It's been a while...

I went and got my stitches out on Tuesday and was informed I had a desmoid tumor which is just a bunch of fibrous tissue that can accumulate when there was trauma to the area like a bug bite or pimple. Since it was on my shin and I've never had a pimple there I think it must have been from a bug bite. I'm glad it wasn't anything worse. I also have a mild case of eczema. Joy.

Tonight I am teaching a mini-class at enrichment on budgeting. I've been working hard on it and I'm excited to see how it goes. Also, I am on a really big food storage kick right now and I'm really having fun with it. I found this blog about food storage and this is what drew me in. Watch the 10 min video she put up on Jan. 25th, I found it helpful and motivating. This is such a fun blog to look at and I was immediately drawn into it, it is so addicting.

I have consistently worked out for 5 days a week since the beginning of the year and my weight is stuck. I was seeing about a 1 pound weight loss every 10 days and now I have reached a plateau. I know we all have several weight plateaus and it means I just have to work extra hard to get over it.. but I'm still bummed out by it. Side note: I'm really enjoying my new treadmill.

Let see.. the kids are both doing well. Except that Jacob keeps hitting his head. He doesn't watch were he is going and will run into walls, car doors, fall down the last few stairs.. you name it. He has had two really bad hits in the last week that gave him big goose eggs on his forehead. They look awful and I have to keep explaining what happened to him, lest I be accused of child abuse or something. So far today he has run into a wall and hit the side of his head, let's see how the day progresses.

Bad news: the medical bills just keep coming and keep piling up. I find it very depressing.

Brent is the same old. He doesn't do much.

The dermatologist

Today all four of us went in to get checked out. It started out as an appointment for Daniel, then I scheduled us all to be seen as each of us had something that needed to be checked or done.

Daniel (our little cheetah) because of all the spots and vacillations on his head, neck, face and back. I was told the large spot on his crown is a port wine stain (type of birth mark) and all the spots are also birth marks. She said most would fade but others would most likely remain.

Jacob was diagnosed with Atopic dermatitis which is a type of eczema, luckily his is a mild case. This is a hereditary hypersensitivity of the skin. My dad and myself have sensitive skin, so it looks like it is being passed on another generation. The good news is that he will most likely grow out of it and simply have sensitive skin as an adult (vs. the rash/bumps/dry patches he has now that need to be treated with special creams).

I was going in to have my skin looked at also. When I was pregnant with Daniel I had a patch of eczema on my right leg flare up and it is back. My prescription cream wasn't working so she gave me a prescription for something stronger. Also, I had a few moles on my right leg I wanted removed because I keep nicking them when I shave. Well, she looked at one and said that it wasn't a mole but a tumor! So right then and there she numbed me up, removed it and stitched the skin closed (3 stitches!). She is sending it in for biopsy and I go back in 12 days to have the stitches removed and find out what it was. YIKES. I'm glad it bothered me enough to have it looked at. I would have never known the difference.

We had to pay $80 in copays to have all of us seen, but I'm really glad we have access to medical care and treatment. And the money to cover the cost. I am overwhelmed by how much medical stuff I have going on continuously, it all just seems a bit too much.

Daniel's 6 month check up

I took him in for his 6 month check up today. He is looking great and exactly right where he should be developmentally. He got 3 vaccinations and is sleeping right now (poor boy).

Body Length: 28.5" (96%)
Weight: 20.5 lbs. (90%)
Head Circumference: 46 cm (95%)

Neither Jacob or Daniel had a head circ. above 70% until now - so I'm kinda excited about that. His weight is down a little, but because he is so large and it wasn't a lot of weights loss she wasn't worried. He still only nurses and I just barely got him started on pears, so maybe that's why. Or maybe it's because he cut his second tooth this past Saturday, who knows. Also a result of his teething, his sleeping is unpredictable and I'm exhausted as a result of it. We are trying to help him get back in a schedule and he is fighting back pretty hard, stubborn boy.

Overall he is doing so well and I am so pleased to have him and to be his mom.

Daniel's 6 month pictures

I know they are small and hard to see, but you get the idea. He did so well and these turned out much better than his 3 month pictures. Jacob did well also and overall it was a less stressful event than last time. Can you believe he is is 6 months already? I can't. Look at him standing while holding my hands - he looks so grown up. I got that picture as a 5 x 7 enhanced with a border and the words, "A mother holds her sons hands for a moment.. but his heart forever". Brent thinks it's cheesy but I love it.

