Halloween shenanigans

I love any excuse I can get to get out of the house. I'm not a homebody. i've never been a homebody and I don't think I ever will be a homebody. haha. If you ask tanner he doesn't love that about me. but too bad.

We took gracie to a pumpkin patch and she ate it up!

can't you tell?

she wasn't so sure about the creepy scarecrows who have hay for hair. 

she did however LOVE the sucker tree!!!

they had this adorable little house for kids to play on!

for halloween I asked gracie multiple times what she wanted to be and she never had an answer. haha! so my friend was giving away this adorable witch costume so I got her excited and let her pick her faceprint.

this pic is my fave. it captures her personality way too well.

this girl always has to have dad by her side.

We went trick or treating at the drive-in and watched a movie afterwards. i think she liked it what do you think? 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

oh yeah we can't forget about starsky and his devil costume. 

POTTY TRAINING....

So far in motherhood, potty training was the event that brought out all my true colors. LOL. let's just say that no one prepares you for this moment.

I've never seen so much pee, poop, wipes, and had so much emotion in all my life. here's some pics so you can embark on this super fun journey with me. HAHA.

 We tried getting a little seat insert to go on the big toilet but she seemed to be scared to poop. scared of heights maybe? haha.

There came a time when I'd just plop her on her portable toilet and make her sit there with her juice. haha.

Whenever she'd be on the toilet she loved looking at herself in the mirror. that was a must every time.

There were so many ideas out there on the best way to potty train, effective ways to potty train, etc. it was pretty overwhelming soooo i just came up with my own thing. Gracie loved stickers at the time so I found this handy dandy coloring book at target, folded it over and used the back side for her chart. it worked like a charm! she got so excited to put a sticker on her chart and to see the progress she made in a short amount of time! She did really well going potty in the toilet. Poop? HOLY HANNAH. We tried everything. I ended up buying 3 different toilets. she was so scared to sit on the big one, i think she felt like she was falling? who knows. so i bought the portable one. that didn't work either. it took about 2 weeks for her to understand the poop concept. I remember the first time she pooped in her portable potty i actually cried tears of joy. hahaha!! So when she'd poop in the toilet I'd give her an M&M. no better way to bribe than with candy right? lol.

for about 2 weeks she had poop accidents in her pants frequently. we tried everything. nothing worked. turns out she had super hard poops. still does to this day. haha. our last resort was giving her a cold shower. I didn't have the guts to do it, but tanner gave her 2 cold showers for pooping in her pants, and after the 2nd cold shower.

BOOM.

MIRCALE.

NO MORE POOP IN PANTS.

MOM IS FREE.

HAHAHAHA.

I hated resorting to that but we'd just stick her in the shower with her clothes on and turn on luke warm water for about 10 seconds. It was enough to make her not want to poop in her pants ever again.

HAHA.

phew glad that's overwith!

No one warns you about the smell. no one warns you you'll have to stay in your house for weeks. no one warns you about how you'll feel like a crazy person. BUT look at the look on her face. She was so proud of herself. and I'm a proud mom. i love her so much. 

I've put up with him for how many years?

6!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA. Tanner and I always joke about how on earth we've put up with each other for this long. I guess opposites attract is a real thing. and with us...it is definitely real.

We were able to get away for our 6th year anniversary just us.
SO NEEDED. pedicures were a MUST. except if you ask tanner, he will never get one of those again. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. the asian guy cut his cuticle and then kept rubbing it to massage it.
LOL ask tanner all about it. he's got a lot to say.

We enjoyed a couple days just us. No gracie girl, no stress (WISHFUL THINKING HAHA) just me and my boo. It was nice to get away from the normal every day stresses and just grow closer together as a couple.

how the heck am i old enough to be married 6 years?

We've been through some crazy things together but we always come out on top. It may take a while to get there, but we eventually get there. I love him, and I love us. 

Just some fun pics

Ever wondered what a day in the life of Gracie is like? Look no more. She is such a fireball. I love her zest and love for life. 

                                                                LOVE MY GIRL.

2018 TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE

august 21, 2018. a day I will never forget.

You don't realize how truly miraculous this world is until you experience something like this.

this is an actual picture our friend took in his telescope when it was happening. now mind you it was at.

fun fact: a total solar eclipse hadn't happened since 1918!!!!! WHAT!!!!!

the path of totality touched 14 states, where the other states experienced a partial eclipse. seriously this was SO COOL. We set up blankets and stuff on grass near our house and just waited and waited. The anticipation was enough to kill you. HAHA.

So we have our radio set up and are listening to the commentators tell us when it was going to happen. I don't remember the time but it was 12 something in the afternoon. seriously THE COOLEST thing I've ever seen. When totality happened (moon completely covered the sun), it went BLACK!!! in the middle of the day. The moon completely covered  the sun for a whopping 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Talk about the SHORTEST 2 minutes ever!! Seriously I have no words to describe it. you try and take it all in but it was gone so fast! IT was INCREDIBLE. There were people that paid THOUSANDS of dollars to stay in hotel rooms, camp out, etc. SO CRAZY!

Now that I've experienced a total solar eclipse you better believe I'd spend thousands to see it again. We were lucky enough to be one of the cities in the US that was able to experience TOTALITY. 

GOLL I wish I could just stick that image/that 2 minutes of my life in my brain forever! haha.

So they told us that directly looking at the sun when totality happened could really hurt our eyes. 

 so in order for us to look at it directly we had to get special glasses. 

Gracie thought they were pretty fun.

So while the moon is completely covering the sun, for about a minutes time there was this miraculous diamond ring. gold i can't even get words out to express how INCREDIBLE this was.

