Big leap of faith

So for a long long time Tyler and I have thought about what it would be like to adopt. My sister and her family have adopted 2 of their children and we have know other family and friends who have done adoption as well. Since we have gotten married we have always wanted to adopt and deep down we have felt like someday that would be a huge part of our lives. A year ago we had in fact decided to adopt, we went to the temple and I had contacted agencies and got lots of information. But shortly after we had made the decision, we got a feeling that right now is not the time and we need to do more invasive procedures with infertility instead. Even though those procedures didnt work for us, we have faith that for some reason that was the path we were to take.

So here we are 3 1/2 years after Lucy was born and we feel more strongly than ever that now is the time for us to adopt! It has been huge leap of faith on our end knowing that this really is the course of action we need to take and some how its all going to work out. The most scary and overwhelming part of this is the cost. An average cost for us to adopt would be $25,000!!! Talk about scary! How does anyone afford this? Especially when you dont have a lot of income and one spends their life savings for fertility treatments that didnt work. But we prayed and prayed and we still felt so strongly that this is something we really need to do. My good friend told me about websites that you can do fundraising from. So after weighing all of our options and thinking of ways we can raise money for this we found an awesome website that you can raise money for anything you want and advertise it through social media! We have no idea what we have gotten ourselves into and if this is actually going to work BUT again, we feel strongly that something needs to be done, and this is how we are going to do it.

So here goes nothing! If you or if anyone you know who is willing to help us, go to this website http://www.gofundme.com/3r3f6s Another really helpful thing is to share our page on your own facebook and twitter accounts, tell your friends and family and help us spread the word!

We have already received donations and we have had so many people wish us well. THANK YOU!!!! Your support means more to us than you will ever know. We cannot believe that we have so many people that love us and give us so much support.

Hmmm...

Lots to blog about.

Lucy was supposed to get surgery last week. We found out that our insurance was applying the whole amount to the deductible, which is a very high deductible, and we cant afford it right now. Hopefully in the very short future we will be getting different insurance and then she can finally get her ears fixed.

A few weeks ago we ventured to Vegas once again but this time it was for the IUI procedure. It was a bit more painful than I imagined for some reason. I hear your not really supposed to feel it but I certainly did and it was like a big contraction. Suddenly I remembered what those nasty buggers felt like, no fun. But it was short lived and then I was on my way. Well, to be expected (there is only like a 20-30% chance it actually works) it did not work for us... I got the feeling it didnt work a few days before our pregnancy test and I just knew I wasnt pregnant. I was mad. But I was glad that i knew before hand because it helped me adjust and except the news when it came. When the Dr called to let me know the news, I wasn't surprised and felt really at peace with it. a lot of our family and friends felt so bad and they would call and ask how I was doing and the truth was that I was doing really well. I almost started to feel bad that I wasnt taking it harder. But I had my moment of that a few days prior like I mentioned and that was that. Actually to be honest I felt a HUGE weight lifted off my shoulders. We are moving on to something different and its exciting. But when things get a little more finalized I will be blogging about that.

This past weekend we took a fast and very last minute trip up north. Ty's family was having an impromptu get together and we really felt like we needed to be there. So off we went. It was so good to go back to utah county. We really miss that place. Man it is green there! I remember thinking how ugly it was when we lived there and now when we went back, we couldnt stop saying how green and pretty it was. The mornings were PERFECT and the nights were cool. We hung out with the Trythalls and finally got to hold baby McCoy! IT was good to see family and go back to BYU campus for a few things. Things we dont miss about Utah county, how BUSY it is and all the traffic, and road construction.

I cant believe school starts less than a month! The summer, as always, has flown by! Oh ya before I forget. I made my first wedding cake on Sat! Pretty exciting. But I cant get the picture to upload. Pictures soon to come!

Surgery for Snookie bear

So a few weeks ago I was thinking about Lucy and her speech. Every time we have ever taken her to a Dr for a check up or to speech therapy and they have checked her ears it just so happens that she has had a cold or stuffed up for one reason or another. But every time they have said, its no big deal and not to really worry especially for her speech. Also she has never had an earache or complained about them hurting, ever. Well, as I was thinking I got the sneeky suspicion that maybe JUST MAYBE it really is her ears that is causing problems with her speech. Often times when we talk to Lucy especially if there is a new word she is trying to say, if she isnt looking at us, the word will come out COMPLETELY wrong, like not even close. But if she is looking at us as we say a new word  and she repeats it, it usually comes closer, like close enough that you can tell that she is trying to say that word. Also her annunciation is a huge problem. So I found a hearing specialist and made an appointment.

