A little health update...

Those of you on Facebook will already know this information. But for those of you not on Facebook, this is what is going on with me.

As you know, I have had issues with a heart skip for the last two years. When I visited my dr in Wisconsin he checked me over and told me I was fine. 

I asked him if I could do tests to make sure so he had me wear a heart monitor for one day and do an echo. My heart did not skip during either thing so I have always been worried that maybe if it had they would have seen something. So I was told I was fine and just tried to move on.

But it has haunted me.

So, Doug's mom told us about a place here in Utah that specialized in Heart rhythm. And they took our insurance. 

Monday I went in and met with the dr. He noticed my thyroid was enlarged. I had the WI doctor tell me that too but never do test so I figured it was fine. 

But this dr wanted to do tests. 

I also wore a heart rate monitor again, this time for two days. And it did skip this time so I know they have all the info.

I am also going in next Monday morning for a stress test.

But fast forward to the next day- Tuesday.

The doctor called me and said that my thyroid labs were showing a problem. He set me up with an endocrinologist in Salt Lake City.

He also had me go on heart meds. 

My heart rate has been fast for a long time. I don't even remember when it wasn't.

Like 120 beats per minute. 

I didn't know that was a problem until a few weeks ago when I saw something online about what it should be. 

My blood pressure has always been perfect too. 115ish. Every time.

But Monday it was 145. 

I do think that was partly because of how nervous I was but we didn't want to risk it.

So, Tuesday night I started taking 25mg of the heart med because I was too nervous to take the whole pill. 50mg.

The Thyroid dr called and set up my appt for Wednesday.

My sister watched my kids both days by the way.

THANK YOU STEPH for being there for me both days!

So, got to the appt in downtown Salt Lake City.

They took my blood pressure. Back down to 120. Still not as low but much better.

My heart rate was 97. 

I talked to him about my heart med and he assured me it is a safe one and told me to go ahead and take the whole 50mg.

He checked my thyroid and said it was indeed enlarged, showed me the labs and what the numbers should have been, and he noticed something that I noticed just about a week ago. That my left eye is bigger than my right eye.

He took me back to a room for an echo of my neck.

I have Graves' disease.

It all made sense once he started explaining it to me.

This causes eye issues (hence the one eye bigger than the other and my dry eyes), it can cause anxiety, skin issues, muscle and joint issues, irregular periods (I thought I was going through menopause the past few months), thin hair, being sensitive to temperature so for me being hot all the time, fatigue, inability to lose weight or lose too much weight depending on what your body is doing. He said for me it has a lot to do with my inability to lose weight fast no matter what I do, and lots of other things... but it can also cause heart issues.

He put me on a thyroid med and in a few months I have to do a radiation iodine treatment and then go on another pill for the rest of my life.

We are hoping that once it gets under control that I will stop having to take the heart med and that it won't have issues anymore.

I had to do more labs that day and found that my vitamin D levels were down so now I have to take that too .. because this disease can suck the calcium out of your bones.

So, I have gone from the girl that never takes meds of any kind to taking them three times a day.

I do feel good most of the day. My heart has still had little flutters about once a day but yesterday I checked my heart rate and it was in the eighties.

I also feel kind of calm and that is pretty abnormal for me.

I had someone tell me that their family member died from heart failure because of this disease which made me nervous but then I was contacted by my WI friend Holly and told that she has it too so that made me feel much better about what I can expect. 

I think that we caught it relatively early... not sure how long I have had it. If it has been from before my heart started skipping or if that was caused by something else and this is recent and made it worse....

Thank you Holly for telling me about your experience.

I have also found out since Wednesday that a lot of people on my King side have thyroid issues.

This is where I am now.

I will update after my stress test.

Random January

Abi was able to start Miss Manners back up with her grandmother. (Doug's mom) 

There were a few weeks that they couldn't do it so she was really excited to be going back.

Last Friday Abi came home and told me that a karate place had come to her school and done a first lesson for gym. That night they were invited to come to the studio and do the second class for free.

