A Little Elbow Grease

We have 4 metal railing around our house that have seen better days. Who knows what they originally looked like because you can tell they have been painted several times over the years. They are white and rusty, and have paint chipping off all over them. I figured we would just end up replacing them with new wrought iron, but the other day I thought I would try and see how well I could revive them. I sanded the railings down and used a black rust reformer spray paint that chemical reacts with the rust in-order to turn it into a solid. A-lot of elbow grease and six spray paint cans later I had railing that looked as good as new. We will see how they hold up this winter, but if they do I will have saved myself a couple hundred dollars at least in new wrought iron. I have only done the railing out front and the one to the basement, and I think I will wait to do the balcony and garage railings next spring. I still have a couple spots to touch up, but over all I think it looks great. Now all I have to do is paint the shutters and repaint the front door and wood trim. I am counting the months down until we can rip out the" white trash" chain-link fence too. I can not stand the way it looks. We are either going to put up more black wrought iron with a little gate to the basement entrance or do a picket vinyl that will match the yard fence we are going to put in. Are outdoor projects are slowly coming along. Are biggest projects for out front will be replacing the driveway and fixing up the concrete porch. We are still looking into what we want to do, and have mostly been looking into and planning out what we want to do so we can start right away next spring. I am really looking forward to planting and landscaping next spring if all goes as planned. Here are some before and after pictures.

Mystery Diagnosis

Huh... where do I even begin.

A couple of months ago I found myself at my wits-end with several things that I have been dealing with for the last 7 years. The main thing being the excessive weight gain I have had, and the other being the pain that I have had in my legs from the knee down that has become severely worse in the last year. I thought that my knees had been hurting from the extra weight, and I just couldn't take it any more. I kept thinking that if I didn't do something about it I would have a soon future of knee surgeries, that is how much pain I was in. I never complained or talked about it much because why would you if you thought it was due to you being a fatty. So I signed up for a fool proof solution to my problems, a six week military style boot-camp called Bootcamp with Jess.

This was it, I was going to loss this extra weight once and for all. I was going to do it so that I could hopefully get pregnant next summer, and have a better chance of not having a heart-attack or stroke which I came so close to having with Jayna due to the severe preeclampsia condition I get while pregnant. So needles to say I was very committed to doing the program since I was doing it for more reasons than just looking good in a bathing-suit. The bootcamp was no freakn' joke. I had to wear a 30 pound weight vest for the first week which was "hell week". If I wasn't running on the treadmill I was running to a station to do weights, or I was doing pushups. I had to sing songs about killing babies and crushing little birds heads while I ran my guts out around the parking lot. I think I cried 4 out of the 5 morning while I drove home that first week. I could not even lift my arms after the first three days and no amount of ibuprofen would ease the pain. Ryan even had to wash and blow-dry my hair one of the mornings, which I guess was common since one of the other girls told me her husband had to do her hair her first week of the program too. I stuck to it though. I cut out all dairy, carbs, sugars, sodas, you name it it was cut out. I was eating salads and salads. I probably took in no more than 800 calories a day. The last week of hell week all the different locations meet together at a high-school track to do bleachers for an hour. Weight vest and all I hurled myself up and down the bleachers doing the best I could. I could not have done worse unless I had quit. Glad that my first week was over and done with I went home to weigh myself and see exactly what that week of hard work had done for me. That is when my world kinda turned upside down. I had weighed my self on Sunday night the night before I had started hell week, and when I stepped on the scale only 5 days later I had gained an entire 10 pounds. Ryan was shocked, and lets say I was less than encouraged. Still I stuck with it, I continued with the diet, I went every morning at 6:00 to workout. By week 5 my instructor finally started to notice what I had figured out weeks before. I had not lost a single pound! Not only that, my legs hurt so bad I could no longer run on the treadmill and was having to modify more and more of the workouts due to the pain in my legs. By the end of the program all I had done was work off the 10 pounds I had gained in the first 5 days of working out, and now I was practically a cripple.

