Happy Holidays

We have just finished our three days of our Christmas extravaganza. It was very fun, eventful and generally happy. Julianne complained of a sore throat for two days and I kind of denied her throat hurting hoping that it would go away. My denial failed to cure her and on Christmas Eve I took her to the doctor and she indeed had strep throat. So she did not attend my sisters Christmas eve festivities. D and her stayed at home and wrapped presents, ate White Castle (the only restaurant open), and spent some time together. She was feeling much better after she had her first dose of antibiotics so it was hard for her not to go to the dinner since she was feeling better.

Christmas morning we woke up around 7 ish and got the kids up and trickled downstairs to see what Santa had brought the girls. Our dog Tucker somehow did not end up in the basement that night, an adult oversight, and ended up eating all of Santa's Christmas cookies and the reindeer's carrots and we think he peed on Julianne's American Girl doll book that she received with her other Santa gift. So he had a great Christmas. Anyway, the kids enjoyed their Christmas morning, complete with opening presents, watching others open presents and eating a delicious D style breakfast. Julianne actually threw up that morning and for the first 2 hours was not feel well. After she threw up she felt better. We think it might have been from her antibiotics. D's mom and step dad came in the morning and enjoyed our breakfast with them. Around lunch time we went to my dad's house and opened more presents, ate and visited with family. We did not have too much excitement except my brother severely cut his finger on a beer bottle. My mom (a nurse) was there so she helped wrap it up and monitored his finger (it was pretty bad and could have used a few stitches).

The next day we celebrated Christmas with my mom and brother and sister. It was a nice intimate night filled with opening presents, eating and rave dancing (the kids, ie. lights out and crazy dancing). I relaxed and cleaned the next day. My mom came over to stay at our house on Saturday and she left this evening. She is staying at my sisters house tonight because she is being induced tomorrow. She is actually due on the 31st but will have the baby tomorrow. So we do not know what the sex is so it will be fun to find out.

Here are some pictures of our holiday extravaganza.


Julianne and her threw-up can


Nathan and his new doll (louis). I love this doll. It is growing on Nathan. When he first saw it he threw it on the ground and did not pay much attention to it. We had to keep showing him the doll. Now he sleeps with him so that is good.




All the cousins


Some rave dancing

All the family

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Having a fun, eventful, and not perfect Holiday season
-Spending time with my entire family
-Having the kids enjoy their new presents and more importantly seeing them excited about others reciving gifts
-Having my mom spend time with us
-Having a great husband and kids

I think we are ready

I think that we are officially ready for Christmas. I have shopped, made cookies and buckeyes, made all the homemade presents I am going to make and decorated the house. The only thing I have not done is wrap the presents, which will be a good opportunity to make sure that I have everything. I have so many bags hidden all around the house that I have not gone back through them to make sure I have everything. I actually feel pretty relaxed and excited for the next coming days. My mom is coming into town today and staying with my brother for a few days, then my sister and then she will be staying at our house the last part of her visit. It will be nice to catch up and to visit with her and the rest of my family.

My neighbor is coming over tomorrow night to wrap presents. She said that she and her girlfriend used to do this every year together (I guess she now works full time and does not have time this year) to make it more festive so we are going to do it for the first time. It should be fun and I am looking forward to wrapping and having someone to do it with.

We had our good friends up from Knoxville with their two kids for a visit on Saturday. It was a bonus that we saw them last weekend in Knoxville but we did not get to see their oldest daughter since she was at grandma's. We had a great visit and I took a picture of their family and I think it turned out pretty nice.

They also took a photo of our family and if you forget what I look like here is our family.


We just got done decorating cookies this evening and they are very cute and creative. Mallory took her time and decorated every part of the cookie. Julianne had fun thinking of her own ideas and trying to decorate as many cookies as she could. Nathan had one cookie that he took a bite of at the beginning and it turned out to be his cookie that he decorated, ate, decorated, ate and continued this pattern until it was all gone. I actually took way to many pictures of him tonight but he was just too cute eating his cookie. Here are some of the pictures.









Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Dove candy wrapper saying: Your presence is often the best present (I love that quote, it is kind of how I try to live)
-fixing our electricity line (the screw that holds the electric line close to our house (it adds tension) was pulled from our house a couple of months ago so the line has been loose and I was worried that the weight from an ice storm would pull the line down and the lines would come out of our house) and our handy tall neighbor helping us (we could not have done it by ourselves).
-seeing the cookie decorating progression of our children through the years
-loving Nathan's persistent personality

Does anyone have a Hood?