So here you are, it's 12:33 in the afternoon, you look up and this is what you see. the grass around you is dark, it kinda makes you feel like your eyes wigged out on you or something! within those 2 minutes of totality we were trying to get pictures, all while trying to soak it all in!

TOTALITY: 11:33 AM. this was the best pic we could get. there was SO MUCH emotion and excitement it was AMAZING. Gracie was so confused as she looked around and it all the sudden got dark. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. HAHAHAHA. what was also cool is that moments leading up to totality, you couldn't hear any traffic on the highway. Cars would stop on the side of the road, so there was just utter silence leading up to it.

Anyway this one is one for the books!! And how lucky we were to be in the line of totality so we didn't have to travel or spend thousands of dollars hahahaha.


k hold on i realize this post is all over the charts but check out this image. Through our safety glasses we were able to see all of these phases of the sun! It kind of felt like a dream, it was weird. what a MIRACULOUS view. seriously.

bye bye tonsils and adenoids!

There was a period of about 8 months where Gracie was sick. ALL. THE. TIME.  She'd have one thing and then get struck with another. It was just sickness after sickness! Cold, croup, flu, croup again, cold, diarrhea, just the most random things. Granted it was winter mostly when she was sick so I didn't think much of it. But there got a point where I was SO annoyed and had to figure this out. No child should be sick that much. We went to Dr after Dr who would say "oh it's just a virus" or "looks like she has a cold." "her lungs sound great!" It was getting super annoying because I just wanted my baby to feel better!!

I went to 3 different doctors to get different opinions and didn't get any answers. So I started doing my own research. I read something about constant sickness being associated with asthma. Tanner had asthma as a kid so a lightbulb kicked on in my head and I thought hmmmmmm maybe it's asthma? I just blew it under the house and didn't come back to that idea for awhile. I decided to take her to an ENT specialist where they FINALLY gave me some answers. They said that she had a lot of fluid buildup in her ears. He said it was an orange color which meant it had been sitting there for over 6 months. He said that had I waited just a month longer, that gracie could've gone deaf.

UM WHAT?!?!?!?!

At this point my mind was racing and immediately I was frustrated with the 3 previous Dr's I'd taken her to who had all looked in her ears for ear infections. I know everyone makes mistakes but COME ON!!!!

I switched Gracie's primary doctor after that.

The ENT said that Gracie's tonsils were pretty swollen and since she had this fluid buildup in her ears for so long it would be best to get her tonsils and adenoids removed. A little bit of anxiety set it as I was thinking of my 2 year old baby being put under. BUT I trusted the Dr, he prescribed us some medication for the fluid in her ears, and we scheduled it as soon as they could get us in.

Days leading up to it I think I was more scared than she was. No actually I know I was. she didn't know what the heck was coming! haha. So I pampered her to make me feel better. We went and got pedicures, and then headed to the store to buy all the sugar to make some cookies.

party in the store in our jammies!!!! I got some crazy looks at the store because it was like 10am, my daughter was still in pajamas, no shoes on, and all we had in our cart was SUGAR AND JUNK FOOD!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. But that is a memory I'll never forget. Just me and my girl doin' our thing, having some fun. :)

The night before surgery she couldn't eat or drink anything for 12 hours. Now at this age in gracie's life she HAD to have water before bed, and she's a hungry gal! she loves her breakfasts and her drinks. So you can imagine how that fight went down. haha. We got her into her cute little gown, and the nurses were so sweet. They immediately jumped in and tried to make her feel as comfortable as possible. They gave her an iPad, a sucker for afterwards, and tried to help her feel not as scared. She kept looking at dad and I and all I could see in her eyes was: "MOM why am i in this new place surrounded by ladies in colorful caps?" It really broke my heart. I broke down in tears when she went back into surgery. hahahaha. I'm such a baby. But i mean.....look at this.

She looks terrified.

When she came out of surgery it was AWFUL. she was screaming, kicking, nothing would calm her down. She kept coughing and would cough up blood, she just wouldn't calm down! I am really sensitive to anesthesia so I think she has those awesome genes. haha. I tried sitting by her on the bed, but she'd kick me, and scream. she was mad. We tried giving her some water, but she'd just cough it right up. The nurses would look at me and say "wow she's a strong one isn't she!" didn't quite help the situation but yes they were exactly right. haha. We tried putting the iPad right up to her face and even that didn't work. She just was not happy. poor girl. So we ended up carrying her out to the car, I drove while Tanner held her in the back to try and comfort her. I just wanted to get her home so she could see some familiar surroundings and not be so scared. when we got home she calmed right down. The meds kicked in, she had her sippy and her sucker, and she and I just snuggled.

for the next 3 days.

haha.

 It was a long 3 days. She realized that her throat hurt, and that she couldn't eat or drink like normal. She was not happy about it. haha. BUT she's never been one to snuggle so I soaked in ALL OF THOSE snuggles. For about 3 days she was out of it. She and I just kinda lounged around the house, and I never left her side. When I'd leave she'd freak out. After the 3rd day she started to want to play. The fifth day she actually went outside and rode her skooter! baby steps people.

all in all, it was interesting. I didn't expect her to come out of surgery so mad, but now we know for next time how she'll react if she goes under. Now that that was about a year and a half ago, she hasn't been sick NEAR AS MUCH!!! HALLELUJAH! so glad i followed my gut and took her to a specialist.

Since having this surgery, she's got croup a couple times. So she has a breathing machine to help uncloak her airways. Whenever she gets sick we just give her the steroid through the machine to help boost her immune system a little bit.  I'm so glad we figured out what was wrong!!