Nash turns FIVE!

Holy cow. I have a FIVE year old!? How did that happen?!

Nash feels very grown up and gosh dang, he kind of is.

He went to the doctor for his well visit and he is doing so amazing. Our doctor is the best too. He always likes to take me back to the day he met us right after nash was born. Nash was 4 lbs and 4+ weeks early. He had such horrible colic, and reflux. He couldnt latch and so I pumped and pumped some more. My life revolved around making food for nash and feeding him. Slowly Nash gained weight. Then he was allergic to my breastmilk and it was too hard to keep pumping. He ended up on hospital grade formula $$$. Through this all, Nash kept growing. I taught him sign language. He excelled verbally. He kept growing. Doctor Guthrie always praises both me and nash when we see him and I could just cry every time. I feel complete validation that I did EVERYTHING I could.

Nash now is in the 70th (ish) percentile for Height and 43rd for weight. He is hitting about 49% for his head. We were told that he basically was perfect. I would have to agree.

He is still pretty skinny. He needs 4T shorts still, but because of how tall he is he has to have 5T Jeans (with a pull waist) and he has graduated to 4/5 (xs) shirts in the big kids section. He still has trouble with his bowels and so he gets Miralax to help about 1 time a week. He graduated from his preschool class last week and HAS LEARNED SO MUCH! He has been struggling with cutting things out, but is doing so much better. He knows his letters and numbers, loves to count and is starting to sound out words! I signed him up for kindergarten back in January and he will start at Franklin East in August! He has another season of swim lessons starting in May with Miss Jennifer and hopefully he will learn to master floating and diving. He does really well with swimming himself. His favorite character on Mario is Luigi, his favorite ninja turtle is Donatello, his favorite super hero is Iron Man. His favorite color is Red. His favorite animal is a Lion and "sea animal" is a Shark or Alligator. His favorite stuffed animal is still his "pinkie baby" kitty cat. His favorite sport is baseball or kicking a soccer ball. He loves being at Grandma and Papa's house. He builds with Legos and still loves shooting Nerf guns everywhere. He LOVES to copy his cousin Corbin. He misses his cousins Jane and Sammi in California. He loves cars (hot wheels) and his train table still. He loves being outside with other people. He gets bored real quick by himself. He's been asking for a sibling for about 6 months--hopefully we can give him good news about that sooner than later. He has the best little singing voice and has a natural talent for music and especially for matching pitch. He has some friends in the neighborhood that he loves to play with--Shawn Kerrigan, Calvin Montague, Mason Davis, Brody Brooks, and Jeddy Hewson.

Nash loves doing family dates with momma and dad. He loves going to "cat fats" for glo-golf and arcade games. He LOVES pizza--still his favorite food. Strawberries and Apples are his go to snacks. He finally is starting to eat other things, its been a LONG road to get to this point. HA! He especially loves getting to go to restaurants. He likes to pick Applebees, Olive Garden, and Barros--and he keeps asking to go to a buffet. So funny.

He still loves to read (or rather be read to), and we got the N64 up and running and now he loves to play family games like Mario Party or Mario Cart.

We sure love our Nash man and cant imagine our life without him. He's our little miracle!!!

December already?

Today is the 3rd of December. I can honestly say that part of me cant believe it and another part feels like this was the longest year ever.

After going through fertility treatments and having to stop them midway through the year because of now needing surgery....its been a long 7 months. It doesnt help either that everyone I know has gotten pregnant in that time. I'm not even joking. My cousin has gotten pregnant twice now since i stopped treatment. she lost the first pregnancy early and now is pregnant with twins. i have 7 other friends announce their pregnancies in the last few months...and one is close to giving birth to her naturally conceived twins.

I've done my fair share of feeling pretty jealous if I'm being honest, and frustrated and angry that its not me. But I also havent dwelled on it. I'm feeling pretty proud about that. I allow myself to feel the feeling and work through it...normally takes a day or 2...and i've been able to let the anger go. I think that might be a small (large) miracle from God.