Through the whole thing Ryan and I kept talking about things and going over problems I have had in the past 7 years or so, and all the sudden the puzzle pieces started coming together. Something was wrong. What if all these problems I have been having are all connected and are not separate things happening in my body like doctors have been telling me, but are symptoms for something bigger. I have had Pharisees, my hair has been falling out, I have leg pains, weight gain, headaches, miscarriage, dry skin, depression, intolerance to heat, and lack of energy. I called my mom to tell her what had happened and the first thing she said was "you have a thyroid problem". Why had I never connected these dots before? The doctors always had some simple and quick answer for everything. You need to be more active, you just had a baby, you are just stressed, this is normal.

My mom has suffered with thyroid problems for years now, and was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease some years back when I was a teenager. We looked up the symptoms for it and I had 10 out of 10 of the symptoms. It was overwhelming. it is the biggest double edged sword to know that you are not having these weight and pain problems because you are just a lazy pig (like I have thought for the past 7 years), but on the other had if it was just you, that is a lot more manageable and fixable then a disease. I made an appointment to see a doctor, Ryan and I sat down and wrote out my medical history and did some research on the disease and prepared our case to present to the doctor. I was no longer going to be satisfied with a quick simple solution to my problems.

We went to the doctors, we told him of the family history and all the symptoms I had been experiencing for years, and I basically cried and begged and told him I could no longer live this way, and that I was unwilling to live my 30's like I had lived my 20's. He sat there until Ryan and I had exhausted every point we had to make and then he told me that I should take more fish oil for my hair and more vitamin D for my depression, and that there could be several reasons why I gained 10 pounds in 5 days. My thoughts about what he said are... so you are telling me everyone who does not take fish oils hair fall out... you will fix my depression , but I just have to live with the severe pain in my legs... and I would sure like to talk to the 5 other people who have told you they went on an intense workout program and diet and gained weight. It was a joke, but I refused to leave until he gave me the prescriptions I wanted and agreed to test me for thyroid problems and Hashimoto's disease. Oh, and the weirdest thing about all of this was that the night before I went to the Dr.'s we were watching mystery diagnosis and it was like watching my life on t.v., and it ended up being Hashimoto's disease. I just sat there crying, and all Ryan could say was "that is you". It was just one more thing that confirmed what was happening to me was real I was not just making all these things up. The prescription I got did not do me much good though because the medicine I need is on a world wide shortage right now, so there are waiting lists at every pharmacy, my mom cannot even get hers. Lovely timing I know. So I started on an alternative medicine and waited for my blood tests to come back. Now I have had my blood tested many times before all of which have come back normal, so he said he would do a different test this time. After waiting forever and not hearing anything I finally called the doctors office and they said it had been in for awhile and they didn't know why I didn't get a call. It showed that I do have a bad Thyroid problem, but they said I did not have Hashimoto's. I forgot to ask what kind of test they did to determine I did not have the Hashimoto's. Knowing what test is important because after talking more to my mom and researching things online I found out that there are two different tests and sometimes you can show up on one and not the other.

Hashimoto's disease is basically your body producing antibodies to attack what is trying to get to your thyroid, so the hormones that fuel your thyroid are not making it there for your thyroid to use, and since your thyroid controls just about every function in your body that is why the symptoms are so weird and vast and continue to get worse and worse. My mom did not have her Hashimoto's show up until she was pretty much bedridden with symptoms. So I am not willing to wait until it gets to that point for me. I will just continue to go to different doctors until I find someone who is going to treat the problem and not just my symptoms. I have read tons of similar stories online just like mine, and all though it is very overwhelming to see your life's miseries mirrored in someone else's story it is just as excitingly overwhelming to hear of how they fought to be an advocate for their own health and got their lives back by not giving up and demanding a solution.

