Work Notice & Brayden's surgery

After we got back from our cruise, it was hard getting back into daily life.  I've been really stressed out lately.  Work was picking up and it was just getting to be too much so I decided I needed to go ahead and turn in my notice...again.  I really do enjoy working with house plans and getting to help design new plans, but I have definitely noticed the toll it takes on my life as well as my parenting.  Even only working my own hours, it was still just too stressful.  I would find myself just always making Kaitlyn go play by herself or watch a show so I could work and especially with a third baby coming, I just need to step away...for good.  I told Shea they needed to hire a new replacement and that is scary b/c they will no longer need me at all anymore.  The bad thing about AutoCAD as well as codes and construction is it is like computers.  It is always changing, so by me stepping away and not working for even 5+ years, it will have changed so much that I will be pretty useless.  So I most likely won't ever do much with it again.  So that makes me sad, but if we were financially able for me to never have to work again then I would be just fine with that! haha!  So even though I know it is the right thing to do, I was sad.

Towards the end of the month there was a lot more stress b/c Brayden had to be hospitalized.  One afternoon I was sitting in a chair and Brayden walks over to me and falls right before he reaches me and busts his lip on the side of the chair.  He immediately starts hysterically crying due to his lip and that is when I notice that he had also been chewing on a little tip of a crayon.  During his crying, he also starts choking on the bits of crayon.  He starts coughing and throws up twice.  It's mostly just saliva and there is bits of crayon in the throw up.  After about 10 minutes he is fine and not bothered by anything.  It was his nap time so I go ahead and put him down for his nap as usual.  Justin comes home and we all eat dinner.  Brayden eats a full meal and I'm still going about normal life, except I notice that Brayden has this constant wheezing sound now when he breathes.  But other than that he is happy and fine!  Finally Justin and I decide we should just go ahead and get it checked out.  We were planning on going to Urgent Care, but they were all shut down early b/c it happened to be one of the rare NC snow/sleet days.  Roads were fine, but you know how that goes.  So we stop at the CMC Steele Creek ER.  They run x-rays and tests and determine that they can't do anything.  He has to go to Levine Children's hospital.  By this time it is already past 10:00 and I am so annoyed.  They try to make us go by ambulance, but I refuse.  Now before you think I'm a horrible parent, remember that he is breathing perfectly and eating and everything!  Just making a wheezing sound.  So I figure that extra 5 minutes by ambulance is not worth the additional money we would have to pay.  So we drive ourselves.  Once we get to Levine they run more test and more x-rays...just to keep on charging us more and more money.  They never find anything on the X-rays so the surgeon comes in and says that he is pretty confident there is something in the airways, it is just not showing up.  But unfortunately the only way to know is to get in there and check it out.  So Brayden is prepped for surgery.  They wheel us up to the surgical floor and try to get an IV in him but are unsuccessful and finally end up putting it in his foot!  It was so horrible watching him suffer through that.  They end up making us leave to the waiting area.  Since Brayden had eaten sooner than is allowed for general anesthesia, they had to pump out his stomach.  Poor Baby!  Then he was put to sleep and they started the bronchoscopy.  I didn't get to see anything, but the doctor came in after to tell us it went well.  They did find a crayon particle and it had already started irritating his tracheal tube.  They gave us some pictures they took while they were in there.  You can see the crayon particle  under the bubble in the circled picture.  Then they showed the healthy clear side, and then the side that is all irritated after they removed the crayon. 

They said it is lucky that we did bring him in soon, b/c most of the risk of things like this comes from infections and complications from the foreign object being stuck in the trachea.  Once the doctor came in, Justin went ahead and took Kaitlyn home since it was about 2:00AM.  I have to keep waiting until Brayden wakes up from the general anesthesia, and then we go to a waiting room where he is monitored for another hour.  At about 4:00AM we are finally sent to a room.  Brayden is put on Morphine and sleeps until about 8:00AM.  I am like a zombie at this point, but it is so cute when Brayden wakes up.  He had his head facing me and immediately sits up looking away getting upset, but then turns around and sees me and his face lights up!  It was so sweet.  He hates being hooked up to all the tubes and stuff and keeps trying to rip them out.  The nurse had delivered him a full Pancake, bacon and egg breakfast.  He eats his entire plate of eggs and 3 pancakes!  I guess after having his stomach completely emptied, poor little guy was starving!  Finally that afternoon he gets discharged and we all go home.  He still makes a weird breathing sound for the next couple days so I get worried that they didn't get it all, but it eventually went away and now he is perfect!   

