Yeah Baby!

That's what I'm talking about!!!
I let my coupons stack up for 6 weeks before finally getting them all cut and organized. Just in time for a nice Mix & Match at Vons.

Cost: $240.90
I paid: $81.39
Yep! That's a savings of $159.51 - 68% off. I'll take it.


But, this one!!! This is why I do this. :-) Woo hoo!
Cost: $63.52
I paid: $8.48
Yep! That's a savings of $55.04 - 89% off!

Hair! Glorious hair!

Clare, at just barely one, obviously still has much too little hair to begin a full blown hair obsession, but I couldn't resist a few little clipies and ponies lately. My mom had to work when we were little so I was my baby sister's official hair dresser. We did some pretty amazing things with her long, silky, blond locks. And I've been a babysitter - nanny - aunt hair dooer extraordinaire for many years, so to finally be the mom of a little girlie, girl with hair to do - I can hardly stand it!!!!
So much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

My cute friend Megan has been trying out new stuff on her little princess:

And my amazing sister-in-law did these jaw dropping hearts on my adorable nieces for Valentines Day:
Here are my recent attempts with Clare.
(Yes, she just learned that adorable, fake, kiddie, smile-for-the-camera smile. Be forewarned. It's ADORABLE!)

Fire House!

Preschool field trips rule and this one was the best yet. Our local firefighters let the kids watch them get all suited up, they let them crawl all over the fire truck, shoot the fire hose!, tour the fire house and watch them slide down the fire pole. It was a very exciting day for an almost 4 year old!!! :-)

Quiet time

Shea and I have been struggling a bit lately with naps. I NEED him to nap. Need, need, need it! However, he's pretty sure that he's done napping now. I can still convince him some days and he'll take a good nap - then there are days where he'll lay there for 2 hours and not sleep at all. Stubborn little thing - I wonder where he gets that? But I've outsmarted him!! It's called quiet time!!! I don't know how it works, but put him on the bed, give him some books and call it quiet time and he'll fall asleep every time! :-) tee hee!!

Reading??


Nope!! Sawing logs. :-)

Come on Down!!!!

You're NOT the next contestant on the Price is Right. Bummer! A group from our ward went to a taping of the Price is Right on Monday. It was really fun. We were all a bit disappointed that no one from our group got on contestant's row but we had a blast. It was so nice to get away for half a day and just hang out with Chris and friends. And then the taping itself was super fun too. Drew Carey was funny and one of the contestants won $26,000 on the big wheel -that was exciting.

Then Monday night Clare got sick again and we were back in the ER. Almost all night, but they let us come home and didn't admit her because her neutrophils were way up - not to normal levels yet - but still way up. So that's good news. Weird news today at the Dr's office though - they found out that what caused her drop in white blood cells was that her body had created an antibody to her own neutrophils. So not good at all. We're waiting to find out how that happened and what that means for the future. We'll be talking to the hematologist again this week so more news when we get it. But for now she's great. She's happy and is feeling well. We love this gorgeous, little muffin more than words can say. We're so glad that she's doing better.

Home!

We're home. We've never been so happy to be all together. I knew Clare missed her routine and her home but when we walked through the door this afternoon she let out the most adorable squeal of delight and was kicking her arms and legs with joy. I was surprised that she reacted so overtly. It made us so happy that she knows that she belongs here and was so excited to be home! We've had the best day. Just sitting on the couch, playing games, having dinner, just being together. Family is the most amazing thing in the world. I'm so happy to to have mine all under one roof again.
So...
Clare's white blood cells were tested again this morning and her ANC (absolute neutrophil count) had gone from 0 to 375!!! So, while we're not at the safe 1500-2000, they felt that she should be ok to go home. In fact, with all the people who were walking in and out of our hospital room and having just come from other sickies rooms, she's probably safter at home. The worry is that if she gets sick again, her body has no way to fight and she'd have to be hospitalized again immediately. So we have to be very careful as I mentioned before. We have to wash hands every time we hold her, use lots of antibacterial stuff, no one but us can come close to her w/out a mask etc. etc. But, only until her neutrophils are back up. Her levels will be tested again on Tue. We're still unsure of the cause of all this, but were able to rule out Kawaskai's Disease and some other things. So until they get all the results of all those tests back they think it was just a virus that was attacking her bone marrow and preventing it from making the neutrophils. So now that it's long gone, they should be able to quickly regenerate. If they don't then we'll have a bone marrow biopsy later next week, but we're sure that won't happen!!
Thank you again everyone for all your love and prayers and service, they've been felt and appreciated.
We love you!!

Hosptial Update

Day 2 was long and boring and tonight will probably (keeping fingers crossed here) be our last night. Today we saw our pediatrician, a hematologist, a team from Infectious Disease, several residents, all our nurses and lots of Care Partners. Good thing Clare is social.

So the update is that the Neutrophils (the body's first line of defense - they rush to the site of any infection, damage or inflammation and battle it out) in Clare's white blood cells are gone. A person is considered Neutropenic (when your immune system is compromised and you are are a severe risk of infection due to a low level of neutrophils) if they have a level below 2000. Clare doesn't have a single neutrophil in her blood at all. Entirely gone. This scares people here, alot. However, the great news is that they regenerate quickly and if whatever's causing them to disapear can be fixed, she'll make more in a few days time. So... that leaves us trying desperately to figure out why her little body's not making them. After all the consluting today and endless tests, the smart money is on a wicked, nasty virus that just used them all up. If that's the case, and we're so hoping that it is, as the alternatives are unthinkable, then we get to go home tomorrow, because you can't treat a virus, and then we just have to be super, duper, extra, super, super careful w/ our little Clarabelle until her neutrophil levels are back to normal.
Our wonderful bishop came over tonight and he and daddy gave her a blessing and we feel good. My heart is so full tonight. I'm so grateful for the amazing friends and family who have been so willing and eager to drop whatever they're doing to help a friend in need. Thank you so much for all your comments, your love, prayers, support, well wishes, dinners and kid and husband watching. :-) Your love means the world!
More updates soon. I gotta break out that awesome sleeper chair now. :-)

Admitted to the hospital!! Uggh!

