Thursday, February 26, 2009

A series of fortunate events

We finally got the van out the other day and have been driving it. It needed new tires badly, so we were waiting until we had the money for new tires before we started driving it around. First thing that happened was the windshield wipers turned on and wouldn't stop. The next day I got the new tires and the windshield wipers weren't acting up anymore. But the check engine light came on. Being one to take these types of signals seriously (I admit to having burned out the engine of one, possibly two, cars with the "check engine" light on. I don't remember the second one having a in the dash, but I did ignore a prompting to check the oil which I ignored), I started to panic. I checked my oil, and sure enough, it was low.

After adding a quart of oil, the check engine light shut off. And I went on my merry way. Until later, when the light came back on again.

Frustrated, Dave and I talked about what the possible problems could be. He determined it was probably electrical. We went off to run errands today and encountered more problems. Finally, Dave decided it was the alternator, and that he was going to go to the scout office and then to the repair shop. But before we got much further, the van was showing signs of distress so we turned into the McDonald's parking lot, which was right next door to an auto shop. We turned the corner, and the van totally died. 20 feet from the garage. Dave walked next door and came back with four guys, who pushed the van right into a stall.

The timing was perfect. If the van was going to die, that particular moment was the best exact moment for it to die (even better would be if we had actually made it to the garage!). All four of us were together, with a cell phone. The garage was reasonably priced. The Placeplace was next door, which is also owned by a friend of ours from church (which makes me feel slightly less guilty about eating there!). The Boy Scout office was down the street a ways so Dave could still get his Scout stuff. Our friends were also visiting the Scout office and stopped by the McDonalds to eat and play. And, the van was done just in time for Dave to make it to his neurology appointment! The icing on the cake is that we got our tax refund last week, so we even had money to pay for the repairs!

I shutter to think if this had happened yesterday when I took the van by myself to take the girls to preschool and run errands. I was by myself, with no cell phone. The only helpful thing I had in the van was a stroller (which I normally don't have). We really lucked out with how this happened today!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The girl loves her clothes

We had family home evening tonight (we weren't home last night), and we played a game of strawberry jam (similar to hide and seek, except one person hides and when another person finds them they hide with them, "jamming" everyone in the hiding spot). Dave, Lacy and I were all waiting for Rose to find us. Since she's two, we were trying to give her hints, such as "Roooose! Rooooose! We're over heeeeere!" Very subtle hints, you know.

Finally she found us. She had changed her clothes while all the rest of us were hiding! She is so obsessed with clothes, changing her outfits, and dress-ups. She then changed her clothes again while we were reading scriptures. I guess she's always going to have to share a room with Lacy so that Lacy can find her clothes, since I'm sure Rose will constantly be borrowing them! Either that, or get a padlock for Lacy's closet.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Allergic Reaction

Recently Dave was tested for food allergies. We already knew of some sensitivities that he has-- bananas, pumpkin, and walnuts, and milk. He has eliminated the first three from his diet, and milk he took out for 6 months and gradually put back in his diet. He can handle small amounts of dairy, but has trouble with plain milk. He thought he might have more food allergies related to his recently diagnosed Eosinophilic esophagitis. His test results came back positive for a wheat allergy and a banana allergy, but nothing else came up (I think the pumpkin and walnut allergies are oral allergy syndrome which wouldn't show up on a regular allergy test, and the milk is a sensitivity not a true allergy).

The doctor said he was surprised with the banana allergy-- it's the worst he's ever seen in someone and when he took a look at the test results, the first thing he thought of was "wow, it's amazing he's alive." Well. I don't know about that, since banana is very easy to avoid and the only time he ever accidentally ingests it is when he gets careless with reading labels and buys a fruit drink that has banana in it. While he does have reactions to being in the presence of bananas, it's usually not that bad as long as he keeps his distance. Wheat, on the other hand, was not nearly as strong of an allergy, so at first we thought he'd be okay with our regular diet. Then he had a severe reaction to whole wheat pancakes followed by a snack of mac and cheese not too long after. His body completely rejected the food and he felt awful for hours after the fact. And we eliminated wheat from his diet immediately.