I've been pretty busy the last month mostly with my photography. I'm so blessed with so many returning clients and new clients as well! I also have alot of newborns that were born and are about to be born!

I was handling things so well too. I went and took nash to see santa already, we set up and did christmas card pictures, i got those ordered, AND sent out. My mom and I cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal and put it on this year. In November I had 30 photoshoots. I was staying up almost every night till 1 or 2 am to keep up on editing. I stopped biting my nails. Still going strong on that one. My house is decorated for Christmas and almost all of our outside lights are up. We got Christmas out of my parents basement and attic for them too.

I'M NOW SICK. Its all caught up to me. My face is broken out and I had a canker sore to start me off. Now i feel like i'm dying. I'm going to the doctor later today. Tomorrow I'm supposed to decorate a table and make a dinner salad for our Relief Society event as well. :/ I've got to learn to relax a bit during this season!

Jace

So back at the end of March, Jace had a scary experience.

He had blood in his urine.

We rushed him to the doctor, who was worried, and sent him to get an ultrasound the next day.

The ultrasound results came that afternoon from the doctor (unheard of in my experience) saying they found a mass on one of his kidneys.

Jace was to get a CT scan, but couldnt get in for a few days.

Pretty scary when you think you have cancer.

Our doctors assistant wasnt okay with that and personally called around to get him in THAT day somewhere.

She was amazing.

So Jace went.

And our doctor personally called Jace that evening after business hours (from his car, no less!) to say that the CT scan didnt show any cancer.

Whew.

We went in a few days later to discuss (follow up) with our doctor. He explained what they saw on the ultrasound and what they saw in the CT. Apparently Jace's kidney is odd and is thicker than normal (his mom has weird shaped kidneys, so it must be genetic) and that is what the ultrasound picked up but couldnt distinguish. However, there was still the blood in the urine thing that was troublesome.

So off to a urologist we went. We had our initial meeting and scheduled a scope. That would check the bladder, the prostate, and the urethra making sure there was no cancer anywhere.

To say Jace was not excited about this would be putting it mildly.

He went in at the end of April, had the procedure, and we have received news.

THERE IS NO CANCER.

(lets take a minute and thank Heavenly Father for this blessing)

Best guess of the cause of bleeding is that Jace passed a kidney stone and didnt realize it.

So there you go. Jace's cancer scare of 2017.
Lets not do that again, okay?

December 2016 and Christmas 2016

We had a hectic December. We were so so so busy with work that it was hard to find time to do all that I wanted us to.

I got my beautiful tree up a few days after Thanksgiving and we got started on our lights. Jace was working more and so it felt like it took forever, but once we did get them up we were so happy!! Nash especially.

Anytime Nash saw Christmas lights he exclaimed "CHRISTMAS!!!!!!" His enthusiasm helped get us in the spirit.

Lights were a bit slow go-ing at our house since I was the main person doing them and I was working a ton. Nash had been terrified of my parent's halloween and thanksgiving blowups, so we thought we'd let him pick out our blow up and maybe he would love it. Well, he did love it, but he was also terrified of it. Good grief little boy!

My neighbor gifts this year!! I saw all of this soap on sale at Frys and knew this would be something fun and easy to give! I loved it!!

I bought new metallic wrapping paper this year and basically fell in love with my packages.

My house all done on the outside!! Next year we'll have bushes under the windows and a few more lights in the tree, but I think we've nailed it! It was the most lit house on the street!

Our Card this year. I took our family pictures once again and once again i was super stressed out. Maybe we'll have a cute one of us taken randomly during the year where there isnt any stress and use that for next years card!!

Nash has been so fun this Holiday season. I worked REALLY hard with him to say Merry Christmas to everyone as we left somewhere. I made him watch all the fun Christmas movies (grinch, smurfs, Rudolf, alvin and the chipmunks, night before christmas, he-man she-ra christmas, frosty the snowman, and a few others I grew up with, as well as Elf and White Christmas). He never wanted to watch them, but would sit enthralled during the show and then ask to watch them over and over, especially Grinch.

