Mid February already?

Mckenzie is getting over a cold, she had a brief bout with RSV last month.  A few kids got it and it spread quickly.  Thankfully it was pretty mild but she had to stay home 2 days.

It's starting to warm up over here...we had some really cold weather last month and snow several times. We're back to decent temps and lots of sunshine!!!

Mckenzie is talking so much it's crazy!! She carries on full conversations, is very observant, I've lost track how many words are in her vocabulary. She points out things that I assume she wouldn't know what they are.  Loves to do arts and crafts, loves babies, her purses, shoes, and loves to go shopping (uh oh!).  She also loves to sing! They learn all kinds of songs in her class. She knows close to a dozen songs, its amazing how she knows them all.  Sometimes she starts signing a song I don't know and I google the words and figure out what she is singing :) She is very observant everywhere we are and go!

All is well here, our parents are both coming out at the end of the month, and then Mckenzie and I are going to Oregon next month (for work)

I made Valentine's Cards to send to the grandparents...they LOVED it! I thought it would be fun to send a photo card for the holidays, its easy and they enjoy it!

Treats I made to send for Mckenzie's Valentine's party!

Homemade Red Velvet Cupcakes for her Valentine's party...they were a hit!

Slacker.

I've been a total slacker on my blog but want to get back to it!

We've been busy since my last post.

Mckenzie turned 2 on November 13th.  She is growing so fast and is talking all the time now!  She carries on full blown conversations, wants to know what your doing, asks "why" all the time.  She is very smart and observant about everything. I've completely lost track of how many words she knows, she talks about things that I wouldn't expect her to even know.   She loves to help in the kitchen and sit on the counter to watch me cook and prepare meals.  The funny thing is my grandma used to do the same thing! Overall, Mckenzie has done really well since her surgery, she's had 2 minor bouts of croup but nothing that required a trip to ER.  She unfortunately has RSV right now, overall is doing well.  Several kids at her daycare got it. There's not much to do for it except inhaler, oral steroids and ibuprofen.

Thanksgiving was spent in Oregon (my birthday also landed on Thanksgiving).  I went Black Friday shopping and then Jeremy and I headed to Corvallis and went to the Civil War game with our good friends Bryan and Trish.

We stayed home for Christmas this year since Mckenzie is old enough to understand.  It was quite nice to just relax and not be on the go all weekend.  We did got to Oregon in mid-December and celebrated Christmas with Jeremy's family.  My parents and step-brother and his girlfriend came to Idaho for Christmas.

All in all things are going well!

Spunky little girl

Mckenzie is doing well and is recovered! Most definitely back to her spunky personality! :) She had a post-op follow-up today and her surgeon was very pleased with how well she did.  I just pray she doesn't get sick too much this winter. She has another follow-up in 3 months.

She returned to daycare/pre-school last week. She had another explosion in her vocabulary, she is well over 100+ words right now. She knows what things mean that I would not expect her to know.  Seeing her blossom just validates what a wonderful choice in child care we have made. She attends a daycare center that has had curriculum since about 1. She loves it, they do projects and have a rigid schedule for the day.

She has been doing excellent with potty training too. I thought for sure that would have regressed since her interest peaked right before she had her surgery. She has been doing really well and sure lets you know when she needs to go, and you better be paying attention!

Update

Mckenzie did great during her recovery.

She was a lot better than I thought she would be. The doctor said that kids are either act like nothing happened or their a wreck. Thankfully she was good overall. She did well taking her pain mess for the first 5 days and then it turned into a fight to get her to take her meds.

My mom flew out the week after and watched her whil ei was working, Mckenzie was doing really well 1 week post-op.  By last Friday she was doing good, overall ate well throughout her recovery, getting fluids in her was hit and miss but good overall.