My first step is going to be to get a new doctor, and my second step is going to be to try and get this medicine that I desperately need, and my third step is to get my life back. It has taken my mom probably 15 years or more to straighten out her medical problem, so I am hoping with her having done some of the leg work I can be ahead in this game. As for our families future, I am not sure. I know with the extra weight it is just far to risky for me to get pregnant and I am just not willing to risk my life, Jayna's mom, and Ryan's wife for another baby as much as I would like to have one sooner rather than later. Even with the pregnancy risks aside I physically do not think I could care for two children the way I would want to with the low energy and pain I am constantly in. I have lots of hope though, so if my plans of the perfect family timeline have to be put on hold and it turns out different then I thought it would be, then so be it. I feel very grateful for what I have. It was no easy task getting Jayna to our family, and now after I have learned more about this disease it is even more amazing that she is here, and that we got to the wonderful and inspired Midwife that we did. Heavenly Father did not let these problems interfere with our desires to bring a child into our family, and I know that if I am smart about things and do everything I can he will not let it interfere with that in the future. I know that the hereafter is going to be an amazing experience, but I am convinced that nothing will compare to the experiences that we all have here on this earth with are physical bodies. There are things we can feel and experience in this life both painful and joyful that I think will just not be comparable to anything else.

If you want to read more about Hashimoto's and other thyroid problems this is a great website that was created by someone who has gone through basically what I am going through. It will just blow your mind that there are so many people out there suffering just like I am and cannot get proper care from their doctors. Stop the Thyroid Madness

Ammons Heroes - Buddy Walk 2009

This weekend we went to our second annual buddy walk to support our little nephew Ammon who has down-syndrome. Ammon is the cutest thing ever. He has had a rough going this year with various health speed bumps, but he is doing well and coming around to his old self. This year Summer named his team Ammons Heroes, but we feel like Ammon is our little hero. If you have ever read Summer and Brians blog posts about Ammon you know you cannot read about him with out feeling touched or inspired. I think we all learn lessons from our own trials and struggles and from hearing about others trials and struggles and that is what is so neat about Ammon. He has touched and taught us so much and has done so without ever uttering a word. He just has to look at you and be in your presence to do so. So neat to realize that everyone has their own little path and journey in this life.

We had a blast playing carnival games with Jayna, participating in the raffle, and eating snow-cones and all sorts of sugary treats. We cannot wait until next year!

A Sunday Summer Party

Ryan and I are so bad at remembering peoples birthdays. It has been something we have struggled with ever since we got married. We always mean well, we set alarms and write it on the calendar, but when it comes to the actual day we always forget. So when we realized that we had forgot Summers birthday we felt so bad. I even called her and cried about it, because Summer has been the best sister-in-law I could have ever asked for. She is one of the kindest, nicest people I have ever meet. So to try and make it up to her we invited the Cheneys and Devin to our house for a nice Sunday Dinner. I made black bean and corn chunky salsa and grilled chicken with citrus salsa on a bed of mixed greens. It was so yummy! Hopefully I can sneak this dinner in again before the weather gets too cold to grill. We also had Izze sparkling sodas to drink and S'mores for our dessert. The little kids loved just playing out side while we ate, and the boys loved climbing the big tree out front. It was a great Sunday with family and we will try harder to remember everyones birthdays this next year.

Honey Go Get the Punch Bowl...

About a week ago I noticed a crack in our glass pitcher right at the base of the handle. The crack had not made its way all the way through the glass, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it did. So I tossed out the pitcher and made a mental note to pick one up next time I was out, but I forgot. So the other night when we were finishing up making dinner Ryan asked where the pitcher was and I told him I had thrown it out. He still wanted to make some punch so I tried to think of what we had that we could use and told him to go down to the basement kitchen and get the punch bowl. Busy getting the table set and Jayna in her high-chair I didn't pay much attention to what Ryan was doing with the punch, until I looked over and saw that he was making the punch in an old fish bowl of ours. I said "please tell me you at least washed that", of which his reply was "no it looked clean". I then told him that that was not the punch bowl, but a fish bowl of all things. Now I am sure I washed it after the fish were disposed of, but it for-sure had not been washed since the move. Needless to say I did not have punch with my dinner, all though others did of who I shall let remain nameless. To my surprise no one got sick.

