Kids bounce back...like rubber bands.

Now that it has been some time and I'm over the traumatizing injuries we have encountered, I wanted to share some thoughts with you all. I have always been told that babies (kids, rather) are incredibly resilient. I've had encounters to prove that saying to be true, but never really thought too much about it until recently.
During Kaden's 18 month wellness check, his pediatrician was concerned about his lack of weight gain. He didn't gain any weight from 15 months to 18 months and he didn't measure on any of the percentiles. So she wanted us to adjust his diet to cut out all processed foods, all sugars (unless natural) and he can only have whole wheat. Side note: we eat pretty healthy as it is now. Yes he would have juice occasionally, organic granola bars, kids yogurt, the occasional treat. So this didn't seem like a huge change for us. We were told to come back after 6 weeks to see if he gained any weight and if not we were going to have to get blood work done to possibly rule out any thyroid issues and or celiac disease issues.

So we went back, and he's still a little guy. He also started walking in between his two wellness visits, so he has been burning calories left and right, but he has a good appetite. She still wanted to do blood work and I agreed to make sure we don't have to worry about anything. Well, it took 5 people, 3 and different attempts to try to draw enough blood for 4 vials. Have you tried to wrangle a 1 1/2 year old to have a needle shoved in his hand? I don't recommend it. We had to try his hand because his veins are so small they couldn't find any in his arms and his hand had the only 'big enough' one. I say this with all seriousness- I was more traumatized than he was. I literally had tears in my eyes throughout this process and I finally said enough and hugged the bajeezes out of him. By the time we got home a few hours later (after a play date in between) he seemed to have forgotten all about that morning- but I didn't.

Fast forward to two days later. I brought Kaden with me to my kickball game since we have all moms on our team and we help each other with our kids while we all play. There was an accident where Kaden was leaning on the fence and fell forward and ended up biting down on his bottom lip, hard. Our first busted lip. After we sat and waited for it to stop bleeding (and praying it does so we didn't have to get a stitch) he got up and walked around, saw a slide, pointed at it and said "weeeeeee" (aka slide) so who was I to tell him no after that incident? He took a little longer for this boo boo to be forgotten, only because certain foods would burn when he ate them-which I totally understand. I've busted my lip quite a few times.

Earlier this week, our new friends Rachel and her son (from Stickers for Mommy) invited us over for dinner and for us to take a look at her consignment sale preparations. Kaden and Callum played, ran around and laughed together. Kaden ends up falling (my kid is still learning the world of balance) onto his lip (again) and we have a small busted lip. Tears and blood came, hugs were given, few minutes passed and all was right in the world.

This kid is entering a whole new world of injuries. As he should be. He is climbing on everything, and it will only be a matter of time until he starts jumping off things. I just can't believe how much this kid has been through already from being poked and prodded every day in the hospital, his shots, falling, swallowing a penny and who knows what else will be coming our way. But he wakes up the next morning with a smile on his face every day and is ready to take on the day, every day. I truly believe that kids are so resilient, I see this every day and I think that these little people are sometimes stronger than us as adults.

TOMS....TOMS for sale...

Have you ever read the book "Caps for Sale"? Anyone..? Well in my head as I typed the title...all I could think of was the book. We read this book a lot apparently.
Anywho- I have something to share with you all, since the end date is quickly approaching...like by tomorrow. I am sorry to share this on such late notice, but perhaps you already know of it! I just found out. We all know the wonderful world of Toms shoes right? The "one for one" campaign? Well, I am a fan of these shoes because they're cute, comfortable AND they provide shoes to someone in need! Win win all around. What the bargain shopper in me doesn't like is the total price when I pick out a few shoes I want. A friend of mine (hi Kelli!) went to a warehouse sale a few summers ago that Toms has on the West Coast  in a few cities- she went to the Arizona one- and told me about the AMAZING deals she got on her Toms! (like paying 15.00 for a pair...but I digress.) I was instantly jealous and literally checked daily for the dates for this years sale and had my mom on board to go for me! 
Well....days passed by with no date. We're now in the fall and the sale is a summer thing. So I commented on one of their IG pictures about the sale and whaddya know, they commented back! They told me that they're having a 'warehouse of sorts sale' on http://www.tomssurprisesale.com/ but only for a limited time! I checked out out (of course) and some of the items are up to 45% off, free shipping over 25.00 AND there's a coupon code (we all know I love my coupons) for an extra 5% off with SURPRISEGIFT!