Not a very good quality pic, but I only had my iPod.  This is right after he came out of surgery and was asleep from the morphine while we are in the Monitoring room.  So sweet!

January Cruise 2013

For Justin and my Christmas present to ourselves we decided to go on a cruise.  Originally we weren't even planning on getting each other anything, but Justin was obsessed with getting in one last vacation before our third addition arrives.  We found a great deal on a 5 night cruise out of New Orleans at the last minute and decided to book it.  Justin's parents agreed to watch the kids while we were away.  Although it was great to get away and a lot of fun, I am not a fan of a January cruise.  It was way to cold!  New Orleans was freezing as well as on the boat.  It only got warm the two days we were in Mexico.  So I was not a fan of that.  On a tropical cruise vacation I want to be hot!  Also I do prefer week long cruises vs. only the 5 nights.  You can tell a difference in the food quality as well as the nicer boats are reserved for the longer cruises.  We went down the night before the boat left and stayed at a really nice hotel that one of Justin's friends was able to get us at a great rate.  It was at the Hyatt convention center literally right across from the cruise port!  It also had the best free breakfast I have ever had.  Delicious!  We were also walking distance to Bourbon street and the French quarters so we went exploring that night.  Neither of us had ever been and I can say that neither of us were impressed AT ALL!  It was one of the dirtiest places I have ever been.  I don't mean dirty like litter, but just dirty bars, sex clubs everywhere, and basically just tons of people that make you uncomfortable.  We had to dart into Harrah's casino to escape these two crazy homeless people that were begging us for money.  Below are a few pics of the trip.

Bourbon street.  Hard to really see much from the picture, but it was gross.  Just bars and sex clubs every other place.

The next morning in front of the Mississippi River.  We did try some of the famous Beignets at Café du Monde and they were delicious!

Mississippi River again

 

During our stop at Progresso, Yucatan Mexico, we took a tour of the Uxmal Mayan Ruins.  We were going to do Chichin-Itza, but decided against it because apparently it has become so touristy and you are not allowed to climb anything anymore.  At Uxmal we were allowed to climb absolutely anything we wanted except for the main pyramid.  But some of the secondary pyramids were VERY high.  After climbing them, I don't think I would have wanted to attempt the main one!

 Climbing up the secondary pyramid.  Very steep and no handrails! haha!

 About to board our boat in Cozumel.  All we did in Cozumel was walk around the town and make our phone calls back home to the kids who were both doing good.  Kaitlyn would get sad at night, but they were very well entertained while we were gone!  They got to do all kinds of fun stuff.  We also loved Cozumel b/c they have drug stores at like every corner where you can just buy whatever medicine you want!  No prescriptions! haha!  So we bought some antibiotics and extra strong Ibuprofen you can't buy in the states just to have if we need it.

 

Overall it was a fun trip.  Except unfortunately we got sick on our last day.  And I am still sick 3 weeks later!  Ugh.  I am ready for this baby to be born so I can start taking some stronger medicines again as well as cold/flu season to be over in general.  This has definitely been the worst ever!  But it was very nice to have one last getaway since it will probably be the last one alone for a while since it will be a lot more difficult to leave 3 kids!

 

 

 

Brayden's first Haircut

We got Brayden's first haircut back in December. It was getting pretty long and I have no idea how to cut hair so we had a coupon for one of those special children's salons. I think after this though, we will attempt to do it ourselves just b/c I can't justify having to pay that much money for a baby/toddler haircut when it grows so fast!

I forgot to get a BEFORE/ AFTER at the hair salon, so here is a recent picture before we went: 

 

At the Salon.  He didn't cry the entire time until the very end when they tried to blow dry the cut hair off of him.

 

Fresh haircut and of course another shot of how I can never get them both to pose for a good picture!

 

Christmas 2012

We had a good Christmas this year.  Luckily I got my wish and we were all healthy for Christmas and pretty much through the end of the year.  Unfortunately January started back up full force in the sickness department, but I'll talk about that in another post.  This year it was our turn to be in Charlotte for Christmas and we had our first Christmas where we woke up as a our own immediate family alone to see what Santa brought and open presents.  We introduced the "Elf on the Shelf" this year.  At first Kaitlyn was not so sure what to think about him.  I think he made her nervous (as most things do...haha)  but by Christmas time she was happy to wake up to see where he had moved to and find him.  Our elf didn't do anything crazy.  Just move to a different spot/ hiding place each night.  She was a little disappointed when he went back to live with Santa.  We also succeeded in getting our first Santa picture without her crying.  Unfortunately Brayden was tired and grumpy from waiting in the long line that he was not having the picture!  Kaitlyn cried the entire line, and then stopped when we got up there and put her fingers in her mouth to comfort her.

