Park Day!

In all the years Don has worked I don't remember a day where the boss gave everyone a paid day off because they had done such a good job on a project. Well today it happened! It is a perfect day for it, first of all it's beautiful outside and second of all it is the 10 year anniversary from Don and I having our first kiss so it's nice to spend the day with him. We started off the day with waffles and then headed to Ryan's favorite park. The kids were so excited when they found out "dad is going to be home ALL day!" Awesome day so far!

Allergies

We finally had our appointment with the pediatric allergist for Ryan. Overall I feel better about things, as is the case with most things not knowing is worse. He was very brave and only whimpered when they gave the tests, they drew all over him with a whiteboard marker so that they could see what parts of his skin had a reaction to the potential allergens. It turns out he is allergic to a certain kind of mold (that of course is the worse where we live in October), cats and dairy. Strangely enough not strawberries.

We were told that strawberries/ citrus and tomatoes can cause flares in eczema and it's not exactly an allergic reaction but just something that causes flare ups. So we have to avoid dairy (including when it's an ingredient- so baked goods with butter in them like cookies are out and almost all processed foods) and the citrus type stuff, that on top of the fact that Ryan won't eat meat makes for an interesting diet. Essentially vegan but with eggs.

The good news is that he will likely grow out of the dairy thing and none of the reactions will cause any impediment on his airway so even if someone gave him ice cream he would likely just breakout and while itchy and uncomfortable he wouldn't end up in the hospital.

I think the hardest part is just getting used to the changes. I have to plan ahead, so if we are going to someone else's house I have to bring snacks, I have to bake him cookies with butter substitutes if he wants them, and I have to read every ingredient label until I figure out what he can have. I had already taken out yogurt/ cottage cheese and milk so to Ryan it doesn't seem like that big of a change. It's time consuming but I have done it before when I took high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils out- once you find good brands/ foods/ know what to make yourself it's not so bad. Hopefully after a few weeks of grocery shopping/ cooking I won't even notice it.

Corn Maze

Today we went with some friends to a corn maze to kick off the Autumn season. It was a really long maze (it took us a little over an hour- I think around 2 miles) but the kids made it through! It was a lot of fun and I hope to do more fun fall activities in the near future!

Pictures

I feel like I have had writers block lately on the blogging front- we have had a bout of sicknesses and it feels like we have been really busy lately, with what I have no idea but we do seem busy. So until I feel inspired again- I'll just keep posting pictures. These are from Audrey's morning alone with both mom and dad- Ryan was at school and dad took the day off.

The Last of Summer

After a cold wet weekend today was beautiful so we spent almost our day outside. My kids have the combined attention span of about 3 minutes so we went through LOTS of activities today- paints, bubbles, library, baseball, playing in their playhouse, bikes, chalk, homemade cornbread and so many other things I can't even name all of them.

Baby Girl

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.

Getting out the Door

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).

Another Fun Day at Soccer

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 Audrey Diet

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.

I would say that I should hide and eat in the bathroom but that would assume that I get to go to the bathroom by myself which we all know isn't the case.... No wonder I eat so much during Audrey's nap. Also, it's no wonder I have lost so much more weight after Audrey then I did after having Ryan.

Playdate

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.

How to Blow a Bubble

"I can blow bubbles all by myself"

Too high

Not quite... but closer

"This is too hard. I hate bubbles.. who really wants bubbles anyway?"

Strawberries

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.

Summer Snowball Fight

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.