Sick & Tired of Being Sick & Tired

Quick story before the point of this post. Friday night, Justin and I went up to Mesa to go out to dinner and the temple with some friends. We went to a little mexican restaurant and then made a caravan to the temple. When we got there, we were informed that my temple recommend was expired!! I was so sad! We just went 3 weeks ago, and I didn't even think about it! It expired the end of September... :(

Sadly, this is the second time I've tried to go to the temple with an expired recommend! Last time was just over two years ago when I was about this far along with Carrie. I guess my pregnant brain can't keep up with expiration dates! We ended up going to Dairy Queen by ourselves and heading home early...

Now, onto the "sick & tired" story. Yesterday morning we randomly woke up early so I ate breakfast and got ready before Carrie was up. When I heard her start to cry, I headed up the stairs toward her room. After only a few seconds her cry turned into a desperate screaming cry. I got to her room and opened the door to find her sitting up in bed trying to hold her binky in her mouth while she gagged and heaved.

I grabbed her and rushed to the bathroom just in time.... Poor girl.... We spent the whole day snuggling on the couch in pajamas, watching TV and napping.


Sometime during the middle of the day, between episodes of vomiting, we took a walk down the street to our neighbors to return something we'd borrowed. I was planning on either putting Carrie in the stroller or carrying her, but she got excited and wanted to do this instead...

Baby stroller holding a teddy bear, purse on her shoulder, sunglasses and her hat from firehouse subs... Notice though that she still has her B in her arms and her binky in her mouth...


Daddy set up this awesome nap station in the family room. So comfy :)
And she's out....

Later in the evening when she was feeling a little better (thanks to a Priesthood Blessing) she started to get back to her normal playful self a little. Here, she's sitting in the "emergency bowl", for in case we can't make it to the bathroom. Kind of gross, but I promise it was clean. :)

This morning, Carrie was still feeling a little yucky (although no more throwing up, hallelujah). Justin and I weren't feeling the greatest either so we decided to stay home from church just in case. I would feel awful if we passed anything to the primary kids and Carrie passed anything around nursery.

If we would have gone to church, this is the dress Carrie would have worn though. It's my latest creation and I'm super proud of myself. I didn't think it would work because I was being overly ambitious with puffy sleeves and a collar, but... tah-dah!

Dinner & Dessert

Carrie LOVES to help with dinner! Anytime she sees me at the stove, or kitchen island she runs to get a stool, pushes it over and begs "Up? Up?". She is very independent and I have to remind her that "Mommy has to help too", when she wants to pour or mix everything by herself.

Making a salad:

On Thursday night, our Relief Society activity was all about cake decorating. We had one sister teach us about filling and frosting, one teach about shaping cakes, and one teach about fondant. Then we separated into teams and had a decorating contest.

My team ended up making the green M&M girl. She started out as a green monster (in honor of Halloween being so close), but as we went along, she looked more like the M&M girl, so we gave her big lips, high heels and called it good!!


The winning team and our prize, matching cupcake aprons! (Gotta love how it accentuates my suddenly huge 27 1/2 week belly!)


My enthusiasm has been refueled and I'm excited to make fun cakes for holidays, birthdays etc!

More About Brigham

I had a doctor's appointment today with an ultrasound. Because my grandparents are still in town from Brandon and Marissa's wedding, my grandpa babysat while my mom and grandma came with me to the appointment.

The ultrasound estimated Brigham's current weight at 1lb, 15oz. Overall he's measuring in the 32nd percentile, which is pretty much what we have come to expect. We have just slightly smaller than average babies. :)

He's very very active and was wiggling his toes and sticking out his tongue during the ultrasound. As of today, he was breech. Last time he was head down, the time before he was breech..... I think he just likes to move a lot. He'll keep us guessing!

The doctor I saw is one of the ones that is a little higher specialty and works in the Maternal Fetal Centers at the hospitals too. He gave us the ups and downs of Brigham's prognosis.

*Average survival with a diaphragmatic hernia: 50%

*When chromosomes are normal (like Brigham's): 70-80%

*Lung-to-Head ratio of 1.02 (good but not fabulous): 65-70%

*Tip of liver starting to angle toward the hernia: 60-65%

So as of now, Brigham's chances are better than average, but still not super fantastic. We'll just deal with it as we go I guess!

I'm on a little bit of a roller coaster about all this. I know I usually seem pretty under control, but I occasionally have a bad day where I just worry uncontrollably. There's nothing I can do and that frustrates me. I wish I could fix this. I wish everything was ok.