He and I read Christmas books all December and we sang Christmas songs everyday in the car, and in the bath especially. He learned Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolf and sings them everyday.

Speaking of singing, in December, Nash started singing when he woke up which told me he was ready to get out of bed. It was so much nicer than him yelling "momma! rescue me!" Ha!

I finally got him to see Santa. He didnt really care about seeing him....he cared about going on the "roller coaster" (aka the merry go round). :)

We held our Christmas Party (of course I didnt take ANY pictures!) and my house has NEVER been so clean. Not since we moved in. I spent 2 solid weeks decorating and cleaning to get it ready. It was fun to have people over to our home. Other than family, we havent had anyone to our home in almost 2 years of living here!! So crazy.

Out of everyone in my family, we were the only 3 (plus my mom) to not get sick! It was a bummer for everyone and we had to be really careful with Randy, but it was nice to not be sick on Christmas this year.

Christmas Eve and Day were different for us--Jace's family were all up in Flagstaff and so we had lazy days!! IT WAS SO NICE!! There was no stress and no rush. I loved it. We celebrated Melanie's birthday on the 24th and then had our family program--jace and I sung Christmas Hallelujiah again, joe sung oh holy night, we all sang starbright, melanie performed her poem, and the kids sung jingle bells. Then they opened their Christmas eve gifts from gamma and papa and jammies from moms and dads.

Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year, we decided to do our Christmas breakfast for dinner (jeff and melanie had 830 church). So we woke up, opened presents, watched a show, went to church, napped, and then I made fresh squeezed OJ and homemade biscuits! (They came out so good!) Went to mom and dads and had brinner and then opened gifts. Went home happy and tired and grateful for a great Christmas!

Mr and Mrs Santa Claus as we finished putting together Nash's Christmas!

Santa left Nash a tool bench with tools and a Swing car. He basically didnt care about anything else.

Jace's favorite movie apparently. After 7 years he has changed his mind on that multiple times. LOL so I made sure to get the "latest" in his favorite movie lineup.

Lightsaber Chopsticks. I couldnt not.

A leaf blower!! Our yard is always messy because Jace hates sweeping after he mows the lawn! Now he doesnt have to sweep and I have a nice looking yard! Win win!!

Believe me...he was stoked about those cars.

And his own gun! Too bad the trigger is a little hard for his 3 year old fingers to pull.

All day Christmas and everyday since. That boy loves his cars.

I picked out a new flash for my camera--thanks santa ;)

Jace surprised me with my gift. Last year my IPOD got stolen (super sad since it was one my parent gave me in the early 2000s that was engraved! and it had all my favorite music on it) and its been a bummer. He found a refurbished one--and redownloaded all my previous music (most of it anyways-- thank goodness for Itunes and still being on our old computer!!) I was not expecting it!

Always.

He finally put down his other cars and his tools long enough to play on his car. He couldnt figure it out for awhile...but after 2 weeks he started cruising all over the house! He calls it his "Mario Cart".

We have spent alot of time together--Jace had PTO for the last week of December and first week of January and so I took time off work too. We've done alot of playing and resting, watching movies, going to the park, and organizing our house!

We took down our lights and tree today on January 2nd and Nash is completely distraught. He started quoting the grinch who stole christmas to me as I took down the tree!! and when he saw us packing up the blowups and lights he said "why are you taking my christmas!!!???"

Its been a great and busy end to 2016 and we are really excited for 2017 and the plethora of things we hope to happen and accomplish this next year!!

Lifted

Today was a long day...on the tail end of a very long week.

It was kind of a recipe for disaster. Complete grumpiness on my part.

I havent been sleeping since Nash has been sick and he hasnt been sleeping.

I didnt know it at the time, but I was fighting that same illness.