Obviously they are trying to get people to sign up but she really wanted to go so I took her and Maddy over.

She really enjoyed it.

By the end of the class she broke the board and earned a white belt.

The kids got free pizza, water bottles, and cookies too.

Last Saturday Brent (my brother) and Karen came over to play games and have pizza with us.

They brought a yummy dessert and this Boom Boom Balloon game.

It was pretty fun.

We also played Wits and Wagers.

Monday I had an appointment with my first doctor and the girls were super excited to go to my sister Steph's house while I was gone. 

Tuesday, Maddy fell down the stairs and landed on the kitchen floor flat on her face. 

Her face and especially lip were swollen and there were cuts on the inside and outside of her mouth.

I called my sister to see if she had any popsicles and she did so we rushed over to her house (up the street) and she gave us an entire box of Otter Pops. 

That's pretty much all she ate that day because it hurt to eat food.

This first picture is crazy because it doesn't even look like her.

I have somehow given the girls the idea that if they get hurt, they need to sleep because it will make them feel better so it wasn't long before I found Maddy asleep in the front room.

Yesterday my mom came over to have a Doctor Who marathon with me. 

I have slowly been getting her over to watch the whole show because she has only seen a few episodes over the last few months.... but she is now on season 3.

I have had a crazy busy week with all of my doctor appts. so it was really nice to have a day where I could just hang out with her and watch a fun show.

Abigaill got baptized!

On January 4th 2014, Abigail was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

We gave her her own copy of the Book of Mormon last summer and she has been working her way through it herself. She made it to the very end of 2nd Nephi.

We gave her the choice of if she wanted to get baptized and she wanted to.

Abi wanted CTR cookies and pink lemonade for the after party. So, I stayed up late making these cookies. It was hard but totally worth it when I saw the look on her face the next morning.

It was awesome to see her baptized by her dad. 

Many of our family were able to make it. It was very special.

Afterward, everyone came back to our house and had treats. 

Abi opened a few gifts.

My parents gave her a really nice triple combination with her name on it and scripture marking pencils.

Doug's parents gave her the cute pink scripture tote, tissues, bracelet, and articles of faith card.

Brent and Karen's family gave her the baptism memory book.

Dan and Steph gave her a cute card with gumballs. 

We decided to get a picture of Abi with the men that were in the circle with her, but most of them had left already. We decided to at least do it with those that were still over.

My dad, Doug and Abi, my brother in law Dan.

It was a very special day!

Baptism photo shoot

It was so hard to believe that it was time for Abi to be baptized!

She was going to be baptized on January 4th so I spent the last few days of December getting the invitations together. 

We went over to the Timpanogas temple to take pictures.

These were some of my favorites.

New Years Eve

This year I was really excited to be back here for New years Eve. My family used to always get together for a big bash. But now that everyone else has teenagers, they tend to do their own thing.

So, I asked my parents if they would come over. 

We were so happy to have them.

I did our yearly tradition by taking the ornaments off of the tree and decorating it with purple and silver balloons filled with anywhere from .1 to $1. Then we took turns popping them throughout the night.

Doug and I usually have appetizer type food for New Years so we made some and my parents brought some. I made chicken wings and jalepeno poppers and had chips and cheesy salsa out.

My mom made little crescent smokies and crackers with a yummy cheeseball.

She also brought stuff to make Ice cream sundaes.

I had glow bracelets for everyone to wear.

We played a few games. 

The first one we played was one my parents gave us for Christmas: Wits and Wagers. It was a lot of fun.

Abi did a little show for us using my May pole.

Of course we opened our English crackers.

It was a great night capped off with sparkling cider and a confetti rocket. 

The Doll's Christmas

A few days after Christmas we celebrated our first Doll's Christmas.

I had a little tree decorated with their dolls the entire season. 

We put wrapped gifts for the dolls.

On the Doll's Christmas Eve we read the book The Doll's Christmas by Tasha Tudor and then opened new pajamas for Elizabeth and Kirsten.

The next morning the girls opened two more presents. One pair of shoes for each doll.