We now have a hooded doctoral degree man in our household. The hooding ceremony was special and not too long. He was hooded by his advisor who is a little shorter than D and therefore D had to squat down in order to receive his hood. D was very happy that he participated in the event and it will be a memory he will always have. We had a great weekend in K-town. I got to see my former book club friends/co-workers at my friend's Hanukkah party. The host, Katie, had delicious food and we got to play the game dreidel. I had a lot of fun. It was also fun to stay later and see all her quilts, her other homemade crafts and especially her beautiful fabric. She just opened up her own Etsy store of which I have already bought a headband. I love the headband and D said that I looked like a 50's mom when I am wearing it so I think that is a complement since I really would love to go back to that time and live a simpler/less technological life. On Friday we cleaned, patched drywall, caulked windows, and hand scrubbed a dirty deck at our old house. It was nice to be back in it and appreciate the house for what it is. The hooding ceremony was on Friday and then we went to our favorite restaurant with our good friends. We had a great time and good conversation. Saturday morning we got up, ran and then drove back to home. The drive home was much more calming since it was not raining and I knew that I was going back home to see my kiddos. It was a great visit and I would have liked to say a day longer to visit more people and to go to Market Square to shop at my old favorite stores.


D and his advisor

When we got home the kids were extra excited to see us and because they knew that we were going to get our Christmas tree. We got the tree and then decorated it on Sunday. So we had a busy fun filled weekend. The kids did well with Mimi and I knew that they would not have any problems. She does a great job watching them.

Tonight I am going to finish my Christmas shopping with my good friend Jill. It will be fun to shop with a friend and to visit and catch up on things. I cannot believe that Christmas is just around the corner. I just have to buy stuff for D and I am pretty much complete.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-having a safe drive to and from K-town
-seeing old friends and catching up
-coming back to our kids
-seeing how much the kids enjoy decorating the tree and getting out all the old ornaments.

No time to blog

Well I have been extremely busy as has everyone else in this world. I have mostly been busy getting ready to go to Tennessee for D's Ph.D Hooding ceremony. It will be fun and memorable. We are not taking the children since we are staying at our old house which does not have any furniture. Plus the kids still have school and hauling three kids down there and having them sit during a serious ceremony would not be very much fun for myself or for them. So D's mom is coming to watch the kids. We are very thankful that she is willing to do this and enjoys spending alone time with them. She will have fun. So since we are spending the night in our abandoned house I will be bringing all the supplies to sleep/shower/eat and do a few chores in the house. Additionally I have to clean my house for D's mom to stay in. So I have spending all my free time this week cleaning and getting little bits of chores done so that I am not having a breakdown today. So things are running smoothly. I have pretty much all the things packed besides my clothes and toiletries.

It should be a great weekend. I am attending a Hanukkah party full of latkes and dreidel spinning. This party is with all my former book club/co-workers so it will be a good time to catch up with everyone. D will be playing poker with his Tennessee buddies so it will be nice to catch up with his friends also. Friday is the hooding ceremony and then we are going to our favorite Tennessee restaurant, Pasta Trio. We always look forward to eating there. Saturday we will be heading home and will be looking forward to seeing our kids. We still have to get our Christmas tree and decorate so we will be spending the weekend at home doing all that stuff.

I have also been trying to fit in making homemade presents for my nieces and friends kids so that has also taken up a lot of my time. I am hoping that after this weekend things will settle down. But I also have more Christmas shopping and then my mom will be in town the next weekend so it will probably not slow down until after the holidays.

Last Sunday we went to see Santa at our local park. The civic association hosts a visit Santa event where you do crafts and games then you go on a carriage ride to see Santa. Santa was very friendly and knew a lot about the girls like what their dogs names were, what Julianne's teachers name was and even what their names were. So the kids were very shocked and had a great experience. Nathan was not too happy with Santa and refused to sit on his lap but I kind of expected it. It was a fun night and we will definitely do it again. The girls also decorated ginger bread houses with their cousin and Grandma. It was really fun. The houses were already constructed and all the kids had to do was decorate them with a ton of different candy/pretzels and cereal. I had a lot of fun and really wanted to decorate one of my own but settled on decorating different sides of the girls.