Back to the Darkroom

Back in the day I was really into photography and somewhere between being a makeup artist and honing in my designing skills that talent has sadly gone by the waste side. So now I find myself not up to date on photoshop with an outdated camera that actually takes this thing called film. So I am trying to get back into the swing of things and brush up on my old passion. The inspiration for all this being my beautiful daughter Jayna, how could I not want to take pictures of her. So here are some pictures I just took with my digital point and shoot actually. I am just experimenting with some different editing and having fun. Sadly my camera broke after taking these pictures, so I need to go pick up a new one, and then maybe Santa will bring me the one I really want this Christmas.

Sis...Boom...Bah!

We had an early 4th of July celebration this year ( if that is possible ). We had the pleasure of having Julie, Cameron, and Olivia Brown over on the 2nd for dinner while they were in-town from Virginia. They are such good friends and we love their company, so we were really excited to have them over. I made homemade hamburger buns for the first time and they turned out pretty good. We had bacon cheese stuffed hamburgers, homemade salsa ( Julie's famous recipe ), grilled corn, fresh berries, thyme lemonade, and homemade vanilla ice-cream with raspberry sherbet and blueberries for dessert. It was soooo good! I made cute little place markers, paper cones for everyones chips, and 4th of July ribbon wands for the girls to play with. I was hoping we were going to eat outside, but the weather did not quite cooperate. Some how I forgot to take pictures of the food. Oh well. We all had fun talking and watching the girls play. We are always left wishing the Browns lived closer when they come to visit.






The next day we had Ryan's parents over while they were in-town. It was fun, we got to show them the new house and hang out all day. Ryan and his Dad and brother replaced and fixed all the main sprinkler valves, and I think it only took 3 trips to the hardware store. Jayna had fun playing in the yard with her "Maga", and she even got a big girl rack to play with, so she can help us in the yard. That night Summer and her family also came down and we had pizza and hung out. I only got this picture out of all of it though. I need to be better at remembering to take pictures.



Then on the 4th we woke up and went to the farmers market down-town. It is my favorite thing to do during the summer. I love seeing all the fresh produce and it is fun to have breakfast there as a family, except for the breakfast stands I always pick take forever to get you your food. We spent most the morning there and got green-beans for our dinner. Then we just took it easy for the afternoon. That night we had Marshall over and we had a great dinner. We had tri-tip, spinach and strawberry salad, garlic bacon green-beans, and pesto bow-tie pasta. It was the best dinner ever. We ate outside and the weather was perfect. It was a dream come true for me! Beautiful family, beautiful house, beautiful food, beautiful country. It was a full circle moment for me (not to be too dramatic or anything). So we enjoyed our dinner, played with sparklers, and waited for it to get dark. Marshall bless his soul, bought this huge box of fireworks. He originally wanted to buy a bunch of illegal fireworks and take them out to the salt flats, but since he does not have a wife I had to step in and be the voice of reason. So are compromise was that he could buy as many legal fireworks as he wanted and set them off in the court. The boys had fun burning their money and Jayna and I had fun watching them. We had leftover homemade ice-cream, and roasted marshmallows on the hot coals in the BBQ. It was a long three days of entertaining, but it was fun and what I live for.

Let Freedom Ring

I have the perfect house for the Fourth of July! Even before we moved in I knew I was going to have to go buy some flag bunting for the windows. I got a really good deal on these three, and will probably buy more for the upper windows next year. I got some great red, white and blue lights from my grandmother too, so I put them on the gate and fence going down to the basement. I picture all sorts of fun Fourth of July BBQs in our future, especially when we get a fence up and the yard done. Now I just need a flag to put on the house.

Finally

We are finally in our new house! I think about everything that could go wrong with a move did. Everything from our car getting stolen, to being homeless for two weeks, our truck reservations being lost twice, living at a dirty motel, a tractor being parked in front of our storage unit, and someone hitting our budget truck. You name it, it happened. I have to count my blessings though. As hard and frustrating as everything was and as much as I realized I would have made a crappy Job I am grateful that it was only a temporary trial. As Ryan and I sat in a motel room with Jayna asleep in her port-a-crib and the only things we had were what we could fit in our car, and the rest in storage, we could not help but get emotional thinking of all the people who have lost their jobs or their homes and have had to leave all their belongings to go take their families to motels or shelters wether self inflicted or not. It is a terrible feeling to have no where to live.

