AnnaBV Designs has moved and has 2 new releases!

AnnaBV Designs has moved stores and is now joining the ScrapOrchard design team! She is very excited about this move and is releasing 2 new kits today to celebrate! The first kit, Love You to Bits, is perfect for scrapping those precious Valentine and love pictures. It also has a coordinating alpha and quickpage set. The second kit is a mini-kit, He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not... with rich colors and adorable elements.

Love You to Bits



Love You to Bits Alpha



Love You to Bits Quickpages


My Layout



He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not



My Layout



Thanks for looking!

Test results from the endo

The endocrinologist called finally with Anna's blood test results and I was sobered by them. Her bone density scan indicates her bone age to be 11 years old (she is actually 8 years, 10 months). Her prolactin and other puberty hormones were elevated as were TSH, insulin, cholesterol and others. Vitamin D was low.

The doctor wants to continue with more tests to further determine how far advanced the precocious puberty is. These tests will include an MRI of her brain to look for structural abnormalities and tumors, an abdominal ultrasound to look at her ovaries and uterus, and more blood tests. She will need to be sedated because of her developmental delays and autism... her anxiety will be through the roof.

I'll be contacting her neurologist and geneticist to see if this gives us any more clues as to what her underlying diagnosis might be as well as to see if they want any additional tests ordered.

I'm heartsick that she will be facing general anesthesia again. I think she's been under at least 7 times already and it always a scary endeavor... I think it's been several years since her last sedation. They will try to do the ultrasound while she's in recovery. I'll keep you posted as to when it will be scheduled. We could use your prayers. Thank you.

Island Day

On Saturday, Jenny and I will be attending Island Day in Corpus Christi. Island Day is Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi's campus preview day, designed specifically for prospective undergraduate students and their families to get a first-hand look at what it takes to become an Islander. We'll be leaving tomorrow for Corpus and spending the night.

I'm super excited to spend some one-on-one time with Jenny. Since Anna and Dominic came along, Jenny doesn't get much alone time with me, save the occasional shopping expedition. I'm nervous for her too, to see her new college campus and dorms. It's becoming much more real that she will be moving away this fall. How surreal! I'll be taking my camera (of course!) and will have some pics to share when I return.

Baby Mine by Becca

Becca has a new kit out today at ScrapMatters called Baby Mine. It is a gorgeous kit for a new baby girl full of unique and beautiful elements. There is also a coordinating word art pack and 12-page brag book that the CT made.

Baby Mine


Baby Mine Word Art


Baby Mine Brag Book


Baby Mine Bundle


My Layout


I have a little gift for you! Here is a freebie brag book page that I created! Click image to download.


Thanks for looking!

Thoughtful Thursday: Second Chances

My husband, Curtis, and I have been struggling in our marriage for quite a long time. We have been working hard for the last couple of years in counseling and had a good spell last year, then in October we hit another pretty rough patch. We've been married for 12 years.

We separated in November.

After a particularly ugly weekend, I closed my heart to him. I was done. For the 2 months, I just went through the motions trying to figure out how I was going to manage my life without him. We continued to go to counseling but had to take a break after Christmas for financial reasons. Last week we began talking about one of our core issues and I felt again that it was hopeless. Curtis gave me the space to be, to think, to process. He asked me on Friday for a decision. Work on it or walk away... though his wish was to work on it. The ball was in my court.

I was anguished. I didn't want to stay married and be so unhappy. So many of our core issues are so big and will require so much work, compromise, and change that it seems overwhelming and daunting. Actually divorcing seems equally awful and it is hard to imagine the toll on our children (our separation has been less complicated since Anna and I are staying with my mom who lives 2 houses to our right). I truly didn't know what to do.

I am not by nature a religious person though I do feel a connectedness to something bigger than myself. How I define God and my spirituality is an intensely personal experience and something I do not often talk about with anyone. But in this case, I really feel as though something bigger than me had a hand in my decision and I'm eager to share this with anyone who is interested in reading about it.

