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New blog dedicated to our gluten free recipes/findings.

That's Gluten Free?

Thought I'd give you all the *option* of reading instead of FORCING it on you here. :)

Celiac

We think that Taylor might have Celiac Disease. For all the terribly boring details, you can go HERE to find out more about it.

We put him on a gluten free diet on Saturday, and he's been doing FANTASTIC on it. (Honestly, I was hoping that it wouldn't make a bit of difference, but he's feeling so much better...)

We're doing an allergy test on Friday, and blood work in a few weeks. I'm going to say it's about 85% chance he has it. The other 15% chance is just his mom not WANTING him to have it. ;)

Lots of changes going on - You can't believe the labels you have to read to make sure nothing contains gluten!!!

Updates later!

Just another day

Today it was a little cold out, but the kids wanted to play outside anyway. Reagan looked pretty darn cute with her "hood" on!

Jordan spent time riding his bike and has decided his frustrated that it doesn't have a kick stand. He asked if we could go to the store and BUY one. I told him that I was sorry, but I had no idea how to choose a kick stand for his kind of bike, that we should wait for Dad. His reply was: "Mom! I'm a genius! Let's just go to w-w-w dot kick stand dot com!" What a kid!

Taylor had piano lessons tonight and his teacher called to say that he's learning so quickly she gave him more stuff this week because he's just flying through stuff. He LOVES the piano. I'm so glad he does. I think it felt like more of a punishment for me when *I* was taking lessons.

Madison has a birthday party to attend tomorrow. It was fun shopping for a boy with her. She had an idea in mind... wanted to get him a truck.. but when she saw the barbie dolls, thought he'd like that instead. We settled for some safari animals. ;)

And finally, Brian had the fantastic idea to go feed the ducks our stale bread before dinner. (We were waiting for our scone dough to rise...) There were 3 ducks out on the pond we went to, and they wouldn't come over and eat. We had a good time as a family anyway. Here's the photo montage for anyone who wants to see. :)

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Down on the Farm

For Family Night on Monday we went to the Animal Farm. We had a great time!

Right as we got there, they were getting ready to milk a cow. Jordan and Madison decided to participate. Now whenever we ask Madison what she did on the farm, she says "I squished a cow"!

Jordan, Madison and Reagan decided to take a pony ride. I was afraid that Reagan was going to want to take her horse home...




We all went on the hay ride - they have a new horse pulling the wagon named Annie Oakley. The kids didn't know who Annie Oakley was, so we'll have a fun lesson about her sometime soon.

They have a "craft" every Monday night in the barn, and the kids totally enjoyed that.

Reagan got nibbled on by a horse and she thought it was funny.

It was just nice to go an hang out together!

Check out the "smilebox" creation for more photos of our visit. (This one you have to actually click on the arrow to move to the next page, and click on the smaller photos to view them larger.)

Click to play Make your own Smilebox

Birthday Party!

It was Reagan's Birthday Party on Friday!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

We can't believe it's been a year! Life without her would be so DULL!

Reagan's Invite

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Ideas of accomplishment

Sometimes, my idea of "accomplishment" for the day would be just the simple act of taking a shower.

Today?

Not so "accomplished". (So sorry to those close around me...)

But the sticky kitchen floor IS mopped and the garbage has been moved out to the street.

We're shooting for accomplishment tomorrow. (Wish me luck!)

Daddy "dress" up

I found this pattern a few months ago. I shared it with my SIL, but didn't have time to sit down and make it. When she made one for her daughter (seen on her blog) I had to get my rear in gear and make one for Madison!







You take an "old" shirt that Dad doesn't wear anymore, and turn it into a dress for a little girl.

The back yolk of the old shirt becomes the bodice front on the dress.

And the button down front becomes the button up back of it.

The one I made tonight was just an easy, no frills one. I just wanted to make sure I could figure out how to do it. Next time I'll add a few more embellishments.

I'm embarrassed that I don't know who I got the link from originally. Whoever it was, THANK YOU! They're just DARLING!

It's ORANGE Day!

At preschool it's orange day that is.

Honestly, I think Madison had EVERY color in her wardrobe except orange. Lucky for me, I found the cute little orange top on clearance. Then, I found these ADORABLE socks, and just HAD to get them!

Had fun making her big orange bow too. I actually made two of them, but she decided that she only wanted one in her hair. (I think she's caught on that 2 bows = more hair brushing, and she's not fond of it. )

She said on the way to school however that she was going to ask her teacher if they could just have a PINK day - not orange again.

Cute little stink.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled PURPLE Peppers

It's been a bit stormy the past few days. This morning we could see the "first snow" on the mountains.

Goodness it's beautiful! But the thought of moving into winter is just icky to me!

Saturday we received a call from Brian's uncle. He wanted to know if we could use any tomatoes from his garden. I was so happy to accept! They brought them over - 4 bags worth - and I was able to can TWENTY SEVEN quarts that night! (HUGE thanks Richard and Carrie!!!) 27 quarts! Isn't that fantastic?!?!?

They also brought over some BEAUTIFUL purple peppers! Isn't the color just lovely? I just had to take a photo of them...

We'll be eating stuffed peppers tomorrow night!

Also this weekend, Jordan decided to learn how to ride his bike without training wheels! He's doing AWESOME!

He'll soon be biking all over the neighborhood with Taylor, I'm sure!

And last of all... I started snapping some beans yesterday and put them up today. 38 pints of green beans for my storage.

We've been busy!