So our new house is slowly starting to feel like home. We have been in it less than a week and are still very much in the unpacking stages still. We are quit furniture challenged with all the room we have now, but I plan on working on that of course. I am excited to dive into another home renovation. I am hoping this will be my best work yet.

We have meet most of our neighbors in our little court and they all seem very nice and friendly. A couple of them saw us moving in at night and even came over to lend a hand which helped out a lot. The bishop was over at our house before we had even been their for 24 hours so we get the feeling this ward is on top of things. We went to church on Sunday and meet a few more people, the ward seems really great and has lots of children. I think there are at least two nurseries and three sunbeam classes.

I do not have many pictures of the house in fact the ones in this post are the ones the inspector took. So I will have to take more when I find the charger to the camera. The outside needs some cleaning and work especially the landscaping, hopefully we will get to some of it this summer, if not for-sure next summer.

MOVING!!!

So Ryan and I a couple months ago decided we were going to try and sell our condo and get a house. There were many things that led us to make this decision, but it was kind of out of no where considering we do not really have to move. Many of you know we have been working on and renovating our condo since the day we moved in, and will be doing so it looks like until the day we move out. So do to all the improvements we have made we were confidant it would show well, but did not know how long it would take to sell giving the economic circumstances.

Well we did not even have a chance to get a for-sale sign up. We got two offers in 6 days and our now under contract. Now in this market it is not over until the fat lady sings, but so far everything looks good. We have also had an offer that we put in on a home accepted and pending inspection etc it looks like we will be in a new place by the end of next month. We are really excited! Everything has gone so smoothly and we just feel really lucky and blessed. The home we are currently under-contract to buy is in Taylorsville just directly west of where we live now. It will still be a short commute for Ryan, although he may need to wake up 15 min before he needs to be at work instead of 5 min. I will post more details about our new home as soon as things are a little more concrete. I wouldn't want to jinks anything.

We have started packing up some of our first boxes and it just does not seem real. I had no problem leaving our home in Provo, but this is a different story. This was our first home we purchased, and we have put a lot of blood sweat and tears into the place. It is also the place that I brought my first little baby home to. If I could take the whole nursery with me I would. In-fact I have decided that Jaynas room will be the first room I do in the new house. It makes me too sad to think she will never remember the nursery that I painted for her while 7 months pregnant. I am going to duplicated it as much as I can when we move. I have been warning Ryan that there is going to be a lot of crying when we move. He laughs, but I am really serious. I think the whole thing has been stressful, because we have just decided to do it. It is almost like if we had to do it, it would be easier because we would not second guess ourselves about the decision.

So I will try to keep updating my blog here and there through the craziness of all of this, but I am sure there will be a period of time when we do not have internet hooked up.

Oh, if you are curious about some of the things we did to our condo her are some pictures we put up on the internet of it.

Life after Turning One

Life after the big B-day party has been crazy and great. Jaynas new hobby is climbing. She apparently has decided to skip Gymboree and go straight to free style climbing. We find her hanging off of everything and anything she can get her little toes on.





We also recently visited Wheeler Farm down the street where she got her first up-close look at all those animals that are in her bedtime stories. She was really amazed by the pigs. I always make the pig noises when their are pigs in her books and I think she was just really shocked that something other that me really did make that noise. She feed some sheep and horses and tried to mimic all the noises she heard around the farm. We have since been back with Dad twice and stop there any chance we can get.



Jayna has really enjoyed playing out on the balcony now that the weather is nice. Although we knew it was just a matter of time before she figure what items could fit threw the railings. So we have made numerous trips to our downstairs neighbor to retrieve DVDs.

Happy Birthday!!!

This year has gone by so fast! We just can not believe are little baby is ONE now. Jayna has been such a joy in are lives and we can not imagine life without her. All the trails to get her here were very worth it. She has amazed us with how well she has progressed despite her early premature arrival. Jayna as small as she is has such a huge personality that makes us laugh and wonder in amazement everyday at the things she comes up with.