Baking Christmas Cookies for Santa

 

I attempted several times to get a good picture of them in front of the tree, but they were all failures :/

 

Opening presents Christmas morning.

 Brayden in his new Tom Brady jersey Justin got him.  AS you can see, Justin is a bit more excited about it than Brayden.

 What Santa brought Kaitlyn

 What Santa brought Brayden

 

 

After our family Christmas at our house, we went over to my Mom's house for Christmas over there and lunch.  There were lots more presents and then we went over to my Dad's house for our third Christmas of the day!  That weekend we drove down to Justin's parents house for the family Christmas with them!  Overall the kids got WAY too many presents!  I will definitely need to be having a yard sale this spring to clear our some of our old toys to make room for everything they got.  Overall it was a great Christmas!





Surgeries and The Plague

Sickness swept through our house like a plague these last few months.  It started off with Justin having to have an emergency appendectemy.  One Sunday night in early November Justin wakes up with bad stomach cramps.  He thought maybe it was just gas and tried to go back to sleep, but said it was super painful.  The next day it was still hurting really bad so he worked from home.  Then he started saying that his right side was hurting really bad.  He was also really nauseous, but he thought it was just from the pain.  I mentioned to him that maybe he should google ruptured appendix for side effects.  So he did and then started getting nervous b/c he had all the symptoms.  Neither of us have a regular general physician so he decided to go to the urgent care to get tested.  His test actually came back negative, but the doctor still thought everything was pointing to his appendix so he sent him over to the hospital to have a CT scan.  He arrived at the hospital around 5:00 on Monday and the did the scan and eventually told him that it was in fact his appendix and they would have to schedule surgery that night.  Meanwhile I am at home waiting with the kids for the news.  Unfortunately this all happened during the Southern Christmas show that my mom was working at so she was not able to help us out during it all.  The actual surgery wasn't even scheduled until like 10:00 so my mom was able to come over to stay with the kids while I went up there to see Justin.  Being at the hospital past normal closing time is HORRIBLE.  There are no workers and they just sat me in a waiting room for hours.  They took my phone number and told me they'd call me when I could come back.  Well unfortunately I go to use the bathroom with my phone in my pocket and as I bend over to flush it falls out of my jacket into the toilet as it is already flushing and goes down the drain!  Completely gone!  So at 1:30AM I am still waiting and there is NOONE around to ask any questions.  I finally go wondering around and find a security guard and tell him my situation.  He is very nice and takes about 10 minutes to try and locate Justin's nurse.  I finally get to go back and see him.  The surgery went smoothly except for the appendix had shifted behind his colon or something like that and they had to remove a tiny portion of it to get to the appendix.  There was also some infection they had to drain out.  Justin was pretty out of it after the surgery so I only spent about 10 minutes with him before I left to go relieve my mom so she could go home and get some sleep since it was like 2:00AM!  The next day I didn't have anyone to watch the kids so I had to take them with me to go visit Justin for a little while.  Unfortuantly they (well Kaitlyn) was wild in the hospital and they were just too rambunctious being stuck in a tiny room for more than an hour or so, so Justin was more than ready for us to just leave :)  They were supposed to discharge him around dinner time but as hospitals go, it took forever.  Justin finally calls to let me know it was going to be around 10:00pm.  I arranged for one of our friend's from church's husband to just come sit at our house since the kids were sleeping and I could go get Justin.  After we finally get home the recovery starts.

The first week Justin was pretty much useless.  The medicine they gave him for pain knocked him out and all he really did was sleep.  It made him nauseous as well, so eventually I was like would you rather be sick or in pain?  So he eventually started taking tylenol to help with the pain and things got much better!  So to top things off, Me and the kids had all came down with bad colds right about the time Justin got out of the hospital.  Add in the fact that I was pregnant and dealing with the stress of  having to do everything, I was about to have a breakdown most every day! :)  For the first 2 weeks, Justin was not allowed to lift anything over 10 lbs.  So that was anything Brayden related.  I was so happy when those 2 weeks were up.  It took about a good month for him to be back to normal though to where the insicions didn't really bother him at all.

