Halloween! {foto friday x4}

McKenna “celebrated” her 1st Halloween this year!  And by “celebrated” I mean, went to daycare and rode in the stroller during their Halloween parade.  Came home for a quick photo shoot and then quickly passed out and slept through ALL the trick-or-treaters + barking dogs barricaded upstairs.

(1) McKenna came home today with a pudding painted pumpkin from arts and crafts at daycare.  The purpose was to help her with some of her senses. Texture – pudding + pumpkin. Smell – Pudding. Taste – pumpkin. Admit it, it is cute. The pumpkin won’t make it till next year, but it is still cute.

(2) McKenna and her little buddy Madelyn during the daycare Halloween parade. M looks REAL amused! HA!

(3) McKenna and Momma in her fun Halloween outfit from her Great Auntie Jean.  She was ADORABLE in it and I am still a little annoyed (but not really) none of the daycare teachers mentioned how cute she was in it yesterday.

(4) And McKenna is her Disney princess onesie dress.  She supposed to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid, but it is kinda a stretch.  Don’t worry M, next year, we are going ALL out!!

Halloween was fun. But, we cannot wait till next year when we can see her march in the Halloween Parade dressed to the nines (yes we will take off work) and then go trick-or-treating with her. People. I am SO excited for my future.

And. I can’t wait for all you moms to start posting your Halloween posts.  So, start writing ladies!

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I HAVE NO ENERGY TO THINK OF A WITTY FUN TITLE. NOR AM I CREATIVE. PLUS I AM EXHAUSTED AND ITCHING FOR THE WEEKEND.

McKenna’s 1st Family 5k:
We “ran” the Big Pumpkin 5k in Roswell.  I think this was my 3rd  time running this race and I have always liked it.  Good mix of hills and flat road. The kids who were part of a running “team” were ADORABLE and while I want M to stay little forever, it made me so excited for her Elementary School days.  Moving on: we rocked the race if I do say so myself. We finished in 40:59 … which isn’t my best 5k time … but it is really good for the fact that I really have not been running anything hilly with McKenna in the stroller or really running at all. Little Miss slept the whole time and Kyle (who finished in 28:52 & beat his last 5K time) cam back to meet us.  I still think that we would have finished faster had the finish line not been littered with speed bumps!!!

Health Update:
monday was my eye appointment. and honestly, I was terrified for bad news. my eyes have always been wonky, feeling heavy and randomly blurry. I was terrified I would get bad news since I honestly have no idea how long I had melanoma on back.  However, after to say “my doctor found melanoma” out loud to a medical professional {which makes it feel so much more real} and crying a bit I got a comprehensive eye exam and my eyes were given a clean bill of health.

tuesday was the appointment with the skin cancer specialist. terrified doesn’t even begin to cover how scared I was. full disclosure: over the weekend I had my 1st emotional breakdown since I was told that I had melanoma. I was scared for Kyle and McKenna and if they would be ok if anything happened to me and I didn’t want to miss anything – I had an ugly cry to kyle. And I cried at the doctor Tuesday. Truthfully, I was scared that my laziness in going to the dermatologist was legit going to kill me. WELL. We got some good news. Yes, I have (had?) melanoma, but it looks like it was caught early. So it was stage 1A and .33 millimeters deep. Which means the probability of it spreading to my organs etc is like 5%.  And they cut that bad boy out and I will have like a 6” scar on my back and now we wait to see to make sure the margins are clear and it hadn’t spread to any other parts of the skin.  I have one more mole that is going to be removed in December, and I will find out hopefully sooner than later that they 100% cleared all the melanoma out this week.

I do still have my physical on Monday to ensure that nothing has spread and to just get an overall assessment of my health.  Fingers crossed that all goes well.

I would be lying if I wasn’t bummed about my working out instructions or better yet, my instructions to not work out for what seems like an eternity. AN ETERNITY I TELL YOU. Because of where my excision took place this week I cannot work out (other than walking and running and bis and tris) for 2 months. That means no Blast900 and no Flywheel and no Pure Barre till December.  Well… let me add salt to the wound. I have the 2nd mole being removed in December and it is in the same general area on my back, which means I cannot work out for 2 months after that. Giving me a total of 4 months of non of my amazing studio workouts.  I.AM.NOT.HAPPY.