I've been using the analogy of a door to symbolize where we are. For a while, the door was closed... me on one side and him on the other. Around Christmas, it was cracked open and I could see a light. Last week, I could feel Curtis's hand on the door... but I was still on the other side and not sure I wanted to open that door. Since he was willing to continue working on it and I was not sure, it felt selfish of me to say, "It's over." I kept coming back to that his hand was still on the door. How could I leave? We are a team, we took vows, we have a special needs daughter that will need us forever, we have shared so much, and have so much at stake. This decision would have to be OUR decision, not mine... and if he wasn't making the same decision as I was, then I had to really consider my motivations. So I spent Friday in a torment of pain and uncertainty and loneliness wondering what to do.

In my own way, I decided to pray about it. I began thinking of what life is all about to me and what my purpose is here. For me, life is about love. It's about what and how other people feel about themselves when interacting with me (I hope they feel good); it's about being the best mom I can be to each of my children and recognizing that they need different things from me; it's about being a good daughter to my parents and trying to pay back all that they've done for me; it's about living in the moment, being truly present, paying attention, and being mindful; it's about being kind, giving, and loving. It's also about being a partner and sharing this experience with someone else.

Jenny always has a stack of books with her. I hardly ever have to pick out a book to read, I can rely on her to be my book finder and recommend something wonderful to read. What does this have to do with this weekend? Everything as you'll soon see.

Jenny gave me a book to read called "The Shack" by Wm. Paul Young. Her boyfriend's mother lent it to her and she had started it and hadn't finished it. I picked it up and read a few pages and thought it was a murder mystery. (If I had known the genre before, I'm not sure I would've read it.) The story started out sounding like a true story and it was a couple of chapters in before I realized it was fiction. If you're not familiar with this book, let me summarize. A man's young daughter is murdered and he is lost in pain, anger, and sadness for years. One day he gets a note, apparently from God, to visit the shack where his daughter's bloody clothes are found. He returns to the shack to spend a weekend in the company of God.

I want to share some passages from the book that really resonated with me:

"When you choose independence over relationship, you become a danger to each other."
"If you had truly learned to regard each other's concerns as signficant as your own, there would be no need for heirarchy."
The theory is that humanity should be in relationship with each other, not in power or heirarchy over one another. To me, this is how I would really like my marriage defined. I was considering choosing independence over relationship and I knew that path would bring me, Curtis, and our children definite unhappiness... whereas staying, there was a chance for healing and happiness. There has also been a dimension of power and control in our relationship that I don't want present anymore, but perhaps that has been my own perceptions and filters and not reality. The other thing that hit me square in the forehead is that the word "relationship" is used as a verb in this context. We are in relationship with each other, not in a relationship. That feels very powerful to me.

"To force my will on you, is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy."
Now this does not mean that I will be a submissive wife, lol! To me this means that when you love someone so much, that their needs exceed your own... that their happiness becomes your primary concern. When I read this passage, I kept thinking about Curtis's hand on the door. To be genuine to myself and to our relationship with each other, I could not walk away from that. Because I love him so much, and he was not ready to let go, I needed to give this another chance.

"If anything matters, then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will every be the same again."
I have always believed this and have tried to live my life in this manner from every interaction with strangers, to friends, to my family, children, and husband. If something is important to him, it's important to me, and vice versa. It's so easy to lose sight of this in daily living, easy to get caught up in petty drama, reacting instead of preventing, judging instead of loving. This is something in which I want to strive to do better. Life is all about this moment, this one right now! Being mindful about that helps to maintain my focus on my purpose.

Some of these messages are things I have been saying to Curtis over the years. I have been trying to live in a marriage like this and attempting to articulate these ideas but that magical moment of "aha!" had not yet happened for both of us at the same time. I read these passages out loud to him and was so excited to share that the thoughts I had been ruminating, meditating, and praying about were expressed in this very interesting book.

I have reached my "aha!" moment. I want a second chance, I want to give him another chance, I want to give me another chance, I want to give us another chance. Without taking risks, how will I ever know if this could bring me happiness? There are no guarantees, we could do all of this hard work and realize that our core differences are just too big and require too much compromise and that in the end, we can't or don't want to change so much of ourselves that we don't even recognize the person in the mirror... but I do love him and I love him so much that his hand on the door has opened that door wide. Until we BOTH close the door, it will remain open.

