Despite what you may think...

Doctors don't know everything. I normally only go to the doctors for emergencies and my latest trip just reminded me why.
Taegen has been sick for FOREVER!! Poor little guy. it's been one thing after the other. Fever, ear infections, teething and as of yesterday he had cold symptoms plus diarrhea and throwing up. Once he started throwing up we decided it was time to take him into the doctor. Well, my lovely pediatrician couldn't get him in until sometime today. I was so furious! Aren't they supposed to keep slots open for "emergencies" like this? Ok, I know he wasn't an emergency case but I was still upset. (needless to say, I think I will be finding a new pediatrician. Any good suggestions?) So we decided to take him in to the instacare. Which is apparently cheaper then going to my regular ped anyways (since we don't have insurance at the moment, which mind you I think is rather ridiculous!).
After waiting nearly 2 hours we finally get in to see the doctor. So checks him out and what does she say?.... "Well... he seems to look pretty healthy to me". Are you kidding me?! I was so frustrated. What a waste of time and money! A child that is throwing up along with diarrhea is NOT a healthy child!
I mean I guess it's a relief to know theres nothing too serious going on with him. But I still feel like that doctor was an idiot. I didn't feel comfortable leaving him at the babysitters today, so I'm at home with my little man. Making sure he's getting better. Because i don't care what that stupid doctor says, there was/is something wrong with him. I have been loading him up with herbs for quite some time now, so thats probably why she didn't see anything...I've practically nursed him back to health myself. So proud :)

Good News...

Jon's back pain is going away!!!!!

I'll start at the beginning.

About a month ago, we went into see a new doctor. This time it was a local guy from Zion Pain Management. We went to him to have a discogram done (A specialist from vegas thought his dics were the problem). When we went in for the intial visit the doc did his exam and after 5 mins said he thinks he knows what the problem is. What did he say??..... He said he thinks the epidural injections Jon had a year ago should have given us different results. He didn't say the other doctor did them wrong, just that from the things Jon told him, he should have noticed that thats where the pain was coming from. So after doing the discogram and getting negative results, we gave the doc the go ahead to redue the facet injections. A few days later he did them and sure enough....Jon's pain was temporarily relieved. (The point of the injections is to see if when they inject pain relevers into your joints, if the pain will go away.) Since the procedure worked, like the doc said it would, the next step was for Jon to get his nerves burnt. Sounds scary I know. Less than a week later he was back in the docs office for the procedure.

This one was WAY more painful than any of the other 36 some odd injections he's had in the past year. He could barely move for 3 days afterwards. They say it takes anywhere from 1-4 weeks for your body to register that the nerve is burnt. After 2 weeks Jon started feeling less pain. Then the other day he told me he knew it was working because instead of the usual pain he'd feel after a hard day at work, he felt sore. The pain is subsiding enough that he can actually feel sore muscles!! This wouldn't seem like exciting news to anyone else, but to us it feels like a miracle. He said he still feels a little bit of pain, but not much and that'll probably go away here shortly.

All I have to say is THANK YOU! Thank you Dr Stott. Who figured out what was wrong with him in less than 2 months. It has taken 3 other doctors 2 years of prescribing pain meds, thinking he was faking it and doing countless procedures on him and yet they still go no where!

Thank you Heavenly Father. We know it was because of him we were able to find this new doctor and he was able to help him in such a short time frame. We feel so blessed.

Finally we'll be able to get this dumb car accident behind us.

After a few years the nerves will grow back, so Jon'll have to go back in to get the procedure done again, but at least he can be pain free....FINALLY!!!!!

Teething

The little man is getting all 4 of his top teeth at the same time.

 UGH! 

He's not too happy about it either, I'm sure. 

9 months

Happy 9 months Taegen Wesley!

How adorable is this face?!!!

Can't believe he's 9 months. Only 3 more months until his 1st birthday. Crazy!! As my good friend put it...he's officially been out longer than he's been in!