Last week Mallory slammed her dresser door into Nathan's face and he got a cut and then developed a small black eye. He was hamming it up in these pictures so the pictures were pretty cute and you can kind of tell he has a black eye.



Last Friday Julianne shared her book she created at her class's show-n-tell. She created a hard bound book the past week weeks called "The cats". It is basically about a cat who does not have friends and then finds some friends at school. It is probalby about 20 pages long and she wrote all the words and colored all the pictures. She put a lot of effort into the book and has a lot of pride in it. It was very cute and I will keep it forever.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-sharing experiences with my children
-seeing Julianne's expression when Santa knew important facts about her
-seeing the joy that Julianne has when she writes and completes things

Nathan's lungs

Well it began yesterday when Nathan started to get a runny nose. I knew what would happen next. He started to cough and then the wheezing began. He was coughing so much last night that D and I decided to give him a breathing treatment. He sleep fairly well last night but I was a little worried because he was breathing heavier and his coughs did not seem very productive. So we tried to bring him into bed with us so that we could hear him. Well that did not work and it never does. After about an hour of him moving, trying to talk to us and sitting up in bed I took him back into his bed. This morning he slept in and his breathing seemed to be more labored than last night. We was doing his belly breathing like he was the first time (in October) his breathing troubles occurred. This episode seems to be the same severity as the first one. He had another smaller cold/breathing episode in November but that was more coughing and wheezing and this is more of the belly breathing/wheezing. So I gave him another treatment this morning and it did help his wheezing. He is now taking a nap so we will see how he feels this afternoon. He is still his crazy moving all around kid despite his breathing difficulties. I think he got a little scared while we were upstairs after I changed his diaper and I was cleaning his diaper and he either fell or could not find me and he stared crying and kind of was gasping. I calmed him down and that helped.

I finished the girls second skirts on Saturday and they wore them yesterday. I think these turned out much better since the fabric does not have appliques on them. The girls seemed to like them and Julianne asked me if I would make one for her American Girl doll. So we will see. I am currently getting Sock and Glove animals ready for our trip to Knoxville. I have to do something in the car or I get too nervous and anxious that I am leaving my children and that something bad will happen to us (pleasant I know). So it basically takes me one-way trip to complete one animal so I will be getting those ready for the trip next week.



I did a mini photo shoot with Mallory today and these were the pictures. She was not really too into it so I may see if Julianne wants to participate later.




This was her at the end looking not too thrilled.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-getting back to a routine with the kids
-Nathan and his drive to do things for himself (he insisted on holding the nublizer nozzle and he now can get on the potty by himself)
-homemade smoothies

Thanks for Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We started the day by running the local Turkey Trot. I was very pessimistic about it and told D that I did not want to run hard since I have not been running a lot lately and since I wanted to enjoy the race and not be dying toward the end. Well anyway everyone was running very fast from the start and I just went with it. I felt really good and strong and kept pushing myself. The last mile was literally uphill (for Ohio standards) and I finished the race in 39:16. Which is really good for me and is actually a little less than 8 minute miles. I can't remember the last time I ran a 5 miler under 40 minutes. I know for sure the last time was in college when I was running cross country and I ran the local memorial day race in 38 minutes. So for not really training I was pretty pleased with my time. D also ran really fast he ran about 5 minutes faster. I kept telling him and while I was running it I kept thinking that the course was short but he did not think so. So I think I had a really good race. I was sore the next day but it always feels good to be sore after a hard workout. It was nice to be at a race with D. We always used run races together (not really run together but go together and eat breakfast after) in Tennessee. It was like our date night, except it was early in the morning and we were running races. But it was our bonding activity that we both enjoyed.

After the race we cooked and around noon we ate our Thanksgiving meal with D's mom and step dad. Our food was good. The turkey was not as delicious and juicy as it was that one time in Tennessee but the gravy helped it. It was a great day. We played games with the kids and in the evening we went to my dad's house to hang out with my siblings. I played Wii for the first time. I bowled and actually got a 230. That score consisted of like 8 strikes and some spares. It was fun but next time I will have to increase my skill level since I have never actually bowled that number in my life.

I really should have taken a picture before I peeled the skin back. It would have looked better.

