Pictures that make me SMILE

Olivia holding Audrey watching a movie

Playing in the leaves

Spending time with cousins

Laying on Olivia's bed sucking on blankies. Audrey doesn't suck on blankies but she knows Olivia does so I guess she thought she'd try it out. Yuck.

I love this grin!

I told her to say "Cheese!" and she does this pose thing sometimes and cocked her head to the side.

Olivia and I making bars for my friend when the wooden spoon got crazy with the mixer stopping the mixer and almost ripping my arm off, flinging batter everywhere, on me, Olivia, and some even flew into the living room. Steve was like, "Hey, what's going on in there." Olivia and I had to laugh.

Addition to the Last Post

After I posted the last post, I started thinking about something that I don't want to be misunderstood. I wrote how Type 1 diabetics can eat like everyone else as long as they match the insulin given to the carbs eaten. I guess I said this because people may look at what a Type 1 is eating and wonder if they should really be eating it. Like if Olivia is having dessert they might think, she shouldn't be eating that. A long time ago Type 1 Diabetics were very restricted with what they should eat. Very low carb was the best. Now that they have figured out about the whole counting carbs deal and matching that with insulin to control blood sugar it is not as taboo to eat more foods. BUT and this is where I want to be clear and I didn't feel like I was in the last post, Olivia can have what other people eat with some exception. If it's worked into her so called meal plan then it is easier to control. What I'm getting at is that if she has sweets or high carbed food she shouldn't eat a lot at the same time because the more insulin given at one time the harder it is for the body to maintain a normal blood sugar. What a lot of Type 1 Diabetics will do is have a treat at a meal but not 5 treats. Or they might have a little pizza but not a lot of pizza. Trying to stay under 30 - 45 grams at each meal I think is good. It might be more as she gets older. If she only has a small amount of carbs and a little bit of insulin then her blood sugar will not fluctuate as much as if she has a lot of carbs and a lot of insulin. THEREFORE, she can eat many foods but it is best to limit the amount of high carb foods and spread them out to different meals. To really control blood sugars very well it is probably best to eat more low carb foods when possible. Am I confusing anyone yet? If we eat pasta (HIGH CARB) I measure it and try to give her a smaller amount. So she can have it, just not a lot of it. Although sometimes she does get a lot and then we just give her the insulin for it and hope that her blood sugar is good in two hours. So if you see a Type 1 diabetic eating something you think they shouldn't, remember this post and understand they are probably working it into their meal plan and things are different these days than they were 10 years ago. I would however never give her real pop because that would send her sugars soaring UNLESS she was having a low blood sugar then she could have it to help bring her blood sugar up. I give her juice though because it's healthier than pop. And I try not to give her juice unless she's low because it does have a lot of natural sugar which raises her blood sugar fast SO at a meal since she is eating more carbs there she usually drinks water or milk. But if we decided to work it into her meal plan, she could have it if she was having a lower carb meal. Make sense?

Now a Type 2 diabetic, which is most of the diabetic population, should be eating low carb because most of them don't take insulin so they need to control their disease by eating low carb. Many can and do treat themselves once in awhile and I probably would too. Can you imagine eating low carb all the time? It would be very hard.

O.k. I'm going to be quiet about this all now, I just wanted to clarify all that. Thanks for listening to me babble.

World Diabetes Day

The following was taken from from the World Diabetes Day website:

About World Diabetes Day

World Diabetes Day (WDD) is the primary global awareness campaign of the diabetes world. It was introduced in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to the alarming rise in diabetes around the world. In 2007, the United Nations marked the Day for the first time with the passage of the United Nations World Diabetes Day Resolution in December 2006, which made the existing World Diabetes Day an official United Nations World Health Day.

So I decided what better day to let you see what a day with diabetes looks like from Olivia's point of view. Beware, it's a long post, I'm very wordy.

Sorry, my camera is not working well these days and is taking horrible blurry pictures for some reason and it won't take close ups so those are blurry also. Bear with me.

Here is her kit we carry everywhere. The book to the left is like the diabetics bible. We find out how many carbohydrates is in everything she eats. We use this if something she eats does not have a nutrition label on it. Her meter, her poker, and her meter strips are to the right. Plus some back up needles in case her insulin pump stops working and some lancets to change them out in her poker daily.

7:41 a.m. She wakes up and we check her blood sugar. A normal blood sugar is from 80 - 120. Olivia's doctor would like her to be in the range of 80 - 200. It's 121. Great morning number. She eats 2 packets of oatmeal, yes 2, she normally just has one but today she was hungry. We have to count every carbohydrate that she eats and that's how we figure how much insulin she needs for the food she ate. I count the carbs and it's 48 grams + 3/4 cup milk which is 9 grams of carbohydrate so a total morning number of 57 grams. I enter this number into her pump at 8:52 a.m. and it gives her insulin.

