We are almost to the other side

Natalie is almost done with her medicine!! Friday was the first fever-free day in a week, and we are so thankful!! Last night she slept through the night again, which is great - especially for her, I could tell she was tired.

Over the weekend we ran errands, made lemon bars and a key lime pie (both delicious), went to Grandma and Grandpas (twice), went to a wedding (while Godfather & Auntie babysat), went on a walk, and found out Natalie is allergic to dogs...now I have a real reason to never get her one :)

One week ago today

One week ago today, I was working on cleaning the house and getting prepped for the Bridal Shower I was hosting on Saturday. My mom had taken Natalie and our nanny to the park for lunch and play time, while I had the house cleaned and starting cooking. By 4:00 pm my mom was back with Natalie. I took a sleeping Natalie from my mom and noticed that she was on fire. She woke up very soon after we made it into the house, so we took her clothes off and tried to cool her off.

My mom went home and Natalie went back to sleep. By the time we woke her up, around 6:00, she had a fever a little above 104. This is high for our normally healthy baby, which naturally freaked us out. We called the pediatrician on call, who said to give her Motrin, she was probably fighting an infection and if she wasn't better by tomorrow to bring her in. By Saturday she seemed to still have a fever, but was doing a little better. But by Saturday afternoon (once the pediatrician's office was closed) she wasn't better, she was worse. So Saturday night I left the shower early and we drove to the after-hours children's care center.

The doctor examined Natalie and told us that she had tonsillitis, a virus, which didn't require medicine. She told us to keep giving Natalie Motrin and Tylenol every three to four hours, that the virus will last for exactly 72 hours. So we only had a few more days left. By Monday at 4:00 Natalie would be better. Or so we thought.

She slept all night, but awoke on Sunday morning with a raging fever, which we quickly treated with another dose of Motrin. A few hours later we were back with a dose of Tylenol and continued with that throughout the day, so medicine and a lot of holding and cuddling were going to be the cure for her. Or so we thought.

Monday, I had to leave on yet another business trip to Minnesota. When I left, Natalie was still asleep in our bed, after getting up around 5:00 for her first dose of Motrin. By the time she woke up, her fever was at a scorching 105 degrees. Phil gave her more Tylenol, which seemed to get the temperature down. He stayed home all day with her and although her fever would go up and down, we thought we only needed to get to 4:00 and she would be better. Or so we thought.

Monday night, she threw up the Tylenol he gave her and was still hot. Not a pleasant night, so Tuesday morning he took her to the pediatrician. The doctor took one look and said that she didn't have tonsillitis, but that she had some sort of infection. He figured it was a bladder infection, but couldn't be sure without tests. The first test was a catheter to get a clean urine sample - not an easy procedure. Basically two people hold Natalie down while to doctor inserts the catheter. Scary and painful!

Results weren't concrete, so Phil had to take her to another location in the hospital for a blood draw. Back to the office for a shot of antibiotic, then home to wait. I was sitting in Minnesota, panic stricken, waiting for Phil to hear from the doctor.

Natalie seemed to start getting better after the antibiotic so I stayed in Minnesota, then Wednesday morning she took another turn for the worse. I tried to get home, but Delta was less than helpful...I mean, where was the offer to charter a private plane? My daughter was sick! Luckily Phil has been able to spend every day that I was gone, at home with Natalie.

Today she seems better and except for a fever almost every day or night she is getting through it. I guess the first non-well baby visit for us came with a bang!

We have to take her in for a follow up ultrasound and catheter so they can check to make sure everything is working right and no damage was done to her kidneys, so wish us luck with that.

Make it so number 2

And no, this isn't a post about the mini-vacation Phil took last weekend to the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas...

Nope...

It is to announce to the blog world that, we are having another baby!! We've tried to keep it a pretty tight secret and for the most part, we've succeeded! But, after 5 long months of keeping our mouths shut, we are happy to announce that we are having a boy. Let the shopping, painting and preparing begin.

Showering a friend with love

I'm throwing a bridal shower for one of my best friends, Julie, who is getting married in September. The shower is scheduled for later this month, so I've been busy planning the decor (in my head) and jotting down ideas for what food I want to serve. Still to be determined is the finalized menu and drinks - I'm thinking a watermelon margarita, but have to do a few trial runs on making them...yum!