Justin made a good point though. No matter what the end outcome, Brigham is making our family stronger. We are learning more and more to have faith, say sincere prayers, trust the power of the Priesthood and rely on our Heavenly Father.

As we get closer to Brigham's arrival, I get more and more anxious to meet our sweet, active little boy. He feels like a fighter already! :)

**Brandon & Marissa**

We had quite the busy, fun weekend!

Friday afternoon Carrie and I drove up to Mesa and while my Grandma babysat, I got more pregnancy bloodwork done. All my labs are normal, including the yucky sickly sweet very un-fun 1 hour glucose tolerance test that checks for gestational diabetes. After picking Justin up from work, we all got ready for the big event of the evening.... Brandon's baptism!

It was beautiful and there were plenty of family and friends there, including Brandon's non-member brother and parents. From what I saw, I think they could feel the Spirit very strongly and enjoyed the experience. Brandon's dad told me he's glad Brandon is so happy. I'm glad he's happy too. And I'm glad he makes my little sister so happy. :)

Especially considering the special event that happened on Saturday... Brandon and Marissa's wedding!

What a looooong day it was! At least it was fun! In the morning we (the bride and bridesmaids) went and got matching pedicures.
By the time we were done with that it was about 11 and time to haul all the dresses, makeup, curling irons, hairspray etc. over to my aunt's house to get ready.

We set up "bridal camp" in her massive bathroom and spent the whole afternoon helping each other get ready. While we were getting our pedicures earlier, the boys set up all the chairs and tables and then went back to my parents house to hang out and watch football all day! Boys have wedding days so much easier!!

All the girls ready for the ceremony to start

The wedding was in the backyard and everything was so beautiful! Carrie was a flower girl along with our friend Allie Beeson (9 years old). Carrie walked from the house to the back of the aisle just fine holding Allie's hand. When they got to the aisle and Allie started to drop flower petals though, Carrie totally froze. She just stood at the back of the chairs looking super cute, but very confused. After a few seconds one of our friends stood up from her chair and took Carrie's hand guiding her up to the front where Justin was waiting on the front row.

My dad and my baby sister walking down the aisle. Doesn't she look so excited?!

We got lucky and all week it had been rainy so the weather cooled off very nicely, but it didn't rain on us that day. After the ceremony we took pictures and had dinner and the reception. (I feel like I spent a majority of the reception slicing and serving up cheesecake in the kitchen, but it was sure yummy!)

The Bridesmaids getting a little goofy by the end of the night

These last two are bridal shots that were taken a couple of weeks ago


Like I said, it was really busy, but really fun! And now we have a new brother-in-law! And Carrie has her new "Uncle Boo-boo" (she came up with that one all on her own). Congratulations to Brandon and Marissa Smith!!

Carrie has a Boyfriend

One of Carrie's best friends is Jake, our neighbor a few houses down the street. It also just so happens that we get along very well with his parents and therefore, see a lot of each others' families. On Tuesday this week, we had a FULL day of playing together (kids and moms). We did a pumpkin painting project in the morning and while the kids were napping, we went crazy on the sewing machine.

They have faces for Halloween, and the back side is plain so come November 1st, I'll just turn them around for Thanksgiving decorations!

Climbing, digging, and getting all scratched up in the old garden

"Look mom! We both fit in the dog kennel!"

"Maybe we'll just hang out in here a little while"

Playing in the sandbox
Sand, sand, sand.... Everywhere... Well, it started out as a good hair day....
Playing climbing, digging, doggies, and sand with boys is sure different than playing necklaces, dolls, and lip gloss with girls! But Carrie loves it all!!

She's loving everyone else's backyards and starting to really hate our backyard; Hard dirt and dry prickly weeds, which means she can really only play on the patio. We will hopefully be landscaping it soon! The weather is FINALLY cooling off a tiny bit and Carrie would be outside all day every day if we had a yard!

Garage Sale Goodies & Sneaky Sleeper

I got to start my Saturday by going garage sale-ing with my friend Corynn. I'm a total rookie, but she's a pro. We left around 6:15 and were home a couple hours later with some great purchases.

Brigham: A few shirts, pants, and a sweatsuit that will be the perfect size for next winter.
My favorite :)

Carrie: she actually got a few other t-shirts too which she's already worn this weekend and now they're sitting in the laundry.