Steve is poking her finger here.

Next, he places the meter strip on her blood and it reads her blood sugar in like 5 seconds.

11:32 a.m. It's been over 2 hours so I check her blood sugar again. Her blood sugar is 137. Great! To find out how her blood sugar is doing it's best to wait 2 hours after giving insulin to check her blood sugar again. This gives the insulin time to work. To find out real results of how the insulin did you must not eat during that 2 hours. That doesn't always work though because Olivia is young and sometimes can't wait 2 hours to have a snack. Also, if her blood sugar is low she usually tells me that she is hungry or is low and needs to eat. So then of course I check her blood sugar right away.

So now she has a kiwi which is 11 grams carbs, a cheesestick= 0 grams carbs, and 1/4 cup alphabet vegetable soup= 4 grams carbs for a total of 15 grams. I put this amount into her pump at 12:15 p.m.

Then she eats 20 grapes=18 grams, 3 fruit gummy vitamins=4 grams, 3 veggie gummy vitamins=4 grams, and 2 tsp. liquid multivitamin and mineral=5 grams for a total of 31 grams. I put this in her pump at 12:30 p.m.

2:22 p.m. 2 hours later Olivia is saying she is hungry and needs a snack. I wonder if she's having a low blood sugar so I check her. It's 43!!

Yikes, she is really low. I scramble for a box of juice which is 15 grams of carb. When a diabetic has low blood sugar they need simple sugars fast which raises their blood sugar fast. Eating complex carbs doesn't work as fast so she needs fast acting carbs. 15 grams of simple sugar usually will raise blood sugar back to normal in about 10-15 minutes so we are supposed to check her blood sugar again to see if she's back to normal and if not she needs more sugar. With the juice she has 2 crackers=4 grams. The crackers have cheese and mayo on them but these both have 0 grams of carb in them so I don't count them. Foods with 0 grams of carb in them are good for her when she has high blood sugar so that they won't raise her blood sugar any more and they are good in between meals and snacks when we are waiting the 2 hours to check her again. Also, when she is low it is best to also give her some kind of fat like mayo and cheese because fat will help keep her blood sugar steady and hold her longer than just the juice. The juice will cause her blood sugars to rise rapidly but will also come down faster too. Make sense or way confusing?

Here is the blurry box of crackers and it's nutrition label. I look for the serving size up top which is 5 crackers. Next, I look at the Total Carbohydrate which is 10 grams. That means each cracker has 2 grams of carbs in it. So since she had 2 crackers then I should enter 4 grams into her pump.

Enjoying their cheese and crackers. See Olivia's pump pak. It's the black pack she is wearing and it holds her pump inside. The pump holds her insulin which delivers through a tube which is attached to her body and moved every 3 days. I forgot to take a picture of her pump so I'll do that another day.

I check her about 15 minutes later at 2:38 p.m. and her blood sugar is 121. Perfect.

At 3:52 p.m. her blood sugar is 97. It hasn't been two hours but Audrey is up from her nap and wants a snack so I checked her so she could eat too. She has 15 grapes which is 13 grams. I put it in the pump right away. Here's the hard part, Audrey sometimes will take some of Olivia's grapes that I count out for her. Or Olivia will take some of Audrey's and I don't see her do this and if she doesn't tell me that can throw our numbers off. So although we are supposed to teach them to share, in this case I have to tell her over and over, you can't share your food unless you tell me so that I can add or subtract that food from the total carb count.
I also sometimes forget to put the numbers in her pump right away and so in this case she ate 10 more grapes but it was 4:54 p.m. before she got insulin. Argh! Plus grapes raise her blood sugar fast so I feel bad for forgetting.

6:03 p.m. Again it hasn't been two hours but it's time for dinner and I want to see where her blood sugar is at before she eats. It's 151. Yippee. Even though I made a mistake she is doing great. She eats two tiny pieces of a frozen pizza which would actually be 1/2 of a normal slice pizza so I gave her 15 grams at 6:14 p.m.

8:30 p.m. Steve decides he and Olivia should make some cookies from scratch and surprise me with them. I was on the computer. He checks her before they begin so she can lick spoons and such. She is 110. He thinks she probably ate 1 whole cookie with frosting but he's not sure because it was a little hear and there. He guesses how many carbs and he puts 29 grams into her pump.

9:40 p.m. She brings me my surprise and takes a couple bites of my cookie. That is hard to count carbs because I'm not sure how much is in a couple bites. I guessed 10 grams. Put it in her pump and she's off to bed.

