Treading Water.....

Well, it's definitely the end of February. I'm not drowning at work yet, but I'm treading water for sure! I'm already so exhausted, but I know the end is in sight.....only 5 more weeks to go. (And then a week off!)  It's been a bit of a struggle to get to daycare everyday, and then work nearly every night til around midnight after I put the boys to bed. Although, one of my stress relievers is to bake. I'm constantly baking yummy treats for my team, sometimes even late at night.  But it seems to boost morale, and give them a sugar rush to work a little more. :) In return for all my goodies, my team got me a gift card to Blue Fish, one of my favorite hibachi places. It was so sweet of them!  It's definitely all about the people you work with when you're in public accounting.  If you don't enjoy spending lots of time with your co-workers, you won't last long. I'm fortunate to have a great group working with me. :)

In between reviewing workpapers, I've been making time to spend with my boys any chance I can get.  Chase will be 14 months next week, and Austin is 3 going on 10!  We've almost got Chase to walk, but not quite.  I swear my boys are just lazy and prefer not to walk.  I think another two weeks and he'll have it down.  He better get ready to hunt some Easter eggs in April! :)  He also now has a total of 10 teeth!  He truly eats anything and everything. And Austin is just a madman.  The things that come out of his mouth are just hilarious and I can't keep a straight face.  He literally just carries on a full conversation and will quiz me on things like numbers, places, and colors.  I've been debating on when to start him in organized sports.  But he loves all sports, especially baseball.  This past weekend, he went with Uncle LoLo for the day to a double-header junior college game and had a blast.  Between the games, he was on the field with the players in a circle throwing a ball to each player.  Superstar!  In the meantime, Chase stayed back with Mommy and MeowMeow to go pick out wedding invitations and pick up my bridesmaid dress.  He really lucked out, huh?!

Sorry to keep it short, but I've still got another two hours worth of work to wrap up tonight.  Hopefully I can have another update soon, but life is so busy right now!  Here's a few recent pics!

Look who learned to ride the four-wheeler!

My boys!!

Big boy!

My workout buddy!

Properly eating Oreos! :)

Bath time fun!

Matters of the Heart

In my continued effort to figure out what's going on with me and my body lately, I visited with a cardiologist this week.  After answering a slew of questions, I was told that it could all be due to my stupid thyroid or possibly a heart problem.  So we'll run some tests to try to rule out the heart.  This morning I started wearing an 'event monitor'.  I have electrodes on my chest, attached to a recording device on my hip (looks like a beeper).  And on the other hip I have to wear a cell phone-looking thing to transmit recordings to a heart monitoring company.  I swear, between the beeper and cell phone on my hip and the electrodes peeking out of my shirt, I look like a real weirdo.  I have to wear this thing for a full week, even when I sleep.  I can't help but wonder what the recording will look like during certain events. But I won't go there. :)  And I can press the recording button if I start having dizziness, lightheadedness, etc. to get a snapshot of a particular time.

Then in a week, I get to go have a stress echo cardiogram.  When the doctor described it, all I could picture was an episode of King of Queens where Doug is running on the treadmill out of breath hooked up to the monitors. :)  They're going to take ultrasound images of my heart, then have me run on a treadmill, and then take more pictures of my heart.  Hope I can keep up on the treadmill!

Love Fest!

Is it really already Valentine's Day?!  I swear these past few weeks have been crazy hectic and I barely found time to get all the Valentine goodies together.  First off, here's a pic of my two Valentines this morning. Austin is being a ham, as usual; and don't you love his rain boots?!  He inists on wearing them all the time like his friends at school.  And Chase is my little Cuddlebug.  That's his new nickname these days, as he loves to cuddle. And I soak up every second of it!  He wouldn't sit still very well this morning for a picture, so this is as good as it gets.

 Okay, onto my crafts.  I have had many late nights in the past week taking care of the boys, doing some work I brought home, and wrapping up all of these Valentine's.  This momma is exhausted!  Of course, Pinterest provided lots of inspirations, and it was difficult to decide what to go with.  For Austin's class, I decided to make these cute envelopes made out of felt, with each kid's initial on the front.  Inside, there was a Valentine card and some M&M's.  In the beginning, I thought they were adorable and the greatest idea ever.  By the time I was hand-sewing the button on #10 (of 25!), I was totally over it.  But I pushed through and got them finished.