In other Daniel news.. after weeks of trying to get him to eat rice cereal or pears he is finally starting to eat the pears. Believe it or not that is a pretty big deal.

These are my favorites:



These are also cute:

Monday, Monday

So I called my insurance company today and found out that the claim was never paid because the hospital was sending it to the wrong billing address. ?? How that can be I don't know (since they are especially the same). So I called up the hospital and told them the correct address. Why do I have to be the middle man here - they could see the claim, knew it was going to the wrong address and never corrected it themselves?! Stupid. Anyway, once insurance pays their portion of the $6,000 I found out I will be responsible for $1,130 of it. So now we are over $4,200 in medical bill debt.. how depressing. Maybe we won't be going on a cruise after all. You want to have a nice reward to help with motivation, but I don't know how we can justify an expense like that until we are out of debt. So we will probably end up with a night in a nice hotel and a bottle of Martinelli's. At least that is something, I guess.

Today I met up with my friend Mettina and her girls. We had a wonderful time together. Jacob, Nellie and Samantha had a blast playing together. I really miss having her live next door. I really enjoy days like today that help break up the every day schedule we adhere to.

Also, I had to tell you all that I had fish for dinner tonight. Those who know me know that do not like seafood. But I keep trying different things to see if I can find something I like. That and Brent and Jacob both love fish so I don't want them to miss out just because of me. Well, I finally found a recipe that I like. I found it on allrecipes.com and it is called Lemon Garlic Tilapia I've adjusted it a little but that is the base. I saute the garlic in the butter and lemon juice and then sprinkle the fish with parsley, a little salt and pepper and a some cajun seasoning (I put LOTS of cajun seasoning on Brent's fish since he like a lot of spice) right before baking and serve it with homemade tarter sauce. It is delicious! We've had it twice this month already. I've come to the conclusion that I like only white fish ie: Tilapia, Halibut and Trout and they have to be really, really fresh. I am so happy to finally find a way to eat fish and not gag on it. I've wanted to like fish for so long because of all the health benefits and now I have a recipe that works for me. We will probably have it twice a month regularly.

My week

This week went ok I suppose. My treadmill still doesn't work and the tech guy didn't show up yesterday, so that is being put off yet again. My friend Angela and I have come up with a plan to help motivate each other. At the end of each day we email each other and say what we did for exercise and how we did with our eating. I'm finding it very helpful to have the accountability and support. I worked out 5 days this week. I'm hoping to keep that up so that when my treadmill is finally "running" (hee hee) I can start right out on some nice workouts without delay.

We decided to switch services from Comcast to Verizon. It is exactly the same cost and it will be a faster fiber optic internet, we will get BYU-TV as part of standard cable and we will have a DVR for 6 months free of charge. I've always wanted to try one of those. Hopefully it will be a nice change void of complication.

I got the bill for Daniel's birth yesterday. You know how you sign those papers saying if your insurance doesn't pay up you are responsible? Well, the bill is 6 grand and due in the next 20 days. I'm going to call on Monday and try to be nice while getting our insurance to pay up. Stupid idiots. We have Providence Preferred insurance and delivered at a Providence hospital! How can they not pay that bill??!! I'm a little ticked. I don't need the added stress of all the insurance crap I've had to deal with. I'm glad to have it and have some coverage as some is better than none. But boy am I workin' for what we do get. We got another bill this week for Daniel's shoes. They cost over $800 and our portion is $120. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with medical bills right now. We owe around $3,000 (separate from that 6k bill I just got) and have set up a payment plan to help us manage it. The sad thing is there is more to come I'm sure.

Today we went as a family to the Children's Discovery Museum. Jacob has so much fun there and it was really nice to trade off interacting with him with Brent. Bob the Builder was there and Jacob got to meet him and give him 5. I would say he had the most fun in the water area, since that was all new for him. We were there for only 2 hours but we played hard and then came home for lunch. Both boys crashed and took a nice long naps. This enabled me to have some time to read, take a nap and workout to a DVD.

Tomorrow is expected to be a low-key day, which will be nice.

New tooth

Daniel popped his first little tooth yesterday. The bottom left came through and the bottom right is working on it. At least we know the cause of the constant night waking. I can't believe my little man is getting teeth! He's only 5 months old. Jacob got his first tooth at 7 1/2 months old. I guess I shouldn't compare them, but I can't help it.