Food, Glorious Food

A visit to the allergy doctor today proved the best news I've had in a while. None of the girls have ever been 're-pricked' since their initial allergy tests. For Mary and Whit, it's been 3 years, for Annie, it's been 18 months. Today was the day.

GOOD NEWS!!!!!

Annie is now egg and peanut allergy free (meaning no food allergies). Both skin tests showed no reaction. HALLELUIA!

Whitney still has her peanut allergy (the only one she has), but of the 2 ways they tested the peanut, it only showed up on one and was MILD. There is great hope it will be outgrown and she is closer to kindergarten, we'll test again.

Mary is now SOY ALLERGY FREE!!!!! She is still allergic to egg and peanut and we added a new one of cashews to the list today, but taking soy off the list is HUGE! I literally feel weight off my shoulder.

The car ride taking Mary to school was SO fun:
"Mom, does this mean I can eat regular bread?"
"Yup"
"Does it mean I can have hamburger buns?"
"Yup. You can even eat some treats now that you couldn't before."
"I CAN?!?!?!"
and on, and on and on.

I started crying, for real. I can't even imagine going to the store and buying awesome things like stir fry, and soy sauce, and worchestershire sauce, and condensed soup, and any boullion I want, and all types of chicken nuggets (not just the super expensive ones), and bread, bread, bread, and boxed potatoes, and rice a roni, and pasta roni, and spagettio's and....WOW!

Now I should knock on wood since I sent her straight to school and we haven't experiemented yet, but tonight we're going to McDonald's and she's getting a cheeseburger. I think I'll take a picture.

Baby Bye, Bye, Bye

I think I officially have a toddler...no more baby. It would make sense, she is two.

The high chair is in the attic, replaced by a booster seat.

The diapers are DONE, replaced by all sorts of 'big girl panties.'

Annie is sweet and cute and talks my head off and amazes me by how big she is and acts.
A week and a half ago, our neighbors had a big party and had face painting. Sweet Annie waited 20 minutes to get her face painted...waited paitently, I might add. When she sat down on the big seat, she told the lady exactly what she wanted, closed her eyes and was as still as still could be while her butterfly was drawn. It was the cutest thing I've seen in a while. Wished I had the video camera with me (or even the regular one--the picture was taken after we got home).

Here's all the kiddos with their cute face paintings. No need for a separate post; it was a fun night.

If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

This post is for my mom. The hair got whacked off...finally. She has always liked it short instead of longer so I'm sure she is happy and clapping her hands right now. I think I lost 5 pounds just from the haircut, so I'm clapping too. :)

It might be 7 months or so til I actually see my mom again, so this post will have to do until then.

Thank you photographer Whitney!

Spooky Lou

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We were actually quite far from 'spooky' this year. But... we had fun at our ward fall festival on Saturday night and our familiy festival on Sunday night. Annie is definitely the most candy obsessed of the kids though I believe the parents in this home are way more candy out of control than any of the kids--we're pathetic.

Check out those happy kiddos--this is even pre-candy happiness!

Our Tiger (or Tigger)


Our Dragon--again. Definitely related to her father in her inability to keep her eyes open for pictures. Or maybe her huge smile is to blame.

Our Pioneer

Our Captain Hook (minus the hair)

Our Hippie (non-minus the hair)

My favorite comment of the night was by an 8 year old who said to me, "So are you from the 80s or something?" The second favorite comment was "Is that your real hair or a wig?"--I heard it multiple times. I thought it was oh so obvious.

Chances Are...

What are the chances that Andrew would throw a wrapper on the ground in his dad's car when he was done eating something?--very high chances

What are the chances that that something in the wrapper was peanut butter crackers from soccer--the common allergy of his 3 sisters?--not very high chances at all

What are the chances that a few days later his sister, Mary, would be in that car, find that wrapper and not only pick it up but scrape out some of the leftover peanut butter and eat it?--I would have thought those chances were slim to none.

I was wrong.

Imagine my surprise when I was driving Mary home from soccer practice in the dark and suddenly she says, "Can you open my window, I need to spit." After spitting (and missing of course) several times, she then said, "I feel like I ate peanut butter or something." At this point I am unaware there is any food anywhere in that back seat.

"Did you eat something, Mary?" I ask. It was then I learned of the wrapper on the ground and of her thought that the stuff against the edge of the wrapper was FROSTING. Geez. Out comes the Benedryl and the paranoia watching to see how allergy girl will react. Fortunately, her throat just felt yucky and she kept spitting--that was it.

Then came the conversations:

"Andrew, we don't throw wrappers on the ground."

"Mary, we don't pick up trash off the floor and sample it, even if we think it is frosting."

Maybe we'll be on top of this kind of stuff before the kids are all grown. At this point, that seems unlikely.

