Almost Spring Update

It's been awhile since I posted, but I haven't taken many pictures lately.  This winter has been a doozy.  Boise got more snow than it has in decades, and it was cold so the snow stayed for months.  We are so ready for spring this year.  

 Here's some pictures of the kids playing in snow in the backyard, it was so deep.  Andy was so cute, he tried to play in his toy car but then exclaimed- "my truck is stuck, my truck is stuck!"  

He's so cute and it was really stuck.

My pregnancy has been somewhat complicated as usual, but things are looking pretty good right now.  Just a couple months left and we are hopeful.  It will be so fun to have a baby so close to Chrissy's new baby.  We have the same great doctor, so it would be super funny (though unlikely) if we had our babies on the same day.

 Sweet BethAnne turned 14 on February 24th.  She is such a sweet, helpful, faithful, smart girl.  I am so impressed with her goodness and strength.  She helped Mark make and decorate her cake and she did a great job.  She loves baking, cooking, reading, gardening, dogs and learning.

BethAnne's health has been more of a struggle lately. Her kidneys and health in general seem to be getting worse.  She had gotten to the point where she felt like she needed to drink huge amounts of water to not be thirsty.  This was throwing off other systems in her body and making her sodium dangerously low.  She also started to get really (dangerously) high blood pressure which we didn't know about for a couple months.  She ended up in the hospital last week for 4 days so the doctors could run tests and bring her fluid levels down while making sure she didn't get actually dehydrated, some kidney patients do need tons of water to stay hydrated so they needed to see how much she really needed.  They were able to cut her water intake in half, from about 8 liters to 4 liters a day (still a lot, but not as crazy).  Her sodium levels are better now, but it has been an adjustment for her because she often feels dehydrated and thirsty (exhausted, faint, fuzzy headed).  The doctors are hoping that her body gets used to this level of fluid, and they hope to take it down even further.  She is starting to feel a little better now and she's getting back to her normal routine for the most part.  As a parent, you just want your child to have the most normal life possible, so this has been difficult.  Insurance and doctor guidelines make it so that you have to be really far into kidney failure to have a transplant, and we are actually pretty far from that point (if her bloodwork is accurate), so I'm concerned about how ill she will be once she qualifies to have a new kidney.  We will try to be positive though.  Luckily BethAnne bears all things with such humility and grace, now I have to do the same (it's harder when it's your child).  That's my update for now.  I hope you all have a lovely spring, can't wait to see many of you this summer!

Love, Aubrey