My "Ironman"

Since Shad has been diagnosed with diabetes he has been making some major changes. He has started running again. I have woken up to see him just come home from running down to the lake and back which is round trip a couple miles. He has lost about 10 pounds and has lowered his blood pressure to a safer level. He has also changed his diet and been eating better. Hopefully, with these changes he will be able to go off of his diabetic medicine. I am soooooo proud of him. He has made changes that most people think are too hard or they can't do. With all that he has been through he still pushes through his pain. He told me the other day that he isn't going to die because of something he could have changed/that he has control over. We have been watching the Biggest Loser and it has had an impact on our family. It is sad to see so many people ready to die at any moment because of something they could change and choose not to. Learning more about diabetes has been a real eye opener. I am very grateful for Shad and all that he is doing to take care of himself for himself, me, Brin and our son!!

Mother's Day and 21 months old

Mother's Day was great! It was nice to relax and just enjoy the day. Shad and Brinley did surprise me with a beautiful necklace and matching earrings. The necklace is in the shape of two hearts joining as one and also has the eternity symbols on the side. The earrings have the eternity symbol with a small diamond in the middle. I am not a jewelry person, but I LOVE these pieces. I wore both the necklace and earrings to church.

I am so grateful to have my little girl. I love my "job"/role as a mother! It is the most rewarding and the most challenging thing I have ever done. I am grateful the Heavenly Father has given me my little family it is the best gift I could ask for.

Brinley turned 21 months old yesterday. I can't believe that she will be 2 in three months. I am trying to enjoy every moment because it goes by way to fast. She can say even more words, is cutting more teeth (on the bottom finally) and has become antisocial :) She didn't have a problem going to nursery the first time, but now it is quite a challenge leaving her with anyone that isn't mom or dad. She has been so paranoid lately. We were in Home Depot the other day and if Shad or I started walking away from the cart she would panic and start yelling for Dadda or Momma. She couldn't stand not having either or both of us right next to her. Hopefully, in the next couple of months we will get her into her toddler bed and start potting training...wish us luck!!

Bruzer and Big Shoes to Fill

Living "out in the country" has some down sides to it. One of them is the field mice. We have a lot of them and after having one ruin some of our grass and a few die inside our house we decided it was time to get a cat. We are not indoor animal people so this will be an outside cat. I did have little Bruzer inside for a day. After he pooped behind my washer I had enough....he is outside now. Brinley and I picked him out at the pet store last week. He has six "fingers" on his front paws instead of five. His front paws look pretty big because of the extra claw. He is a fun cat with a good personality. Lets just hope he likes to eat mice!!

Brinley has this fascination lately with putting on Shad and I's shoes. While I was taking pictures of her and the cat she put on Shad's shoes. She has some big shoes to fill!!

This weekend we had a lot of fun and alot of work!!! We took Brinley bowling for the first time and she loved it. I am so sad because the iflip batteries died and I didn't bring the camera. She loved rolling the ball down the kids rack and then she would watch to see it knock down the pins. This girl's favorite toy is a ball hands down! Yesterday we spent all day getting the garden together. We picked up railroad ties (which we later found out aren't the best to use for a garden) and soil. Let's just hope we grow something!! I love gardening, but haven't been able to have a garden for a few years. We are looking forward to all the fresh yummy food this summer!!! I will get pictures up of it tomorrow. I planted some seeds wrong so I need to re-seed my carrots and onions tomorrow. I forget that with sandy soil it washes away very quickly. Needless to say I didn't pack it well enough and the water washed out my seeded rows :( After I get it fixed I will post some pictures! Thanks again honey for building it for me I LOVE IT!!!

