6 months and hospital visit

Levi is 6 months old! I can't believe it. It doesn't seem like half of his first year is done already. His 6 month stats are Height: 23 inches Weight: 11lbs 5oz. He has now more than doubled his birth weight (woohoo!). He's into 3 month and some 6 month clothing. Levi seems to be tolerating cloth diapers better than disposables, and he is getting CURIOUS about everything! We are still so in love with him!

On the flip side of things, we're also back in the hospital. Monday night we ended up in the ER for 6 hours because he had a high fever. With Levi, it's never okay for him to have a fever, it's the first sign of a kidney infection. I really felt like he needed to be admitted, not just sitting in the ER. I figured he was dehydrated and hello, he's a KIDNEY FAILURE PATIENT! In a small toen like ours, unless you have a cancer patient or a gunshot victim, a few hours is the difference between kidney failure and kidney function for him. We finally saw a doctor and got the results of the UA back to find out that everything was clear, just a virus. Tuesday we were supposed to follow up with his pediatrician. She agreed that it was just a virus, but to keep a close eye on him. She also ran more blood work and urine samples. Everything still looked clear. I still felt like he was dehydrated and we need to admit him to get him hydrated, but we were sent home since he looked okay on paper. Last night, his fever hit 104 and he started having diarreha and eating less. Then, this morning, the fever was at 102, but he added vomiting to the list of symptoms. After my 3rd shirt for the day was soaked in puke, I called the doctor's office. Our regular doc was out, but we could see one of the other pediatricians. We went into the appointment knowing that we were probably headed to the hospital. We were right. Levi was admitted this afternoon for dehydration, fever, and possible bloodborne bacteria. Gross. Good thing is, we get to stay in town at the hospital here! Yay! Also, they got him started on some iv fluids, and now he's keeping pedialyte down! Tomorrow we're hopefully back on formula. Small victories are amazing!

Please keep squirt in your prayers and remember to LISTEN TO YOUR GUT FEELINGS!

Lucky Lady

This last week or so has been filled with some great moments. For me as a mom, wife, and friend. So here's the list of everything that God has blessed me with (especially over) the last week! -Levi has had the best blood work results yet. -Mary, John, and I got the office completely painted. It looks awesome. -I was able to get all of the furniture moved back into the office -M got furniture for her new house -I woke up on Saturday morning to the sound of Levi laughing in bed next to me -We've seen Adam and Kelsey 4 times in two weeks! -House blessing at Adam and Kelsey's was WONDERFUL! -Tonight, dinner with some amazing friends -Levi lights up when John, he and I are all together -We got a piano! -Levi is stinking adorable -I got to help a friend celebrate her upcoming wedding with a shower -People at work keep blessing me with their love and support for my goals and for my family -John never ceases to remind me how much he loves me -Bee is keeping birds away from the flowers in the backyard. -Yesterday, Levi slept from 6:30pm-7am! -I finally got a walk/run in this week, and I was able to pick up right where I'd left off! -I HAVE A GOD WHO LOVES ME UNCONDITIONALLY

the rules.

Sometimes I feel so lost. I feel as though I'm stuck in the middle of a game people play, problem is, I don't know the rules. Then it dawns on me, yes I do! God has given me all of the rules that I need to play this "game". Other people are the ones that choose to change the rules. God has chosen me, He has blessed me with a heart that wears heavy when I know that I've broken a rule. I used to see it as a curse, I was constantly feeling guilty! But now I know that God trusts in me enough to know that I can play by His rules and have the biggest rewards possible. Once I think about it that way, I don't feel quite so lost anymore.

Real Diaper Week- Day 3

Here's yesterday's post this morning. I'll try to do today's post this afternoon.