I was just starting to fall back in love with Pure Barre and got the 3 months unlimited Baby Bounce Back & luckily the owner in Dunwoody is amazing & she is allowing me to hold off on starting the 3 months till February. Flywheel opened their 3rd location practically in my backyard and I was booked for 2 rides this weekend – had to cancel – and I cannot start my #dawnpatrol 5:30 AM rides with them until 2015.  People. I was counting.down.the.days. till they opened and now I have to wait.  And… Blast well you know the drill.  And they are being superb also because my package expires before when I can use all the classes.  Well, they are going to credit me my classes once I am back in action.  I know in the grand scheme of things I shouldn’t be so worried and worked up over my studios being out of my life for 4 months, but I need those extra hard workouts sometimes and I still have like 20 pounds to lose post McKenna.

In Other News:

Stay tuned for Halloween costume pictures and how the Santa visit goes this weekend!!

Wear Sunscreen, Yo.

LIFE.
IT IS JUST THAT. LIFE.

So. Where to begin. Kyle’s sister and boyfriend came into town last weekend. It was fun. Low key and fun. I was glad that McKenna got to meet her Auntie Katie and “Uncle” Joel. And people. SHE WAS SO GOOD. This little baby of ours. Pure Joy.

McKenna is thriving in daycare. She is reaching for toys. and is like a few weeks away from sitting up on her own. and she is just so big now. I adore her and cannot wait to snuggle with her all weekend!

We have our 1st family 5k tomorrow and I am excited to bundle M up and get back to running and racing. I LOVE this 5k and I hope McKenna wins her age group. =D

And McKenna goes to see Santa on November 1. Which I am so excited about. 1st Santa at Phipps experience. We are so excited to start our traditions.  And. Santa at Phipps is one of those traditions.

AND.
IF I CAN BUG YOU?
CAN I REQUEST SOME PRAYERS?
PLEASE?

Last Friday I went to the dermatologist at the urging of Kyle and I am grateful he asked me to go. He thought some moles were odd. Nope. They were fine. But there were others that were odd. 3 biopsies later, I found out 1 was abnormal, but they think they removed it all {which I hope they did because hi, yeah, it still hurts 1 week later} and 2 came back not good. Melanoma not good. 1 worse than the other.

When you Google melanoma it pretty much tells you that is it dangerous and you will die. And you don’t even have to open a web site to see that – it is just there. BOOM. Thanks Goog for the high five of confidence. ‘Preciate It.  Then you tell people you have melanoma and they act like it ain’t no thing – that it can be removed and  you will be fine.  And then Kyle asks, “B, do you have Cancer” and I have NO IDEA how to answer that question because I don’t know. I guess? Maybe? Yes, but it isn’t a big deal? And then I feel like Cancer & “not a big deal” don’t belong in the same sentence. I don’t know what I have or anything about it. I didn’t think to ask questions. Honestly, I didn’t even know what she was saying until I googled the word “melanoma”. I don’t even know what questions to ask on Tuesday.

I just got a phone call telling me to go get an eye exam to make sure there is nothing wrong with my eyes {begin panic – is that why my vision has been blurry and wonky?!} since it can spread to the eyes. And to get a physical to make sure nothing has spread any where else. And  that the skin cancer surgeon will call me to get me in ASAP for surgery/removal.  And that I have to go to the dermatologist every 3 months for 1 year and then every 6 months for 5 years.  I mean – how can  you not worry when those are your marching orders?!  And then I now panic about any knife to skin since I had freaking MRSA after my C-Section. Y’all. I can’t.

