Winds of Change

Man I swear our lives are never boring. This summer has flown by and today is Oct 1! I love this part of the year though. I love the changing leaves, the cooler weather, wardrobe change, fall/Halloween decorating, and of course all the fun halloween festivities and activities. Love it. But with ALL that, we still can find ways to overload our lives...

So from last post, and many comments on facebook, we are in the process of potty training our little princess. Did I mention that this is the WORST!!! EVER!!! Seriously, I cant handle it. She was doing so well and then all of a sudden it became this power struggle. I tell her to sit on the potty so she does and then she doesnt go. But then she jumps off the potty and runs in her room, or somewhere and pee's before I can catch her. She does it on purpose people!!! She knows exactly what she is doing too. UGH! I nearly blew a gasket (yes I just said that) this morning over it. The thing is though she will NOT keep a diaper on either. I feel like our house is a feces covered, urine soaked, germy mess! Yes I clean up the messes of course but still! How do I know after she goes on the floor that she didnt touch it and then touch everything else in the house before I even know what happened! I feel like I need to wear a hazmat suit. Maybe im developing a case of OCD. Am I spiraling?

So even bigger news. My lovely husband was called to be Elders Quorum Pres. Talk about stressful! Holy smokes. Especially sense we have a very needy ward. The Bishopric told him that this is going to be VERY hard and that the ward needs A LOT of help. So thats comforting. But he was called for a reason, that I know. It will be really good for us and I am excited for him. He will do a great job for sure.

Even bigger BIGGER news. No we arent pregnant. Therefore, the infertility treatments we have done the last few months have not worked so that means we move on to the next option. The Dr gave us 2 choices of either Artificial Insemination or the big Invitro. She would have us do up to 3 rounds of artificial and if that didnt work then our last option for sure is Invitro after that. There is up to a 30% chance of conceiving with AI, and she isnt positive that that would even work or not. It may. But she said obviously there is something else going on that we just cant understand because i should be preg by now. BUT with Invitro there is a 70-75% chance of getting pregnant. Pretty good odds seems how the average normal couple conceiving is a whopping 20% each month! They are extremely successful in there office with invitro, one of the highest in the country! So we feel like that is what we need to do, go big or go home. Invitro. Crazy.

But in order for this to happen we are strongly feeling like we need to made some BIG changes! We decided that instead of waiting til Feb to apply for jobs we should start right now. This is the last semester of classes for Ty and he is finished with them the first week of Dec and next semester he just works on/defends his thesis, which he can do anywhere! So we are applying for actual career jobs right now. Its awesome! well awesome for me. Ty would rather break his leg than to apply for the million jobs just to get one. But this means our lives are moving forward!!! Ok its always moving forward, but I feel like we have been stuck in school for so long and student living that we have been going CRAZY to move on! So as soon as we get a new career (YAY!) then we will start the process of invitro (hopefully soon).

Our ever changing lives are never boring. We only get through it all with the tons of support and MAJOR answers to prayers. And for that, I am grateful.

Have your cake and eat it too

Well school has officially begun and the leaves have started turning. For the first time in many years, I am excited for fall! I don't know why but shorter days and coldness really put a damper on my love of fall, but not this year.
Lately we have been potty training. Not cool. I'm officially not a fan. Luce was really gun-ho and doing great for the first few days and now its all we can do to get her to sit on the potty. I feel like if I bug her and bug her she will just hate it more and more. So im not sure what to do. Hmmm. But it would be awesome if she were completely trained by lets say tomorrow Halloween.