For Chase, I went back-and-forth on what to do.  I ended up making these heart-shaped pillows with each kids' initials on the front. And on the back there was a little pocket to tuck in some goldfish for his friends.  The boys got teal and the girls got pink.  These actually went together way faster than Austin's; maybe it's because there's only 12 kids in Chase's class. :) (And yes, I took them to his class in a V.S. bag.)

Tonight I've got to make some treats for my audit team to take to work tomorrow. Heart-shaped red velvet whoopie pies......they're going to be delicious!

Anyways, Happy Valentine's Day! Jordan and I enjoyed parents' night out last Friday, munching on hibachi, having drinks, and watched The Vow.  It was a much-needed date for us, and he topped it off last night with some beautiful pink tulips from him and the boys.  Love them! 

Falling Apart

In a few months, I will turn the big 3-0 and I swear, my body is just falling apart on me! :)

Last week I went in to have my biopsy done.  I was so nervous and stressed about it all week.  Luckily, they let Jordan come back into the procedure room with me.  But between the radiologist, pathologist, and ultrasound tech, there wasn't any room for Jordan to be by my side.  He just had to wait patiently in his little chair across the room until it was over.  First off, I was very excited/relieved that it was the actual radiologist that performed the actual procedure, not just some random ultrasound tech.  After taking some images of my big 'ol thyroid and the nodule on it, they then stuck the needle in.  I just clinched my eyes closed waiting for them to be done.  I'm usually one to watch when getting my blood taken, but no way in hell was I going to watch them suck stuff out of my neck.  They drained some of the fluid from the cyst and then took a sample of it to be tested.  Then we moved onto the solid part of the cyst, when he was moving the needle all around to get some of it.  Yowsers!  Finally, they were done.  After waiting for confirmation from the pathologist that they had retrieved enough cells, we were on our way.  Immediately afterwards, I didn't feel too bad.  But after about 30 minutes, my neck was swollen and sore.  I could barely turn my head to the side, and felt like I had whiplash or something.  Jordan picked up some food for me on the way home, and then I popped some ibuprofen and took my butt to bed.  I think I laid in bed til 2pm.

Finally, this morning I got a call from the endocrinologist's office with my test results.  It's benign!  Yay, what a relief.  I have to be honest; I've been worried about the 'C' word all week.  I think I would have been fine had it been; I don't think thyroid cancer is a death sentence by any means.  But I'm certainly thankful that it didn't turn out that way.  Now, I will continue on my higher dosage of meds and other supplements and report back in 6 weeks.  Since it's benign, I'm not quite sure what we'll do from here.  If this this is going to keep getting bigger, and pressing on my thyroid and esophagus, I'd just rather get it taken out.

In other health news, I've been feeling very 'off' lately. (No, I'm not pregnant!)  About two weeks ago, I had an 'episode' where all of sudden in a store I got a wave of nausea, light-headed, and dizzy.  After sitting on a bench to wait, Jordan brought the car around for me.  Then I got in the car and blacked out, not remembering anything for the following hour.  Scary! And I've had a couple other days where I've gotten dizzy, light-headed, nauseous, and a headache again (but no blacking out).  So, off to the doctor.  But I had to find another doctor because my doctor I had been going to since I was twelve had retired last year and sold his practice.  Bummer, I miss him so much!  I searched the internet and found a suitable one nearby and went in yesterday.  She ran a full blood panel, and everything came back fine today.  Now I'm getting a referral to a cardiologist.  Grrrrrr.  More doctors appointments.  In busy season.  I don't really have time for all of this right now, but I know that I have to put my health first and figure out what's going on with my body.  It very well could be my crazy thyroid throwing my body completely off, but we'll check other things out for sure. 

Hello, doctor bills! :)

Brotherly Love

These two boys of mine are becoming the best of friends!  They play so well together, and we've finally gone back to taking baths together.  Although, Austin insists that they take a bath in Mommy's big bath tub.  Whatever works.  But I love watching them play together!!