- He laughs anytime anyone says the word "oogalee boogalee"
- Did I mention that he gives kisses? He's been doing this for quite some time so I probably have, but of course as his mother, I LOVE IT!
- He walking along the edge of the furniture. Most times its just a few steps.
- He has the hand motion for waving bye bye, but hasn't connected it with the words. So he'll just randomly wave.
- He's been sick most of this month :( Fevers, eye infections, cough, ear infections. Poor guy has been miserable. We just can't seem to get rid of it.
- He's still putting EVERYTHING in his mouth. We have to constantly watch him or he eats or chokes on random objects. Say for example a clod of dirt from Jon's work boots. When I saw his face my first thought was "please don't let that be poop!" Luckily it was just mud.
- I've been told he looks like the baby off the etrade commercials. I've never seen them so I wouldn't know. Maybe I should put him in commercials and start making my fortune :) haha
- He's talking up a storm. the other day in church I had to take him out of sunday school because he was so loud you almost couldn't hear the teacher.
- He still doesn't sleep through the night. I've tried just about everything. We're on the baby wise schedule and have been for months, but that doesn't seem to help. right before he got sick he was down to only waking up once or twice, but then of course he got sick and screwed that up. Now I'm trying to use the same method (The no cry method) and it's like he's learned what I'm trying to do and says "I know what you're doing mom and it's not gonna work". I'm hoping he'll learn or grow out of this shortly. Being sleep deprived it not my favorite thing.
- When we put him in his high chair and put food on his plate, he attacks. Seriously the food will be gone it less than 30 seconds. We have to spread the food out all over the tray so he can only grab one at a time. Or else he'd try to grab and eat a handful. If we give him only 1 at a time, he takes his time to eat. But if he gets them all at once, he eats as fast as he can.
- Still long and skinny. According  to my scale he weighs about 18lbs.
- He got a walker for Christmas from Papa and Nana and he can't figure out how to go forward. It's funny cause he'll push himself backwards until he gets stuck, then instead of just trying to figure out how to walk forward he just starts fussing. silly boy.

thats all I can think of for now.

Love you monkey :)

Goals

This year I've decided to make some goals for myself. I'm calling them goals because to me saying "New Years Resolutions" is not only cheesy but I feel if I call them that I'm more likely to fail. Because honestly, who actually completes their resolutions? Almost everyone quits after a month or two. But I'm bound and determined not too. So I'm posting them on here not only so I can remember them, but also so at the end of the year (or after I've completed them) I can have proof that I didn't quit. I also do better when I'm being held accountable by someone else. If its just me, then I'll justify cheating. But I can no longer do that. I'm posting this so I am accountable to everyone! Ok so here they are....
(In no particular order)
1.Get Taegen to sleep through the night
2. Save money to pay off/down at least 1 piece of debt.
3. Exercise. More specifically, get into my pre-wedding jeans.
4. No more candy. (this includes from my work cupboard)
5. Clean my house, and KEEP it clean.
     M: Kitchen
      T: Living Room
     W: Bathroom
     Th: Taegen's and spare room
       F: Master
6. Keep up on the laundry. ( Fold and put away immediately!!!)
7. Make dinner every night
8. Daily Scripture reading
and last but not least
 Get sealed together as a family.
This last one has been a goal of mine since we got married. But this isn't as easy since there are multiple steps that need to be completed before this can happen. Some by me and some by Jon. So we both have to be ready and have completed our steps for this to happen. I'm hoping we can both have ours done by sometime this year. But things like this take time.

Well now their out there. Out there for everyone to read and to hold me accountable to. :)

I forgot to mention

that last month we sold our truck! It's bitter sweet, for Jon anyways. I didn't have quite the "connection" with it that he did. Once we sold it, he changed the backround on his phone to a picture of it. We needed to sell it. We just couldn't afford it anymore. So it was a major blessing. The guy that bought it from us is a vet and just got 100K from the government due to exposure to some chemical. So when he bought ours he offered to sell us his for cheap. Jon told him he'd think about it and come take a look at it. When the guy picked up the title, he told Jon that his old truck - a 97 Ford F350 - was ours. Jon, knowing we didn't have the money to buy it on hand, asked him if he'd accept payments. And the guy looked at him funny and said "No, you're not understanding me. The truck is yours!" He just gave us his truck FOR FREE!!!! No strings attached! Now that is a MAJOR blessing! Who just gives away vehicles? He said he no longer needed it, and knew that we probably did. (He probably noticed the truck I was driving when he came to test drive it. It's a little bit of a rust bucket to say the least)
We went and got the truck inspected and it needs a little bit of maintenance repairs, but nothing major. It'll probably cost us a couple hundred to fix (since Jon can do most of it himself). How nice is that, a pretty nice truck for a couple hundred bucks?!?!? Let's just say we know the Lord's watching over us :)

New Years

What'd we do for new years eve? Well we had plans to go to my sisters and have a fun little shindig. But Jon comes home and informs me that he has to work early in the morning. Talk about raining on my parade. I was so excited to actually do something. I made treats and everything. Well since Jon didn't want to stay up late we decided to celebrate with NYC. Meaning we celebrated at 10:00. Jon was practically asleep at 9, so I bugged him until he woke up a little, then we went a read "the hunger games" for alittle bit. Once 10:00 hit, we had our champagne glasses(full of apple juice and mtn dew. Not combined. Eww that'd be disgusting. I had apple juice, Jon had Mtn Dew) clanked them together, said happy new year, kissed, and that was that. Boring I know. That's why I have no pictures to document the event. Not even worth the time. Next year me and my sisters decided that we're going to celebrate with Denmark. Ring in the new year at 4:00, followed by dinner and a few games. The nights over at 7:00 and we all get to bed at a decent time. Smart idea. Looking forward to that.