Building Our House.

It is no secret that Austin builds houses for a living. The company Austin is working for opened up a new subdivision in an amazing location and Austin was able to negotiate a deal, so we bit the bullet and started building a house! It was so fun to see our house go up from the ground! I loved searching Pinterest for design ideas and then heading to the design center to make my dreams come to life. I loved walking through the house periodically and getting filled with anticipation for the completion date. And I am pretty confident I asked Austin every day how the house was looking. Now that we are all moved in, we love our house. It is better than I ever imagined. I love having Austin work only a few houses away. I love the neighborhood. I love the fact that I have my own backyard and a two car garage. I love my white, bright kitchen.I don't see us moving from this place anytime soon. We are completely satisfied!

Celiac Disease Diagnosis.

Quincy was not feeling well for months. She was constantly cranky, throwing up, diarrhea, losing weight at a scary pace, super bloated, sleepy, and lethargic. I originally thought she had a stomach bug. But once the "stomach bug" went on for weeks, I eliminated that option. Then I thought she may get car sick easy since she was throwing up every single time we got in the car. Then I assumed she as allergic to something so we took her off dairy and soy while we waited for our doctor's appointment. By the time we got Quincy to the doctor, she was pretty lifeless. She spent the majority of the day sleeping or just laying there. She refused to do the basic things a baby should do, like eat, talk, or crawl. It was a pretty scary feeling.

When we met with the pediatrician, he seemed pretty baffled. He ordered x-rays, blood work, and an array of tests in hopes of pin pointing a cause. I took Quincy to the hospital for the lab work and x-rays. Quincy was not a fan of being held down for the x-rays or to get stabbed multiple times in the arm. With the lab work, she was so upset and so tiny they really struggled getting her vein, which resulted in multiple pokes. I wasn't a fan either when I had to be the one that held her down. The hospital was great to work with and said they should have the results to the pediatrician by the next day so I would be hearing from them soon.

Well, I never heard from the pediatrician the next day. I kept calling and they said they would let me know when it came in. But I still didn't hear back, so I turned into that overprotective mom who kept calling and asking for answers.. Finally, I was told everything looked normal so the pediatrician would refer me to a specialist, a Pediatric Gastrointestinologist. The day before my appointment with the specialist, I ran back into the pediatrician office to get a copy of the lab results and x-rays. The pediatricians office let me know that the specialist just needed to call them during my appointment and they would send the results electronically. I was a little skeptical but the lady assured me that is how it is done in this day and age so I went along with it. I showed up to the appointment with the specialist and surprise, surprise, they let me know that it isn't common to get things sent online and couldn't even get a hold of my pediatrician to get the lab results. The doctor told me there wasn't much he could do without the results so the whole appointment was basically a waste of time. This was the point of the day that the mama bear in me really came out. I had a super sick baby that was acting like she was slowly dying. I just paid an arm and a leg for a worthless specialist appointment. And my pediatrician was proving very unhelpful. I was fuming.

I did the only rational thing at this point, I drove straight over to my pediatricians office while I was super pissed. I walked in with my kids in tow and demanded the lab results in my hand and faxed over to the specialist right then and there. I let them know I wasn't leaving until I saw them. The receptionist pulled up Quincy's file and then informs me that no results were in her file. I let her know that that couldn't be possible because I received a phone call where they verbally told me everything looked normal plus I stopped by the day before and they said they pulled it up and would just need the doctor to request is during my appointment. They back peddled, gave me a bunch of lame excuses, and ended up calling the hospital to request the lab work "again." When I had the lab work in my hand i realized the numbers were far from normal. So basically, the pediatrician's office lied to me multiple times. You best believed we are never seeing that doctor again....

Not long after the pediatrician faxed the results to the specialist, the specialist gave me a call. He let me know exactly what I suspected, the numbers were far from normal. He told me that the numbers made it very clear that Quincy had Celiac Disease. He said usually after a positive test result, they will request a biopsy but the numbers were convincing enough he wasn't even going to bother. With her Celiac Disease Panel, her IgA numbers were 234. A normal person would range from 19-102. Her tTg IgA were even more alarming. Her numbers came in at >100. A normal individuals numbers would be 0-3. Those numbers were enough to convince me and I was pretty relieved to not have to go through a biopsy.