Today we visited with some friends who made a lovely dinner of corn spaghetti (the noodles actually tasted pretty darned good! I was surprised) and pie made from spelt flour, which was the best tasting pie crust I've ever eaten I must say (spelt+homemade lard=deliciousness). Well, in their house, they buy bananas, unlike us, and Rose saw them and went crazy! She must have a banana, right now. So I allowed her, since this was a treat she doesn't often get. I usually buy a small bunch and they are eaten in 2-3 days, being stored in a plastic bag the whole time so Dave doesn't accidentally come in contact with them. Later on, she grabbed another banana and took it to me to have me help her peel it. I was about across the room from Dave. This banana was pretty ripe, which Dave has a stronger reaction to, but I figured being 20 feet away he would have no problem. Within a couple minutes, he was choking and having a severe attack. He started wheezing after his body rejected his entire dinner. He was worried about a potential headache that often follows an attack like this, and told me this was the type of reaction he gets (minus the food rejection part) when he is in contact with perfume, which often ends in a headache for the rest of the day, with the longest lasting half the week. This makes sense, since he didn't actually come in contact with the banana, just the smell of it. Quickly, my friend Emily and I made the kids finish their bananas, took all the banana peels outside, and washed the table.

I'm still in shock how quickly the reaction happened and how severe it was. Dave thinks the reason the attack was so severe was because his body isn't used to fighting all the time anymore, since he's been without wheat for about a month now. The banana fumes just overloaded his system entirely and his body went into panic mode.

I guess I'm not ever going to buy bananas again, which is okay since I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am trying to eat food more locally anyway.

Okay, maybe the occasional banana as a bribe to my kids at the grocery store. But that's it.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Who's been eating the cheese? And other silly stuff kids do.

Rose likes her dairy products. She especially likes cheese, in the mozzarella or cheddar varieties. We brought home a 2 pound block of cheese and Rose decided to be sneaky and eat it without telling us. Only, she couldn't get into the package. Sure, lots of kids do this, I'm sure. Lacy did it. But Rose really tried a lot harder than Lacy ever did.

All four corners on this side


She got both ends, too.


It's a little easier to see the tooth mark definition with the packaging off
Finally, she is rewarded for all her hard work!

Lacy was having a hard time falling asleep tonight. She kept fidgeting and fighting off sleep. She was apparently playing around in her room, too. Because I found her like this when I went in to check on her:
My children make me laugh so much.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Happy Birthday to my Love

Today is my husband's 31st birthday. Happy birthday to you! And a few pictures of him in celebration.

A few weeks old:
A few weeks after that:

This one reminds me so much of Rose. He's probably 1 or 2 here.
Another one around the same age:
Three or four years old, with a smile that he gave to Lacy:
And this one totally reminds me of Lacy when I look at it:
Age 8 at his baptism:

Dave was the Forest Festival King, aka Paul Bunion:
And pictures from today: reading to the girls, one of their favorite things to do together:

Whose birthday is it, anyway? We didn't want to go through the hassle of getting a burn permit, so we did 4 candles to represent "3" and "1."

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Curly hair girl

Lacy's hair is pretty straight, but every once in a while she likes to get it curly and pretty. Which isn't too bad with the hot curlers, but they do get pretty warm on her head. Last night we did something a little different.

Recently we had a sheet casualty in our home-- all of a sudden our fitted sheet had huge holes in it. So I ripped it up with the help of the girls, and we made long strips, which I cut into pieces about 12 inches long. After a long bath and shower, Lacy got out and I rolled her hair up into the strips of fabric.


She slept with her hair like this, and in the morning she couldn't wait to get her hair taken out of the rags.

The back looked great!

The front... a little frizzy.
But I put it back with a ponytail and it looked pretty good. And it's almost 5 and the curls are still holding strong!

The funny thing is, she was wearing her cousin Regan's old clothes, and had curly hair, and my sister Les and I kept thinking for a split second we were looking at Regan (never mind that Regan's hair is now straight and brown!).

