MLK Day

We headed down to Long Beach to the Aquarium on MLK day to take advantage of our passes. Paul was home that day so it was super fun to have him with us. I must admit that even though I am kind of getting tired of the Aquarium, it was still a fun day together and there are parts of the Aquarium that I still really enjoy. It was crowded, as expected, but it wasn't terrible. Could have been way worse. We walked around all the exhibits and went to most all of the touch tanks. The Lorikeets were "full" so we didn't get to go in and feed them, but since the kids were scared of them last time, I'm not sure they were too upset about that. 

Brandon decided he didn't want him picture taken…typical! 

The leaf dragons are one of my favorites. Such a cool example of an animal adapting to it's environment to survive.

Brandon was most excited to see the octopus. And we were SUPER lucky because he was SO active that day. Swimming all over his tank and really putting on a good "show" for us. I've never seen him move around that much. Usually he's mostly hidden so it was a real treat. 

I do really love the touch tanks and so does Carter. He stood there as long as they would possibly let him and touched every little creature he could. It was really cute.

Me and my kiddos.

It's not always easy to get Brandon to look happy in a picture or to see him actually….willingly….hug his sister. So this picture was a nice suprise. 

The drive home was a bit long, so we stopped at Fuddruckers in Sherman Oaks for some dinner. One of my most favorite places so I was excited. 

Paul got coins for the kids to play arcades, but let's be honest now. We know who the coins were "really" for. LOL!

Grandmas visit

Grandma came over Sunday morning before leaving on her flight at 2pm. She taught the girls to make scarfs and played games with the boys. It was a quick visit but the kids had fun hanging out. Luckily she'll be back in April for Leah's baptism. 

Leah's a fast learner. She finished her first one that afternoon. I'm afraid she's already passing me up in the crafty department. 

My family

Sure love these people. Even if they sometimes drive me bonkers. And even if we can't pose decently for a family photo.

This past week

Life has slowed down quite a bit since the holidays have ended. I'm still adjusting, often thinking I should be rushing around doing something, but not being able to think of what it is I need to do. We still have a slew of doctor's visits every week, but they have slowed down too, which is nice. I've been putting off getting blood work done on Ashlyn and Carter. Both of which need it before their next appointments, so I can only put it off for so much longer. It's been kind of nice though to get back into the routine of school and homework and such. Even if it means constantly nagging the kids to hang up their backpacks and empty out their lunch bags. Hopefully the kids won't only remember "nagging" mom, but also "nice" mom. 

Here's a few pictures from this past week.

Carter and Brandon's beds are pretty darn close to each other, but I often go to bed finding that Carter had pulled his pillow and blanket next to Brandon to be even closer. They fight sometimes, but I think they are pretty happy (and lucky) to have each other. 

Here are some of Brandon's box creations he did over the winter break. I thought he was pretty creative with them. But of course they are all scary looking.

I think Leah actually made this one. You can tell it's slightly more tame. 

Paul and I celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary. Can't believe 13 years have gone by. But then at the same time, it's weird to think of a time when we haven't been together. I sure love this guy and consider myself pretty lucky to have found him and won his affections. He's so patient and kind. He works really hard for me and the kids, and I couldn't be more proud of him for all that he does. Love you honey!

We had dinner at Kisho's Japanese Restaurant and then went to see the movie "Saving Mr. Banks". Liked it way more than I thought I was going to.

With the new year came the change in church time. I'm SO SO happy to be back at 9 am church. Mostly because that means we see Paul a lot more on Sunday now. With 1 pm church he's gone the bulk of the day, but with 9 am church, he has earlier meetings and is home by 2 or so. I know it means less sleep for him, but hey, it also means an afternoon nap snuggling up with this cute little guy.

A friend of mine gave me a Christmas cactus LAST year for Christmas. I can't tell you how many times I almost threw the thing out. (I'm not much for taking care of plants). But I just couldn't bring myself to do it because the dang thing wouldn't die. Now I'm so glad I didn't because a year later, it flowered. I didn't even know it could do that so it was quite a pleasant surprise. 

Having lunch with my little buddy. He never actually eats anything at any restaurants we go to, but it's fun to have him with me. I'll miss these days with him once he starts school. I know it's not for a couple more years, but it'll be here before I know it. 