So, Monday I have my eye appointment.  then Tuesday I have my mole removal surgery and then my physical is the following Monday. And I am being immature and petty and worrying about the wrong things, Like I should be worrying about the outcomes and if it spread, but my shallow, vain concerns surrounds me potentially not being able to work out post surgery. My documents say, “no working out for 2 months” because of where the mole is … and that just makes me RAWR.  I am loving my Pure Barre routine and my spin studio just opened in Alpharetta. I am finally getting OK with how I look post pregnancy and I can’t {correction, don’t want to} take 2 months off.

But. Deep Breath. Any prayers you want to lift up or good thoughts you want to give me or whatever you do, I won’t turn them away. And. I will keep you posted on how everything goes.

Until then. Have a rocking weekenddddddd! =D

Oh and Roll Tide, Beat Tennessee!

5 things friday. Speed Edition.

I have 15 minutes to get this done before M’s bath time – so ignore all the grammar mistakes and incomplete sentences.

1. My anxiety level is at like a 14 this morning until I hear from kyle how mulligan and kennesaw’s trial day at daycare went.  They used to go all the time. then we moved and became bad dog parents and stopped socializing them. now we need to figure out a plan about who is going to watch the crazy kids when we are in Virginia since my brother does not appear to be an option this year.  my anxiety level wouldn’t be sky high if kennesaw wasn’t giving us problems, like biting a little white dog that was harassing us. Le Sigh. Or if she wasn’t having slight leash aggression issues. And we never should have stopped socializing them. Again. Le Sigh. ‘

{and break. must start bath water and take the baby upstairs – which means she will wake up and cry because well, she still does not nap at daycare.}

2. I have been back at work for a little over a week and it feels great to be back. I am busy revamping our training program’s content so I am becoming a PowerPoint genius. And I am for sure staying busy which is all I want and require and need. Of course I miss her, but it is so good to know she is in such amazing hands.  It takes A LOT of the worry away.

3. I started back at Pure Barre to help the process of getting my body back. And I forgot how hard it is, but also how dang boring it is.  But I am going 3 days a week at lunch since I bought 1 month unlimited and I know I will see some results since I have done this unlimited month thing before.  But it reminds me how much I need a high energy, high impact workout class to keep my attention, and keep me going.  Pure Barre = yawn.

4. I am late to the Gone Girl party, but I am hooked on this book.  I have about 40 pages left to go and there is just not enough time in the day to read. I need to take a mental health day just to read.  Confession: I was late to work yesterday because I was reading in the car and lost track of time.  Whoops!

5. I am legit freaked out by this Ebola thing. I saw Outbreak as a child and that is not something I want to live through or be around. I will 100% go back to being sequestered in my house with McKenna if that means we will not catch the Ebola and our bad dogs didn’t have to get euthanized because we have the Ebola. And that is all I will say about that.

But I gotta go back to Mom duties. Making the bottle and all that jazz!

McKenna Goes To Daycare!

McKenna survived her first few days of daycare and I survived my first few days back at the office. Kyle and I may have watched the daycare webcams a zillion and one times and had to call to have our “views” reset, but it was fun to just see her and her little excited legs kicking and having a good time.  Girl hasn’t really napped there so we bring home an exhausted baby, but it appears that she is having fun.  For me, I was a little rusty and a little weepy for the 1st morning back but once I realized M is in REALLY good hands and really occupied it all became easier. Not that I do not miss her and our time together – but it is good to get back to work and away from barking dogs that drive me nuts.

The coolest thing about this daycare place is that they send us pictures throughout the day of things she is doing/has done.  We got a lot of pictures the first few days and Friday and today we have not received any pictures, so my crazy husband, emailed the daycare assistant director asking how often we should get pictures. [And I thought I was going to be the crazy annoying parent]

BUT. LOOK AT HOW STINKING ADORABLE SHE IS!! 

I love that she gets to go outside on the swings! And then she has a swing in the infant room that she seems to like, but let me tell you … she LOVES the little blue thing with the fish. we can just watch her little feet kick in excitement through the webcams.

Y’all. I love this little bird so much and it makes it so much easier to be apart from her since we get these pictures. If only we would get more or at least 1 per day!!