Today we're discussing the cost of cloth diapering. Cloth diapering has saved us a TON of money. Now, we are a "hybrid" family. This means that we use disposables sometime. Levi is just over 5 months old, and to date, we've spent about $30 on disposable diapers. That's what most people spend in a week. We use disposables sometimes at daycare, and sometimes at night. A friend gave us all of her prefold diapers and a few covers. This was easily worth $60, if it would have been new. Buying used, and getting things from friends is the easiest way to spend less, but get more! I have purchased some cloth on my own, about $60 worth, this equated to 20 new diapers. I now have more than enough for Levi and will be able to use most of it with baby number 2, if we ever get to that point. Cloth diapering can save you thousands of dollars over the first two years of your kids life. I'll take an extra load of laundry every few days for that!

Real Diaper Week- Day 1

Many of you have read some of my posts about cloth diapers. This week, leading up to Earth Day is "Real Diaper Week". There's also a blog hop being sponsored by The Eco Chic. Today's topic for the blog hop is Outreach.

As a product of Generation X, we have many standards that we try to live up to. Even when it comes to our kids. One of the things that everyone expects our generation to do is to figure out how to make everything simpler. A lot of modern moms figure that this means disposable diapers. But, cloth diapers are so easy! Any mom who has kids in cloth knows that. One of the toughest questions, how do we convince everyone else of that?

Simple. We share the benefits with anyone who will listen. You tell co-workers, family, friends, nurses at the doctors office, people at church, and leave a note for the mailman if you have to! I'm constantly telling people how much we love our cloth diapers. They're cute, eco-friendly, a huge price break and WAY better for my baby. I let my kid go without pants when the weather's nice to show off his diapers. When he's in the daycare at my work, I'll go change his diaper in order to keep him in cloth. We're willing to make tons of sacrifices for our kids, don't you think that it's time we start telling other parents about the benefits of cloth? Being a cloth diapering mama doesn't automatically make you a hippie, trust me, I'm still working on figuring out how to recycle!

Any questions on cloth diapering? Let me know! They're easy, cheap, and you have tons of options!

Easter Weekend and Levi Update

We've had such a busy, good time lately! Levi and I are finally starting to get onto a schedule, or so it seems. Bedtime has been around 8pm usually. He just can't seem to get to sleep much earlier than that. Last night he slept from 8pm-5:50am. Then I had to get him up at 7:30 to head to work. He seemed to do pretty good that way. We've also starting working food into his diet. He's had apples, pears, peas and green beans.

This was earlier today, eating peas. I guess he figured we weren't feeding him fast enough, because he grabbed the spoon and started shoving it in his mouth. He seemed to really enjoy the peas.



We had a great Easter weekend. We had great weather. I feel like we've finally started spring.We didn't really do too much. We had church Sunday morning. We made chicken enchiladas for dinner. They were yummy! Levi had the cutest outfit! He looked like a little man. Here's our family picture from Easter morning.

The weekend before Levi got baptized! We had a lot of family in town. It was so great to see everyone. He did great during the service. He seemed to love having all of the different people around. It was neat to see how everyone interacted with Levi. John and I feel like Levi's baptism was long overdue. Levi has been through so much already, and through a lot of it, the only explanation is that God healed his body. So now, Levi has been publicly declared God's. We are also very lucky that we have the support from our friends and family to raise Levi to become a man of God. His Godparents are Jess and Brandon and Adam and Kelsey. I know that they will do a great job helping us teach Levi to become that man. I am very thankful for them.

A three in one post...

So today I'm blogging about 3 different events at once, please bear with me. I'll try to make this short and sweet.

1) Happy Anniversary!
We've been married 2 years today! We share this date with John's brother and sister-in-law who are celebrating 13 years! Congrats all around!

2) 4 Months!
I cannot believe that Little Levi is 4 months old already! The time has flown by! He is a ham and lovin' it! He's started to eat foods, doctor permitting, and weighs in at just over 10 lbs.

3) Kidney Update
Not as good as we had hoped. Sounds like dialysis is coming sooner than we'd thought. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, if he can just manage to get a little bit bigger, that would help a ton!

I'll try to get a more detailed update in here soon, when I have some time.