes them, takes them off, puts socks on, gets shirts stuck around her neck.. you know the normal toddler thing. Speaking of clothes, I almost forgot to post this little gem of a picture =)

Last Saturday I let Dave pick out Isabelle's outfit, needless to say you could tell which of her parents picked out her outfit and "did" her hair. Well it was never more apparent to me that Dave was her Daddy until I caught her bending over playing I saw CRACK! OMG, she is definitely his child I am constantly getting on to him about pulling up his pants and now IZ is showing crack. I took a picture of both of them doing it together but did not think that Dave would be thrilled of a picture of his crack on the blog LOL

Tuesday- I dropped of Isabelle at MDO and went to go get my hair cut. I had been debating for a couple of weeks about how much to get cut off, but finally decided to bite the bullet and cut it after all it will grow back. When I showed the hairstylist the two hair styles that I was looking at she said she thinks that I had enough to donate to Locks of Love. I think she ended up cutting more than what I wanted but I was ok with that since after all it is going to a good cause. When I went to pick up Isabelle she didn't even notice, how do you not notice 10 INCHES! It was not until after I picked her up, put her in the car, put on her seat belt and got in the driver seat that I finally asked her if she noticed anything. She finally noticed and said that I looked like her teacher, Mrs. Leath. I have been harassed about posting pictures, and I took some when I got home but am not really all that happy with the pictures. Here they are anyways:



Tuesday was also my dad's and sister's birthday.. Happy Birthday we love you guys!

Wednesday was uneventful, nothing really to report.

Thursday Dave and I dropped of Isabelle at school and went to an appointment to the RE (or baby doctor as Isabelle likes to call him). We had a consultation about what the next steps would be. On our initial consultation he had said that we should be pregnant after 4 months of fertility treatment, well we are on our 4th month so know we have to see what is in store for us next. What the doctor came up with is one of a couple of things he said that my ovaries are really high up which could be making it hard for my fallopian tubes to catch the eggs. He also would like to eventually do a laproscopic surgery to check my fallopian tubes for endometriosis. This is just an outpatient surgery and you normally have to take it easy for a couple of days and then you are as good as knew. If he got in and saw that I did have endometriosis on the tubes that he could remove what he could of the endometrosis and if the fallopian tubes were a total loss than we would have no choice but to do an IVF. (which is like 10's of thousands of dollars and out of the question). Finally option would be to do FSH injections which has a couple of different side effects including multiple births, a 20% chance of times (which we would be fine with), and ovarian hyper stimulation. So what we have decided to do is to do the FSH shots for the month of September, October and November and then if we are not pregnant in December than we will go with the surgery. If everything come out ok on the surgery and we are still not pregnant we are probably going to take a couple of months off and get on birth control. The reason we would do that is because we got pregnant with Isabelle the same month that I quit taking my birth control pills. The doctor seemed to think that the reason we got pregnant so quick was that after I was now longer on the pills my body went into overdrive trying to get back to normal and made me extra fertile. That is our plan, but we will still have not eliminated the possibility that we could be pregnant this month. We had one follicle this month (which is all it takes), so I take a pregnancy test on either Tuesday or Wednesday this week. If I am not prego then I go to the doctor this week so they can teach me how to give myself the FSH injection.. Fun, fun, so please keep us in your prayers!

Thursday night we went out with my dad, Kim, Ashley, Papaw Stokes (my great grandfather), Meme (my dad's mom, and Tom for dinner to celebrate all of the birthdays for the week. My dad's and Ashley's the 15th and Meme on the 17th! Happy Birthday to all of you!

For those of you who know Isabelle she LOVES butter, she was in heaven when Meme completely drenched her bread in a gallon of butter. MMMMM!