My mom came in town this past weekend for a funeral. A dear friend of hers who has battled with Muscular Dystrophy most of her life, passed away earlier this week. She has been bedridden for over 30 years so it was bittersweet. 

We took advantage of having Grandma in town though and took a trip to the mall. We had dinner, walked around a bit and took the kids on the carousel. Just a fun little evening together.

(Brandon was up on the top level with Grandma, so he didn't get his picture taken.)

Excited for the three day MLK weekend and getting to have Paul home on Monday. Need to think of something fun to do with the kids. Maybe a trip to the Aquarium to use our passes again before they expire. Not sure yet though. 

Some artwork

I admit I am not the best at keeping my kids artwork. I simply do not have the space for it. But I'm trying to be a bit better and at least take pictures of it so there is at least a memory of a few of the things they create (they create SO many).

Here are a few of Leah's latest creations. She really enjoys drawing and does it quite a bit.

Abstract finger painting at it's best. Also Leah's creations.

Carter started preschool and came home with his very first school art. I, of course, had to take a picture of them. And I'm quite positive his teachers helped him (a lot) in writing his name. 

And this is Brandon's art work. He doesn't draw much but he has been way into making monsters out of old cereal boxes and toilet paper rolls. I'll need to take some pictures of those too. Right now they are all occupying my dining room table.

And for memories sake, here is my Christmas card wall. I swear I get more cards when I send them out and I didn't send any out this year. I will have to be better next Christmas because Christmas cards are the most fun things to get in the mail.

 My poor little Ashlyn. Socks on her hands and a beenie on her head. All to keep her from scratching her head in her sleep and making it bleed.

Leah's good friend Kayla invited her and Brandon (her brother Joseph and Brandon are in the same class at school) to her birthday party this past Monday. They went to the movies to see Frozen and then to The Habit for lunch. Leave it to the big brother to photo bomb with bunny ears.

It hasn't been super eventful around our house this week (or last for that matter). It's been kind of nice to just hang out at home a lot and recoup from the holidays. The kids have been having fun playing together (for the most part anyway) and having some friends over too. We may or may not have been watching quite a bit of TV around here (wink, wink). Leah's doing Winter Academy every morning at school, and loves it. And Carter is still busy with OT and now Preschool. Me and Ashlyn made cookies together this morning, but she's spent a great deal of her time in her room creating worlds for her Lego Friends and Calico Critters and every other "tiny" toy that she has. It's one of her most favorite things to do. She's almost done with her 5th Harry Potter book and I can't wait to watch the movie with her. Paul and I have our Anniversary date this weekend and I'm super excited about that. Brandon's running around being rough and telling everyone how he's going to "punch them in the face". So pretty typical behavior for him. He's definitely all boy and then some. I'm trying to rein in it, cuz honestly it drives me crazy sometimes. Glad to be over the nasty flu from last week and looking forward to getting the kids back in school and on a routine next week. Although lazy mornings have been really nice. 

I'm forewarning you...

Below are some sad sad pictures. 

This week has been pretty uneventful. Probably on account of the fact that after feeling better on Monday, I went down hard with what I am assuming was some kind of flu bug on Tuesday morning. Paul had to call in sick cuz I literally could not move out of bed. Our New Year's Eve plans got ruined (still sad about that) and I basically slept for almost two days straight. I only emerged Thursday morning in time to take Carter to his allergist. I was very anxious to find out more about his allergies and what to watch out for. 

First thing the doctor asked me when he sat down was to tell him how he encountered his peanut reaction. I told him how it happened and that the blood work came back that he was also allergic to this list of other things. He looked at the report and then asked me to name what they told me he was allergic to. And besides the peanuts, he basically said no to everything else. He said his blood work showed up with these additional foods because peanuts are in the legume family and so were most of the other foods I was told he was allergic to. So because he was allergic to peanuts, the blood work would naturally show up with these other allergens as well. He looked at him, listened to him breath and said….he looks like he has hay fever. He asked me if he was always congested and I said yes, pretty much. And he asked me if he always had dark circles under his eyes, and I said yes, pretty much. 