One of the hardest parts of the shower was finding the perfect invitation. I had ideas in mind, but after visiting a local scrapbook store and describing my idea to the owner, I was told that I would need to be very crafty to pull that off. Well, scratch that idea - because I didn't have time to become very crafty :) Enter a last minute trip to Michael's craft store to search for something, anything, that would work for the invite. I found the perfect (in my mind) invitations.

The idea for the theme is "Feathering the nest of the love birds" These invites were the perfect color and I was able to put a little insert into the envelope with the theme...perfect.

Well, the process of putting everything together took a lot longer than expected. First was the loss of Internet, which I needed so I could download the template for printing; Second was the loss of my special scissors, which I needed to cut the cute inserts...but i digress - everything came together and with the help of my brother, mom and Phil the invites got into the mail on time! Now I just want everyone who we invited to come and celebrate Julie!

Getting everything cut & ready to put together

Invite

All together with the "love bird" card

Few little things

I'm one of those people who is always excited by the little things. I am always saying, "It's the little things" when something small makes my day. I often wear my mother's rose colored glasses :)

Here are some little things that made my weekend

- sprinklers & a Popsicle (even though it made more laundry)

- coloring with chalk, inside (on paper)

- dinner with friends

Also, something that just made my morning - listening to Natalie and Melody exploring the yard. So cute...

Swimming

How quickly I forget to post in this blog. Here is what we have been doing over the past few weeks.

My friend Melinda, her husband Darin and their cute little boy, Kai have been coming over for a swimming party and dinner. We LOVE it when they come over and Natalie and Kai really get along great. The best part about having them come over, it it is so EASY! The kids get along, parents have a great time and we eat outside so we don't worry about what food falls on the floor :)

Here are some cute photos from the last visit:

Who needs a swimsuit?

Splashing and having fun!

Tossing the ball

Letting the water out of the pool

Playing in the sand box and more pool (sans water) time

In other Natalie news, she recently found the stash of winter Accessories and had a great time playing with the hats, gloves, boots and ear warmers. She liked the hat so much she insisted on wearing it to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We also just got a set of family photos taken and decided to curl Natalie's hair. To keep her hands off the curlers while they were drying, our nanny tied a handkerchief around her head...so cute!

And just because she is so darn cute, I thought I would share a few other photos of my sweet girl. Here she is, just after waking up and enjoying some time with one of her favorite stuffed animals, Hot Carl

And last but not least, here are some photos of some quality couch time.

It's been a while

It's been a while and a lot has happened over the last month, so I’ll try and catch you up.

I went on a few work trips, one to Paris and London and one to Boston. Paris and London were fun, but too much time away from my babies. It was nice to explore the sights and spend time with my mom, but I was really ready to come home when I did. We took the non-stop flight from Salt Lake to Paris, leaving on a Friday evening arriving in Paris on Saturday at 11:30 am. After not sleeping more than 10 minutes on that lovely 10 hour flight, I was ready to sleep, but the rule I follow when traveling so far outside of my time zone is to just, no matter how tired you are, spend the day awake, then sleep all night. It sort of worked. We walked all over for a few hours, ate some food and then about 5:00 pm decided we were too hot (it was as hot as I assume Hell is) to continue so we would take a small break, then go to dinner. I did some work then couldn’t stay awake any longer and fell asleep. About 8:30 my mom and I walked to a corner bar and had dinner, which was so nice. It was finally a little cooler outside, which we hoped meant it would be cooler in our room. No such luck. We had no air conditioner, no fan and a window that looked across at another hotel room. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep in that hellish heat. I took two cold showers, hoping that would cool me down. About 3:30 am I decided I needed assistance sleeping and took something and finally slept until 9:00 got up and promptly laid back down and went back to sleep until 11:00. I woke up refreshed and ready for another day of walking, eating and exploring. We walked all day, stopping for a few photos and food. Dinner again around 9:00 pm and the next day I went to work and my mom went off to explore and enjoy Paris. This was the tenth trip to Europe for my mom and my fifth journey, so we were all in favor of doing things we had never done and relaxing, which I think we accomplished.

