Merry Christmas :)

Blogger on my phone?

Just checking to see if posting from my phone works :)

Fun times :)

They both adore Alex's new bike! It's just cute!!

The last few weeks :)

Alex was much more interested in the christmas tree box than he was in actually decorating the tree!!

Cara, on the other hand, had a BLAST decorating it! She did almost all of the decorations by herself :)

We have no idea what Alex was so intently staring at outside. He was like this for five solid minutes!

A couple shots from Cara.....

She loves Alex's new bike. There were a good ten shots of this alone!

Mommy, of course, always gets a picture taken of her....I seem to be a favorite for her!

Daddy let her take a nice shot as well :)

We went to the Armament Museum last weekend. The kids just love this place! Airplanes are just so cool, you know!

So, I haven't updated in awhile :) A lot has happened to us in the last two months. We finally got all of the results in from Alex's allergy blood test. Drumroll..........................oh yes, he is allergic to gluten, dairy, apples, and hazelnuts. Fantastic, right? Of course we got all of the results in a week before Thanksgiving. I was in serious panic mode. How do I do this??? Not only does the boy eat applesauce everyday, he eats bread everyday and milk seems to be in everything. After an entire weekend of "pinging" (my husband likened it to living with someone mentally insane), I finally pushed through to the optomistic side of this craziness. I found some great people who have gone through the same thing and they have helped me out HUGE. I have baked Alex his own bread for his sandwiches at school, and even though I don't think the bread tastes that great, he doesn't care. Thankfully, he is young enough to where it isn't going to be that big of a deal to switch out what he eats. After only a week on this new diet, I can already tell a difference in him. Tonight, I successfully made gluten-dairy free pancakes that actually tasted great! There is a little bit of a wierd after taste that comes along with either the gluten free flour or the almond milk, but with syrup, Blake and I couldn't taste the aftertaste at all :) Woo hoo for that! Thanks Jess for the recipe.

So, in doing my research on gluten-dairy free recipes, I have found out so many interesting things. The allergist said that most skin problems and breathing problems that children have can be linked to a food allergy. He also said that food allergies can affect the brain chemistry. I have been doing research for a paper in school on ADHD, and a lot of kids who are diagnosed with ADHD don't actually have it, but have either food allergies or a learning disability. Also, it seems that a lot of autistic children are put on a gluten-dairy free diet as it helps even out their brain chemistry. It is just all so very interesting. It almost makes me want to be an allergist :) So many things are linked in wierd ways!

Anyway, so this is what's up in our life. The kids are both doing really well in school, as am I. I cannot believe that the semester is almost finished. This was such a scary step to start school, but I am finding I like it. And (surprise, surprise) I am not to shabby at it :)

Tinkerbell and the Pirate!

Okay, so the kids had a BLAST dressing up this year! It was just the cutest thing ever. They came back from trick or treating with a pretty decent amount of candy as well. Alex didn't quite grasp the concept to begin with....the first door they knocked on, the guy opened it and Alex ran straight into his livingroom! By the end of it, though, he was getting it :) Both of the kids loved their costumes. They got to wear them to school that morning, so they were in them almost the whole day. It was a fun day!!!

Cara and Alex and the firetruck!

I am not sure if you will be able to click and zoom in on the pictures. The school sent them to me in a format to where I could just copy and paste them. I hope you can zoom in! The kids had SO much fun with the firefighters today. They got to tour the firetruck and even spray the firehose. They each got a firehat (which both of my kids have not taken off since we got home). It's just adorable!!!

Just a day in the life....

Daddy and Alex playing a video game. Alex loves to sit like this!!!
The three of us :) They love to cuddle and take pictures all together!

Cara had a tea party with all of her "friends". They each had to have their own pillow to sit on...it was a little strange to see!

Fun!

Robert, Cara and Alex watching a movie in 3-D
Alex thought he was pretty cool!

I made homemade pizza with yeastless dough. It turned out pretty fabulous! The first one was ham, olives and cheese and the second was buffalo chicken. Both had a white cream sauce instead of tomato sauce. Yummy!!

She is a cheeseball. This is the only look I can get right now with the camera. Slightly creepy....

Alex in hand-me-down jammies from California :)

So, where do I begin with our saga this week? I think I may have mentioned that we are getting Alex tested for food allergies. He had a blood panel done a few weeks ago and the results have started coming in. So far he isn't allergic to raspberries, strawberries, coconut, tangerines, lentils, sugar cane and gluten. He is, however, highly allergic to the cow protein in milk...so in other words, he has a major dairy allergy :( Today was our first day being completly dairy free. It's insane what kinds of things have milk in them!!! We don't know if he is allergic to soy or almonds yet, so I am thinking we will probably do rice milk until then???? This is just all so new to me! I hope he grows out of it. It will be nice to sit down with the doctor once we have all the results in and talk it over. I will definitly keep you updated on the situation!! More later...

More views from Cara and the beach :)

A self portrait.

Miss Micaela :)

Daddy!

Daddy's motorcycle

our light on the garage :)

The street in front of our house.