Unfortunately the sickness just kept on coming.  The kids and I literally had cold after cold for weeks!  Then one week Brayden comes down with Croup.  So the following Sunday I take Kaitlyn to church alone and go in to nursery to check on her and she is just sitting on one of the worker's laps crying.  She comes over and says she's sick and wants to go home.  I can tell she really is sick so we leave.  The next day Brayden starts getting sicker as well.  Croup seems better, but he has Kaitlyn's new cold.  Then Tuesday it hits me and I realize it is NOT a cold, but the flu!  It was horrible!  Plus since Justin had taken so much time off for his surgery he didn't have any days to spare to take care of us.  I think he liked escaping the flu infested house anyway.  Being pregnant with the flu is NO FUN.  I couldn't take any medicines strong enough to help and then also trying to take care of two sick kids was even worse.  Luckily Justin never caught it!  He slept on our futon for about a week to escape me :)

The flu lasted for about 2 weeks in our house and I had numerous melt-downs haha!  I prayed that when it was over I could just be healthy until the end of the year at least!  I have also started taking a daily Vitamin C supplement along with my prenatal vitamin to try and help boost my immune system.  It is just so hard with kids!  One gets sick, they spread it to each other immediately and then without fail I always catch it.  I guess it will get even worse in the next few years!  I just hope the flu doesn't return for a while b/c that was horrible.  So here we are now at the beginning of January and I got my wish.  We were healthy for about 2 weeks or so.  And then about 2 days ago Brayden got sick and now Kaitlyn is sick.  Justin and I leave for a cruise in 2 days so with my horrid immune system I am soooo afraid of spending the week sick!  I just want to enjoy my babymoon!  Ok enough of this extremely long depressing post.  Let's just say Winter 2012 was the horrible!

Baby Number 3 is on it's way!

Well I guess it is time to announce that I am currently pregnant with Baby No. 3!  I am currently a little over 10 weeks pregnant and just had my first doctor's appointment last week.  They were able to find a heartbeat which they said was rare being so early, so I thought I would finally announce it.  I've told a few people, but am always hesitant to announce it to everyone in case something goes wrong.  But I've finally decided that if something horrible like a miscarriage was to happen, I would rather have the support of people actually knowing why I am depressed and grumpy. 

This pregnancy was a bit of a shock, but we were excited.  We had planned on starting to try again around October or November, so this wasn't too much sooner, but still suprising!  I am a bit nervous about having 3 kids 3 and under.  But also excited to have them all close together and then being able to move past the baby stages for good!  I can't wait to be able to find out what it is!

I have not been feeling too good this pregnancy.  I don't have morning sickness, just like my previous pregnancies, but I am just ALWAYS TIRED.  I literally feel like I could sleep all the time.  Many nights I try to go to bed around 9ish.  Plus Kaitlyn still usually wakes up once a night or so and Brayden has been sick so much he has not been sleeping good, so as a result my sleep has been suffering.  Plus with all my Shea Homes work as well, I am just an emotinal grump.  I've been in a real funk lately, but I looked up that it is pretty normal around this time to hit your peak of hormonal emotions.  I freak out and cry multiple times a week and basically am just too tired to do anything productive. My house is a wreck b/c any free time I do have is usually spent working for Shea or else I just don't care and don't want to clean.  Oh well.  Hopefully in a few weeks I will feel more like my old self!  For now I am just counting down the time that I can find out what sex it is so we can start figuring out bedroom situations!

Halloween 2012

Halloween this year was good.  Kaitlyn is getting old enough to really understand and appreciate it.  She dressed up as Cinderella and Brayden actually got to be two different costumes thanks to friends who let us borrow their costumes.  The Saturday before Halloween we had a Church Halloween party where the kids dressed up and we had a pot luck dinner and then a Trunk or Treat. 

Cinderella and Puss and Boots

Our Little Puss and Boots

The day before Halloween we carved our pumpking.  Kaitlyn picked out a Ghost pattern and after it was over she got scared and tried to hide from it until we convinced her it wasn't a real ghost on the pumpkin.  After that all she wanted to do was stare at it.  She is a real scaredy cat of Halloween things.  She refused to go to any of the "scary" houses trick or treating.  One of the houses up the street had music and costumes on while they were handing out candy.  I carried her up there and then put her down to pick up the candy and she SCREAMED at the top of her lungs and took up running the other way! haha!  Luckily it was one of our last houses, b/c after that she was so nervous about going to more "scary" houses that she was not very into it! haha!

 



Cinderella in her winter cloak

Rooster Brayden on Halloween

Getting Ready to go out Trick or Treating with Brigham the Pirate

All Brayden got to do...not very exciting :)