Top Five Friday!

I decided that I really need to blog once a week. This blog is more of a journal for me and I'd really like to write down all the good things that are happening in our lives, even though some may be really small things that I wouldn't normally think would be great to remember. But then this amazing girly gave me a fabulous idea! On her blog she does a Top Five Friday where she lists her favorite things that happened that week. So I thought "Here's my answer!" Not only will it help me update my blog every week, but it will help me remember things AND help me see all the amazing things the Lord is blessing me with. She is a genius no? Add her blog to your favorites cause she has some great things she talks about and is super entertaining. Anyways, here's my top five:

1. Cardboard Boat Races

 Each year in the Spring, SUU invites highschools to participate in their Annual Cardboard Boat Race. This means my Dad gets to come down with a couple of his students and spend the night in a hotel. I love having some great quality time with my Dad. He took all of us college kids out to dinner at Applebees. Then we went back to the hotel for some hot tubbing/swimming, ice cream, and games. It was so much fun! Then in the morning was the race. There are a few rules with this boat race: It must be made out of cardboard and duct tape, nothing else, and two people must "row" the boat - NO kicking!. My dad's team has won 1st place for the last 3 years. Unfortunately, we won second this year to a surfboard looking boat. It was a lot of fun. I think this year was the first year that more than 3 boats actually made it to the end. It was so exciting! I can't wait till next year!

2. Church Ball

For the first time in years I played basketball, and goodness I loved every second of it! It definitely kicked my trash, though. I have no idea how in the heck I had so much endurance back in highschool to be able to sprint up and down that court. We're starting a tournament, in which our first game is tomorrow. I'm super excited! It has really helped motivate me to get back in shape too. Double plus!

3. Running

 After gaining some weight from my "fat pills" that the doctor gave me for my eye, I decided something needed to change in my life and working out was the key. I have now been working out consistently everyday for a week! I can now run 2 miles without stopping - it may be pathetic to you but this is a huge deal for me. The best part about this is that I'm actually loving it. I can see how far I have progressed in just a week and it makes me want to go more and push myself harder. It also has helped to have some good music to run to. I've downloaded some playlists from this website. I love it because I'm always looking for good music to run to and here it has two hours worth of pump-up music. Love it! Hopefully I'll be able to run with my Father-in-Law soon - its one of my goals for this summer.

4. Family

My family is so amazing! Due to finals, my Dad took Mady home with him when he came down for the boat race. It has been so helpful to me and Ray, we have gotten SO much studying done. Although, it has been really hard on me having her being away. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS FOR SKYPE! We are so blessed to be apart of two amazing families who are willing to help us with our schooling and we can't even come close to expressing how grateful we are. We certainly are so blessed.

5. Pintrest

I love Pintrest! And I love it even more when I try recipes that are AMAZING! We've been trying to eat more healthy, in which this amazing website has fabulous and delicious recipes. I haven't tried one recipe that I haven't liked - given we've only tried 3 but still. Also we made this delicious dessert. Sooo good! I recommend both sites.

Well there you have it! My top five of the week. Now let's hope that I'll keep this up!

Playing House

I'm sure everyone has heard or seen the hit TV series House, where a team of Doctors try to diagnose these mystery symptoms of patients, sometimes making them worse, until miraculously they figure it out and save the person. These past 3 weeks I have felt like a guest star on that show with the doctors I have worked with here in Cedar City. Let me explain.

About three and a half weeks ago, on a Sunday, I started having this intense pain in my left eye. I couldn't look to my left, my whole eye was swollen, and my eye lid just wanted to stay shut - it felt so heavy to keep it open. By Wednesday I couldn't handle the pain anymore and decided to make an appointment with an Optometrist. When I went in the doctor was really....well lets just say we did not trust his judgement at all and wanted to get a second opinion.  Although he did prescribe me some steroids as he thought I had a pseudotumor cerebri, which I had about 6 years ago back in highschool.

So I started taking the pills immediately which made the swelling go down but the pain was still there. We decided to stop by another doctor's office and see if they could confirm for us. Unfortunately, that just led to a different diagnostic and a referral to a different doctor. According to this doctor, he thought it was orbital cellulitis. My eye showed all the same symptoms except for the redness, which he had never seen it without it and so he referred me to another doctor.

By the time I had gotten to the 3rd doctor the swelling was completely gone. The doctor ran a series of tests which showed that there was quite a few symptoms that were not explained. He said that there were three different things it could be but that my symptoms were showing more of an optic neuritis but that the only way we would be able to tell would be a catscan because I was on the steroids which made the test they would normally do show nothing.

