Here are some cute pictures taken of Audrey in the last few weeks. She doesn't mind having her picture taken so it's MUCH easier to get good ones of her then Ryan.
I caught a few pictures this morning of dad trying to leave for work. After all the hugs and everyone trying to "help" it is usually a 10 minutes process. This morning happened to be the first day where it feels like fall- yesterday was 90 degrees and today the high is 68 so you will notice the change in wardrobe (except for dad). 
Ryan is really starting to love soccer. He is following directions well and really getting into learning to dribble and shoot. We are lucky enough to have great friends that are also in the class and next session another great friend is also joining, we are super excited. Seeing as how the parents get to watch from the bleachers it is also a good social time for me! 
The best diet I have tried so far is what I called "The Audrey." Let me explain... Every time I pull out food Audrey takes it, it really doesn't matter what it is, if it is intended for me she NEEDS it. This morning- after she had eaten her breakfast AND a cookie I sat down for my breakfast of scrambled egg on an English muffin... she ate half (she would have had the whole thing if I wasn't as fast as I am). Right now she is eating my apple which was a snack intended to help me to last until lunch since I had such a small breakfast.
We have started hanging out with Audrey and Ryan's friends a lot more lately. Here are some pictures of our most recent sprinkler playdate. 
It's hard to be a parent on a good day but when there is a health concern the difficulty amps up about a million notches. Well, a little over a year ago Ryan started developing eczema. It gets worse and better but since it showed up it has never fully gone away. It is caused by a yet to be determined allergy. Ryan is only 3 so it is all but impossible to get a vile of blood from him in order to test for a lot of the allergies- getting an immunization is a nightmare I can't imagine trying to take blood. So we are flying blind. We have all organic bedding, healthy detergents, healthy food, cleaned carpets etc.
Ryan has always been a picky eater so we have tried hard not to take food groups away from him, it would limit him too much. About 2 months ago we took out dairy, it was really hard but the doctor thought that it was the likely culprit. The only reason we were able to pull it off was that Ryan decided he liked almond milk. At first the results were dramatic but slowly it came back with random flare ups. It seemed a little better but it should have gone away.
So the other day one of my friends was babysitting and mentioned that she was allergic to strawberries. I had never thought of strawberries because he doesn’t EAT strawberries. However he does have strawberry jam and he used to eat strawberry yogurt and we sometimes add strawberries to his smoothie. The day after she mentioned it we noticed that Ryan’s rash got really bad right after strawberry jam- in fact if you listened he started talking funny like his mouth was swollen and he started complaining that he wasn’t feeling well. Then it occurred to us that right when we were switching away from dairy milk we had also run out of strawberry jelly and switched to blackberry.
Fingers crossed we have found the problem- I suppose only time will tell but I’m holding out hope that this is it, that we have found the enemy. We also switched to a non-down pillow and since then his coughing has all but gone away. I think we are finally getting somewhere, now I just have to work on the guilt I feel for not seeing it earlier. It’s hard to find what causes an allergy when it could be ANYTHING in the environment. Sometimes you get so focused on finding the problem that you miss the things right in front of your face.
During dinner one night the conversation went to Christmas. Ryan got really excited when we started to talk about snow and he got down from the table and ran to the closet. He came out with a hat and gloves and told me to pick out mine. He then started a snowball fight with me! Here are some pictures of our 30 minute "snowball fight" We even had an outfit change halfway through. 
Hanging out with the Ripp family is just about the most fun my kids have ever done- okay it was one of my favorite days also. This was actually day two of the hangout- I'll get to the first day soon. Nicki and I met in 2nd grade, these pictures were taken at her mom's house which is where she and I used to play when we were little- ah full circle moment. I wish she lived closer so we could do this EVERY DAY :) 
Ryan started soccer today! He has never played besides in the park but he was super excited. I thought he would be intimidated by all the kids and new teachers but he apparently is way beyond that. In fact after going through today's class we decided to move him up to the more advanced class with no parent involvement. At one point in the class he told me I could go sit in the stands and watch instead of help him! The season lasts until about November so I will probably post more pictures from other practices later. Before I hear any comments about the jersey- I know wrong sport... but this is what we had and he wanted to match dad.