St. Paddy's Day

Life just doesn't seem to slow down at our household even with Brin and I being confined to our house for over a week now we have been busy!! On Wednesday Shad had a little cold and it started getting worse. His mom and her sweet sis Helen came down to spend the night with us!! We had a lot of fun :) Since it was St. Patrick's Day I decided to try and do something fun even though Shad and Brinley were both not feeling good at all. I made "green" (cheddar broccoli) soup and BBQ chicken salad. I figured the greens in the salad could count as green food. I also made a chocolate cake with a four leaf clover on the icing. It was a really good night. We had some good laughs with my mother in law and Aunt Helen! Don't worry none of us wore green that day :)
On Thursday Shad woke up and was sicker than I have ever seen him. He went into the doctor and found out that he has the adult version of RSV. It is really rare for an adult to contract RSV, but with him sharing utensils and drinks with Brinley he caught it. He is absolutely miserable. This is the sickest he has been as an adult. I can understand how little babies have to be hospitalized for this virus and it makes me hurt even more for Brinley and what she has been going through with this nasty virus!!! I just hope he feels better soon!
Our friend Kourtnie is doing much better. She had surgery to help monitor her and help her heart. Poor thing has been through a lot. We want to thank all of those who have kept her in their prayers we know it has helped!! I hope to see her soon. Shad was able to go to the hospital before he came down sick, but we still have not seen her yet.
It has been fun having family around the last few weeks. It has made life a lot more enjoyable. I was even able to spend some time with my sister today and we had a good time. It is so nice to be able to have people to love and to be love by!!!! I am going to make a goal at being better at capturing memories. I have done horrible lately at taking pictures and videos. There are so many things I want to get on camera that I know I will forget if I don't!!! Brinley said grandma (gamah) for the first time to Shad's mom while she was here and she told Shad tonight, "love you" when he tucked her into bed...how sweet is that???

Update

I haven't felt really up to doing a whole lot including updating our blog, but I figure if this is our family history I need to keep documenting our family happenings. Brinley has been doing really cute things lately. One of my favorites lately is when she points to a picture of Jesus and says Jesus. I am not sure where she even learned it, but she knows who he is. I love it. I melts my heart and inspires me to be better! Shad spoke in church on Sunday and I am so proud of him! He didn't think he did very good, but so many people commented on how good it was and he even had the Sunday school president come over to try and recruit him.

I haven't been feeling very well for a while. Have any of you mommas had any problems with your Sacroiliac Joint (or known as the SI joint)?? I have been in pain since I was a few months along with Brinley and still am. I went in to a chiropractor and they are getting it back into place. Does anyone know if this is the best treatment or if there is something more that can be done?? I have been to other doctors and they haven't known what to do. I also have not fully recovered from having Brinley so I am going to get some blood tests done and will have the results back at the end of the month. I am excited to hopefully start feeling good again. Some people have been wondering if we were prego or going to have another one soon, but that isn't going to happen for a while :) I am so grateful that Shad has been so awesome to do all he does when I am not feeling well. Thanks honey for being an awesome husband and father!!! We couldn't ask for more!

Pumpkin Carving

Tonight we carved pumpkins! It is probably my favorite thing to do for Halloween. Shad is a pro at cutting, scraping and carving. He carved his and Brinley's in the time I got mine done. It was funny watching Brinley. She would not touch the gooey insides of the pumpkin. During dinner she got some water on her hand from the veggies and she couldn't continue eating until it was wiped off of her hand. She is just like her daddy! Well, here are the pics of the finished product. I am excited to get pictures up this weekend of Brinley in her costume. Aren't the holidays so much fun???

A Week In Review

This post will be kind of random about multiple events this week ending with the events from today. Shad has been working like a mad man not only at work, but also on this house. The projects never seem to end. Since my job ended and our primary insurance was with my work Shad and I decided we needed to get all of our well visits done by the end of the month. We have been to multiple visits. This past week we had a dermatology appointment and a dentist appointment in one day. Shad got a clean bill of health from the dermatologist and found out he will have to have multiple cavities filled at the dentist (to be done at a later time). I however had a mole removed and then had a few cavities filled. I think I was poke and numbed 5 times that day..yeah for me (I hate needles). When we were getting ready to leave the dermatologist they told me that I should hear back within a week if there was any news and if I don't hear anything that no news is good news.

Yesterday was a huge highlight for the week. Stephanie, who we consider family, decided to go on a mission and she actually went through the temple yesterday. The best part was she asked me to be her escort! I loved it!!! It reminded me of when I went through for the first time. All the memories came flooding back. It was truly a wonderful experience. Thanks again Stephanie for giving me the opportunity I am honored! Shad had an awesome experience getting to the temple. I guess Brinley was not wanting her dad to leave her so he was running extremely late to the temple. The amazing part is that he hit every green light and drove from Provo to American Fork in 8 minutes. He should have been late and missed the whole thing from where he had to drive and during rush hour traffic. He was meant to be there!

