An epiphany!

Sometimes I wonder how I can be so dumb! Back in the old days of facebook, I tried posting pictures from my page into my blog and they were just messy. The pixel was horrible and they were quite blurry. I hadn't tried this in years and I decided to give it a shot tonight so I could post some fun pics on my blog again. Do you have any idea how lame I felt when I realized how much smoother that process goes now? It was done in less than a second!! Who needs a new camera, now?? Not me...at least not until I can afford a nice one.

First off, here's a few more New York pics that my friend Katie took with her fabulous camera...the view from the top of the Empire State Building at night. This was breathtaking!

 Michaela and I playing around after the banquet and before heading out to do some all night site seeing.

 Katie snapped this picture of me while we were out on the ferry going out to the Statue of Liberty. It was pretty windy but it felt good to be out in the sun and relaxing.

 Me and Katie at the top of the Empire State Building. I have NEVER been in wind half as powerful as it was up there! It's a good thing they have the barriers around the building so we didn't blow away!

 

Now for some not so happy pictures...

 

Stets went in for all of his allergy testing last Tuesday. I am happy to say that he is not severely allergic to anything. Yay! Unfortunately, he was found to be moderately allergic to a handful of things. His two highest allergy reactions were to dogs and cow's milk. As soon as the doctor told us that the best thing would be to get rid of our dogs...Stetson's little just heart broke and he panicked!

Right now we don't feel his reaction is severe enough to go that route though we did have to lay down some new ground rules in our house.

 

First, he can no longer sleep in the living room and he definitely cannot sleep by Berkley.

 

The dogs can't be in his room. Sassy is hypoallergenic and can be in his room if we keep up on her bathing once a week and if we use hypoallergenic shampoo which will also help his allergies. We already bathe her weekly so that's not a problem. Luckily, he has hardwood in his room so we don't have to worry about carpet trapping allergens and turning his room into a war zone. Once again, we are thrilled that we went with hardwood in his room instead of carpet...best decision ever!

 

We have to make sure we wash his bedding weekly in as hot as water as possible....I laughed out loud when she said that. I would LOVE to only have to wash his bedding once a week! Again, that stipulation was not a problem.

 

We also need to cut his cow's milk intake into half. We bought a few different types of almond milk at the store following his testing and he really likes the original flavor. We've decided that if we only keep that in the house, he is fine to drink regular milk at school or when we go out somewhere. This kid drinks milk like it's going out of style! He rarely ever asks for pop. We lucked out that he is taking this transition smoothly.

 

Besides the dogs and the cow's milk, he was mildly allergic to corn products, bananas, onions and timothy grass. These weren't a big problem at all and he can have any of them in moderation. It's not like we ever serve bananas with onions on them to the kid so he should be alright =)

 

I didn't realize how many cereals and other food products contain corn. We have tried to buy wheat based cereals for him as well. I don't want him to be highly medicated or to be miserable and congested all of the time so hopefully the more work I put into avoiding these foods, the more Stets will benefit from it all.

 

Me and my cute boy! He's a little shaggy right now...he's growing his hair out and we are trying to figure out what to do with it at times.

 Sad face =( After the injections he had to wait for 20 minutes to get the results. We turned on Little Rascals to distract him though it didn't work too well.

 Daddy ended up goofing off with him to help pass the time! We sure love our daddy and were so glad he was able to come to the appointment with us last minute!

 

Oh...Happy Belated Easter! I hope you all had as wonderful of time with your family as I did with mine. I love Easter. I love knowing that Christ was crucified on the cross and that he atoned for our sins. I love knowing that I don't have to be perfect to be loved by Him.

 

 The only person I ever have to compare myself to is the person I was yesterday. For that, I am truly grateful.

 

 

Life is good!

Right now I feel like life is a constant rollercoaster ride that consists of school, work, homework...repeat. I've tried to kick school into 3rd gear so I can finish everything and get done a little early. Last weekend I spend about 15 hours doing homework and now I am about two full weeks ahead of the schedule which feels soooooo good!!!

Stetson's out of school all next week for Spring Break so I'm hoping we can have some fun times together! On Monday he is going to the dentist to get his first cavity filled...eek! I'm glad he made it this long without one but I know this isn't going to be fun. Tuesday he is going in for allergy testing and he will be getting SIXTY injections!! Honestly, going to the dentist will probably be a walk in the park comapred to the allergy doctor. Other than that, I hope we have some down time to take a break!

I've been having crazy camera trouble lately which is why I haven't been blogging. I REALLY need a new camera but life's been expensive lately and that's the last thing on my priority list right now. Who wants to read someone's blog without pictures?!?

Here's a couple of recent photos that I've uploaded AND this represents some of the stress in our lives lately. This cute boy is now 6 years old and he is the joy of our lives! He's in 1st grade and he doesn't like school, because it starts way too early in the morning, but he does really well at it! He is kicking butt in math and spelling and we are so proud of him. he's gotten 100% on his last few spelling tests which has blown us away. He also brought home some addition problems for homework a few weeks ago that he had to be timed in doing. His goal was to answer 20 problems in one minute with 100%....he got 32! The second time we did it, a week later, he got all 40 right!! He definitely got his dad's genes when it comes to math.

However, this cute boy is again struggling with horrible nightmares and night terrors. Around 3 AM, he runs in our room now crying or screaming because he's scared. This morning he told us that spiders were dropping down from his ceiling and he coudln't go back to his room. It breaks my heart =( . When this happens, he pulls out his sleeping bag and curls up next to Berkley to keep him safe. The dreams are usually about spiders or snakes!

His nightmares are happening almost nightly right now which is really difficult. We are exhausted and he is too. Skylar gave him a father's blessing a couple of nights ago hoping that would help so we are keeping our fingers crossed. We love this little guy so much and it hurts to see him so upset.

New Year's Resolutions

2012 was the first year that I remember actually accomplishing multiple resolutions that I set for myself....I think it's because I printed them out and hung them up in my closet where I would read them and think about them every day. Unfortunately, there were a couple things on my list that didn't get done but such is life. I have been thinking about what goals I need to set for myself for 2013 and so far this is what I have come up with:

• Graduate in the Spring! After this semester, I will officially be CGriffin, BSN, RN! I can't wait to close the school chapter of my life and to move on to other things. When I graduated with my RN, I was expecting to have a 3.6 GPA and to get a rope so I was greatly disappointed when my GPA was only 3.54 and I had no rope to show for my hard work! My GPA is now 3.6 and it has to hold there for me to get my rope this April. So I guess that's two goals in one.

• We need to build up our savings. The church really pushes us members to have at least a 3 month emergency fund to rely on if needed. Skylar and I do not have that much in savings so that's something that we really need to focus on during 2013. I am happy that we can pay for my school in monthly increments so hopefully that chunk can go from paying for my schooling to building up our savings come April. Even though our savings isn't what it should be, I am happy that I will graduate without any student loans.

• This year we are both putting more effort into staying caught up with our tithing! I have seen many blessings come our way from paying our tithing yet somehow life still gets in the way and for one reason or another we always get behind. I know it's not intentional but the blessings only come when we do our part and make the needed sacrifices so this year we are vowing to NOT get behind in what we owe to our Heavenly Father. 10% is very little to ask from us in exchange for what he gives us each and every day.

I think those 3 resolutions are enough for us this year. Of course we want to add to our family too but most of that is out of our hands and that's something my control freak personality is going to have to accept, like it or not.