By this time I was feeling so awful because of the pain I just wanted to go home and do the catscan the next day. So in the morning I got up to do get it done. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I was unaware that my insurance needed a pre-authorization before I could get it. So I left being reassured by the hospital that they would get a hold of my insurance and then call me once my appointment was scheduled. I didn't hear back at all. And by Friday when I called them they still had no answer for me which would mean I would have to go through the whole weekend in pain.

It was awful. I had lost a lot of the vision and the pain and gotten even worse with the pressure in my head I thought it was going to explode. My doctor did give me loratab along with some 800Ibprofen but even taking those on top of each other wasn't making a dent in the pain I was feeling. Most of the time I just cried. I couldn't read or study, it hurt to watch tv, it hurt to do anything. But then sleeping was hard because every hour or less I would be woken up with the pain. It was awful.

The next week they still hadn't done anything about getting it pre-authorized but on Tuesday, I was feeling so much better so I didn't bother calling them. I still was getting the pressure headaches and looking to my left was a definete no, but I could study again and read! By Friday I finally thought things were heading towards recovery I decided to head off to St. George for a girls night with my Mom, two little sisters and Mady. My little sister, Tiffany was in a dance competition on Saturday and they were coming and staying the night in a hotel. I wish it was the perfect weekend that I had in mind.

I thought Mady would be fine sleeping in a bed with me - but no. She did not sleep at all. My mom and I tired everything, at least she wasn't screaming. She was as happy as a lark, just playing and tlaking up a storm - "Mommy, swimming? Go swimming?", "See the moon?", "Tiffy and Bre sleeping? Shhh nigh-night", "G-ma go potty? Mady go potty?" And on and on and on. By 3:00am I had had enough. And drove her all the way back to Cedar and have Ray take care of her. The only problem with this is that my eyesight was awful at night and it was snowing. Thank goodness the Lord was watching out for me, otherwise there would be two more angels in Heaven.

The bad part about this was that I had to drive immediately back because my Mom needed to get Tiffany to hair and makeup at 6:00am. So that night I only got one hour of sleep. That whole day was awful. I was feeling sick because of the lack of sleep. But then my arm was acting really weird. My hand was really swollen and it kinda felt like when you get your blood pressure and there's that lack of blood, tingling feeling. And then there were times that it would be completely numb with a constant dull ache. That night we ran to the ER because it was spreading up my arm.

Long story short - after a few more times of being rushed to the ER and the doctors not knowing why I was having all the different symptoms of fevers, body aches and shaking, my arm being weird, plus my pressure headaches, I can finally say that I have had 3 days of no pain! The doctor finally gave me the ok to get off my fat pills (the stupid steroids that made me gain 10lbs!) and said that they had no idea what it really was. But I really don't care if it was a tumor, blood clot, pressure, whatever. I'm just glad that I am finally pain free and back to normal! Just in time for finals too! Wish us luck, we really need it!

Oh! And my sister did amazing! She won second and forth in her divisions. And don't mind Breanne, as I said Mady kept all of us up, which made for a long day.

Our Easter Weekend

Easter was great for us this year. We stayed in Cedar City. We really wanted to go to Ephraim but Ray was unable to go. We were happy to find that Cedar did put on a Easter Egg "Hunt" for the public Saturday morning.

Growing up we usually did our festivities on Saturday and then celebrated the true meaning of Easter on Sunday, so we decided to carry on the tradition. Earlier in the week we colored eggs with Ray's siblings. Mady had a blast. I unfortunately did not get any pictures of that night. But here are our eggs. Mady loved putting on the glitter with her princess stickers. I didn't do much for Easter this year for Mady. She had just had her birthday and was given so many presents. So I only got her a small Elmo stuffy and put it in her basket. She was so ecstatic, we had to bring him along to the Easter Egg Hunt.