They don't have ALL the fantastic shoes on there, but there are a good amount! If you're a college ball fan, they do have quite a selection of shoes to support your school! Unfortunately, they don't have any Arizona State shoes probably because we're amazing and sold out. But if you're a fan of the University of Arizona...well I'm sorry (just kidding) but they do have a shoe for you!






 OR if you can wear kids shoes...you can check out what they have to grab an even better deal! It's totally acceptable for an adult to wear red glitter shoes right?
I hope you find something you like, happy shopping friends!

Oh, by the way- you can sign up to be on the list to be notified of any warehouse sales! Go to http://www.tomswarehousesale.com/ and check it out!

DIY Non Slip Socks

I just wanted to share a little something I crafted last week with you all! Since the weather is cooling down (at least here) we are going to be wearing more socks and slippers. Since our main floor is either wood or ceramic tile, my feet freeze unless I'm wearing something. I can only imagine how cold Kaden's feet will get now that he is zooming around the house! We've been on the hunt for slippers, but he has pretty small feet. He's been wearing socks, but with that comes quite a lot of slips...so enter non-slip socks! This project is SUPER easy-let me tell you. Here's your list of what you need, ready? 

Socks.
Puffy Paint.

Yup. All you need to really do is flatten the bottom of socks and make all sorts of designs on the bottoms! Make sure you actually put a good amount of paint on them-hence the name puffy paint.
Once they dry you can wash them and dry them, and the paint will help your crazy monkey from falling. (Assuming you have one like mine)

I'm sorry for the lack of pictures for this post! If you have any questions, I'll be happy to help-but if not- happy crafting, friends! 

Hello Fall!

With the arrival of fall comes the love of everything pumpkin...right? I love fall. I grew up in Indiana where we had bonfires, football games, sweaters, hoodies and s'mores. I missed out on this glorious season for the past 7 years from living in the desert. I'm so excited to be able to do all the fall things with Kaden now that he's older! The other week we took a trip to a local farm, Clark's Farm. I've been wanting to go to all of the farms and apple orchards around the area but we can only do so much with what time we have, so I figured lets start small. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

 

This place was great!! It wasn't overwhelming which I was worried about. It had a bunch of activities to keep kids busy, especially little busy bodies. 

 

 A pallet maze

A few animals to pet

A small snack shop

  

  

A classic "mom, no more pictures" face

But he let me get one more.

If you're around the Stafford (or surrounding areas) go check them out! With the price of admission for an adult you get to take home a pumpkin! They have a station for pumpkin painting, face painting, riding a pony and even a little shop for hand made items. They also are open around the winter for Christmas trees...which we will have to visit when the time comes! Happy Fall, friends!

Prepping for the Holidays

You guys, we have less than 100 days until Christmas is here.

Less than 100.

I'll let that sink in for a minute.

I really don't want to be rushing around this year trying to get gifts for everyone especially because I am a classic procrastinator. I also have found it to be increasingly difficult to get gifts that family members actually would use-something that they would enjoy having instead of a generic gift. Now that our family includes our crazy Kaden, I think a safe gift for the grandparents would be pictures or something personalized along that line.  But you can only have enough room on your shelves and walls for pictures before they're completely taking over your house right? But you can always use more magnets.

I was recently contacted by PicStick, a company that creates magnets out of your pictures to create personalized magnets.  It is super easy, all you need to do is upload 9 pictures from your computer, tablet, phone, Facebook account or even from Dropbox, make sure they look fantastic and click order! It took less than a week for them to be made and sent to us. The only issue I found was if you zoom in on your pictures when you add them, it does make them grainy. Other than that, I think these are fantastic. They're easy to slip into the envelope with your holiday cards for a just because gift, or you could make a whole sheet as a gift for someone. These are 14.99 for a sheet that includes 9 magnets but I have good news!

The people over at PicStick were generous enough to create a promotional code for me to share with you all- when you are done adding all of your pictures, be sure to enter OPS25 to receive 25 % off your order! 

