And the blur that is our life continues. I cannot believe it's almost September when it really feels like it should just be the beginning of July. So many things have gone on here to pass the summer quickly, we took a week and renovated our bath, doing all the work ourselves, including all the new tile around our bathtub. The big event of our summer was my sister's wedding, she became Mrs. Kyle Chinn on August 9th, in what was the most beautiful wedding i've ever had the pleasure to attend. I'll do up a separate post with photos on that next. We had several camping trips up to the McCall/Donnelly area to escape the heat some weekends, which also happens to be where Brent goes Elk hunting, so they were camping/scouting trips. He was super excited to use his new trail cam that my mom got him for Christmas, we checked it almost every weekend in July, which is actually pretty neat seeing all the pictures, there was a particular cow elk that took a liking to the camera, and we have about 20 pictures of it nuzzling and licking it on the tree, they are entertaining to look through. I just hope it helps him bring home an elk this year, our freezer is completely empty, seriously empty, because Brent left it unplugged on accident and everything defrosted :/ so were in bad need of meat, it is pretty good timing actually to have a cleaned out freezer but still, it needs to be full soon. I took a few trips home to visit family and attend wedding events this summer, and honestly, i'm glad all the traveling will be done for a bit, my car, Stella and I are tired of driving back and forth on 6-8 hour trips.
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| A new favorite treat this summer, ice cream cones, simple and delish! |
Speaking of Stella, she's doing pretty awesome. Our little girl is growing like a weed, no seriously, she's grown 2 1/2 inches since she turned two in March! no wonder were almost grown out of her 3T pants and her 3T dresses are all short on her now. Thank goodness i've been stocking up on 4T. and her shoes! Oh my, she's just about in a 9..... which is pretty darn big for a 2 year old. We go through shoes so quickly it's sad. Thankfully Stella's BFF is also a size 8 right now, so some of Stell's barely used shoes are going to her for the time being. I just stop and stare at her sometimes, and admire how much she's grown. She's so tall, thin, muscular, curly haired, adorable. I just love her. She's got a full on attitude to match her size as well, We've been having more and more meltdowns, which I figured out are due to her not sleeping well, so were working on cutting out naps, and it's really helped her night sleep pattern, she's getting more night hours, and better quality of sleep at night, where it was getting to be a fight to put her down on days she had a nap and then she wakes often, now she goes down easy and wakes happy in the morning, it's such a great change.
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| At the Nationals event in Seattle with Grandpa, she sure loved the golf cart and loud cars!! |
Stella has been growing up this summer is so many ways, learning things super quick, going on new adventures, working on being away from mommy for a bit at a time, it's an amazing journey and i've loved being a part of all of it, I couldn't imagine not being able to be home with her and to be the one teaching her about life, it's pretty fantastic. We found a great in-home daycare, The Play Garden, and miss Kimberly and her family have been wonderful. I was taking Stella once a week to get her some time away from me, and so I could run some errands and do a bit of work without a kiddo in tow, it's been pretty great. We've started a small amount of homeschooling around the house. Mostly working on letters and numbers, addition and subtraction, using money, spelling words, reading, etc. She's doing well, grasping it as we go, i'm hoping she'll be reading her bob books on her own by her third birthday. She sings, all the time, all sorts of songs, her favorites being 'itsy bitsy spider' 'twinkle twinkle little star' and 'happy birthday', with an assortment of others in the mix. It's so adorable, especially when she's just playing and singing and in her own little zone, I love just listening to her sing quietly. and i've had to stop singing at night time, because she wants to sing along and it keeps her awake, it's adorable but sad at the same time, I loved singing her to sleep and I know she loved it as well, she still does, but sometimes prolonging bedtime just isn't worth it. She's picked up all sorts of words, her vocabulary is amazing and some of the things she says are just shocking. Brent was packing his truck today and out of nowhere Stell goes up to him and says so sweetly "Daddy, Stella wanna go camping toooo" we hadn't said anything about going camping, everything was hunting, she just knew from packing up the truck where he was going. and when she says 'too' it's a very enunciated and drawn out Too, adorable. We've finally had to start watching what we say around her, because she's been repeating it, it's awesome and scary at the same time, she says things we've never heard or said before, out of nowhere, and then it's a mission to figure out where it came from. for a week or so around the wedding she was saying "Ohh MY Gawshh" super drawn out and dramatic, no clue where it came from, until Brent's cousins admitted they say it a lot and they had been watching her quite a bit... solved that one and she doesnt say it much now, but it sure was cute while it lasted!