Thank you for sharing in my profound moment and for being by my side in this process. Now go out there and LOVE!!!

"If anything is important, then everything is important."

A quickie

I know I haven't been posting much personal stuff lately. That's because all of my personal stuff has been extremely challenging and I've needed to be introspective. I have a lot of deep stuff that has come out of this process and I'm pretty excited to share some of my thoughts.. but it will have to wait until at least Tuesday when the kids are in school.

So tonight I'm hunting around in my mom's pantry trying to find the spaghetti when I hear Dominic say, "Mom, Mom!!!" with an edge of panic in his voice. Inwardly rolling my eyes, thinking to myself, "Now what?" I turn around to discover my mom's ostrich feather duster in Dominic's hands ablaze in 12-inch flames!

Apparently he'd found the feather duster laying out in the office and decided to dust along his path to the kitchen. I guess he got too close to the pan of boiling water and the gas flame ignited the feathers. Oy. I tossed the duster in the sink and got the fire out quickly but yuck, the stench... Poor Pickle was really dismayed. He struggled mightily not to cry.

Talk to you all soon, I promise.

Chit Chat and Chocolate by AnnaBV Designs

AnnaBV Designs has a new kit out today at ScrapMatters called Chit Chat and Chocolate. Perfect for scrapping warm memories on a cold, winter day! There is also an add-on and an alpha set that is so versatile.

Chit Chat and Chocolate


Chit Chat and Chocolate Add-On


Chit Chat and Chocolate Alphabets


Chit Chat and Chocolate Bundle


My Layout


Thanks for looking!

By Becca is guesting at ScrapMatters!

Congratulations, Becca! Today she is releasing a brand new kit called Frosted Jubilee and re-releasing Guess How Much I Love You to celebrate her guest designer status at ScrapMatters. Frosted Jubilee is so beautiful, the colors are rich and the elements are so versatile. I ended up scrapping two pages with it, one that was more girly and flowery and the other more celebratory.

Frosted Jubilee



My Layouts





Guess How Much I Love You (previously released at Enchanted Studio Scraps)



My Layout



Thanks for looking!

December 2009 Siggies Slideshow

Here are some of the siggies I made in December.

Thanks for looking!

2010, A Year in Pictures

I've decided to join in a fun project to take a photo a day and blog about it for the year 2010. Here's the blog:

2010, A Year in Pictures by Holly

Thanks for looking, joining, commenting, or just hanging around!

New Releases by AnnaBV Designs

Happy New Year! Anna is releasing two new kits today at ScrapMatters! The first is Live Like You Mean It, a kit perfect for scrapping all sorts of occasions. It's bright and cheerful. My layout features some pictures of Dominic where he looks very serious. The second kit is Resolutions, a kit to scrap your New Year's resolutions. The elements in this kit are so versatile and fun!

Live Like You Mean It



Alpha



Bundle



My layout



Resolutions



Add-on



Alpha



Quickpages



My layout



Thanks for looking!

Reflections

It's that time of year when we all look back, take stock, make resolutions, and move forward. 2009 had its ups and downs, and overall I feel very lucky in many ways. I am curious about 2010... I have a sense that big changes will be coming.

2009 brought Jenny to her senior year of high school. It's hard to believe that this time next year she will be away at college. Wow. She has been accepted at all three of her top college choices and I think she'll be attending A&M at Corpus Christi to study marine biology. I am so proud of her and the choices she has made. She doesn't drink, do drugs, or stay out late. Jenny and Chris wear promise rings indicating their choice to wait until marriage to take that next, big step in their relationship. She has chosen such a nice, young man in Chris. He is wonderful and treats her with respect.

Anna has had a very good year. Her seizures are more and more infrequent and she's even made it through a few fevers without seizing. She continues to make steady progress in 2nd grade and really responds well to the smaller educational setting offered to her in Resource. She is currently battling anxiety and weight gain (from the Risperdal) and we are making healthier food choices and getting more activity into her daily routine.