Papaw Stokes and Iz

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Craft Addiction

Last week I mentioned that I have become addicted to a few crafting blogs. I find myself looking at these blogs and wanting to do so many of the projects, and I know that in a week or two I will forget all about them. Not to mention by the time I remember to do them with all of the blogs that I search I will not remember where to find them. The solution to the conundrum that I am in is to create another blog that is a "To Do List" of sorts, so that I will always know where to find them... So with out further ado, I inrtroduce you to:

The Crazy Craft Chic
http://thecrazycraftchic.blogspot.com/

Friday, September 11, 2009

A Rough Week

We had a rough week at the Wink house this week. It started on Tuesday after I dropped off Isabelle for her 1st day of school. I went to the RE (reproductive endocrinologist) to see how many follicles had been produced in this months cycle. I was aggravated to find out that we only have one follicle again this month. The first two months that I was on fertility meds I was producing 3 to 4 follicles per month which greatly increases the chances of me getting pregnant. The Clomid worked great in that it gave me a bunch of follicles but it started to decrease my uterine lining (common side effect) which has to be a certain thickness to make a pregnancy stick. The thinning of the lining made the doctor switch me to another drug called Femara. I have know been on the drug for 2 months and it has been absolutely worthless to me. It has a reputation of being a much better drug that the Clomid but for some reason it didn't work for me. So Tuesday the nurse said that if I do not get pregnant this month then we are going to have to switch to injectables. She also gave me the heads up that injectables are $1,000 a month! That would be on top of the Ovidrel, Femara and the IUI that I have already been paying for out of pocket. We are now looking at spending about $1600 a month! I really, really, really hope this is our month. I cannot even describe to you how incredibly frustrated and emotional I am right now. I have so many questions, doubts, worries, mixed emotions, and anxiety that I cannot even see straight. I just have to put it in the Lords hands (which is incredibly hard to do), and know that there is a plan. I just wish that I had the secret decoder ring to know what that plan is....

On Wednesday Dave had to take Tootsie, our dog, to the city pound. It has been a struggle for both Dave and I the past couple of weeks deciding what to do with her. She tore her ACL last year on one of her hind legs and it was going to cost of between $2,000- $2500 to fix it. We could not afford to do that, but read that usually once one goes out the other one will be soon to follow. When we returned back from vacation in July we noticed that Tootsie was acting a lot different. She was not at all active and just laid around the house. Then we started to see more signs of her slowly worsening condition her hind legs started to loose muslce mass from not using them, she would jump up to chase things and start to wimper in pain, and one day she even fell down the stairs. It was time for us to do something for her and our best choice was take her to the city becuase they have animal advocacy groups that come in to try and take care of the animals. Dave and I are hoping that she was rescued and taken care of by one of the groups. We were not sure how Isabelle would feel so we decided that we wouldn't tell her anything at all until she asked. When Dave got home from dropping of Toots he cleared out all of Tootsie stuff so not to draw attention to the situation. Two days later she finally noticed, and I am not even sure she would have if I didn't point it out. We were looking for something for lunch and she said asked if she could feed Tootsie and I told her no. Later I told her that Tootsie was gone, that Daddy had to take her to the doctor and she didn't believe me. She started to laugh and thought that I was joking with her. It took me about 5 minutes to convince her that I was not joking and that Toots was not coming back, I though she would be sad but the first thing she said was "can we get a cat". Apparently I don't have to worry about her being upset, well other than the fact that I said no to the cat.

Isabelle's 1st day of School

It was inevitable, Isabelle is a big girl now. When I am complain about Isabelle getting bigger Dave always tells me that it is suppose to happen that way, but I want her to stay my baby forever =( Tuesday was a big day for us, Isabelle's first day of school. I was a little worried that she would be nervous and maybe even cry a little when we dropped her off, but who was I kidding she could not get rid of me fast enough. It started when we were at home and she said "come on dad let's go, bye mom". I explained to her that I was going to go with them to drop her off at school. Then she asked me what was I going to do all day. I told her I had a doctor appointment, then I had to go to Costo, and then I was coming home. She was nice enough to tell me that I was going to be "alllllll alone". You have to read it drawn out like that because that is how Iz said it, sure to express how alone I was going to be =( When we got to school she said bye to me at least 3 times before it was actually time for me leave, she is over needing Mommy.