Brent and I finally broke down and joined a gym a few weeks ago, partly to work out, mostly to be able to take Stella swimming more often. We've been going once or twice a weekend ever since, and she's SO happy about it! we drive past the gym and she asks to go swimming, It's tough to work out actually, because she doesn't want to go to childcare, she just wants to swim :/ They have private lessons that we'll sign her up for eventually, but for right now Brent wants to teach her himself mostly, she's getting pretty good, we're working on floating and holding her breath and closing her eyes under water, She's great at kicking and moving her arms, and isn't afraid to jump into us in the water, although we have to constantly remind her to walk around the pool, it can be slick. Brent and I are wanting to get a bit more healthy, he's been mountain biking 2-3 mornings a week, and now will add a workout or two into that routine as well, he's pretty stoked. I've never been fond of the gym, so i'm having a bit more difficulty getting motivated, and i'm also already very happy with my current weight and figure, I just want to tone up a bit, not slim down anymore, and build my endurance tolerance, mostly for biking and hiking.... my hubs likes to drag me up and down mountains on hikes haha. I'm really excited for this next health step though, I feel like it's the direction we need to go to get the baby thing happening.
and speaking of babies.... I finally have an idea of whats going on with my body. My Acupuncturist has had me keeping track of my Basil Body Temperature, which is just basically your resting temp first thing when you wake in the morning. the normal healthy body temp is 98 degrees, we've all heard 98.6 is perfect temp right? Well, my average temp is 96.5, AVERAGE. Which means someday's it's as low as 95... something. So my low core temp, along with short cycles (25-27 days), and a multitude of other things led us to get my Progesterone checked, and sure enough, it's low... I had it checked a day before I ovulated to get a baseline reading, blood drawn and sample sent out, it came back at .7, it's supposed to be around .10 and it's ok to be in the 8-10 range, but .7 is a bit too low. Once I ovulate it should rise up into the 15-20 range, but my Acupuncturist doesn't think that is happening, so we'll test again with another blood draw in just over a week. She has me taking some natural progesterone boosters as well to try to get it producing on it's own in my body, which I'm thankful for, I really don't want to do the medical route of shots and such, which are reserved for IVF treatments usually or recurrent miscarriages, which we qualify under. I guess I should explain why progesterone is important, It's the hormone that prepares the uterus for a fertilized egg to implant, without a significant spike in progesterone, the uterine lining won't soften enough for the egg to attach, and will start to drop and let the body know that egg isn't fertilized and slough off the lining, causing a period. So, if an egg really is fertilized, and the body thinks the progesterone levels are too low, it'll cause a miscarriage, which is what has been happening with us. If progesterone levels are normal, and an egg is fertilized, the levels will continue to increase throughout the weeks, and can be tested to tell how things are going. It's frustrating that my body is slacking in hormone production, but from what i've been reading it totally makes sense, and i'm hopeful we've found the main problem and it can be easily fixed. Hopefully this really is the big problem, and we'll have a healthy, viable pregnancy very soon, fingers crossed!
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| Camping. This girl loves to be in the wild. |
So on to some photos, i'm sure you're all dying to see truly how big Stella has gotten, I swear, people ask me if she's 4... so it begins.
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| Brent and I at the Power employee rafting trip, So. Much. Fun. They provided onsite daycare and Stella had fun with a ton of kids, apparently until pickups began, then she cried until we got there. Overall it was a fun trip, Power sure knows how to celebrate their employees! |
Stopping for breakfast and toys on our return trip home from the wedding, Sunside Washington has a great park and amazing food!
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| Stella's flower girl dress has become her favorite dress, it's her princess dress ,and she wears it daily, mostly for afternoon tea. |
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