As for today it has been an emotional day. It started about 4am when Rusty and Boone (Shad's buddies from Idaho) called to give Shad crap.....I was praying that Brinley wouldn't wake up, and as I was praying I hear her start to cry. I went into her room and try to rock her back to sleep. That doesn't work so I put her in bed with Shad and I. A few hours later Shad's alarm goes off and wakes us all up. At that point Brinley wouldn't go back to sleep so Shad took her with him and let me get a few more hours of sleep (thanks again babe you are wonderful). They came back home around 9am and Brinley still hasn't gone back to sleep so she is a little drama queen by this point crying over everything. After her screaming and crying for a couple hours I finally got her to go to sleep on me in the rocking chair. We had been there for a few minutes when I hear the phone ring. I wasn't about to get up to go get it and wake Brinley up. After a little while I was able to check the phone. When I checked the message it was from the dermatologist. They wanted me to call their office back because they had some news from the lab. I started to panic a little bit. About 10 years ago I had a mole removed, but the lab results came back fine. I had never had the doctor's office call me to give me bad news. Anxiously I called them back only to find out that there was no one in the office that could give me the results. I had them get a hold of someone who could call me so I wouldn't have to wait all weekend. After about 2 hours I received a call from the nurse telling me that the mole was abnormal and had abnormal cells starting to form (cancerous) and that I would need to watch the area where the mole was removed to make sure that nothing comes back. I will need to start going into the doctor every few months to monitor my skin. It was better news that I had anticipated, but it was still very unsettling. My grandfather died from skin cancer before I was born. Right now it is just a waiting game for the next little while to make sure that the growth doesn't come back in the next few weeks. I have debated about posting this event, because it is very personal. I will update more if anything more happens. Otherwise, I am healthy and hopefully cancer free from this point on!

Grandpa's 80th Birthday

This past weekend we went up to Idaho to celebrate Shad's Grandpa Lafe's 80th Birthday. It was a lot of fun. I was able to meet some of Shad's side of the fam I had never met before. Shad and I had a blast keeping the kiddos busy with softball. Brinley loved all the attention from her cousins! Here are some pictures. I wish we would have been able to get more, I am adding a few older pics of grandpa. We love you and hope you have many more wonderful years to come!! I also volunteered to make the birthday cake. Shane's birthday was Saturday and Traci's was yesterday (we hope you both had a very happy birthday) so I made them their own b-day cakes. I will post pictures of them on my cake blog: sweetcakesbyaj.blogspot.com!

EASTER!!!

This weekend was a lot of fun minus Brinley not sleeping. We have taken her in to the doctor and they can't find out what is wrong with her. We went back in today and we are going to try a reflux medicine and see if that helps. On Saturday we just hung out and colored eggs. It was raining off and on all day so we didn't do much. My sweet hubby put together my bike and trailer for Brinley and I. That thing is going to whip me into shape. On Sunday we had a little Easter egg hunt for Brinley since the weather was finally nice enough to do one. She had a lot of fun. During dinner last night Shad thought it would be a great idea to give Brinley the colored Easter eggs to play with. The pictures say it all...!!! Before we went to bed last night Shad and I read some of Jesus the Christ. We started on it and we are not even half way through. It is about 700 pages long, but we LOVE the book. I have learned more about the Savior by reading it. It is truly amazing that he is real and all he did for us actually happened!! We hope that you all had a wonderful, fun filled and spiritual Easter!!!

The Weekend

This past weekend Shad's mom flew in to drive her new car home. She also babysat Brinley for us so Shad and I could go for a motorcycle ride and to dinner. Which is something we don't do very often anymore together. We had a great time having her here. Here are some pics from this weekend.

Wedding Pics Slideshow

Wedding Pictures

So, here are pics from the wedding....Enjoy!!! I will be loading a slideshow with more pics!

Boyz in Boise

So, I didn't really go into detail about what Shad, Shane and Nick did while we were up in Boise for the wedding. Shad and Nick brought the trailer with their street bikes to go riding with Shane. On Friday the three of them went riding (pretty much all day). This is my favorite picture that Lafe captured of them riding together. I know some of you may think Shad is crazy for going riding again. He had a great time and loved every minute of it. He will ride his motorcycles till the day he dies. I am proud of him. By the way, I have pics from the wedding now so I will get them up this weekend. I also posted a pic of the finished cake at: sweetcakesbyaj.blogspot.com.