Also we went to the specialist to talk about her eating. The early intervention people convinced me that there is probably something go on with her stomach as to why she only eats 5 foods. So we got up super early, headed to primary childrens (after 3 months of waiting for the appt date) and went into a horribly depressing hospital that totally freaked me out (im a little irrational around sick people) and met with a dr who basically was wondering why I was there. He said "she is stubborn", there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. And he gave me a couple of ideas (that we have tried a millions times before) of how to get her to eat and shoved me out the door. Ok he didnt shove me out the door, he was very nice, but thats how i felt. Dont get me wrong i am GRATEFUL there is nothing wrong with my babe but I just wanted answers, well a different answer. Boo. I was so ticked. I almost started to cry right there in the office (and i am not a crier). I have been fighting this battle since birth and i got my hopes up that we would find something that could easily be fixed and we were off to an eating wonderland, but no, my dreams were squashed in an instant. So now our new plan of action is (we have already tried this time and time again mind you) that Lucy will eat what we are eating for dinner and if she doesnt eat it she goes to bed hungry. its been hard cause when we go to friends house and there is dessert, she cant eat any until she eats some of her dinner and there is lots of crying and whining, and i feel really bad, but i guess the wild stallion will take time to break. We are on a week of this, still no luck. She has an iron will that Hilter would be jealous of.

In other news, my body hates me. totally random, but it does.

In other, other news Ty got a job offer completely out of the blue, like they sought him out and wants him to work for them right now. PRETTY CRAZY stuff. We don't have any details yet but as soon as everything gets worked out I will definitely be blogging this miraculous miracle for the world wide web to see!

Oh ya! and in other, other, other news. I am dangerously close to begin ready to start up a cake business!!! This is something I have been thinking a lot about and I really REALLY love to do it. Plus i can do it from home. I am just struggling with a name... There are so many good names out there how could i possibly choose just one?! But here is my latest design. This is a birthday cake for my bro-in-law Andrew and to say he is a serious BYU fan would be an understatement, so it was only fitting that i do a byu cake just for him.

St. George

Every year we have made it a tradition with the Kings to make the voyage to St George for the awesome Tuachan. This year we saw Aladdin. I hated it... JUST KIDDING. Like all other Tuachan plays, it was absolutely amazing. The costumes were so detailed and cool. They had real life camels, which was double cool. And you cant beat great company! I sadly didnt get one single picture... Boo... So you will just have to imagine...

• The kiddo's at a cool splash pad/park
• The guys moving the BS Kings to a new house
• Kaylee singing "Stuck Like Glue" for the 800th time.
• The "big" girls out shopping and eating the most delish pie
• Mckell and Lucy not getting along
• Going to the Esplins to play in the pool and have a pizza par-tay
• And finallly, teasing Cam about his love life

 We started and ended the summer in St George and it was great BOTH times. Thanks Ama and Papa King for the great memories and vacation!

Bear Lake

I love going to Bear Lake in August. Its so pretty and the water is warm with the most amazing turquoises color. It was the Nelson reunion (minus a few people) and it was lots of fun. The best part of all was that Lucy had TONS of people to play with and give her all the attention she demands. Again, more pics...

Wise River

Over the 24th of July we had the opportunity to go to Wise River, Montana. Ever heard of it? I didnt think so. Thats probably because the population is about 5. Our cabin was literally in the middle of nowhere, a few miles outside of the booming metropolis that it was said to be located. But it was AWESOME! Not only did we have the river right out our back yard but there was a private stocked fishing pond and all the fresh air you could handle. It was gorgeous. We played a lot of Skip-Bo, ate lots and lots of yummy food and just relaxed! Here are some pictures that I know you are dying to see ;)

So apparently Wise River and the surrounding areas has a "wolf problem" as well as bears and other animals that can eat you for a mid-morning snack. But this is the extent of our widelife encounters.

 

Lots of elk

Lots of Bald Eagles

 Reenacting The River Runs Through It

 Isnt my little snookie GORGEOUS! These turned out great!

Ama King and my Ty Bear

The big "I" and speech therapy

Since we have been home we have been on a voyage to solve a few mysteries that have been plaguing us for a while. We decided that enough was enough and when we got home from St. George we decided to make a few phone calls to see if we could get any closer to solving these mysterious mysteries that are somewhat concerning. I bet you are eagerly anticipating my great reveal as to what these mysteries just might entail. Well wonder no further my friends.