We went to the beach the other day and it was fabulous. The base down here is right on the bay, so we can just go on base and go to the ocean :) It's nice and calm, almost like a lake. Perfect for the child (Alex) who actually hates the ocean. The kids had a fabulous time!! The other pictures are from Cara. She really does LOVE the camera. I am thinking she will probably be getting one of those kids camera's for christmas!

The many faces of Alex....

This little boy is so dear to my heart!! He is just the funniest little person ever....when he isn't driving his sister batty (on purpose). Alex has just drown these last few weeks in daycare by leaps and bounds!! He finally has full sentances (woo hoo!), he can count to ten and recognize the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8, and apparently, he recognizes all the letters in TOSHIBA along with a multitude of other letters, as he is always telling what the letters are on the back of my laptop, he is finally on his way to being fully potty trained and he can draw circles :) I think one of the cutest things he does is sing the alphabet along with Pig on Super Why. I also think it's cute that when the four little characters on the show put their hands together and chant "Super readers to the rescue!!", he and Cara both find me (wherever I am in the house), make me put my hands in the middle, and we all chant together. I love that he loves to count down from 5 and then use every tiny bit of energy he has to jump (using both feet) off the ground. I also love it when he sings "I've Got a Dream" from Tangled. He can already carry a tune better than his big sister. I am afraid she might be a little tone deaf....I am just so proud of my little boy. I try not to treat him like the baby of the family, but it's difficult. He is the baby. He can get Cara to do pretty much anything for him. I am not sure how good of a thing that is :) I just thought I would update you on the little boy in our world. I feel as if I don't really do updates on him (in a positive way) and I really wanted to show his good side!!! He totally has one, even though he is a pill sometimes!

cute smiles :)

Why is it they they are ALWAYS in the bathtub when they make the sweetest smiles?????

Jello Cake!

The kids had jello cake for the first time tonight.....needless to say, it is now their favorite along with mine!! They just couldn't get enough of it :)

Yes, he is licking his plate clean. I don't normally let them do this, but he was so super excited about the cake, I had to just smile, laugh and take a picture!!!

Our Busy Life :)

Cara and Alex in thier preschool room. They both absolutly adore it!!!!

So, we've had a busy couple of weeks. I decided to go college (scary!!!). I need to use my G.I. Bill from the military, so here I go!! I just wasn't sure how I was going to make it work, being a full time Mom and being a full time student. Blake and I struggled and struggled with the daycare options we were coming up with. Everything is just so expensive!! I didn't want the kids in full time daycare, but there were hardly any places that did part time, and those that did were totally out of our budget. Marcia (my Mother-In-Law) suggested I look at the actual college. Sure enough, they had a daycare. It's not even a daycare. It's preschool :) The only problem here is that they only take kids 2 1/2 years old and up...and they have to be potty trained. Bummer!!! Alex just wasn't there yet. I went in and talked to them. They were so awesome! I told them how Alex did at home with the potty training...basically, not well. They said as long as we are working with him at home, they have no problems working with him there. Woo hoo!!! He has not had an accident yet!! I am just amazed :)

In the midst of all this, Alex finally had his appointment with the allergist. He had the scratch test done and it came back that he was massively allergic to cats and a certain type of tree. He was also allergic (but not as massivly) to mold and ragweed. The food scratch tests ended up not doing anything at all. The doc was defenitly still concerned since Alex does have reactions to food, so he ordered a blood allergy panel to be done. We just went in this past Tuesday to have his blood drawn, so we won't have the results for another couple of weeks. He prescribed him an epi pen for the outside allergens and I am really hoping that the blood panel will not come back positive on anything major!!! The picture of Alex's back above was minutes after they did the scratch test on him. The larger welts on the left are the cat and tree :( I didn't get a picture of how big the welts ended up getting. He still had them when he went to bed that night. Poor kid!!

So, Cara and Alex have started pre-preschool. I am very pleased that they are in the same room at school, and the classroom is right on campus, so I can go and check on them whenever :) Next year, Cara will move to the actual preschool room, but by then Alex will know what the routine is and shouldn't have a problem being by himself in the room. I am still just amazed at how much his potty training has come in the last two weeks!! He is still in a pull up at night, but I think that is normal :)

School for me is not as scary (so far) as I thought it would be. The math and english are the two I have started so far. I am taking these on campus, I will be taking American Government and Intro to the execptional child online, and those two start next week. I feel as though I will be able to handle it. I was a nervous wreck last week, though! It didn't really help that Blake had to go tdy for a month and a half...and he left the day before school started. It's working out though. He is going to be able to come home next weekend, which will be nice. Cara has some concept that he is gone, but whenever we get home and walk in the door, both kids still run through the house looking for him. I think it's actually a good thing to have him gone for a short amount of time, so when he does deploy (probably next summer) for a whole lot longer, they will have some idea of what to expect.

Another plus that has happened....Hurricane Irene didn't hit us :) One of the initial tracks they had her going on, had her coming straight for us. THat would have been a difficult situation as Blake would not have been here, but thankfully, we don't have to worry about her :)

Basically, life is going pretty well. The kids, as always, have thier own issues we are working through....I won't go into any great detail right now...Huh, I am writing in italics.....Aha! That was wierd. Apparently control and I make it italisized. Wierd. Anyway, we are defenitly working on attitudes with both kids, but slowly and surely, they are coming around :) Well, I think that's it for now!!