Jace wasnt home much with work.

My brother is still in the hospital (6.5 weeks!)

And I am BUSY with work.

I had a very early newborn shoot, with one right after, with a hair appointment right after that and then a 2 hour break and then a maternity shoot tonight.

I love doing newborn sessions. I love to snuggle and hug those little babies, and give moms a little break :) I love how the pictures come out. But they are pretty physically taxing on me. Lots of up and down, and weird angles and the HEAT from a space heater!

In my "down time" waiting to go to the maternity shoot, i realized I was in a BAD mood. I was grumpy and tired, and angry. I have no idea what I was angry about even! I left in a bad way.

While in the car, I prayed to my Heavenly Father. I asked him to help me feel better, and to have a better attitude. I asked him to help me be inspired so i could deliver a great session for these soon to be parents.

And you know what?

Literally as soon as I stepped out of my car...the weight fell off. The negativity, the anger, the tiredness even. I physically felt my spirit be lifted. And I wanted to cry.

I have such gratitude to my Heavenly Father for listening to my prayers. Its such a wonderful reminder that He is so mindful of us--all of us. Even for silly things like to be in a better mood :)

Here is a picture from the shoot tonight...I love it because its now a reminder of Heavenly Fathers love for us all.

Nash-isms

NASH-ISMS AT 2.5 YEARS OLD:


"I'm slippering!" --When the floor is wet and I say be careful, its slippery!

"Nursery!"--The name he calls my auntie Renay since he associates her with his favorite part of church. 

"Let's build sandy-castles!"--Sand Castles

"I need colorings!"--Anytime he sees someone with a marker, crayon, pencil, or pen...he thinks they are coloring.

"I need...!"--One of his favorite ways to start a sentence! "Gamma, I need Tom and Jerry!" "Momma, I need cell noone (phone)!"

"Give me that! Get me down!"--Another 2 of his favorite things to say. He really is sweet, but we are working on being polite and have good manners too.

We had a Family Home Evening the other night and Jace was explaining to Nash that Jesus was our brother. Nash responded with "OH."

He is starting to really talk in full sentences. Jace called the other day on his lunch break and Nash answered the phone and said this, "Oh hi daddy! Whatcha doning?" Jace responded with he was at work and what are you doing? Nash's response was, "I'm watching Einsteins and eating fishies!"

Joe went into his bedroom to take a nap the other day and my mom was watching Nash for me. Nash went to go find Joe to ask him to play with him. Walked in to his room, said "Joe!...then quietly said Oh..."and backed out of his room to leave Joe alone to sleep.

Phoebe (my parents cat) has gone on a couple of trips with them to the cabin lately. Which means she is in her cat carrier. The first time Nash saw it, he turned to me so worried and said, "Momma! Bebe is in the trap!"

If he bumps something, or bonks his head, he whimpers and looks around until he finds me. Then he comes to me and holds out the part that has been hurt so I can kiss it better. Its kinda hilarious because sometimes he climbs on my lap and just sticks his foot in my face. ha!

Right now, we play a game he invented called "Sad momma/Happy momma". I was feeling crappy the other day and was crying. He came up and said "oh, sad momma?" and I said yes, I'm a little sad. Then he smiles really big and says, "okay, happy momma now!" and giggles. Its impossible to not smile and be happier when that happens.

Anytime I do something or say something "funny", Nash looks at me and shakes his head and says, "Silly momma" and walks off!

Nash really is a great kid. He is saying his prayers really well, he is very polite (if you sneeze he will say bless you!), he is starting to pretend play (yesterday he was a doggie--woof woof!), and he will give me kisses anytime I ask for them. 2.5 can be a trying time because he wants to be independent and cant in alot of regards, but it also is a fun age. He is just my little buddy, my pal, and I am SO grateful he is mine!! My life would seem so empty without him!

Here are some recent(ish) pictures...I realized I havent posted any on the blog in awhile of my own kid!