We go to the appointment and sure enough, she has hearing loss. It turns out, her eardrums dont even move! It is fairly mild and reversible (thank heavens). This explains SO much! She may have whats called Glue Ear, when fluid behind her eardrum, in her canal cant drain and it sits there for a long time and becomes thick. So I made an appointment with an ENT and today was the day.

So the Dr looks at her ears and confirms what I just mentioned and said she needs tubes in her ears and also probably needs her adenoids removed as well. So next thursday my little snookie bear gets to have her first surgery! I have to say I am nervous for her. The dr said it won't be so painful and recovery time is quick. So that is nice. But I can just imagine her being so scared back there by herself! She wont have anyone give her any sort of a check up without me holding her or she freaks. So hopefully they will let me back there until she is out... But thank heavens for mothers instinct, this could have gone on for years! But I do feel really bad, like I should have known and gone with my gut earlier. She should have had this done 2 years ago! So I feel really bad. When we found out she has hearing loss we felt so bad that we went and bought her some ice-cream.

Give me liberty or give me cake!

This week has been a fun and busy week. I had 2 trips to Vegas, 2 cakes to decorate, 4th of July, family and friends over, dance for Lucy and just regular chores and errands to run. Wednesday night in Hurricane they had a cake decorating contest that I entered. Here is the final result:

I was nervous because I found out last years winner did a cake that was of Mount Rushmore and you could really distinguish each face and it was awesome I guess. So I basically only entered to maybe get a new client or 2 and had no intentions of winning. Well... I actually took home the grand prize! Who knew?! Kinda surprising and kinda embarrassing. Ty thought it was particularly funny because I had to ride in the parade the next morning. He knows im sensitive about that, so he was teasing me all day about it. He thinks he is funny...Luckily no one in the parade could really see my face, so it wasnt THAT bad.

 Also Ty and Lucy got to ride in the Parade with Uncle Bryce for the Hurricane Rec Center. Lucy LOVED that! She got to throw cheese. It was funny. Most of the time if she actually got it out of the window it only made it a foot out! Then after that we went and looked at all the cakes in the competition, had breakfast by the Lions Club, and played some fun little games to win some prizes. When we were leaving Lucy saw cotton candy (which she has never eaten before) and said "a BIG ice-cream!" but we told her it was cotton candy and because it was the 4th of July we caved and bought her some. She look one lick and gave it to me. She did not like it at all! For being a total sugar addict, i was shocked. Then we came home and took a serious nap, bbq'd some burgers and then lit some fireworks with our friends. Lucy had been bugging us every 5 minutes for a week to do fireworks and she hated it! She didnt like them last year either. Maybe next time?

THEN today I had a cake order for my cousins little boy. It was his baptism day and they wanted a cake to celebrate. It turned out better than I thought. The cake pops were a nightmare so i was glad to get them over with. It was vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream filling.

We also do a lot of swimming. We love to go with our friends the Richters. Sway is one of Lucy's BFF's and after we were done they had to take a "nap" on the chair together. Little cuties!

Infertility and cake...

So a little catch up on the big "I" (infertility).  So this past month I have been doing IUI treatment. If you want to know more about IUI go here. But I have mentioned before that I have to give myself shots every night and go to Vegas every 3 days. Well that was going GREAT until our last appt when it was to decide when to do the actual procedure. I got a phone call that day saying we are going to have to cancel this cycle of IUI because there are too many eggs I have developed and they dont want to risk me having "9 babies" as what the NP told me over the phone. It wasnt a matter of "if" i got pregnant, but "how many". There was just to great of risk with how many eggs I had produced. So I was really bummed out, yet grateful that the medicine actually worked, it just worked a little too well! So I was disappointed because I didnt want to have keep doing this over and over again. It is very expensive to drive to Vegas every 3 days, pay for the medicine, take my child who seems to need every type of attention possible while I am driving and cant help her, give myself shots every night, not to mention the mental stress of infertility. Also did I mention we drive a whopping 4 hours all for about 10 minutes TOPS in the Dr office?! So anyway, I was put out, yet grateful (that doesnt make sense, i know). Now we have to start all over. Luckily we dont have to pay again (only for meds). But as I was talking to the nurse last night to schedule my appt for today I asked "just how many eggs did i produce?" and she counted, and counted and finally she said "21!". Twenty-one eggs people!!! Holy smokes! Again with the whole grateful thing. Could you imagine if I got pregnant?! I was thinking it was only 9 egg, since the nurse told me they dont want me to have 9 babies, but no, 21. I guess that is 21 less "crimson tides" that I dont have to surf in the future ;) Ok that was TMI but Im trying to look at the positive here folks!

So now I am back at it starting today. Sigh.......

