Home Sweet Home

I'm back from vacation and it was everything I hoped it would be! Yes it was tough being away from the kids for a few days but the quality time I got to spend with my husband was so worth it! It's amazing how much time you get to talk and connect with your spouse when there are no small children clamoring for attention. And here are a few photos from the trip.

Going out for anniversary dinner

Shell hunting

Our hands in the sand. Love this picture

The sweet message we got from our kids the morning of our anniversary

Vacation Time

I'm still kind of in shock that this is actually happening, a kid free vacation. Yep, you saw that right! For the first time since having kids, and really for the first time since our honeymoon, Ryan and I are going on vacation to the beach. We are leaving the kids with Ryan's mom for the whole duration of our trip. We are heading out to the beach to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary! And here's the kicker, we leave in two days! Have I even started packing? Well I made a list of what to pack...

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited. The idea of lying on the beach, sleeping in, and basically not being needed by anyone is super appealing after 3+ years of mommy-ing. But I'm nervous about leaving my babies for so long. It's really only 5 days, and it has nothing to do with who is taking care of them. But the only time I have been away from them for that long was when I was in the hospital for surgery. Oh I know they'll have fun and most likely think it's a fun change of pace. But still, I'll miss them.

I'm looking forward to some much needed quality time with my husband and working on my tan and I will just focus on finding a great present for my babies when I miss them!

Hi There Blogger

My name is Lindsey and I often promise to blog more than once a month and then forget/get busy with life/have writer's block/some other random excuse. Promise it's nothing personal, but I just can't seem to find motivation to stay on the blogging train lately.

I originally wanted to blog so that I could have a record of when the kids hit their milestones or did something super cute, but then it turned into more of an outlet for me. I got to put words to emotions which helped me sort through the sometimes crazy life of having two kids 16 months apart in age! And these last couple of months, I have really come to miss it! Even if there isn't a single person out there reading my rambles, it's actually beneficial for me to process through my thoughts and feelings and put them into words that make sense to me.

Take for instance the first week of June, it was the anniversary of my sister's abduction, sexual assault, and murder. Every year I try to pretend that June is just another summer month and I don't need to dwell on any negative thoughts, and every year I wake up on June 2nd wondering why I am in a funk. And then I remember, and I am constantly mulling over the "what if's and we never go to's" for the rest of the week. Like "What if Kelsey had gone to Target 10 minutes later?" and "My kids never got to meet Aunt Kels."

Or how about the more everyday things like 3 year old sass and tantrums?! Anyone else dealing with this? I swear, some days Sarah is the sweetest little girl in the whole world, and other days I am counting down the minutes until Daddy gets home and/or she's asleep. I used to love her advanced vocabulary, and I still LOVE hearing the things she talks about! But, that attitude? Yeah it can go. It's so weird to love someone SO much but also be SO frustrated with them at the same time! But I guess that goes for all toddlers.

Andrew is currently trying to reconfigure his sleeping schedule. And he didn't have the common courtesy to tell me about it! He stays up late into the night, sometimes it's my fault because hey it's summer and we have nothing planned for tomorrow - not usually a good idea. Sometimes it's his fault because he just sits in his crib talking or singing until hours past bedtime. On top of that, he's beenm waking up earlier and some days has just flat out refused to nap at all. I could really use my good sleeper back about now. Because this mama is over worked and quite frankly exhausted.

I'm still working 3-4 evenings a week on top of being home with the kids during the day and I have to give a standing ovation to all the working mamas out there. I don't know how you do it!! I only work part time and I still feel like I am stretched thin and barely have time to myself! Throw in the daily stresses of bills that need paid, work schedules, kids needing raised, dogs needing taken care of and I'm all sorts of tuckered out!

So there's what's been on my mind lately, and I will try to get back to blogging more regularly and actually do it!

Wordless Wednesday (It's Finally Warm)

I'M NOT DEAD

... but I did have a chest tube for about 6 days and a 4 day hospital stay!