This being our first birthday together not drugged or in the hospital I wanted to do something fun and exciting to celebrate our special day. I figured since it was also my birthday that I could get away with doing something a little nonconventional for a first birthday party. So don't ask me how I came up with it, but we ended up having a "HIp Hop" party and it turned out really great.



Jayna was all decked out in her Puma jacket, glitter shoes (courtesy of my aunt), initialized hat, and of course her blinging gold necklace I made her.



Ryan and I were an security detail with badges and everything. We checked people in at the door and made sure they had on their hot pink wrist bands so that we knew they were part of Jaynas "crew".





I decorated her highchair all cute for her with stickers and garland I made. Then behind her highchair on the wall I put up pictures of her imposed with different celebrities. The pictures were hysterical, and were my neighbor Holly's idea. Thank Holly!





We had a fun little spread of berries with whip cream, pita chips with spinach parmesan artichoke dip, pretzels dipped in milk chocolate with pink chocolate drizzles and sprinkles, and cupcakes in gold wrappers with fondant ones on them. I also spray painted tapes and records gold and pink and had them scattered on the table and around the house as decoration. All in all I thought it turned out really cute.



I have to admit that I impressed myself with the cake I made for Jayna. I had bought this giant cupcake cake mold a while ago and had done several trial attempts at frosting and decorating it, but it never turned out how I wanted it. So I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled this off the night before the party. Not bad for my first time using fondant. The pain was hand painting the whole bottom part with an edible metallic paint and dusting it with edible glitter. Some how along the way of thinking up this cake I also had visions of it spinning on a record player in the middle of the table. So after calling everybody and every place imaginable to either rent, borrow, or buy a record player or turntable that would not cost me more than $50 dollars I found this one on craigslist in Arizona the night before my mom and Mark were coming out and had my brother hurry and go buy it. It was only $15 dollars and it cleaned up well. He had to go to the ghetto in Phoenix to get it though, and he was pretty sure he gave the girl money to buy drugs, so it was pretty authentic for the party to say the least.



We have been teaching Jayna how to blow out birthday candles for awhile in hopes that she would be able to do it come her birthday. She is really cute when she does it and pulls a funny face when she blows. The only problem is she can not differentiate between the candle and the cake, so long after we took the candle away from her giant cake she was still blowing on the cake instead of eating it. It was really funny and we all got a good laugh out of it. She was not too sure about everyone singing to her, but she didn't cry or anything. After the cake had been on her highchair for awhile she finally dug in.





We played some fun games at the party too. I drew a picture of a gangster and you had to "fix the grill on Lil' Will" so I had gold teeth that you had to try and place on him like pin the tail on the donkey. We also played a slang game where you had to fill out on a sheet of paper the real meaning of all the slang words listed and then I had a jar of multicolored twizzlers that you had to guess "how many twizzles are in the jarizzle?" They were fun and tongue 'n' cheek and who ever won a game got a Jayna Berry signature perfume called Berrylicious. It was just dollar store perfume that I had changed the labels on. Then everyone got to take home a CD titled Tunes From the Crib that had hip hop music on it.





We had fun putting on the party and hope all those who came to celebrate with us had fun too. It was fun having my Mom and Mark out. Thanks for all your help you two.



Jayna is such a good baby, but I thought for sure if she was going to have a melt down her Birthday would be the day. She didn't though, she just partied the whole time. In-fact we were worn out way before she was. It got Ryan and I talking about her little personality and how it must just be how she is. We thought back to a year ago that day and how stressful and overwhelming her situation in the womb must have been and how none of it affected her. She was just fine her heart beat never even fluctuated. Even the doctors where shocked at how well she was handling it. She had no amniotic fluid, the placenta was already mostly deteriorated, and she was breech, but none of it bothered her. We love her little personality and know it is what helped her get here.



Jayna was the best little birthday present I ever got. I am not sure any present could ever top getting her, so I just hope we will have this much fun together every year on our Birthday.