I cant believe it is almost July. I love July. Living in Utah and being LDS we have 2 holidays to celebrate. AWESOME! Nothing says "American" like celebrating your country and religion and the freedom we have like the month of July. I am entering a cake decorating contest in Hurricane so I am racking my brain to come up with the most awesome looking and tasting cake there. Heaven only knows we need the cash prize AND to get my name and business out there to lots of people. I also just ordered business cards. That is weird to think I actually have a business card. I feel official.

Also one last thing. I dont think I put a pic up of my latest creation. It was for a friend who had a mission farewell party. He is going to the Ukraine and I was asked to to a cake for him. It was chocolate cake with a peanut butter mousse filling. This is the design I came up with...

F*R*I*E*N*D*S

So Ty and I were playing our usual game of Phase 10 (other times its Skipbo) and we were discussing how Ty would REALLY love to some day go back and work at a University. Ideally for him it would be BYU. Then we got talking about how we dont really feel at home here in St George yet and how we really miss Utah County. Then we got talking about maybe its because we are still new here and just need time to adjust and make friends. That last part, the one about making friends, thats where we fall short... See Ty and I are pretty sociable people. Probably more so Ty than me, but still we love the idea of having great friends around that you can hang out with at a moments notice. Is that hard to come by? Honestly, I dont know the answer to that. I have been SSSOOO lucky to have life-long friends around (and other great friends we have made along the way) that we have always had access too. If we were bored one night we could always call up someone and have a fun plan. Is that a rare thing that I have taken advantage of my whole life? Either that OR what worries us is that people think we are
A) weird
B) unfriendly; or
C) all of the above

Are we weird? Do people see us and say "oh they look nice" and then talk to us and say "oh... they are... different." Hmmm. There is some food for thought. Is there a reason we dont have any friends? We boggled over this question for some time. But to our credit we have noticed people keep to themselves a lot more here. We still dont know the majority of our neighbors and have probably only actually SEEN them a hand full of times, if ever at all. And in our ward we dont really fit in either. There is probably only a small hand full of people our age, and most of them have multiple kids they are busy with and have callings in the primary so we have only seen them in sacrament.... If it werent for our fearless attention-seeking child, we literally would know no one! So to all our friends scattered all over, how do you meet new friends when you move?

Splish Splash

Its officially getting hot down here. I think our days of double digit temperatures are gone for the time being. Its actually not as bad as I anticipated. Granted it isnt quite 110 on a regular basis yet, but being inside in air conditioned places or cars of course is the key. Friday I was in Vegas and at noon (nevada time) it was already 111, and thats not even the heat of the day! Yowzah!

Yesterday we took lucy to a Splash Festival in Washington and she had a blast! It is such a nice rec center and the pool opens up to the outdoors and has a lazy river and a water slide that is half indoors half out, plus lots of kid play areas/slides. They also had music and a surprisingly good band playing while Iron Man, pirates and mermaids graces us with their nautical presence. Lucy loved seeing "Ariel" and her friend (the other mermaid) and was quick to dismiss Ty and I so we wouldnt cramp her style and embarrass her in front of the famous mermaids. It was funny we took her over there and she turns around and said "Get out" (she is very tactful) and pushes us away. So now it starts. I didnt think she would be embarrassed of us until at least 10!

I have been super busy lately having to travel to Vegas every few days for fertility treatments. I have to take Lucy with me because I dont have anyone to watch her for hours every 3 days. Its not bad its just hard because she gets so restless sitting in the car. We travel the 2 hours just to be in the Dr office for  a whopping 10 minutes tops and then we are back on the road, so she doesnt get much of a break. so we are in the process of IUI right at the moment and they have to check up on me so often so that they are certain they get the results they want and make sure its not working TOO much, also the medicine I have to use has some nasty side effects that could potentially happen if they dont keep an eye on me. I am grateful for them taking such concern and it is very important, especially to get multiple eggs ready (therefore a better chance of conceiving). So i am very glad that they are really on top of things. Its just hard traveling so much, with a baby, on a car that has well over 111,000 miles on it. I just happened to stumble across a blog of a couple in Texas that went through the same procedure as me and had 3 eggs developed, just like my Dr is hoping for, and this couple wound up with quintuplets! WHAT! Talk about freaked me out! We are praying for one, possibly two, but 5!? I would cry for a while I think. Wish us luck!

Tonight before bed I asked Lucy if she wanted me to have a baby so that she would have a brother or sister and she said "Ummmm, no. Wucy pony?, No baby". Meaning, she asked if she could get a pony and has no interest in a sibling. So thats good to know.

This week I have a cake order and I am super excited. This is for a mission farewell party and there will be TONS of St. Georgians there to gain potential clients from.