After working in Paris on Monday, we traveled to London on Tuesday for work on Wednesday. We then traveled back to Paris on Thursday and spent Thursday evening and Friday relaxing. We caught the direct flight home on Saturday, leaving at 11:00 am getting home at 2:00 pm. It was so wonderful seeing Natalie and Phil and even though I was exhausted, I stayed awake for the welcome home BBQ and to play with Natalie. I still don’t think I’ve recovered.

After being home for a week it was back to the airport for a quick two-night trip to Boston. Had great sushi for dinner one night and then dinner at a friends’ house the last night I was in town, which was the highlight of the trip. The first night I was in Boston Phil called to tell me that Natalie wasn’t feeling good. I felt horrible. The second time she has ever been sick and I was out of town. Don’t know what was wrong, but she threw up one time and had a fever for two days. Poor baby! One saving grace for Phil, was that she slept through the night the entire time she was sick – what a good little sicky.

I’ve been home for almost two weeks, which is the longest I’ve been home at one time in over a month! However, I leave for Minnesota tomorrow for two nights, so the streak ends.

In other news, Natalie is talking more and more and still keeping us busy. She is so much fun and still a sweetheart, with a very strong will. She is still (knock on wood) sleeping great for naps and nighttime – which Phil and I are very happy about. She has also discovered a love for lemons and limes. It is very funny to see her screw up her face as she licks them.

We also celebrated Auntie Laura’s birthday by having bbq and banana cream pie. She was nice enough to let Natalie help her blow out the candles. While we were singing to Laura, Natalie was just smiling and looking around at all of us with this look of pure joy – she thought we were singing to her.

Godfather and Auntie are traveling this week and we are very much looking forward to their return. Natalie loves them both so much and recently had a great adventure when they took her to Silver Lake, where they found and chased a few squirrels. We met them and had dinner up the canyon, and by the end of dinner Natalie was ready for bed!

We were up at the cabin over the weekend and bought her a swing for the porch. She loved swinging and having the attention of mom, dad, Grandma (gram) and Grandpa (gramp). We went on a few walks, played on the porch, and chased squirrels.

We also bought her a new trike too, which she LOVES! She has so much fun riding it around and giving all the toys a ride too.

It has been a while since I've posted, because I've been traveling for work...traveling a lot. And there is no end in sight!

The last two weeks I was in Minnesota and Nashville. I leave for Paris and London on Friday (for 8 days!), I'm home for a week, then off to Boston, home for a week, then off to Minnesota. Madness I tell you, madness!

It has been so hard to be away from my precious family and it isn't getting any easier. I'm taking tomorrow off to run some errands and spend some quality time with Natalie.

Here is a photo my mom took during bath time. Her little pony tails are getting longer and longer.

I'll download a few more photos later.

Oh, and doesn't it just suck that the U2 concert was cancelled? Seriously, Bono, really? Back surgery?

It has been so long

But work has been incredibly busy!

I'm busy with projects and end up working most nights (boo). I'm also gearing up for another round of travel. Over the next 3 weeks I'll travel to Minnesota (again), Tennessee, France and Great Britain. It is going to be a whirlwind. Plus, I'm going to toss in a Memorial Day weekend and U2 concert for good measure.

You know those people who are always talking about how they are so busy and then you ask them what they are up to and they can only come up with one or two projects/visits/trips/etc. that they are working on? I have these people in my life too; well, they can all stop complaining :)

Also, we went in for Natalie's 18-month check up. She is healthy as a horse (knock on wood) and lucky us, we have only ever been to the doctor for well baby check ups! (knock on wood-again). She weighed in at a light 21.8 pounds (yea! we passed the 20 pound mark)! She is growing into a little girl. She is so busy, very strong willed and has a very happy attitude.

Last weekend we traveled to the cabin for a quick one-nighter. Natalie had a blast. She loved exploring, being outside, and being with family.

I'll post photos soon...

9 by Design

Are you watching this on Bravo?

It is the best and all it makes me want to do is go to design school and have kid after kid and live in fancy mansions.

Who's with me?