A Little more Christmas

My parents did the 12 days of Christmas for us and we got so many awesome things from them....

My sister had me and she got me this adorable set:

two of my presents arrived late: Doctor Who vault book and Wonderbook- a book about creative writing

My Word for 2014

I didn't pick a word for 2013. I think it was because I was busy packing and staging our house to sell it. 

I knew that I did want to do a word this year. 

I have made my "goals", decided what I want to change or add in my life this year. 

But I was having trouble deciding on a word that encompassed all of the things I wanted it to.

I brainstormed. I came up with words and then vetoed them because they weren't exactly what I was looking for.

And then I was on the computer working on some things for a family night and, while not even thinking about it, the word came into my mind. 

It is perfect. I don't know why I didn't think of it. 

My word for 2014 is

Last week I spent a couple of days scouring the Internet and my personal files to put together a planning binder for this year.

Most of you who know me know that I am a very organized person. I always have a plan.

This fall for some reason that was harder to do. 

Many of you may have seen the video that asks people to try to fit a bunch of rocks into one bowl. Most of them can't do it. But the person that put all the big rocks in first can then fit all of the small rocks in. 

They compare this demonstration to life by saying that the big rocks are the things that are essential and most important for us to be doing. The small rocks are the things we do for fun or in our spare time.

For me, if I don't have my life or day planned out I tend to forget certain things and end up doing the "small rocks before the big rocks" which leaves no room for the most important things. 

I created this binder so that I have something cute that I can take with me that allows me to , at any time, see the things I want to focus on this year. 

It has sections for all of my big rocks.

Those big rocks are as follows:

FOCUS on making sure our family is spiritually sound. 

This would mean that we are having family scripture study and prayer as well as our personal.

 That we are having Family Home Evening every week. Also we will be better about our family devotionals.

And that our home is a Christ-centered home.

This also includes my own scripture study.  

Making sure that we all have stewardship's (chores) and they are being done.

I do much better with having a cleaning assignment on my schedule each day rather than one big clean day. But this year I have been doing the one day. 

When I have to spend hours on cleaning the entire house, I don't have much time for anything else.

Maddy complains when she has to do a chore so I want to make sure that both girls know what they are stewards over and know why it is important.

I want to teach my daughters to be keepers of the home. 

It is important to me that our girls grow up knowing how to keep a home. 

I know that sounds old fashioned to many nowadays. But I am old fashioned. 

I love old fashioned things. 

I want to teach my daughters all of the things that I find helpful.

I tend to just do it all myself because it easier and quicker... but this year I will accept and require help. 

Abigail will be planning and cooking at least two full dinners each month and Madeline will be planning and helping cook one.

I will be working on cleaning, sewing, menu planning, budgeting, and the already mentioned cooking. 

Abigail goes to Miss Manners with her Grandmother and she is learning manners, etiquette, and penmanship amongst many other things. 

I want our home to be a place where we reinforce what she learns.. a "home-ec." class in a way.

I want to focus on my marriage.

Doug and I very independent people and tend to just do our own thing. While we have many common interests we also have many not common interests.

It is not unusual for him to be on the computer and me with my nose in a book.

Sometimes if we both want to see the same movie he will go with his friends and I will go with my friends or my mom so that we don't have to get a babysitter. 

While I have no problem with this and it works for us, I also want to make sure that we are taking at least two nights a month to have dates outside of the house. 

One to go to the temple, and one to do something recreational. 

FOCUS on preschool with Maddy

The same things don't always work with Maddy the way they did with Abi.

I want to make sure that we are having preschool of some kind three days a week.

This is the year I want to get her reading and really buckle down.

FOCUS on myself

I am going to be doing the Relief Society Pursuit of Excellence again this year with different goals than I used last time I did it. 

I will spend at least one night a week writing. 

I will get up at 5am to exercise and do my personal scripture study before everyone wakes up. This is something I have done for a long time but the holidays kind of messed with it. 

Mainly, I want to FOCUS on having and maintaining a "House of Order".