Her class lets out at 2:00 and I arrived around 1:50 to pick her up, she was so mad that I picked her up early! Not only was she not sad to see me go but she was now mad when I picked her up. Now I have to be sure to leave my house no earlier than 1:50 or wait in the parking lot for her.. LOL

The matching blanket, nap mat and tote I made Isabelle for school. I am not thrilled with the fabric, but Isabelle loves it because it has two of her favorite nursery rhyme characters the Big Bad Wolf and the Gingerbread Man. (why she choose them I will never know)

LD Bell Raiders

Last Friday we went to Hurst to see my little brothers (not so little anymore) playing in the LD Bell band. Talk about a blast from the past, I never thought that I would hear the old school song again. Anyhow, they did a great job and I still can't believe that two of my brothers are what we always called "band nerds".. LOL (love you Shane and Troy). Bell ended up losing the game, but we still had a great time.

2nd picture- Shane is in the first row all the way to the right

1st pic- Shane is the one directly behind the girl to the right a little 2nd pic-taking a good guess, but I think Troy is third from the back (everyone looks alike in these uniforms which is kind of the point)

Troy playing the Tuba, and my nephew who has a good chance of making the KISS band.. look at that tongue

I think he could have reached his tongue if he only could have stopped laughing.. LOL

Friday, September 4, 2009

Meet the Teacher

Last night was Isabelle's meet the teacher night for preschool, and she was so excited. We are getting the daily question of "am I going to school today", but she does not start until Tuesday the 8th. She is attending school at Redeemer Church right up the road from our house. When we arrived they had everyone meet in the sanctuary for introduction and brief update on some construction they are doing to the church. As we are sitting there Isabelle starts looking around and says, "Mom, I hear Jesus talking". I explained to her that it was not Jesus, simply the man on the stage using a microphone. (I guess the amplification of the microphone gave her the impression that Jesus was talking) Then she says, "Oh, is he God".. LOL She is so funny and cute! Lately her questions all revolve around God, she is so inquisitive =)

At first I was a little sad about the whole preschool thing thinking that she is growing up to fast (which she is), and that I am not ready to let her go even if it is only from 9-2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then lately I have been stocking up on a bunch of fabric and I though, oh my gosh I am actually going to be able to sew during day light hours while Isabelle is at school. How exciting as that! Not only do I have a bunch of sewing projects lined up but I have recently discovered a slew of blogs that have awesome project ideas that I cannot wait to tackle. My Tuesdays and Thursdays will soon be filled with endless possibilities.. Love it!

Here are some of the blogs that I am following from a distance from now, but will soon be diving right in:
http://sewspoiled.blogspot.com/
http://kari-youcanmakeit.blogspot.com/
http://mmmcrafts.blogspot.com/
http://whimsycoutureboutique.blogspot.com/
http://notsoidlehands.blogspot.com/
http://www.modabakeshop.com/

Conner's 6th Birthday

My nephew, Conner, had a birthday party a few weekends ago so I made him a cake. I have come to the conclusion that girls cakes are sooo much easier, I think it is a matter of motivation. With a girls cake they are so cute and pretty that I am excited about it, but I have to admit when Conner called and said he wanted a Pokemon cake I was not thrilled. I mean really, how in the world am I going to make a Pokemon cake cute and exciting. Not only did he want a cake, but he specifically asked for cakes and cupcakes. So here is what I made for him:


It is really hard to believe that Conner turned 6 years old! As we know kids grow up so fast, but I remember the day he was born. Funny enough the day after his birthday was Dave and I's first date, so his birthday is always like a little anniversary for us =) Conner is getting so big and is growing up to be a cute little man.

Isabelle with three generation so grandparents (my mom, my dad's mom, and my dad's mom's dad.. that hardly makes sense. My mom, my grandmother and my great grandfather)

Two of Conner's best birthday presents a bike from his Mom and Josh, and a BB gun from my grandfather. All I can think about it a Red Rider BB gun and "you're going to shoot your eye out".

Happy Birthday Conner, we love you!