I'm tired.

Wed (2 weeks ago today) - Clare comes down w/ fever. It was over 104 degrees almost the entire time and lasted 10 days!
During that 10 days:
-Shea got a "stuck" (stuffy) nose.
-Chris got a wicked, nasty flu that lasted 3 days.
-Clare had a trip to the ER for said fever. (Lots of tests and five hours later... it's a virus. Go home.)
-A few days later Clare goes in for blood tests to see if it really was a virus.
-We find out (accidentally) at 11pm one night (super, duper scary - she got welts and her eyes swelled shut), and all this while she's still totally sick -that she's seriously allergic to sesame seeds.
-Another trip to the doctor and more blood tests for the allergy sitch.
-Chris then gets a toothache that morphed into a really, really bad abscessed, infected tooth. It's so bad that 4000 milligrams of over the counter pain killers and some Vicadin don't even touch it, so he had to have an emergency root canal on Sunday.
-Also on Sunday Clare's Dr. calls to say he was reviewing her latest round of tests and they don't look good.
-MORE blood tests.
Which brings us to today.
Dr. calls again (I'm beginning to hate it when he calls me.) Her lastest round on test results do not show improvement and he wants me to take her to the ER and from there wants her admitted to the hospital. So I take her to UCLA Westwood, we wait for an hour (and still haven't even made it to Triage - apparently chest pains are more serious that a fever that ended 4 days ago.) when some lady comes up to me and says the Dr. is sending us over to Santa Monica where they have a bed for Clare. So we come over here and wait another hour in admitting. Then we get here and wait 4 more hours before the testing even starts. And then she gets a gazillion tests, an IV (ugh!) etc.
(Side note here: The Drs. were a little concerned when they took her diaper off while examining her and found her bum totally green. I was quite embarassed to have to admit that I may have put in a bit too much Wilton's yesterday when dyeing all their St. Patrick's Day food since her bright green poop still had enough color in it to dye her bum. The resident thought it was funny though. His exact words were, "Shut up! That is so cool!"
What it looks like now is that she's got a really low iron count. Apparently I don't feed her enough meat (among other things) but more importantly and unrelatedly, her body is destroying her white blood cells. They're not sure if it's because of the fevers or in response to the fevers or what and she might grow out of it - but in the mean time she's under neutropenic precautions - which means we won't be hanging around much anymore. She can't be anywhere near anyone who was recently sick, is sick, or might shortly become sick. Another virus/infection will tank her red blood cells and she'll be in serious trouble and admitted to the hospital again for IV antibiotics for days and days. They might have to do bone marrow tests later this week (I can not even describe how I feel about that.) My poor little thing. She's been such a trooper today. I'm so tired right now that even this chair/cot thingy is looking good.
Real good.

Almost famous

Last fall, our boss at the University Apartments paid us $75 to let them come take some video of our place for the 360 Tour on UCLA's website. Apparently it's up now cause here we are, tee hee hee. (Click on the 'click here for the virtual walk through'). It's too bad they filmed our last place, our new place looks better, what's hanging on our walls is better and we have our very first curtains! Oh well, it's still cool that everyone who checks out UCLA apartments will see our home. :-)

Outrageous claims

Normally I would hesitate to speak ill of a fellow Irish-American, but I think Lucky the Lucky Charms Leprechaun is getting a bit reckless with his claims. First we're supposed to believe that a cereal centered around stale marshmallows is "a part of this nutritious breakfast," now some of the aforementioned marshmallows can control time!!! I'm pretty sure that's a promise General Mills can't keep.

(Yes I posted this on Facebook too. I think it's funny, okay?)

The hottest

Shea heard a miracle ear commercial today. All the actors were saying things people notice about them and one guy says, "People notice my beautiful wife." Shea says, "She is a beautiful wife mom." So I, fishing for a compliment, said, "Am I a beautiful wife?" He goes, "No, you're a beautiful mommy." Then he amended that statement by saying, "No, not beautiful, mommy, you're the hottest!"

Awesome dude!!! :-) Thanks!

1st Birthday Partay!

So, her cake was cute. I loved the homemade fondant. But as Chris mentioned, turned out looking a bit more like a Mardi Gras cake than I'd intended. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. :-)
I did really like the pink, purple and orange. Baby girl colors are so much fun. Clare thought her cake was cool and Shea pronounced her party "the best party EVER!" Apparently, all you have to do to please an almost 4 yr old is play with lots of friends on the playground and eat cupcakes. Duly noted!

One whole year

Sweet, beautiful, little Clare. We can't even imagine our lives without you. We love you so much!

The morning of my induction:
Fourteen easy (woohoo!) hours later:
Introductions:
First weeks:
Blessing:
First Easter:
Some first smiles:

Yummy fingers:
1st Fourth of July:
Summer fun:
And not so fun:
First food:
and LOVING it:
First swings:
Sitting up like a big girl:
My first tooth!:
1st Halloween - little Princess Leia:
Crawling:

Bath time with brother:

First Christmas (love the awesome bed head!):
Gorgeous Birthday Girl!!
Yup! She's eating the entire cupcake in one bite! :-)
She thought her cake was cool. :-)


Happy Birthday baby girl. We adore you!!