Justin: I'm so proud of this jacket. It's (fake) sheep/lamb fuzzy lining inside, and corduroy outside. Aeropostale. $3.00. :)

Rebecca: 3 boxes of PLASTIC Christmas tree ornaments for $1.50. There are some that won't match "my style", but I'll sift through and find the keepers.

My most exciting find of the day.... a wagon! I've been wanting one for a while, but they're so darn expensive to buy when they're new! I just need to spray it with the hose, give it a little wipe down and it'll be perfect! The seats fold flat if I want them to. It was my huge splurge of the morning; $15.00. I figured I'd be really mad at myself later if I didn't get it though. I'm excited!

When we got home with our hauls, we had Cameron, Corynn & Jake over for waffles and to watch General Conference. We were all fed physically and spiritually! And it was all really really good!

Between sessions, I went back to the Payne's house to scrounge through their scrap wood and had Cameron build me a little bench. When I brought it back home, Justin helped me paint, pad and upholster it. Tah-dah! A little climbing helper step for Carrie's bed. We'd had the trundle mattress pulled out from under the bed about a foot. It worked fine, but didn't look so great. This new cute little bench is both functional and fashionable! (see the pattern of the fabric below) And it's zip-tied to the bed frame so it won't tip over when she climbs up and down.
And now on to our hilarious story from Saturday night. We drove up to Mesa for Justin to go to Priesthood session with my dad and brothers, and for Carrie and I to go out to dinner with my mom and sister. We stayed the night at their house since we were going to be there all day Sunday.

We put Carrie down to bed around 8:00 and were all sitting in the family room watching TV. We were trying to figure out the DVR to record Conference for the next day and funky things kept happening to the TV. The channel would change, or the recording option would jump when my mom hadn't touched anything etc... For several minutes we just couldn't figure out why it was acting so weird!

Justin suddenly remembered sometimes the upstairs remote can mess things up if someone's trying to use them both at the same time. He went upstairs to investigate.... We'd put Carrie to bed in the TV room upstairs.

She had climbed out of her pack'n'play, onto the couch and was sitting there pushing buttons on the remote when Justin found her. Mystery solved!!

It seemed a LOT funnier then than it does right now typing it, but anyways..... :)

We hung out with my family on Sunday, ate yummy chocolate and cinnamon pastry things for breakfast and our traditional scones for dinner. We make navajo tacos with them first, then top them with jam/honey/cinnamon for dessert. One of the best things about being pregnant is if you eat a big meal, it doesn't matter because your belly is already big!

Carrie is talking up a storm. Next post, I'll try to update on some of the new things she's saying and doing. Until then....

The Latest on Brigham

First, here's me at 25 weeks. I'm feeling very pregnant now. Any time I say something like that Justin looks at me funny and says with a smile, "Ummm, sweetie, you are pregnant..." (pics of Brigham at the bottom)


I had another ultrasound yesterday at the Maternal-Fetal Center at Good Sam (the hospital). They checked all the regular growth related things and said he looks fabulous. He's measuring in the 23rd percentile overall, which sounds just about right for our kids. He'll probably weigh very close to what Carrie was (6lbs, 4oz).

The real reason for this special appointment though was to re-measure the lung-to-head ratio. We last had this done at 20 weeks. It's a calculation that determines lung tissue development in relation to overall size of the baby. They said that the number 1.00 is kind of the tipping point. Below that, they are more concerned, above that, they are less concerned.

5 weeks ago, Brigham's calculation was 0.9. Yesterday it was 1.02! Apparently it's not a very large window because they doctor seemed happy about this slight difference.

Now, don't go jumping up and down celebrating just yet... The diaphragmatic hernia is still there, he'll still be sick at birth, still require surgery, still be in the NICU for a while.... But, his chances don't look totally and completely awful.

As I've been talking with some friends and family recently, I realized I haven't been as clear as I thought I was. Although we seem pretty chill about this whole thing, it's still a pretty big deal.

On average (with a huge, wide range of variances), the mortality rate of babies with this condition is 50%. Not so hot... There are so many little things that can change that number though. Most of these things we won't know until after Brigham is born. They are mostly related to how well the baby responds after birth. Some babies' systems just handle it better than others.

Our calm is really coming from the feeling that either he'll be OK eventually, but if not, we'll be OK... eventually.

Now :) Shaking off the doom and gloom feeling... Here's a couple of new pictures from the ultrasound yesterday! I know 3D pictures are a little weird and most often more creepy looking than cute, but we'll give it a shot.

*Note: anything weird and splotchy looking in the pictures is either shadow, uterus, cord, his hand etc, getting in the way.*