Happy (laid back, slow moving) Easter

Spring finally feels like it is here to stay! The weather has been wonderful lately and Easter Sunday fit into one of those beautiful days! Our Easter this year, crazily, turned out to be like our Easter last year. Last year I had influenza for Easter, spent all Easter weekend in bed. This year our Easter was super low key, spent at home, making sure Kynzley got plenty of rest. This year we dealt with MONO - yup, Mono! 

A little more on the Mono situation in a bit, first our Easter! Even though it was low key we had a great holiday. Benton was up bright and early wondering if the Easter bunny came to the house. He noticed his basket right away, but we made him wait until Kynzley got up before diving in. Finally, when both kiddos were awake enough the egg hunt was on! They had a great time! After finding the very last egg they were excited to dig through their baskets and enjoyed a piece (or seven!) of candy!
As a family we enjoyed a homemade feast and took in the beautiful afternoon with a (SUPER SLOW) hike on a near by trail!

Our world has seemed to slow down a lot in the last couple of weeks. It feels so weird! A couple weeks back Kynzley came down with what seemed to be a cold. After a couple days of being stuffed up she started to get fevers. We kept her home from her activities and pushed fluids and rest. Some days she seemed just fine and like she was on the mend and then the next day she would be super sick and have a fever again. We tied her seven year well check appointment into a ear check appointment as well since the morning of her appointment she woke up with a fever and stomach ache and was home from school. At the appointment we learned all her yearly stats followed by her ears looking good (for once) but irritated. Since they looked irritated our doctor put through a prescription that we could pick up when needed if her fever didn't seem to go away within a day or two. We waited it out, she missed a couple more days of school and we laid super low. Nothing seemed to be working so we decided the ears must now be infected and filled her prescription. After being on the meds for a couple days she seemed to be turning the corner and perking up! Ha! She fooled us! We would pick her up from school at the end of the day and she could barley walk. She was so exhausted and looked like she was going to fall over. She complained that her stomach and legs hurt so bad - to the point of lots of crying. In the morning it was like getting a sloth ready for the day. She dragged big time! We were starting to think that maybe there was something at school bothering her. Maybe an argument with a friend, struggling with a certain subject, we had no clue! We questioned her constantly hoping to get an answer out of her. All we would get is "Nothing's wrong, I'm just tired",  EVERYTIME!
This past weekend Kynzley had a long break for Easter weekend. We were hoping that with no major plans she could relax, collect her baring's and be back to her spunky self by the beginning of the week. What we ended up getting was a very sick and miserable little girl. You could tell she was trying to play so bad, but just didn't have the energy. On Friday evening, after trying to play all day, Kynzley got very VERY sick! So sick I knew something wasn't right! I took her in right away! After many blood tests run we finally had answers to pretty much all our questions - she has MONO! No wonder she was exhausted every day and was falling asleep constantly!
Because of her diagnosis we have to take a LEAP backwards and eliminate a lot of her activities for awhile. Not only do we have take a break from her busy schedule to assure she gets rest, we have to make sure she has little to no chance of being hit in the stomach.
It has been such a weird time for us. Watching her lay around with no energy to do anything is hard! It's not her at all!!!! She loves to play, run, be goofy and always on the go. Lately she goes from the couch to her bed to attempting to play but gets exhausted very quickly. You know when she is hitting her wall. She goes from bright eyed and giggly to droopy eyes and pale. She understands that she needs rest and when she is tired lets us know and will lay down - today she fell asleep just sitting on the couch in the middle of trying to play.
We hope to have our Kynzley back to her full self soon!!!

We dyed our eggs this year with cool whip and food coloring. It was fun and worked great!

 The bunny was ready to deliver

 

 

 He was so excited when he found his basket!!

Brutus 10 months, Easter 2017

 

 

 

Happy Easter 2017

 

Happy Easter

Holicky's 2017

Look Who's Seven

Better late than never, right?! As I went to write Kynzley's special birthday blog, I turned the computer on - or should say I attempted to turn the computer on - and NOTHING! Just a black screen. Just great! I am now finally able to update the world (or the few readers, lol) on how wonderful our seven year old is!

I still cannot believe that Kynzley is seven! Seven years ago I was told "it's a girl!", seven years ago I laid in a padded bed with a room full of strangers observing my every minute, seven years ago I didn't have the full privilege of bonding with my brand new baby girl, seven years ago I was told I could die, seven years ago I fought (hard) for my life, seven years ago Kynzley and I were told we were miracles. Seven years ago!
Over the last seven years Kynzley has become such a remarkable young lady!!! She is so fun, loves to laugh and have a great time! She has a heart of gold for everyone and everything. She is our animal lover!!!! When she grows up she wants to be a veterinarian. She hates getting in trouble and never wants to disappoint. Kynzley is a perfectionist!!! We have struggled with this since the day she started preschool when she was three. She doesn't want to get things wrong and she wants to accomplish them exactly how the teacher wants it done. Because of this she can easily stress herself out. We've worked greatly on this this year and she seems to be doing well with understanding when she needs to take a moment and breathe. She loves school and does very well academically!
When it comes to style and personality, Kynzley has one of her own!! This year I completely let her decide what she wants to look like when heading out the door. Some days she creates some pretty off the wall looks, but we go with it! I love how comfortable and confident she is and I'm hoping that never changes!!
Kynzley is a great friend and a great big sister! She lets Benton have his way ALL the time. She hates confrontation and Benton knows this. He eats it up! If he wants something his way all he has to do is raise his voice and sissy gives in right away! Someday we are hoping she finds her voice and stands up to him! Ha!
We stay busy with all of Kynzley's activities, that's for sure!! She wants to be involved in everything - she thrives off of being busy and always on the go. After wrapping up Nutcracker this year we thought things would calm down, nope! She found even more things to take up our time. Our weeks consist of horse riding lessons, gymnastics, tumbling class, school activities, play dates and birthday parties, weekend camps and dance. She already has our whole summer booked!
Kynzley's an amazing little girl and I feel so blessed to be her mom!

The traditional birthday room decorations!

Her favorite for breakfast - donuts from the bakery!!

Feels so good to be 7

For her birthday treat at school, Kynzley asked if I could bring in stuff for her classmates to make their own ice cream sundaes. 

Kynzley requested pizza from our local pizza parlor for her birthday dinner. The plan was to pick the pizzas up and eat at home, we surprised her with a couple friends and family members at the restaurant to celebrate!

Our neighbors 

Aubrey, Kynzley and Elise

Kynzley and her cousin Zoie after Zoie performed at the state poms competition 

Father daughter dance 2017

A typical outfit choice for Kynz :-)

Off to riding lessons. On this day, Kynzley's horse got spooked from snow falling off the barn roof and she was thrown off his back. She was tough and got back on and finished her lesson! She was sore for a couple days and needed an adjustment to put some things back in position, but overall no major issues and she's been on a couple times since!

This was Wacky Wednesday and school for Dr. Seuss week. She didn't feel like she looked wacky enough - since she likes to dress like this on a regular basis!

First grade music concert - Ei Ei Oops!

I am beyond blessed that these two call me mom! Kynzley is such a great big sister and sets a great example for Benton!

Kynzley is a great artist! She has a crazy talent that I wish I had! I had the privileged of watching her draw the panther. Her technique is crazy!! She finds a picture that she would like to duplicate, places her pencil on the paper and starts drawing, never looking away from the original picture and never picking up her pencil. Her eyes and hand work together creating awesome master pieces! 

Another day in the ring 

Ready to take on the world!

<3