Another Update

Not so good news for Lafe. He had to go back into the hospital last night and then he traveled to Salt Lake today to see his doctor again. Lafe has to go back in for surgery on Monday because what they operated on last Monday "didn't take". We feel soooo bad for him. Poor guy. It just doesn't end for him. Shad may possibly be going for surgery as well. He needs to meet with the specialist again and we will go from there.

Update On Lafers (Lafe)

Lafe had his surgery today. So far so good. He is back home and hopefully being able to relax a little and rest. We are praying that he will not have to go trough this again! We will update again as soon!!

In Loving Memory Of Boyd Thomas Jepsen

Shad's uncle Boyd returned to his Father in Heaven on Friday night (Jan. 23rd). He suffered from the painful and debilitating effects of diabetes for many years. The last few months his body was worn down by the disease. The last two weeks he and his family knew that he didn't have very much time left. The effects of the disease reached a point where there was nothing else that could be done for him. His brother (and I am not sure who else) was with him when he died. His sweet parents Lafe and Rayma (grandpa and grandma) made many trips from Preston, Id to Logan to care for their precious son. Boyd was born March 13, 1960. He left behind his four children, two grandchildren, his parents, his three brothers and two sisters.

When Shad and I went up to Idaho for Grandpa and Grandma's 60th wedding anniversary Boyd was in a medical bed. He wasn't able to walk or really move, but he still had a smile on his face, asked us how we were doing and didn't complain once about his situation or pity himself. He was an outstanding man and was an example to all who came into contact with him. We will miss you (until we meet again)!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

We cannot believe how much snow we have been getting lately. It just keeps coming. Shad and I both shoveled and Shad plowed our driveway last night and a few hours later you couldn't even tell it had been done! here is a picture of Brinley laying vertical in a snow bank so you can see how deep the snow is! This past weekend we went up to Logan and stayed at the Crystal Inn. We would recommend it...seriously it was pretty nice and we got a sweet deal. They are offering a getaway package trough April incase anyone is interested. After being stuck in the house for the holidays I needed to get out. It worked out perfect! We had a good time, Lafe (Shad's brother) came over on Sunday night and we played Life. I had a really good time ( I am sure Lafe did too since he demolished us the second round with his 3.9 million winnings...I am still a little bitter). Shad is about the same. His back pain is pretty unbearable so he is still on his pain meds. Brinley is growing like a weed. At her last appointment (in Dec.) she weighed 14 lbs 4 oz and was in the 90 percentile for her height. She is tall! She has started to roll over more and sit up by herself before I know it she is going to be crawling! I can wait for that. I am not ready for it! We hope all is well with all of you!!!

A Look Back at 2008 and Hopes for 2009

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. This year Shad, I and Brinley just spent time together. We have a whole new perspective on life after Shad's accident. Our family has been blessed to be a part of what Christmas is all about. This past year is one that has helped us grow and learn in ways we couldn't image. Becoming a parent has been the most challenging yet rewarding job. Being a parent is not by any means a walk in the park, but we wouldn't change it for the world. In 2009 we hope to learn more, become better and live happier. We are grateful for all of our family and friends who have stood by us in the good and more importantly the hard times. We wish you all a very Happy New Year!!!

No appointment today

Shad is doing a little better today. Nick took him for a ride to go buy a car and then he came home and slept. He wasn't feeling good enough to go to his appointment today so we had to reschedule for Friday. We will post again soon!

Another Update

So far today has been Shad's hardest day. I think it is partly because he didn't get any sleep last night. His whole body hurts and aches. His ears are ringing and he can't hear very well. He is dizzy, nauseous, bruised and tired. He has slept most of the day today. The surgeon was not able to see him until tomorrow so we will do another update once we meet with him. Other than that it will be a slow recovery. He can't lift anything over 20lbs for the next few months and he can't do really anything for the next few weeks. As for me, I am hanging in there. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful baby. If she was demanding it would make life very difficult! The hardest part lately has been seeing my husband go through this. For me it is nothing to do what I do for him and count it as a blessing. I think I am a little numb with all the challenges we have faced lately. I feel like the Lord has been with us every step of the way and provided peace, an imensen amount of strength and comfort. We again want to thank everyone for their love and support. It has been amazing to see how many people are there to help and support us....THANK YOU, WE LOVE YOU ALL and could not be where we are without you!!!!!!