First things first. I am infertile. There it is. This isn't something that is super secret and it isn't something that I dread talking about. Many people don't know this little fact about me because the topic never comes up and what am I supposed to say "Hey whats up? How are you? Hey did you know Im infertile?! Crazy right?!" Awkward. This also isn't something that is super devastating for me either. I know people who have gone years and years and have a lot of serious problems and have very little hope for a little nugget to call their own. But since I have gotten pregnant before and have a little cutie (who unfortunately is sick right now) I feel that it can happen again. However; Even when I got pregnant with Lucy I had to get a little boost from the OBGYN to help out with the process. But lucky for us one month of Clomid did the trick and bada-bing bada-boom next thing you know I have a little baby in my arms. This time however, this was not the case...

This all started a year ago in May. Lucy was 15 mo. old and that same nagging feeling was creeping up on us again that maybe we should get going on #2. Since I was still traumatized from Lucy's birth, to say the least I was not thrilled nor excited to start the process again. But since I ignored that feeling the first time (with Lucy) for a couple of months and it turned out that we really DID need to get a move on if we were going to have children before we retire. So I sighed and headed to the Dr. Needless to say it has been 14 mo, 7 rounds of Clomid, 7 months of getting blood drawn, one HSG procedure, Tyler's "analysis", about 452 ovulation tests and about that many pregnancy tests and still no baby. Don't get me wrong about the whole "this isn't something that devastates me" business that I talked about earlier. I have had a few days throughout this process that I have been frustrated and bummed out, especially when my Dr said there was nothing more he could do and I would have to see a specialist. At that point I was really nervous. Mostly I was nervous about our bank account, or lack there of, and what it would take finically to get the job done. Insurance doesn't cover squat with infertility, don't EVEN get me started on THAT, and the costs really add up quick, especially when you have no idea how long it will take and what exactly needs to be done. Plus you hear of those horror stories of the people who had to get extremely expensive procedures done and it didn't even work. We were at a cross roads. We even looked into adoption. Really heavily actually. I even talked to a few agencies and at one point we had decided this was the way to go. But a little while later, we just didn't feel right about it and this isn't the route for us right now. I just felt that Im not done having babies and we need to see a specialist. So I made an appt and went to a seminar. That seminar was completely eye opening to me. I found out that infertility was in fact a disease, who knew right?! Also not only was it a disease but it was completely CURABLE! I learned that if you or your partner are not sterile, you can have a baby, point blank. And most of the time, you don't have to have those super expensive and invasive procedures. At that point I was completely confident and super excited.

Currently this is the first month after seeing a specialist (whom i HIGHLY recommend) and we are in the process of getting things done! I found out (it was speculated before) that I do in fact have PCOS, luck for me it isn't severe and my Dr is very confident that she can get us a baby, quickly. I feel really confident too, but realize it still can take a few months.  My current treatment includes a medication called Femara, lots of ultrasounds, HCG injections (that i have to give myself, yikes) and progesterone supplements. So... super exciting right?!

The OTHER mystery that is currently under investigation is with my little darling. We have been concerned about Lucy's speech since about 18 mo. Finally I bit the bullet and called an Early Intervention clinic. We had a few people come to our house and ask lots and lot of questions and evaluate her. Well it turns out that she has to be below 16 %ile to qualify to get help. Everything was GREAT, except her speech, she was exactly at 16th %ile! So she doesn't qualify... Which is great, however kind of frustrating that she is RIGHT on the line but we can't do anything about it. But something cool has come out of this. They asked us if she has a normal diet and she eats well or if we have any concerns about her diet. DING DING DING! Uh, how many posts or Facebook status's have I written about Lucy's eating habits! This has been my #1 concern about Lucy since the day she was born! They even told us that sometimes a babies speech and their eating habits correlate with each other. Again, who knew! So today they sent a feeding consultant over and again asked a ton of questions about her eating and diet. Well she said there were a couple of red flags that makes her think that Lucy isn't stubborn and difficult and it just might be a GI health concern and she highly suggests that we send lucy to a GI specialist. When Lucy was born she had TERRIBLE reflux and she said that most of the time kids grow out of it, but sometimes they don't. Even though she doesn't throw up constantly anymore and we aren't giving her medicine for reflux and there aren't "obvious" signs of it, she may still have it, or have something that is making her scared to eat, because she doesn't trust food that she isn't familiar with because it might hurt her stomach. But it makes total since. The ONLY foods she eats are the ones that are super basic (opposite of acidic) like bread, and cereal, and pb sandwiches. This TOTALLY makes sense to me. However now I feel really bad about those nights that I got so fed up and frustrated with her and screaming and tears for hours and hours, all because I thought she was just insanely stubborn. She was probably trying to tell me that she is scared to eat the food because it will make her feel yucky. SORRY LUCE!! So yet again, another specialist is in our forecast but they can't get her in til SEPT 11!!! Holy smokes! Hopefully they will quickly and accurately diagnose her problem and it WONT be severe. However I feel like we will still have a long road ahead of us because even if we do get the problem solved, how are we supposed to convince her that its ok to eat now, and get to her try new foods... I guess I just eat the elephant one bite at a time right!?

