Cabin Trip

We went to Cody's cabin again in Ogden.  We LOVE going to the cabin with such great friends.  This trip was fun there were 3 couples and the other couple has a darling little girl who is a month younger than Max.  They were totally falling for each other! :) I am not sure where my pictures are of the two of them, but they were so cute together!

We went 4 wheeling and our 4 wheeler ran out of gas, so we used the chance to take some pics!

I love being up in the cabin, phones don't work, we didn't watch any TV or movies, it was just unplugged time with my family.  LOVE THESE BOYS!

We went down to the lake and hiked around for a bit.  My favorite was seeing Jeffrey shove Maxwell's feet in his pockets!  I love this family picture, life is so good!

Sew fun!

I have been on a major sewing kick lately.  Maybe that's why I haven't blogged in a while! Last Friday morning during Maxwell's nap I made 14 receiving blankets and a few quilts for an Eagle project in our ward. I have made a ton of baby things too. I love being in this kind of a funk! Here are a few of my projects finished and unfinished...

 I made 9 neck ties and 2 skirts for my nephews and nieces for Easter, I think they turned out really cute!

Here we are in our Easter outfits. Maxwell has his tie on and I made myself a skirt out of the ruffle fabric. (easiest project ever!)

 Max has been MAJOR into tags lately.  Like he could be screaming, so sad, (hard to believe with that face, I know!) and I will show him a tag and he hushes up right away.

 So I made him a cube with a bunch of tags in the seams.  I used the left over tie fabric for some of the sides, some minky fabric, some rick rack, and in the end, I am pretty happy with this toy!

 Our room has french doors that go into the sun room where I have Maxwell's nursery, so I made some curtains for the windows so that we can have the light on in our room when Max is asleep in his.  (stay tuned, we painted this wall yellow on Saturday!)

 I was watching my best friends daughter and we were talking about purses and how much she loves them, so while she was asleep in whipped together this cute purse! Kinda happy with the fact that I had purse fabric already and a half hour I had a fun project finished.

 My sister-in-law just had a baby girl, which is RARE in our family! I made her this quilt and am in the process of quilting it. I think it turned out really cute.  I'll post a picture of the finished project!

Mothers Day

I find myself so grateful for the moms in my life and for their amazing example to me of strength, love and patience.  I am so blessed to have married into such a great family and to have the Mother-in-law that I do! I am also blessed to have my own mom so close and so willing to help whenever I need her.  Both women have been a rock for me throughout the last 8 months and with all the things we went through with Max.  I have great memories of sitting in the NICU with these women by my side helping me and being there for us when I really needed someone.  Both women can easily be caught caring and snuggling one of their grandchildren! 

Last year Jeffrey spoiled me because I was pregnant, but I didn't really appreciate or understand Mothers day as well as I do this year.  I suppose that it will just get better and better as time moves on.   Jeffrey was so cute and spent the whole day pampering me. I am so lucky.  Breakfast, flowers, foot massage, a bath, it went on and on all day! I came home from the service on Saturday and in his crib was a little Max smiling and cooing with a darling little garland on his crib that he made with his dad.  It had a bunch of reasons Max loves me and things he's grateful for.  How stinking cute are those little paper hands and that darling little boy holding his feet and smiling when he's supposed to be asleep! LOVE!

I can honestly say being a mom is the greatest calling in my life along side of being a wife.  I love being home with Max.  I can't imagine leaving him.  I know women need to do that sometimes but I think there is a HUGE price to pay for it, and I feel so blessed that we don't have to make that sacrifice.  I can't imagine missing out on all the little things he does all day long.  Those little things make my world go round! We are so blessed to have Maxwell in our home.  I think about our struggle to get pregnant daily and I am often reminded of the joys that come with motherhood.  I try so hard not to take a moment for granted because I can go back and read journals of moments when I hated mothers day.  I wanted it so bad I would sit out in the foyer of church, or just not go on that Sunday because it hurt too bad to have the reality of my dreams thrown in my face.  So Mothers day for me is every day.  It's the diapers, the smiles when he wakes up, the snuggles while eating, even the crying and I can't figure out why.  I am so very grateful to be a mom, it's a calling and a choice I don't take lightly.  It is one of my greatest joys to be this boys mom! 

Motherhood Exhibit A, B and C

This story all starts Monday night when I let my sister-in-law borrow our camera and her famous last words were, "I will try and get it back to you soon, just in case you have a major blow out or something!" Wish I could blame it on her, but it's my own dang fault!

So I had just finished writing this fun/opinionated post about motherhood while my cute son played in his little saucer play gym.  When he kept making the poop face.  So I pulled him out and to my lovely surprise, it was all down his leg.  I put him on the floor and was so thankful he was still in his jammies, otherwise I would have a huge toy to be cleaning as well. (which I have to do all the time anyway because my son is a champion spitter-upper!) Anyway, the following pictures were sent to Jeffrey while at work with the following captions...

Exhibit A - So Big of a blow out it was in between his toes!

Exhibit B - This is maxwells way of telling me he wants a bath in the middle of the day, that kid loves water!