There were so many people at the hunt. Mady was a little overwhelmed by everything and didn't want me to put her down. I tried to get her to pick up the eggs but she didn't want to do anything. So I helped her put a few in her basket and called it good. Here we are with her basket filled.Next I wanted to get a picture of Mady with the Easter bunny. Because we only grabbed a few eggs and called it quits while everyone else was still grabbing the eggs, there was no line for the Easter Bunny. I put Mady down and told her to go hug the bunny like the other little kids. She started to walk towards him, but then stopped turned around and started crying. So this is the closest thing we got to a picture of Mady with the Easter Bunny.We then decided to go home since there really was nothing left for us to do and Mady was telling us she wanted to go back to sleep. As we started heading towards the car Mady saw the playground and started running. So we played for a good 15 minutes. Other kids were all eating there candy and trying to get to the Easter bunny, but all Mady cared about was the slide and swing. Hopefully it will always be that way. Haha.When we got home I wanted Mady to see that there was actual candy inside the eggs. So I helped her open one. She got so excited and started opening all of them. It was so cute how every time she opened them she would say, "Look Mommy, candy!" After Mady's nap we took her for a picnic at the park. She loved every second of it. After playing for an hour or two, we headed over to some dirt hills for Mady to roll her eggs. I think it was the funnest part of the day for her.


It was such a great day and we had a lot of fun playing with Mady and making the day special for her. Sunday was equally as wonderful as we celebrated by having a wonderful Easter church meeting and then eating a wonderful dinner at Ray's sister's in-laws house.

Madelynn's Second Birthday

I cannot believe my little girl is two! TWO! I can't believe she's that old already. We had a really fun birthday for her though. She is obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba and so we decided to have that as her theme this year. I didn't go all out like I did last year, mostly due to school and not enough time. But I was able to do some decorations for her. I didn't get a picture of her room decorations before I took them down but I took the idea from the picture with the balloons and tablecloths. It turned out cute.I was a little upset by the way her cake turned out and by the near end I was so fed up with it I didn't even bother putting more effort into the characters. But when Mady saw it in the morning she was so excited and knew exactly what I was trying to do. It was a little humbling for me. I was putting in so much work and getting so upset over something that was meant for her and she loved it even though I thought it looked awful. And really that is all that really matters - that she knew what it was. I don't make the best cakes in the world and I think I've come to terms with that. I hope to someday take a cake class that will fix that. But seeing her so happy over something I thought was horrid really helped me to see past my stupidity. I had a lot of fun deciding the different foods to make for her party. I thought it would be fun to use her colors (red, pink, green, yellow, blue) as to what to make for the refreshments. So for red I made smokies and salsa, pink was an icecream sherbert drink and jello salad, green was a green salad and a veggie tray, yellow was deviled eggs and chips, and then blue was jello jigglers. I also made a fruit tray with all the different kinds of colors. My friend Ada and her mom made the "Brobee" veggie tray for me. It turned out so cute!Here's a few pictures that I did take on the day of her party - unfortunately there's really not that many. But oh well. Notice her cute outfit though. I bought her a Yo Gabba Gabba shirt with the number two on it and then I made the tutu for her. I think it turned out great. She absolutely loves her shirt. She'd wear it everyday if I let her.Mady was given a TON of wonderful gifts that she loves! I wasn't able to get a picture of all her presents on that day. I decided that from now on I will take a picture with her sitting with all her presents so that we will be able to remember everything she was given that year for birthdays and for Christmas. But for now, you get pictures that I took just today haha. I had my Dad make Mady a kitchen set from an old entertainment center. He did such an amazing job! I still need to find a picture for the frame and then get some curtains in there so it looks like a window but that's a ways down on my priority list. It has been by far her favorite present. She LOVES washing her hands, her dishes, making food for her babies, cooking the food and stirring it. She spends hours just in there with her babies, which really helps me out. One of my favorite features of it, is the storage space. We keep all her books, miscellaneous toys, anything really in the fridge part. All the other drawers we use for her dishes and play food and so forth. But man do we love it!Mady was also given a princess table set, princess organizer and chair, princess baby highchair, bed, doll and stroller, tricycle, stuffed animals, a horse, bubbles, clothes (my favorite gifts!), and probably a whole bunch of other stuff I forgot. She also was given a fish, which we named Topher. She loves watching her fish, feeding it, saying hi. Its pretty darn cute. I will get a picture of him soon, but its one of those pretty beta fishes. Love it! Doesn't she look so grown up? Makes me sad. On her real birthday (the 26th) we took her out to McDonalds and let her run around there. She loves it so much. Everytime we go somewhere she always asks to go to McDonalds. She's not real big on the food (who is?), but she loves the playplace. And apparently so does my Mom and I. Haha, kids at heart!

Mady had such a great birthday and I want to thank everyone for making it such a special day for her! I love you so much Madelynn. You are turning into such a smart beautiful little girl and I couldn't be more proud to be your mother. You always know how to bring a smile to my face with everything you say and do. You are learning so quickly and amaze us by the things you catch on to. We love you so much! Happy birthday Madelynn Shay!