10:50 p.m. I'm going to bed and I can't wait for the two hour mark to check her because my eyelids are closing so I check her early. I'm nervous because I never know when she eats sugar or something that we guess at if her blood sugar will get super high so I'm just hoping her blood sugar isn't over 300. I check her and she's 128!!!! Yea!!! We did o.k.

This was a really great day for her blood sugars. They are not always this much in range but if she would of had a high blood sugar we would also have to enter this into her pump to give her insulin and bring her blood sugar down.

One myth about Type 1 Diabetes is that they can't eat sugar or that they need to control their diabetes with diet and exercise. That is true for Type 2 Diabetics but Type 1 can match whatever they eat with insulin and as long as they do that they can eat like everyone else BUT because they have so many long term complications they should eat as healthy as possible to protect their hearts, eyes, kidneys, circulation, etc. (Like we all should.) So Olivia can have sugar as long as we count the carbs and give her insulin for it. NOW, because I don't want her to have a lot of sugar because it's not good for any kid to have a lot, she is limited just like she would be if she didn't have diabetes. She can have cake at a party, or cookies once in awhile, but it is not common to find it in our house UNLESS Steve gets a hankerin' and makes cookies from scratch which I don't think he has ever done before. Type 2 Diabetics can control their diabetes for the most part by diet, exercise, and sometimes medications and/or insulin. Type 1's are encouraged to exercise and eat healthy but unlike most Type 2's, Type 1's HAVE to have insulin or they will die. It's hard to explain to people but here is the big picture. Out of all the diabetics everywhere, 90% of diabetics have Type 2 diabetes, which is usually adult onset from the body not able to absorb the insulin properly. They still make insulin, it just isn't being absorbed like it should. Only 10% are Type 1 Diabetics which is normally diagnosed as a child and their pancreas has been attacked by antibodies and can no longer produce insulin, therefore they have to inject insulin by giving shots or using an insulin pump. Type 1 Diabetes is often misunderstood because the majority of the ads, media, articles, hype, etc. about diabetes is about Type 2 diabetes and so most people when they think of diabetes think of Type 2 and not Type 1. They have some similarites but are also very different.

O.k. I just gave you all way toooooo much information but I needed to get it out there. This day is about making people aware of diabetes so there you go, a day in the life of Olivia Amber Lee.

Veggies + Turkey = Yummy Scarecrows!

So we had a play date at our house weeks ago and I found an article in a magazine about making the below veggie scarecrows. I made them for the kids at the play date and mine didn't turn out quite as good as the picture in the magazine but I thought I'd share it. The turkey legs were actually much skinnier and longer in the magazine and were arranged better but oh well, not too bad. They actually took way longer to make than I anticipated because I'm slow and was talking to my friend while making them so I was distracted. My kids LOVED them. Olivia and Audrey ate a lot of theirs up. Yay for veggie scarecrows!!!

My Lil' Stinkers

The girls and I went back to Wyoming for a visit and they dressed up and trick or treated for the first time. As you can see they were little skunks and they were so stinkin' cute. I didn't capture a picture but on the back next to the tail there was a heart with "lil' stinker" written inside. Ha ha. They were so excited and had so much fun trick or treatin' with their cousins Sara, Faith, and Baby Jason.

A side view

Kyle and Tyler didn't dress up but we still wanted them in the picture. Sara was Hanna Montana, Faith was a princess, and Baby Jason was a policeman.


One of our stops was at Aunt Janna's house. Isn't she fun. She scared Audrey though. Audrey kept crying and saying, "Scare me, scare me."
Made a stop at Grandma Forsgren's
Had a pic with Grandma
Then to Grandma Thompson's

The morning of Halloween, my grandma Thompson had the kids come over to decorate cupcakes. They are all holding up their favorite ones they made.

Isn't my nephew Jason cute? He looks just like his older brother Kyle when he was a baby.

Olivia and Audrey had so much fun with their cousins. It gave me a nice break because they played and played and played. Thanks everybody for a great time back in Wyoming.

Oh, by the way, while we were there we ended up on the front cover of the local newspaper The Rocket Miner. Crazy huh? We were at a park with the kids and a guy from the paper came up and asked if he could take our picture for the paper. He got a shot of Olivia, Sara, and Faith swinging on a tire swing while my mom, Audrey and I were off to the side watching. My mom's dog Ollie even made it in the picture. The title of the picture was Family Time at the Park. Very weird to go back to my hometown to visit and end up on the front page of the paper. Sorry I don't have a picture to share. I'm sure there are copyright laws or something and I'm not even sure how to get in on here anyway.