Then after sending email #2 with Exhibit B.  I realized I didn't know where Scooter was.  I went running into the living room (at a HUGE risk I know, because my son was in the tub.  But there was only an inch of water and I am fully aware that I should never do that. But I did and this is what I found...)

Exhibit C - This is what you get for texting your husband and bathing your child and not paying attention to your dog.  Notice the poop all over his neck stuck in his fur!?! and on the side of the toilet from him shaking? it's on the walls too! I need reinforcements!

Needless to say after Max got his bath, and Scooter got his bath (and a very serious scolding!) I took my own very long hot sanitizing shower.

Is motherhood still my favorite calling?  yep. We have been laughing all day about this, it was pretty funny after all!

Happy to be Free!

Ever since we stopped being attached to this...

We could do a little more of this... 

 And a lot of chewing, drooling, soothing, cooing, but mostly smiling, A LOT of SMILES.

 

Life has been so good post oxygen! It's been a month of freedom and life is so dang fun with this little boy! I am grateful for the time we were able to have him on oxygen, I am mostly grateful it was during the winter when we didn't want to go out and play.  I've been worrying quite a bit about Maxwell's development and have had a therapist come out to work with us.  He's getting to where he should be, but it's slow and I am learning to be OK with it.  There are so many things on the darn internet that make me worry, but I'm working on being patient and being ok with whatever happens. 

So in LOVE

Jeffrey and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary last week.  Can't believe it's been 3 years!

 If you follow the gifting schedule,because I know you do... then you would know that the 3rd year is traditionally leather... (yep, I didn't know it either till this week!)  So as we sat down to share gifts my cute husband admitted he got me something to follow the traditional gift of leather! (can you tell he was really looking quite a bit online to figure out what to do for our anniversary!? cute!)  So, I got new scriptures, leather bound, for our anniversary.  This is a hard gift for me because currently I have my mission scriptures that I LOVE and have marked all over, but I would like my new name and a clean slate to study with so this is a good thing.  

Jeffrey's love language is words of affirmation, So I wrote a bunch of things I love about him on cards and got pictures of us printed from our dating and engaged life and I hung them on balloons all around our dining room.  So when he came home from work there was a sign on the stairs that said, "here are just a few reasons you lift me up" and then the balloons were there in our wedding colors for him to read and see. (there were a lot more than this pictures shows...)

We sat down after I put Max to bed and had a great dinner, watched our wedding video and just talked about married life and all the things we've gone through over the last 3 years.  It's been a pretty eventful few years!  We moved 4 time in 2 years, bought a house, changed jobs, took a huge risk on Jeffrey's job, struggled with infertility and got pregnant, had a darling little boy, bought a dog, traveled on cruises, to California, and camped in lots of places, played with family a ton, hosted my sister and her family for 2 months, been on lots of dates, and just had a blast! 

 I could tell you the number of times on one hand we've missed reading our scriptures and praying together daily.  I love that about our relationship.  I married the most easy going person I have ever met.  God knew I needed someone like that because we all know I'm not so easy going!  He is my perfect match in every way.  I am constantly thinking (like several times a day) how lucky I was to find Jeffrey and how HAPPY I am to be his wife.  I can only imagine what the future holds! Life is so very great and I am really the luckiest girl to have found my other orange half!

Freedom!

I have been so discouraged lately about Max and the oxygen. He was finally able to see a specialist up at Primary Children's who ordered to have a sleep study done. I called the insurance company to find they wouldn't approve it. Then my doctor thought that Maxwell's reflux could be contributing to his oxygen issues so he prescribed some great reflux medicine, sure enough insurance wouldn't cover it. Seriously, what's the point of insurance people?! He started rolling over and I began to worry myself silly with him having a cord around his neck all the time. As of last week, I was feeling pretty hopeless about all of this.

So with enough worrying and venting to Jeffrey he pushed me to check Maxwell's levels while he slept for the past week. We would hook him up to the monitor we bought (because insurance wouldn't!) and let him sleep without oxygen and test his levels. It would beep every time he'd move because the sensor wasn't good. So we both weren't getting any sleep between my worrying and the beeping. But... We went 3 nights without his level's dropping so we called the doctor and he ordered a hospital monitor to be brought in where the sensors actually work. Sure enough his levels were AWESOME! So tonight the doctors office called to say they were going to fax our home health care and tell them to come pick up the equipment. I am beyond elated about this!

No more cords
No more portable tank
No more tank in my living room
No more face dots
No more face sores

No more oxygen.

Just one darling little boy whose cheeks I can kiss all the time now without hitting the face dots or worrying about the sores and one very happy mom.

Tonight my nephew 3 year old Andrew came over for a moment and he asked me what he asks me frequently, "is baby Max going to be off Oxygen soon?" This time, I said yes! The best part of Andrew asking me that was realizing how grateful we are for our family and friends and all the prayers they have offered for Max. I recognized the same feeling when I was a missionary. I can literally feel the prayers and love of those we care about. Thank you so much.

I'm going to delete the Home Health Care phone number from my phone. Tonight.