Now sit back, because it's a pretty long story. Back in February, I was having some pain whenever I took a deep breath and it eventually got bad enough that I went to a doctor, well actually the Urgent Care. I RARELY go to the doctor unless I am pregnant so this was a big deal. I was diagnosed with pleurisy (which basically means that my lungs were swollen and inflamed) and given steroids to fix the problem. I started the magic medicine and felt better within 24 hours and didn't give my lungs a second thought .

Until a month later when I began to have a similar pain in my back again. This time I went to my regular doctor and he ordered a chest x-ray, and there began my real problems. On my chest x-ray were some nodules that my doctor decided needed further testing. He then ordered blood tests and a CT scan and referred me to a lung specialist and sent me home that afternoon saying "I'm not sure what it is on your lung, it could be nothing or it could be cancer, we just don't know." Needless to say I was more than a little anxious over this and totally began freaking out.

The next day I dropped my kids with my sister and went to the hospital for all my lab work (seriously I gave like 8 vials of blood) and my CT scan. I was naively hoping that this would be the end of this saga, that the CT scan would reveal that it was scar tissue and we would't need to do anything else. Well, I was wrong. The CT confirmed that 2 of my 3 nodules were indeed scar tissue but the third one wasn't quite calcified enough to be classified as scar tissue. It wasn't presenting as a cancerous mass, but it wasn't scar tissue, so what was it? On to the pulmonologist, lung doctor, to see what he thought.

The lung doctor told me that he was leaning towards a diagnosis of scar tissue from an old infection but ordered a PET scan just to be sure. Later I found out that PET scans leave you radioactive for 4 hours afterwards and you can't be around kids under 5 (a problem for a stay at home mom who has just had the scan done and has to go home and take care of a 2 and 1 year old - yes that happened to me) and that the test rarely comes back definitive. Had he told me those things to begin with I may have decided on a different plan. It took days for me to finally get the results of the scan, after much calling and arguing with receptionists who said I needed to make another appointment ($100 co-pay) to get my results, I finally received a call from the doctor. He said that the test was inconclusive and I needed a biopsy to be 100% certain about what was going on. I was highly disappointed with this doctor and will NOT be using him again. You don't send someone for a test that could tell them whether or not they have cancer and then not call them with the results!

So now it's the second to last week of April (remember I said this was long) and I am meeting with a surgeon to talk about biopsying this tiny mass in my lungs. Ryan came with me and within minutes of talking, I find out that no it's not a biopsy it's going to be surgery. Lung doctor failed to inform me of yet another thing. (Seriously don't like that guy.) Apparently I had some golf ball sized lymph nodes that needed to be looked at as well and it was a pretty basic surgery with a robot! The surgeon reassured us a bunch of times that it was a pretty routine surgery and that he didn't think it was cancer but it was probably best to get things out of there just in case.

So surgery came on the last day of April.

• Problem 1 I have a narrow rib cage, so the ports for the robot arms to enter in were bigger than the space between my ribs which meant that my nerves and ribs were going to be more bruised than originally thought. 
• Problem 2 The upper portion of my lung had adhered to the chest wall. Weird right? Apparently not unheard of but uncommon in someone my age. Basically what the think happened, was that somewhere along the line I had an infection that caused things to get super swollen and then my lung just kinda stuck to the chest wall. It didn't affect my lung's function but it made it difficult for the surgeon to reach the lymph nodes. So he had to spend 1/2 an hour in surgery peeling my lung off so he could access the lymph nodes. So then there's a bunch of tiny surface scratches in the lung and now I have a possible air leak meaning my lung could collapse without a chest tube. Which meant that my 1 day stay in the hospital then turned into 4 days!
• Problem 3 They pulled my chest tube too soon, my lung began to collapse, they put in a second smaller tube and then I had to live with that for two days after I left the hospital! NOT FUN AT ALL! So 6 days on the chest tube and then I finally had it pulled.