Under Construction

So this is the closet that is in Madison's bedroom:

And this is what it looks like when you OPEN her closet door now:

Welcome, my friends, to the starting phase of my new master bedroom. Walking up the stairs:

Inside the bedroom:

Brian in the "master bath":

Storage area on the "upper half" of the roof - we'll access this from the stairway leading up to our bedroom. More storage... :drool:

So much for keeping the rest of the house clean. I think it's impossible in a construction zone.

Oh, and NO, we won't be walking up the stairs through the closet door forever. Eventually a wall will be removed and another wall put in where her closet is. But "for now", this is the way it goes. *winks*

Someone want to send me some sanity???

It warms my heart

My boys are in all honesty the BEST ever.

Taylor has been so nurturing the past 2 weeks when Jordan started Kindergarten. They love each other to pieces!

The highlight of their school day is being able to play together once at recess. How many 3rd graders would WANT to play with their 5 yr old brother at recess every day?

They wake up in the morning and help each other get ready for school. They wear matching clothes EVERY DAY, and it's totally THEIR CHOICE. They want to match each other.

And it warms my heart when almost every morning this is the view from my front door.

Man I love those boys.

Reagan Update!

Oh my, Oh my where to begin!

Reagan is doing WONDERFUL this week!

She had her EEG last week and we got results on Friday. Everything is PERFECT. This means that her seizures are from her anemia, not from some other brain issue. She has had a very hard 11 months at life! All starting from being stubborn and not coming the way we planned! One "issue" has just lead to another. From loosing one pound her first week of life. From there we had blood tests which showed nothing wrong, so the only thing we could do was pump and feed through the SNS every hour and a half at night and 3 times a day. It took us months to get off that program and to finally have her start gaining weight!

Then she ended up with RSV. Then ear infections. And the list could get long from this point. ;)

At 6 months she started her new thing (and probably the worst of all...) not being able to catch her breath when crying. Every time she started really crying, you could bet she'd turn this awful color blue/grey/purple, her eyes would start twitching and she would pass out. It started out only every once in awhile, but ended up coming on strong and being several times a week. We would average her passing out 5 times a week, but sometimes it was more.

At this point, her iron was really low, so we tried everything to get it up. Our Dr told us that her passing out was most likely due to the anemia. It was most likely the culprit of her not gaining weight her first 6 months as well.

When her iron levels just wouldn't go up, we were told she would grow out of the breath holding (by age 2 or 3) and to just "keep her happy". (And this kid, while feeling icky, is NOT easy to keep happy!!!)

But when she passed out and started having seizures, we decided we better do something else. (Because frankly, I don't want to live with passing out 5 times a week, AND seizures until she's THREE!)

We scheduled the EEG to rule out that maybe it wasn't the iron, and at the same visit we gave her an Iron shot. (Nasty nasty nasty shot that has to be given in the muscle. She of course passed out during it.) !

Well, I'm terribly happy to report that the nasty iron shot has mad a HUGE difference! She has only passed out TWICE since the shot. The shot was given 2 weeks ago. This is HUGE! This is wonderful! She's even been better in the car recently!

We have a few "trained" habits we need to start working on getting rid of. The most challenging is that she still wakes up every 1-2 hours to breastfeed at night. It's something she's trained to do from her time nursing as an infant with the SNS. We won't be giving up nursing anytime soon I'm sure - In fact, I'm sure she'll be my longest breastfed baby which is just fine if that's what she needs. She's still ultra clingy to me, but it'll go away in time.

She is starting to show a lot more personality, and she's getting ready to walk. She'll stand on her own for little spurts at a time.

We're just feeling so HAPPY to be in the beginning stages of "normal" with her!

Look at my happy, healthy baby!

Madison started Preschool!

I think she's been waiting a year for this day. When Jordan was in preschool, she asked when she could start going. I told her that she couldn't go until she started going on the potty... so she trained herself that week. I had to keep my promise and send her as soon as preschool started!

This child is terribly confident. She wasn't shy the first day at all. She sat down at a table for snack next to another little girl. Madison turns to her and says "Hi! What's your name?" The little girl stares at her for a minute and terrified replies "Ashlie". Madison sits there for a minute and finally says "Well HI Ashlie! Did you know that my name is Madison?"

The first day was an open house for parents to stay. Brian and I were both there and I honestly think she would have liked it better if we both had left. She was terribly busy and there was a lot to do in a short amount of time.

She did start crying while we were there. Oh, it was when we were LEAVING. She was crying and saying "But Mom! Preschool isn't long enough!"

It's going to be a long year since she only goes twice a week. *winks*

Her teacher is Miss Karen. I know Karen from Jordan's preschool - her daughter was in Jordan's class, so we co-oped together a few times. She's very creative and just sweet as can be.

Madison also started dance this week. I don't have any photos because Brian seems to always have the camera. Maybe next week. She LOVES it. She was a really good listener and followed her teacher pretty well. (Until she had to keep watching herself in the mirrors...) She's excited to be going to dance with Lauryn, and I think it will be great for them to see each other at least once a week. :)

Jordan's First Day of Kindergarten!

The day finally arrived!

It was terrible for Jordan to watch Taylor leave for school every day for a week before he could start kindergarten.

There are 2 other little boys from our neighborhood that he is in class and rides the bus home with. The bus is the most exciting part of Kindergarten for him.

His teacher is so fun. We totally lucked out getting Mrs. Lyons, she's just great! She has a very large classroom right now, but it looks like they're going to add another class so the class size won't be 29. (EEKS! That's a bunch of 5 yr olds!!!) Out of those kids, 18 of them are BOYS. Props to Mrs. Lyons and her sanity!

Yippee for Kindergarten! I'm so glad Jordan is loving it!