This year Dominic started kindergarten. After a rocky start, he has settled nicely into the routine of school though he struggles with impulse control and hyperactivity. He was diagnosed with ADHD in the summer but after a failed attempt with medication and seeing a child psychologist, it is apparent that he is incredibly bright and probably bored. As he gets more challenging material at school, he should settle down some (we hope!).

Curtis and I hit a pretty major rough patch in our marriage but we are working on it, one day at a time. His capacity for love and change is amazing and I hope we can figure things out so that we can both be happy.

2009 brought us Charlie, our Labradoodle donated by Cheyenne Valley Labradoodles. He has turned into such a good dog. He is eight months old now and has completed intermediate dog training. We're going to take a refresher course in January since we took December off and our goal is to have him certified as a service dog for Anna though it may take us another 12-18 months. We don't know yet if he will alert us to Anna's seizures since she hasn't had one since we got him (that is a very good thing!). Here is a picture of Charlie when we first got him and another from around Thanksgiving.





2009 also introduced me to digital scrapbooking and being a creative team member for AnnaBV Designs and By Becca. They are wonderful ladies with whom to work and I've so enjoyed expanding my creativity and love for digital art. I became an Admin at CrumbSnatchers and really became a prolific siggy-maker there. I have so much fun working with other people's pictures and feel very honored to be allowed to little pieces of art with them. I also had the pleasure of doing my very first photo shoot with an adorable 3-month old baby girl. Now that was fun!

I didn't get to retreat this year with my Exceptional Women friends from the iVillage support boards due to financial reasons, but we are all committed to getting together in 2010. I can't wait! We've become so close over the years and it's nice to spend time with other moms who get it.

2010 will be a year of changes. I will be attempting to re-enter the workforce in some capacity... hopefully working with digital photography and Photoshop. I'm taking an Illustrator class in January and I'm studying restoration and retouching techniques. I love love love what I'm doing now and would be thrilled to find a way to earn money doing what I love.

I hope that each of you who reads this reflects back on 2009 with fondness and no regrets, treasure your blessings, learn from your mistakes, forgive, and love. That is what it is all about. Cheers!

Neuro and endo visits

I first want to start off by giving a big WOOT to Jenny for getting accepted into A&M Corpus Christi as an Undergraduate Environmental Science major in the College of Science and Technology. And she got a second letter just hours later with an acceptance to UT in San Antonio! I am so proud of you, angel!

Last week, Anna had a checkup with her neurologist. Since she takes Risperdal, we have to monitor her prolactin levels and weight since this medication affects both of those. I've also wanted to talk about options for her anxiety. We actually had a prescription filled for Zoloft before she started kindergarten 2 years ago to treat anxiety but within a few weeks of school starting and having an awesome kindergarten teacher, she did not need it. Anxiety has been a constant presence in her life, sometimes manifesting as aggression, sometimes as sadness, and often you will see her rubbing her upper lip, like in this picture when she was just four years old.



Anna has been showing signs of early puberty, so in addition to talking to the neuro about the anxiety, I wanted to talk about the puberty stuff also. We ended up with the nurse practioner even though I specifically asked for the neuro and even rescheduled a prior appointment just to see him. But I was pleasantly surprised... the NP was wonderful. She noticed Anna's anxiety right off and talked about different medication options. A couple of months ago, we went ahead and tried the Zoloft but Anna developed a tic with it... she would blink her eyes shut really tight and do it frequently. This child always has such a weird reaction to medications. So we took her off of it, waited a week, then tried it again. The tic returned. So that med is out. The NP suggested Lexapro so we got that filled last week. When I picked it up, the pharmacist said that since Anna is allergic to Keppra (an antiepileptic drug), she might have an allergic reaction to Lexapro too. But so far, it's going well. It takes 4-6 weeks to build up enough in the system to notice a difference and she is at less than half a dose, so the change may be subtle.