The surgery revealed that I do NOT have cancer and it was in fact infectious in nature and we are just waiting on cultures to see if it's an old or new infection. Between all the IV's, medications, physical therapy (yep they made me practice walking with a walker), chest tube drama, and occupational therapy (apparently lung surgery means you forget how to do basic things) I did have some quiet time to myself. Something I had been craving and talking about with a friend. Next time I'll be a bit more specific in HOW I would like to spend that quiet time.

So between all this medical drama and everyday life, I just haven't had the energy to blog. But now that this big hurdle and worry is gone I'm really hoping to get back to a more regular blogging schedule.

This Crazy Life

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. Between Easter, Sarah's birthday, Sarah's party, and all the everyday errands in between; life has been going in super speed. But we've been enjoying it!

Finally we had a break in the cold weather and were able to enjoy some time outside. The kids LOVED being able to play with chalk, dirt and leaves. After months of being stuck inside, it was really refreshing to be outdoors.

Picnic on the porch

Sidewalk chalk

Then we had Easter which was tons of fun and full of family, good food, church services, and candy! My only regret is that we weren't able to get a picture of the kids together or a family photo. But hey life with toddlers doesn't mean you have an easy time with pictures. In fact we had to bribe Sarah with Sprite and candy to take most of the pictures at all! But Andrew had a ton of fun with his first real Easter egg hunt and Sarah had a blast "helping" him. (She picked up his eggs and put them in his basket. We color coded the plastic eggs and gave each toddler a color to hunt.) 

Then two days after Easter, was sweet Sarah's 3rd birthday. Last year I had such a hard time with her turning two. But this year it wasn't "sad" for me. I realized that we were leaving the baby phase behind, but that there was so much fun and discovery to be had in the toddler and preschool years. So we took her to Build-A-Bear to make a pony and she had a blast!

Family photo on her birthday!

The awesome cake that Daddy made for Sarah.

Present Time

Happy birthday! 

And then lastly, we finished out our crazy couple of weeks with Sarah's birthday party. Of course we had to do a My Little Pony theme. And lucky for me, Wal-Mart came out with a bunch of decorations, cards, and gift wraps, at the end of February. So I didn't have to look far when it came time to plan the party. We celebrated with friends and family and she really had a great time. So did we. It's always fun to see your kids being happy and laughing with their friends.

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash cupcakes

opening gifts

After getting her dress up trunk gift, she insisted on changing clothes.

Cupcake tower

Letting baby Pinkie Pie look through the "eye a scope"

Birthday Princess

Finally getting a chance to use the play set in the backyard!

Brother swinging at the party

LOVE this picture. Childhood fun at its finest.

Not only were the last couple of weeks busy, but they have inspired some future blog posts as well. Like how I thought it would be a great and brilliant idea to try and do yard work (for the first time since we moved in) before Sarah's party. Yeah, it was way more work than I had envisioned and well, it will be a blog post all on its own. Or about Sarah's obsession with the "Funny Guys" AKA One Direction. Yep life sure has given me some fun and funny things to talk about lately, but for now I leave you with the pictures of our crazy life!

Sarah is 3!

My baby girl is officially three today. To be honest, I feel like the last year flew by so fast. It was full of growing, change, and new adventures. But it also had a lot of love and some challenges too.

When I look at Sarah's face now, it's harder to see the "baby" there. Sometimes when she makes certain facial expressions or turns her head a certain way, you can still see slight traces. But more often than not when I look at her, I can't help but think "When did she get so big?" The good thing is, I don't feel an overwhelming sense of sadness over leaving the baby years behind us. I am so excited to see what is waiting for us in the years to come.

This girl is definitely on her way to change the world, or at least to make a major difference somewhere. Her energy is boundless, and she constantly amazes me with how smart she is. Her passion for life and her sensitive nature are going to be huge assets to her when she finds what it is she wants to do as an adult.

And while she may be a "big girl" now, I know she still needs Mama for things. And I'm determined to live in the moment with her and soak up the last of her little years before she is too big to snuggle me or give me kisses whenever or wherever she is. 

So happy birthday sweet, sassy girl. And many more to come!

Family photo!

In her "funny guys" or One Direction night gown. She loves them thanks to Aunt Codie!