Haylee is Two months

My beautiful niece is two months old today.  I can't believe it has been two months already.  Of course I am not the one getting woke up every night to feed her but for me time has gone by so fast.  She is smiling and holding her head up.. she is growing so fast.  I miss her like crazy and I am so excited that she is coming into town in just two short weeks.  When I get a new picture from today I will post it!

Pictures of my beautiful neice..

Some of my favorites that I stole from Facebook!  Haha... She is growing up so dang quick... I am not sure exactly how old she is while these are being taken but I am sure it is within the last month.. lol  Her mom reports that she is smiling now.. awww.. I can't wait to see that... going to melt my heart for sure!

Tummy Time to make her strong... go Haylee

Cutie Pie

I am sure this is one of her favorite spots for the time being... enjoy it Sis,  cuz once she is moble forget it!  I just love this picture though and she will too when she is older!

I gotta give the credits for these pictures to my brother in law... thank you for the fix!

One Month

Today my beautiful niece is one month old. I can't even believe it has been one month already! How quickly it is going by already. She is growing so fast already and she has only been on this earth a short while. Oh boy. I hope that my wonderful sister will send me a picture of her from today so that I can post it.. hint hint... lol I love you Haylee!

Finally got ahold of this picture so I can post it!  Thank you facebook and Josh.. haha.

My Niece - Haylee Marie

My niece, Haylee Marie was born on August 14, 2009 at 11:11pm. I got the call that she was coming that afternoon and jumped in the car with Akrya and drove to Maryland, hoping that I would get there in time to see her born. But I missed her birth by just an hour and half. I was actually in Maryland when she was born. But I was the first to the hospital to hold her. She was so precious. It is amazing how someone so small and new can capture your heart so immediately. I can't wait to watch her grow (but not too fast of course). And she will of course be spoiled by her Aunt Shell every chance I get. Here are some of my favorite pictures so far.




Haylee and I when she was just six days old.





Haylee with her "My Auntie Loves Me" shirt at two weeks old.

What has been going on....

One of the bigger things that have happened in our lives this summmer is that I have been having some medical issues. These are things I have been pretty open about because I have a feeling it may really impact our lives a great deal and I am not someone that "keeps things to myself" very well. LOL. Well at least when it comes to my life anyway. Probably a therapist thing.. it can be therapuetic to talk about things that are going on. I like to lean into my support system when I am going through things. Anyway.. my issues could impact our ability to ever have children. I have been diagnosed with PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome). It is a hormonal inbalance. For me (as it is different from person to person) it is preventing me from ovulating (long intervals between periods) and is causing insultin resistance (unable to process sugars correctly which can lead to diabetes if not managed) which has lead to unexplained weight gain and an inability to lose weight. There are other annoying symtoms but they have not been as bad and most of them have gone away now so I don't remember them as well.. but the worst was fatigue. Oh and I was also diagnosed with hypothyroidism back in February too. (Another condition that can cause weight gain, mess with period cycles, and causes fatigue. (Fun stuff). Anyway.. once my thyroid levels evened out (by taking meidcation) I was still not regulating properly. So the doctor had me get an ultrasound and sure enough.. I have cysts in my ovaries. That in combination with the cycle problems I was having the doctor diagnosed me (my blood levels were not testing positive for PCOS which I believe is good because that means I am not close to becoming diabetic). So my doctor put me on medication that is supposed to help with the insulin resistance and help my body process the sugar better. I have also had to get on a low sugar/carb diet. (South Beach was recommended by my doctor) When I got back from my mom's wedding, I started this new diet. God Bless him, Geoff decided to jump on too! After three weeks I went to the doctor again and had lost 16 pounds and dropped 63 points on my cholesterol (the points had been since Feb but still). (condition can also raise that too..even though it was just slightly high) and my thyroid levels were "undetectable" so those medications had to be decreased a bit. My doctor is very happy with the progress I have made and doesn't need to see me for two months now. And Geoff has lost about 15 pounds too! Now since we have added a little carbs back in our diet we have not been losing as much so it is coming off much slower now but overall we are healthier. The next goal is to increase our activity levels a bit and adding in some weights for toning while hopefully continue to lose weight just slower then before. And we can jump back on the very low carb phase if we want to see results faster and can handle it. I am not going to lie it was hard so neither of us are really wanting to go back so I hope we can see enough results to stay where we are. Now, what I am waiting for right now is my cycle to regulate when it does hopefully that will mean ovulation is back. From what I have been reading it can take two or three months and I have only been on the meds since mid June. But I am still hoping. I am currently at day 31... sigh. Hopefully sometime in the next week.. cycles have been at 57 days, 57 days, and 46 days. So we are looking for improvement this time too! We will be trying this way for a year before we go to the next stage. So it is going to be a long road. I am writing all of this here as my therapy and because I know there are not many people that actually read this so my blogs maybe a little more revealing then I would normally be if I knew everyone was reading this. Of course it is out there on the web but maybe there is someone else out there I can help by talking about this. Anyway, till next time, keep your prayers coming.

Wow.. it has been sooo long!

Have I really not posted anything since April? What a long exciting summer I have had.. to piggy back off of the previous post. Akyra is doing better with the staying out of her cage thing, although we do have to block her from the basement as she likes to get into things in the early morning hours. We also leave her uncaged during the day too so she can guard the house. Akyra also turned one in May. We had a little get together.. well an excuse to have people over really.

I have had many trips over this summer. I went to Maryland to visit my sister, in July. I went to help her set up her baby's room. (Who should be arriving in the next couple of weeks). She just moved into a new house so she has been very busy getting it put together for when we all hush to be there for when the baby is born> We drove down to Florida to see my mom get remarried on the beach! It was a nice trip!

Geoff and I also celebrated our two year wedding anniversary at the beginning of this month. We went to Frankenmuth for a two day trip this year. So far we are keeping up with going somewhere to celebrate every year. LOL lets hope that stands as we go along.

Success... I think!

So we have had two straight nights with no incidents with Akyra.. I think that means she is gettng used to the "new" routine! Although new fun... I got woke up at 7:30am this morning.. heard her come out of her cage and come up the stairs to get us up.. nose in the face ready for kisses. Saturday morning is my day to get up with her, so here I am up after five hours of sleep... yawn. We have a wedding tonight.. should prove to be an early morning for Geoff tomorrow.. lol!