While we were there, I also mentioned the signs I was seeing of puberty in Anna. Having gone through this with Jenny, I was realizing that Anna was about 2 years ahead of where Jenny was. The Risperdal (by the way, this med is for behavior and mood if you don't know, helping with aggression, agitation, and mood swings) can cause prolactin levels to increase which can lead to early breast development. So we've been watching that for a while. Anna's been on Risperdal for over 3.5 years. The NP referred us to see a pediatric endocrinologist who we met yesterday to talk about the early puberty concerns.

The endo was wonderful, I really liked her. I knew that Anna had gained a lot of weight this year but since the neuro's scale is in kilograms, I haven't really been paying attention. I will admit that I have been overeating and making bad food choices in dealing with my marriage problems and that has trickled down to the kids. Sigh. Still, I was SHOCKED to discover that Anna weighed 66 pounds in May and now weighs 92 pounds. She's also shot up several inches. She's at the high end of the chart for both height and weight but the endo was very, very concerned about her weight. The Risperdal causes weight gain. Actually, for Anna, it causes her to be hungry all the time, and all she wants to eat are goldfish crackers, peanut butter, and orange juice. We have to make some drastic diet changes for her and for the whole family beginning immediately. The endo also ordered a bone density scan to see Anna's skeletal age. She suspects that Anna's bone growth will be a couple of years ahead of normal to compensate for the weight gain. That in turn can cause puberty to start early. So Anna got an x-ray of her hand this morning to see how "old" her bones are. The endo also ordered 18 blood tests. Yes, you read that right, 18 tests. It was 10 or 11 vials of blood and of course they couldn't get the vein in the first arm. After several minutes of poking around in there, they got the other arm to work. Anna coped so well until the blood finally started flowing and then she lost it. It was this wailing weeping sound that tore through me... poor baby. The endo is checking her thyroid levels, lipids, blood sugars (she said that Anna was primed for diabetes if we don't get this under control asap), prolactin, and lots of other stuff too. We should have results in about a week or so.

So I am going to register with Weight Watchers online. I made lifetime membership years and years ago (and 50 pounds ago, lol) so I know what I need to do to help her eat better. But I need recipe ideas. This will be such a hard adjustment for her and I feel awful for allowing her weight to creep up so rapidly. She battles so much already!

I almost forgot... I have a funny story from the neuro visit. I had to take Dominic with us which does lead to a more stressful appointment but I really had no choice. The NP was very kind in dealing with our chaos, our noise, Anna's anxiety, and overall disruption. As we were leaving, Dominic started hanging onto the back of my shirt so I pretended to not know where he was. I kept asking Anna, "Where's Dominic? Where did he go?" And Anna kept saying, "Right there, mommy. He's right behind you!" And I would spin around with Dominic still hanging on and hear lots of little giggles. We made it down one hallway and were at the checkout desk and I was still playing this little game with them. We even got the grumpy checkout clerk to laugh because Dominic's laugh was so infectious. The NP had given them lollipops so they were enjoying those while I was attempting to set up the next appointment (oh shoot, I still need to do that!) and while I was doing the "where is Dominic?" game. Just as another family came up behind us (one with a baby, I might add so Anna starts perseverating on will the baby cry while she is pinching me arm and while I've still got Dominic on the back of my shirt), Dominic chokes a little on his laughter and lollipop. I hear Anna say "Uh-oh" and I turn to see that Dominic has barfed all over the floor and the backs of my shoes. Lovely! The family behind us who was a moment ago just beginning to giggle along with us is staring at the pile of puke and is frozen in their tracks. Anna is loudly proclaiming, "Ewww, Dominic puked. Why did he puke, Mommy?" I ask the checkout girl if they have maintenance or housekeeping in the building to call to help (after all, it's a children's specialty center right beside our children's hospital and I'm sure they've had some messes before, right?), and she says no. Can you believe that? So I begin this sojourn of trips to the bathroom to clean up my son, clean up my shoes, and clean up the floor. Everyone just watches me, no one offers to help, and by the time we were finally cleaned up and checked out, I felt like hours had passed. Wouldn't you know that we ended up on the elevator with that same family? Groan. Anway, now I can laugh about it because it was pretty ridiculous.

I'll keep you all posted about Anna's test results and if the Lexapro works for her anxiety. Thanks for reading!