So head on over to PicStick.com and get a little jump on your holiday gift giving! Enjoy friends-

xo

Happy Neonatal Nurse Day

 If you are a Neonatal Nurse- I wish I could hug you-wherever you are. I am forever grateful for every single nurse that we had while Kaden was in the hospital. A part of me still misses some of the nurses that we had because they were such a huge part of our life for so many days and nights. Don't get me wrong, some of the nurses we had were less than friendly-but regardless they still were responsible for taking care of our little man when he needed it the most. Before February 11, I have never met a NICU nurse before. I haven't even been inside of a NICU.  Then before we knew it these strangers would turn out to be some of the most important people in our lives whether we were ready or not. I came across a post on a Preemie baby website I've been reading and following and it prompted me to write my own. I just want to take this chance and thank the NICU nurses everywhere, specifically the nurses that we had in our life.

Thank you for remembering us every day and every night. 

Thank you for requesting to be Kaden's nurse time and time again.

Thank you for answering every single one of my 384,598,728 questions I had daily.

Thank you for listening to my concerns and advocating for me.

Thank you for missing your child's baseball game to take care of our child.

Thank you for letting me call every hour to check on Kaden when I had to go home for the night.

Thank you for telling me "you will be okay" when I needed it the most.

Thank you for re-swadding Kaden 500 times a day because he broke out-yet again and re-taping his tubes because he pulled them off/out for the 25th time that hour. 

Thank you for sitting with me every day and every night when I had to be there without John.

Thank you for picking this profession and kicking ass at it.

There are so many more things that I am so thankful for. But most of all, thank you for keeping our baby alive and thriving when he was most fragile. Being in a hospital can be pretty horrible, but thank you to our nurses for making it a little more bearable.

xo

 

you can read about Kaden's story here

Our First Urgent Care Visit

Well it has been some time since I posted-I'm sorry I've been behind (yet again). We've been quite busy over here. If you saw our most recent Facebook status- you would have heard that we had to go to the ER for a penny update. Let me share with you:
I never thought my child swallow a penny. Honestly. I know that all kids get into everything but I guess I thought we wouldn't have to go down that road. Well-I was wrong. Turns out Kaden is continuing to throw surprises my way. (I mean, what kid does that?) Typical Friday afternoon, we were going through his clothes prepping for our upcoming family trip to North Carolina for a wedding. I knew there was a penny in his room, I put it on the shelf towards the back remembering to grab it on our way out. Nope, he wanted it and I didn't see him grab it-put it in his hand and transfer it to his mouth when I was changing his pants. Whaddya know...he starts choking, coughing and I start to panic. He tried to throw up, but it didn't come out which made the penny travel down. I remembered all of the training we had to go through at the hospital for CPR and acted.  John raced home and we tried to get him to throw up again-with no luck. We called 911 and the paramedics rushed over (firetruck and ambulance...sirens and all) and by the time they came to check Kaden out-he was acting like nothing happened. What a stinker. They suggested we take him to the ER or Urgent Care to still get him looked at and we of course agreed. After what felt like forever-we finally got his x-ray. 

 See that big ol' white spot?? Yep, that would be a penny. A PENNY. All we could do is wait for him to pass it. How you ask? You reach a new level of parenting-that's all I'm going to say.  We were told it should pass within 24-48 hours and if it hasn't within a week we need to take him in for another x-ray. Well that doesn't really ease my nerves..what if he doesn't pass it!? What does that mean will happen!? How would I know-we've never had to encounter this issue before. But we decided we'll deal with that when the time comes. We go on our family trip to North Carolina and come back and we have yet to see a penny. So after 9 days (let me add here-he acted completely normal this whole time...) we call and check to see what to do. We were told to go to the military hospital that has an ER which happens to be about 45 minutes away just in-case we have to have surgery. Excuse me? Alright, let me calmly take my child to see if we have to surgically remove this stupid penny. After hours of waiting in a germ infested ER...we had our results.

 

HAPPY DANCE! We are penny free! Somehow we missed that dreaded thing. The doctor chuckled and sent us on our way back home. He also told us that pretty much everything will pass. But I also don't want to experience any of these situations again and I hope other parents won't have to go through this either. BUT if you do-just know that you're not alone. Oh the joys of parenting-you learn something new every day-right?

xo