5 Little Pumpkins (and a few 1000 more)

Rita and Clem were in town the first part of October. We were in search of a Saturday New England experience that both they and we had not had yet. Then we discovered the Keene, NH Pumpkin Festival so we decided that was it.

The 2 hour drive was GORGEOUS--leaf peepers r us!

We got to Keene and couldn't figure out where we were supposed to go, mainly where we were supposed to park. We finally found a shuttle lot and took a school bus to the festival. The kids were excited just by riding the bus.

Here's what we found when we arrived:

pumpkins,

more pumpkins,

and MORE PUMPKINS!!!!!!
I wish we could have seen this pumpkin tower when it was dark. It was really cool.

Here are a few that we brought with us (yeah right!)

These were a hit with our family, as were about 100 others.

Singers in front of the pumpkin tower. There were over 23,000 pumpkins at the festival. We saw a lot of people bringing in pumpkins while we were there and checking them in.

The kids were also excited to go in a bounce house and to get their faces painted.

Andrew was sickly looking and coughing his brains out by the time we left, so we didn't make it til dark. Fortunately, carved pumpkins are still cool in the daytime.By the time we rode the bus back, the line at the shuttle stop waiting for the bus was crazy long. It was probably better we left when we did anyway.

We had a great visit with Rita and Clem. Between their trip and my mom and Kellie's trip, I have been a horrible picture taker however. I did manage a few though:

Grandpa and Andrew showing off the bird feeder they made. The squirrels have found it and are in heaven. :)

Kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa. We are so glad they came!!!

Ready to Run

13. 1 miles--Hartford ING Half-Marathon.
I did it!!!

I will probably be ramblesome in my details since this race was a large part of my past 6 months, so feel free to just look at pictures if you like.

So, my sister Megan ran the half marathon last fall and I went to cheer her on. The day was amazing and decided then that I would run the race this year. I'm so glad I committed myself to doing it. It has been a fun, hard, crazy, never ending, but amazing experience.

RACE DAY!

A FAMILY AFFAIR! Mom and Kellie flew out to visit and do the 5K (I think the race was just a good excuse to come visit). Mom has already walked 2 half marathons this year and she and Kellie have already done a previous 5K this summer. Megan came in from NYC with 3 friends to run the race as well. This was Megan's 4th half marathon for 2010. Needless to say, I was definitely the inexperienced racer of the group. It was so fun with all of them around; I'm glad we did it together.

MY BUDDIES! 3 of my good buds trained with me and kept me pumped these last few months/weeks. Bonnie has been on board with me since last fall when I decided to do it. Terri moved in not too long ago and joined in training immediately and Tanjua got on board with us this summer and has been a powerhouse. I have loved having friends to do this with--it's made the training more fun. Plus, they all ran SO WELL in the race and it was fun getting to be excited for them!!

I drove to the race with mom, Megan and Kellie and then couldn't find these guys anywhere. Even calling each other, there were just so many people. I finally just acknowledged that I wouldn't be able to see them and was so bummed. Megan, her friend Cassie, and I slipped into the mass of people at the starting line (or starting herd I should say since we are talking thousands!). I looked straight down the row from us and saw Bonnie and Tanjua about 10 people from me!!!! I couldn't believe it! It was a true blessing to get to see them and be excited with them before things began.

THE RACE BEGAN! Matt scored big points for being the highlight of my race day. He came with the kids and I was expecting to see them at the finish line. He surprised me though and just past mile 3, I see Matt and the kids all cheering me on. Holy cow, I was so excited!!! He caught me in this picture waving my arms to the kids and being so excited. He then drove the kids around and they were cheering for me around mile 5 and somewhere between mile 7 and 8, not to mention the finish line. I loved it!!!!

I split from Megan at mile 3 when her knee was acting up (as it has been for a few weeks) and went solo. Around the time of my arm waving picture, I started feeling like I was going to throw up; pretty much, the entire race went downhill from here.

This shot was around mile 5. I told Matt at this point that I felt like I would throw up. It all began about a mile later. The rest of the race was a mixture of feeling sick, having serious lower back pain, and major side cramps. Joy of joys. It was definitely my worst running day in all of my 6 months of training. I couldn't get out of the mental funk I was in of wanting to quit and of being so mad as I was going slower and slower.

All done!!! Ta-da!!!

But...I kept going. I finished. I did it in 2 hours and 29ish minutes. It was 15 minutes slower than I had hoped and expected and I was upset the entire day--it didn't help that I was exhausted, sick and in pain. But then on Sunday I finally got my needed nap and went to bed early as well. Now that I'm not tired, I am proud that I did it and feel amazed that I did as well as I did considering how horrible it was.

So that's it. Will I do it again? You bet. Matt has committed to running it with me next year. And next year's goal won't be a specific time or specific pace, it will be "Have fun."

I can't wait.