With Celiac Disease, Quincy has had to adjust to a completely new lifestyle free of anything containing gluten. This was really hard at first, especially because her favorite foods were goldfish, cereal, mac and cheese, and sandwiches. We opted to make the switch as a family. It seemed easier so we could avoid any cross contamination and prevent any unsafe foods from accidentally getting digested. Now that we have had a diagnosis for a couple of weeks, it has been amazing to see the difference in Quincy. She used to be lifeless and sleep for the majority of the day and now she is happy and catching up developmentally. She finally expressed some interest in walking and talking and being a normal toddler. As heartbreaking as it is to have to go through the process, I am so relieved to finally have answers and have my happy, smiling baby back.

This is how Quincy looked 99,9% of the time, lifeless.

My poor baby :(

At the hospital getting lab work.

Selling our House.

Austin's job is great. So great that it dropped a huge opportunity on our lap that we couldn't turn down; even if that meant moving, again, from our cute townhouse. More on that opportunity in another post... We put our house up on the market and it was under contract within a couple of days. Unfortunately those buyers changed their mind so we had to go through the whole process all over again. And let me tell ya, It is exhausting trying to stage a house and keep it clean with young kids. We fortunately found another buyer within a couple of days and this time it went through. We were able to get what we were asking for our house, which helped us out greatly. For my memory sake, here are some pictures of our cute Saratoga Springs townhouse.

Quincy Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Family Room

Kitchen

Dining Room

Basement Family Room

Basement Bathroom

Family Reunion.

Every other year, we have a big family reunion with my mom's side of family. Everyone makes a point to be there and this year was no different. We had every single family member there, except one who was in Mexico serving a mission. We opted to have our reunion close to home, Spanish Fork to be exact, to accommodate everyone's crazy schedules. I'm going to be honest, the whole weekend seemed like a blur to me. I had a very sick and needy baby who received all my attention. Plus we were in the middle of selling our house, so house inspections and appraisals happened to fall during the same time period. So, sorry for the lack of super interesting photos!  The first night we had a low key dinner followed by visiting, Minute to Win it games and a movie. The next day, my cousin Hunter owns a zorb business, so we spent it rolling down the hills and having fights. We then headed to the reservoir where we swam, kayaked, and ate to our hearts content. The final day was spent taking family pictures, and attending church with grandma. Kennadi loved playing with some cousins she doesn't see very often and I loved catching up with my family, even if it was just for a couple of days.

Quincy | 15 months.

At 15 months Quincy is...

-in size 12 and 18 month clothes. in size 3 diapers
-has 6 teeth. 4 on top and 2 on bottom.

-still has no interest in walking or talking.

-very independent. Needs to do everything in her way and in her time. I think this is why walking/talking is coming at its own time.

-can say "mom", "dad", "tickle tickle"

-loves the bath or shower. As soon as she hears the water going, she will try to take her clothes off.

-Loves Snapchat, especially the puppy filter. She could play on that app for forever!

-Loves animals, especially kittys and dogs.

Utah Valley 10K.

At the beginning of the year, my dad, Courtnie and I decided to run a 10k together. I somehow convinced Austin to run with us as well. We registered for the Utah Valley 10K and started training. Between starting a new job, building a house, selling a house, and 2 very energetic children my training slacked. Like a lot. I was not ready at all for the race, but opted to run it away. Austin wimped out but that is a different story. The morning started all too early, as we drove down to Provo to load the buses to the starting line. Once the starting gun went off, off we ran. I lost Courtnie at about the starting line and my dad before Mile 1 (they both training a little harder than me!). So I was running solo! I was able to get through the race in one piece without crawling through the finish line. I distracted myself along the run with snapchat, otter pop, and watching all the spectators. I ended up finishing the race in 1:12. Way Better than I was anticipating. After the race, we headed to Kneaders to celebrate. This is when things took a turn for the worse. We got to kneaders and I started feeling rotten. I was unsure if it was due to the lack of training, starving, or being dehydrated. I was feeling weak and nauseous and ending up throwing up. Turns out, I got a stomach bug and was down for the next 24 hours. It was not the perfect ending to the race. But I am glad I didn't start throwing up until after I was done running. It is the small things...

Preschool Graduation.

The beginning of Summer results in the end of school and a change of schedules. To celebrate the end of the school year, we decided to do a little graduation for all the kids in our mom-style preschool. At the graduation, the kids sang songs they had been working on all school year. They read some stories, ate some snacks, and received their books about themselves they had been working really hard on. They also got little diplomas and cute caps. Kennadi was pretty disappointed when she found out she wouldn't be going to preschool anymore. She grew to love the kids in her little class. Lucky for us, they all live close by so it wasn't goodbye forever!