She returned to daycare yesterday and had a great day :)

Surprisingly during her recovery she wanted to use the potty all the time. Before she had surgery she was doing great in the potty.  Now she is all about going to the potty and even tells us when she needs to go. Not quite ready for big girl underwear yet but it's great to see her be able to know when she needs to go and tells us :)

Surgery day

We arrived at the hospital at 8:30am, she went back to surgery around 10:30am. We were starring by then because we hadn't eaten since Mckenzie wasn't allowed to eat this morning.  The nurse suggested we got get something to eat but to come back to the surgery waiting area that way we were there when her surgeon came out.

Once her doctor came out, she told us everything went well. She did the brochoscopy and found laryngomalacoa and cleft which they repaired. They removed her tonsils and a portion of the adenoids, clipped her tongue tie, and replaced her ear tubes. She's doing much better than I thought.

They told us some kids want to eat regular food which I was surprised because I had my tonsils removed, granted as an adult which they say is worse, I know I wanted nothing to eat for a good 7-10 days! Her doctor said to order her favorite food off the menu. She has eat several pieces of cheese pizza and applesauce.

She has to be taking in fluids good before she can go home, she did good today but tomorrow will have to drink more or they won't discharge her obviously so she doesn't become dehydrated.

I'm praying for a speedy recovery for her. My mom flies out on Saturday and will watch her next week since she'll be home for 2 weeks recovering. Jeremy's grandparents are coming on Thursday for a visit

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Mckenzie's surgery

Weve decided to push her surgery out until August 13th. Initially we were told it'd be ale a week recovery. I found out about a week ago it's more like 2. Between days 7-10 potato there is a risk for bleeding so it'll be best to have her at home then.

We were just in Portland for a good friends wedding last week. I went to Phoenix for work this week to train on a new computer system, so it would have put me out of the office for 3 weeks straight, which would have been awful timing. I talked to her doctor and she said it was fine to push it out 2 weeks. After talking with my mom she said she would come stay with us the second week and watch Mckenzie, so it's going to work out much better.

Mckenzie and I are flying back to Portland this weekend ad I need to be in my office when we go live with our new system. Its looking like it'll make my job easier and more efficient to do, which I'm definitely looking forward to, of course after I get the hang of things!

Working on my fitness!

 I'm proud to say that I was able to breastfeed Mckenzie until she was about 18 months old.  I made it to a year and with all the illnesses she had her peditrician strongly suggested I try to breastfeed through the Winter to get those extra antibodies for her to help fight off the sicknesses.  So I was hoping to make it through March, around Februrary ish I stopped pumping regularly and she wasn't a big fan of having whole milk mixed with breast milk.  I ended up quitting cold turkey, because she would come up to me and say "Nurse." The weaning went very well and actually wasn't even painful as I had anticipated.

With breastfeeding I really didn't have to work too much at all to loose the baby weight after having Mckenzie. I really didn't work out and was back into my regular clothes pretty quickly, which I think was from breastfeeding.

However, once I stopped breastfeeding I've noticed over the last 6 ish weeks my pants are getting tight on me. I decided I was not going to buy bigger pants and needed to get back into the gym! I had been contemplating which gym would be best to sign up at.  I checked out the local YMCA and Anytime Fitness. YMCA was great but just far enough that it would be hard to get a decent amount of time to actually work out.

Before moving to Idaho, I had been working out regularly during my lunch hour which worked great.  Work has been extremely stressful for a while now, which could be a contributing factor to not fitting in my clothes too well.  I haven't really been taking much of a lunch break lately just trying to keep up.  I need to be taking a lunch break, so I decided today that I will give my job 110% but need to start taking a lunch break and am going to start working out during lunch time again! I need to! It'll probably be a great stress reliever as well.

I'm going to make small goals and be realistic....

My small goal is to lose 8 pounds (About 2 pounds per week) within 1 month (August 9, 2012).  My membership is with anytime fitness and there is one that barely a mile from the house!

I'd like to lose about 18 pounds right now.  One I hit that then I can re-evaluate and decide what my next goal is!

I'm looking forward to getting back into the gym for me :)

Wish me luck! :)