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Kudos to you Moms

I am exhausted. I only have two kids, and I feel like I've been chasing 17 all around today. Rose is in that stage-- still-needs-a-nap-but-won't-go-to-bed-when-she-gets-one. That fun stage. She was grumpy pretty much from 3 o'clock onward. And I would have given her a nap today, but it was so crazy, and then she fell asleep in the car, and then I couldn't find my keys to open the door (but I was holding her) so I had to put her down, then it was all over.

Then Lacy. She thinks she's an adult. She really has no idea that she can't do everything that any grown up can do (but she still needs me to wipe her, and she even has a song about it that she made up-- she's so talented).

Thursday nights. Those are my hardest nights of the week. I'm in the Young Women's presidency. Dave's the Weebelos leader. And Dave worked today up north and got caught in bad traffic on the way home (he got off at 3 and we met at 7... one of those commutes), so we met at the church. I brought him dinner because I'm awesome like that. And because he can't eat anything but what I cook for fear of wheat (and, apparently, ham now, too). So, the girls have to come with us on Thursday nights. Lacy will not stay with me. And Rose has to follow her big sister. So usually Thursdays involve me leaving every 5 minutes to figure out where my girls have gone off to, which is mostly the stage or the nursery. Tonight Rose stayed put (I think due to exhaustion), but Lacy was all over the place. At one point, I couldn't find her. I circled the church twice. Looked in every room. Where did I find her? The Young Women's room where the hunt began (with a brownie she swiped from the Stake Choir rehearsal). She must have sneaked back in when I was running around like a mad woman, panicking because Lacy has no fear of strangers (there were two abductions of girls from LDS churches last year, so my fear is not unfounded). After a scolding, we tried to load the kids up and Lacy began to run off again. And then Rose freaked out when we wouldn't let her sit in Lacy's booster seat, only calming halfway through the drive.

Upon arriving home, Rose cried through prayer (she was ready for bed and wanted to go nurse *right now*) and Lacy did everything she could to stay awake longer. She had to make sure that her pillow was arranged correctly, and that I knew Reading Rainbow is having a contest. And to look for the stickers under the basket. And to get her new water. But not in that cup. You know, the usual tactics. But the good news is, she's sleeping in her big bed in her own room now! And she's been sleeping there all week! *sniff* my big girl is growing up.

I totally admire all of you moms out there with more children than I have. Maybe I have difficult children (I doubt it) or maybe other moms have better parenting skills than me (likely). I just can't imagine how it must feel to drop into your pillow after chasing more little ones around all day! It must be heaven (until it starts again at 4 in the morning when you have to change somebody's sheets, then you get elbowed in the eye because you have three extra visitors in your bed at 5...). Seriously, ladies, how do you that have more than two do it? Sometimes I wonder how I can do it with just these two. I told someone in my ward that I'm waiting 10 years to have more kids because than I'll have teenagers to help me out. You moms of many? You have my greatest admiration and my query: How do you do it???

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Attack of the Cat-Dog Girl

Rose is a very confused little girl. She loves to pretend! And she really loves animals. The girls will play with animals all day long, and will pretend to be animals (as long as they can wear dress ups while playing animals). When I talk to Rose about animals, I ask her what certain animals say. Her responses are either "Moo" or "Meow." She only deviates if she has recently heard another animal sound demonstration, such as "woof" or "oink." I guess she likes "M" animal sounds.

So it seems to follow that she would be confused with actual animal behaviors as well. Rose will randomly drop to the ground on all fours and start crawling around. "Meow!" she will declare. "Meow!" And then, out comes the tongue and the panting. And she licks anyone she can find.

Perhaps I should be reading more animal books to her.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Feeling more secure

I am back open to the public again, people! Sorry about the temporary inconvenience. I thought I would have to be private for longer, but as it turns out, I am able to reopen my blog. YEA!

And some good news... CPSIA's implementation will be delayed for a year! This is awesome news, and it's all thanks to the huge grassroots movement that made this happen. Many, many people calling asking for change, and we made it happen! But this is no time for us to be slothful and do nothing further. We still need to all be in contact with our senators and representatives asking them to reconsider the bill and to revise it completely, allowing small and micro businesses to stay in business.