So, at that point I pretty much knew they were going to want to do a prick test on him. I had been through it before with Ashlyn when she was barely 3 and it was a horrible experience. And she came back with NO allergies. So I was ready to resist at all costs. However, Carter's doctor told me they do it differently from when Ashlyn had it done and he even demonstrated on me and Carter's arm, so reluctantly I agreed. ONLY because I knew it was in Carter's best interest that we find out what individually he was allergic to and the prick test was the most reliable way.

Two girls had a set of eight allergens in each hand (on little poker tips if that makes sense). They both stuck his back all at one time. So 32 pokes for about 2 seconds. (much better than 50 individual pokes Ashlyn received).  It's not a deep prick, but enough to get under the first bit of skin. He cried of course and wanted to itch at his back, but I distracted him pretty quickly with my phone and blew on his back to keep him from touching it. Then we had to wait for 15-20 minutes. It was amazing how quickly the results started to show up. WAY different than when Ashlyn had it done and there was virtually no difference after the allotted time. 

This was maybe 2-3 min after they poked him. A little red from the pokes and the specific "allergen" is in the kind of jelly type liquid. I know…I have all the right technical terms. I'm sure the doctor calls it jelly stuff too. 

This picture was taken about 10 minutes into our wait time. You can see the bottom right is really starting to flare up.

This was after 20 minutes and they had already wiped off his back and put calming cream on it. You can see that just about every dot is at least inflamed some with the bottom right being the worse. That would be his nut allergy. So, yes definitely allergic to peanuts. 

The rest are grasses and trees and molds. And the things his pediatrician said he was allergic to still also showed up, but his allergist said they were not at clinically significant levels. Lesson learned…..always go to a specialist. Pediatricians are fantastic in their own aspects, but if you have serious issues, specialists are the bomb!

 So really most of his stuffiness and puffy dark eyes are related to hay fever. Wish I would have figured that out earlier. His doctor put him on once a day singulair and a dose of claritan at bed time. We go back in one month to see if it helps. He said if he was wheezy, he would consider him asthmatic. 

He still has to go for more blood work to determine what specific nuts (if any besides peanuts) that he is allergic to. I'm hoping none. Then his doctor recommended a newer type test that looks at his peanut allergy at the molecular level. I guess this is suppose to help me know exactly what his reactions are and how severe they are. It's not covered by insurance, but I think it's something we'll definitely be doing in the near future.

So…it's really wonderful to know we don't have to stay away from most of the foods I thought I was going to have to stay away from, especially soy since it seems to be in everything. Although I am sure I will be cautious when letting him try new things. He may not be allergic to them, but he may have sensitivities to look out for. 

And this is just to prove that later that day he was in fact back to his happy self and enjoying some ice cream at Foster's Freeze. Don't know what was wrong with Brandon, but the rest of the kids were happy. Maybe it was because his french fries hadn't shown up yet. Haha…

More details to follow.

OH and just so you don't think my kids New Year's was ruined also, Paul did a fabulous job at entertaining them and taking care of me too. He took them to McDonald's and to the park. And then brought out the Sparkling Cider and celebrated with the ball drop at midnight (New York time). Then the next day, he bravely took them all to the Glendale Galleria to go to the Lego store and spend the rest of their Christmas money. I'm sure a treat was included and a stop at the play area as well. So they had a great two days with non stop playing with Daddy. I think Paul may have been ready to go back to work come Thursday morning. 

Happy New Year

Well I was in bed all day, so I don't know how happy it is, but still. 

Hooray for the beginning of a New Year anyway. I'm still mourning the end of Christmas and all the fun and craziness that goes along with that. The tree and decorations are down, but I am having a hard time turning the Christmas music in the car off. I tried, but found myself turning it right back on a few minutes later.

As far as Resolutions, I have decided to not review the ones I made this past year. Some I accomplished, some I didn't. Some I forgot about and some I chose to ignore. ANYWAY, for this year, I'm keeping it simple with one resolution.

To finish my Personal Progress by the end of the year. 

That's it. I have A LOT to do on it still, but I think it's possible. It would be SUPER awesome if I finished it before my current Laurels went off to college, but I don't want to set myself up for failure, so I'm gonna say the end of the year.

There….that's all. And anything else I accomplish will just be icing on the cake. Cuz literally I'm drowning in doctor's appointments for my kids these days and have been to the pharmacy more in the last month than I care to admit. Here's to a healthy Happy New Year!

Love to all!