Our other food. Not a great picture since everything was covered up. But those are the only pictures I took which is surprising for me since I take pictures of everything. I just forgot and was so hungry I just wanted to eat.

Well Nathan has had a bad diaper rash the past few days (mostly because we have been too busy to change his diapers) and so we have been leaving his diaper off to air him out. I must stay that tonight he peed four times in the bathroom and I think a few times yesterday. He came to me two separate times and said "pee" and we ran to the bathroom and sure enough he got right on and went to the bathroom. I have been so amazed since he really gets on the potty and pushes it out. He really gets it. Like I said in an earlier post the girls never got it this early. Mallory was fully potty trained by 2.5 and Julianne was potty trained a week before she turned 3 (we basically made her by saying we did not have any diapers). So I am just amazed that he is not 2 yet and he is a boy but he really does get it. So I will defiantly take more time to let him run free and see what happens. I don't know if he just gets it earlier because it is just him or because we are using cloth diapers on him and he knows when he gets wet. We will never know but it will be interesting to see in the next few months what happens. I am not pushing it but I may try more often to see if he is more interested.

Another Nathan fact. His eczema is back!!! Yikes. So all my previous theories are out the door. We are back to square one. It is not as bad as it was but it sure is getting red and I can he has been itching it more and more.

Things my family was grateful/thankful for:
-Mallory was thankful for her heart and her family
-D's mom was thankful for her son and her grand kids, her health and her husband (she was very cute and teary eyed while stating all this).
-D was thankful for his family and for finishing his degree (he said more that than but that is my summary)
-Julianne wrote two letter:
Dear Dad. You are a good dad. You play good sports with me. You can be a coach when I play soccer. You buy good clothes.
Dear Mom. I love you so much. You are a good mom. I want you to volunteer again (in her classroom).
-I am thankful for having my mother-in-law and step father-in-law over for our first Thanksgiving in our new house. I am also thankful for all the support and love they give and have for our children. I am thankful for Mallory and her beautiful smile, her love for her siblings, and her creative nature. I am thankful for Julianne and her hard work at school, her love for writing and how she is a great friend. I am thankful for Nathan and his strong will and determination. I am thankful for D and all his love and support for everything I do and for who I am. He is very understanding and caring and I know he loves us.

Busy week

Well we have been pretty busy this past week. We are having Thanksgiving over at our house with D's mom and step dad. So I have been trying to get organized and to figure out what we will be making. I bought the turkey last night and will be preparing it for brining. I am not much of a turkey fan but a few years ago I made the best turkey where the breast was juicy and it actually had flavor. So I am going to try to recreate that. I will brine the turkey in salt and sugar water and then roast it. So we will see how this year turns out.

I took pictures of my brother's family on Sunday and my friend's boys on Monday. So I have been fiddling with those pictures. I have also been ordering Christmas gifts, getting our calender and Christmas card ordered, and making gift lists for our relatives. Two main gifts that I putting together for the girls are pretend boxes. I am making a doctor one for Julianne and a hairdresser one for Mallory. I am actually finding real stuff (like stethoscope, blood pressure cup, scrubs, bandages, etc) off Ebay and from thrift stores. I almost have the doctor box complete. All I have to do is get the bandages, ace bandages, and other stuff from the drugstore. For Mallory's I am going to find old curling iron, hair dryer, and then buy curlers, hair things and other stuff for her box. I really like the idea (of which I found off of another blog) because I get tired of the same old toys that they only play with for an hour and then they become clutter in our house. So I think that these pretend boxes will last a long while and since they are made of real stuff and not the plastic kids stuff that breaks after a few months the girls will love to play with them. I am really excited about these things since I really don't like the consumerism mentality of Christmas. I really hate the "have you been good/bad all year for Santa" idea. Really, who thought of that idea? It was obviously some guilt ridden parent who did not know how to parent their child and resorted to guilting them into behaving well so that they could get gifts from Santa. I am glad that we do not emphasis the wanting and getting theme of Christmas. They really have not asked for too much stuff. D usually buys the girls clothes and they will have a few other things under the tree from Santa but other than those items and their pretend boxes that is it for us this year. They receive plenty of gifts from relatives so they will have fun.

Here are some pictures from this past week.





Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Thrift stores-what could be better than reusing an item that someone does not need anymore.
-capturing moments with my camera
-getting a compliment from a stranger saying that "I had a good yoga practice" she said my lines were very straight and it seemed like I had a lot of strength and endurance.

Correction

Last night I was going through our pictures for our annual calender and I found the ones of Nathan when he had the terrible eczema on his face and arms. These pictures were taken on May 1th but I remember that after his well baby checkup with the doctor on April 22 was when the eczema began to show up. At that appointment he had is DTaP and his HIB shot. He has had these shots before so I don't necessarily think they are related but it does seem fishy. I went back to the doctor May 4th because I think he had an earache and we discussed is appearance. That is when she mentioned the possibility that it could be a dairy allergy. So that is when we started to eliminate diary from his diet. Ever since then he has not had eczema on his face and arms and he has never had his red eyes. In my earlier post I stated that we eliminated diary in March but we did not actually do it until May. So we will see. Here are pictures of him when he was at his worse.

Nathan's eczema

Well the past week and half Nathan's legs have been virtually eczema free. So I have six hypotheses.

1. The seasonal allergens have been eliminated from the air because of the cold weather and the fallen leaves. I checked the seasonal allergies report and it said that since the beginning of November all the allergens, such as mold, grass, tree and weed have been low to no activity. However in October and even the end of October the report showed that mold was high to moderate and throughout the entire summer/spring season one of the allergens has been high to moderate. However, Nathan's legs were also covered in eczema last winter also so who knows if this theory is correct.
2. For the past two weeks I have been mixing into his cereal ground flax seeds. I read online from different sources that flax seeds or other food high is Omega 3s is good for some reason. So adding the flax seeds to his cereal can not hurt him and with his limited diet will help him get those good fats into his diet.
3. For the last few weeks I have been not putting the Aquafor lotion on him and I started putting Cetaphil intense hand cream on his legs. I think I have used this before and not really seen a difference but it is not as greasy and I use it also for my hands.
4. A week, two weeks ago, I put evening primrose oil which contains Gamma-linolenic acids which are a type of fatty acid on his legs. When I was using it two weeks ago I only used it for three or four days straight and I did not see a difference. However, I have read that herbal treatments may take a couple weeks to actually work.
5. He is outgrowing his eczema. I guess that most kids with childhood/infant "grow" out of it. So maybe this is the end of it.
6. His eczema is just not present right now and could come back with vengeance tomorrow. Who knows but I do know that I don't remember him not having it for this long.

About a month ago after researching about allergies/asthma etc. I was reading about reintroducing foods into a child's diet after thinking that they were allergic to it. We think that Nathan was allergic to diary after his first birthday when he broke out in eczema on his face and arms. We had an allergy test in February and he only tested positive for peanuts. The doctor was surprised that that was the other thing he was allergic to. She thought that maybe next year more allergens will show up since he has not been exposed to too many allergens at that time. So we eliminated peanuts and the eczema on his scalp went away. After that he still had it on his arms and face (he had it on his legs during this time also but he always had eczema on his legs ever since he was a little infant, but the eczema on his scalp, arms and face were new after his first birthday) so after reading more that children who were allergic to peanuts were also highly linked to being allergic to milk, soy, eggs and tree nuts. So in March we eliminated diary and his eczema on his face and arms went away. After that he only had the eczema on his legs. Since March he has been on rice milk and little bits of cheese here and there. So this week I wanted to retest him to see if he still had that reaction since it did not show up on his allergy test. So for nothing has showed up. So we will see. It will be nice to have him back on milk since everyone has milk and plus what is "rice milk" anyways. It just sounds wired and not as whole some as good old fashion milk. We will not have him tested again until February so it will be interesting to see if any more allergens show up positive on his test.

To stick with the first snow theme we made pictures and painted them with shimmer (which is actually Epsom salt and water). The pictures turned out well. You can really see the shimmer or fake snow on them. It looks like crystals.




I have finished my crayon holders and I really like the way they turned out. they are very cute and compact and hopefully the girls will use them. I am saving them for Christmas and will probably make some for their cousins.



Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-getting the second to last spinning pass when I only had my spinning shoes on and the two kids (I was glad that I could work out and not have to go home because I could not get into the spinning class).
-Hearing Nathan's speaking progression
-having a break from thinking about how I can help Nathan's eczema
-watching Mallory play with her dolls (they are getting married and having babies right now)