Half way through Summer

    As I wrote the title for this post I realized it probably wasn't the best title to choose because for some reason my wife gets really freaked out by the passage of time, especially summer. I've tried to figure it out and the best answer I get is that the faster the summer goes the closer school is. But Jody hasn't been in school for over four years so I'm not sure why she has so much anxiety about this subject!  But anyway it is pretty crazy to think that the summer is half way over, its weird to think that 2012 is half way over.
    Its been about a month since our last post so I thought it was time to catch everyone up on what we are doing. So for the past month I have been apply for jobs, mostly on campus because they have the most variety and they understand students needs better than your average employer. I applied to everything, research assistant, secretary, janitor, you name it I applied to it. One of the most painful things about looking for a job besides not earning any money is how long it takes for a job to open, interview, close and for the powers at be to decide. I always tell Jody if some day I am in charge of the interview process I'm going to let them know the second they out or the running or give them a firm date when they will know. The waiting is the hardest part of and I had to call some of the jobs to ask if they were still considering me and they had hired the job over a week earlier! Towards the end of the month I was getting desperate so I decided to go apply to the Marriott Center. I've had quite a few friends work there and the best things about them is that higher anyone, so I felt pretty good about my chances. But whats funny is the day i decided to go apply for the Marriott Center a new job popped up on the BYU board. The job was BYU Visual Communications to be the Social Media Coordinator for the BYU Center. I quickly applied because between my previous job experience I felt I had a pretty good chance. Finally after a week of waiting and two interviews I got the job. So now I am in charge of the Social Media Advertising campaigns for the BYU Salt Lake Center and I helped a little bit with EFY's Social Media. It's a lot of fun and everyone I work with is great, the main challenge is helping some of the older generation realize that social media isn't a fad and BYU needs to do a better job of creating an online social media community. I started this past Monday and now I've created  Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, Instagram, and Google + accounts. I think I have all of my bases covered if anyone knows any more let me know! I will work here through the summer and when school starts and do this along with my Research Assistant job. Its going to be a busy fall but the best part is I only have two classes!!  I'll probably have to write two 30 page papers but that really isn't too bad anymore.
    We have a crazy July and August so we will do our best to take pictures and blog about it as we go. This week we have a bunch of different 4th of July acitivities and I'm really bummed we didn't get Stadium of Fire tickets because were both huge Beach Boy fans!  Our ward is having a "Street of Fire" on the 3rd. We will try to not start any new forest fires but your lawns may not be safe. The following week were headed up to Logan to visit my family and to ride in the first annual Grand Fondo, a 50 mile bike race that goes around Cache Valley. When I say we I mean me and my mom and dad. Jody and Lucy will be the cheerleaders at the finish line. I've been biking about a hundred miles a week to get ready but never 50 all at once. I need to get my biked fixed though, after i got home from my ride my front tire went completely flat!  After the Grand Fondo we are off to Dillon Montana, random I know but my parents know a guy who is a massive cabin that we are going to stay at, Jody is already on bear watch. Then the week after we get back we are off to Bear Lake for my dad's side of the family's reunion. In August we are headed back to St. George to see Aladdin and then school starts!