Running With Candy

Halloween was busy for us this year. I spent the morning at the elementary school watching the costume parade and then the fourth grade Halloween program. Nathan has been super excited about it for weeks. He is one of those people who loves performing and being in the spotlight…can’t imagine where he gets it from :-). Although it was exactly the same program that Daniel did two years ago, it was still fun to watch and that Frankenstein song still makes me laugh.

After the program I only had a few minutes to spare before I had to pick up Matthew from school. Then it was home for lunch, put Malia down for a nap, and prep our Halloween dinner.

Daniel had plans to trick or treat a bit later in the evening with a couple of friends, so after dinner Kev and I threw Malia in the stroller and took Nathan and Matthew out to trick or treat. Trick or treating is a bit of a tricky procedure for Matthew since he is allergic to so many things. We asked him if he wanted to 1) take whatever he was offered and trade it in for safe stuff when he got home or 2) have us take a bag of Matthew friendly treats to fill his bag when there were no safe choices. He chose the second option, just like he does every year. But honestly, I think that for Matthew trick or treating is more about running around the neighborhood in his costume than it is about the candy. He would run to a house, ring the bell, take a quick glance into their bowl to see if there was anything safe for him (usually not), and take off running for the next door. Repeat…repeat…”Hey! Wait for us!”...repeat…repeat…”Slow down!”…repeat…you get the idea. He didn’t even bother to get a safe treat from us when the offerings didn’t work for him so I just started sticking handfuls of candy in his bag once in a while.

Halloween in our neighborhood is a bit like a block party. People sit out on their porches, whole families walk the neighborhood, there are hot dogs being grilled, doughnuts and hot chocolate, some years there has even been fire grilled pizza. It is a great neighborhood to live in all the time, but Halloween is especially fun. The adults get just as involved as the kids.  At one point in our wanderings we happened to see "Captain America" riding around the neighborhood on his motorcycle. Needless to say, Matthew was totally stoked. And the Cap was great. He told Ironman he had been looking for him earlier because he needed his help.

We managed to get everyone's costumes ready in time and while Malia was cute...

Matthew was "super"...

and Daniel was a bit retro...

Nathan was the talk of the school...and the neighborhood.  I've been trying to convince him to be spaghetti and meatballs since he was about five and he finally gave it a go. All day I kept hearing comments like, “Look! It’s spaghetti and meatballs! That’s so cool!” He put most of his costume together by himself and I think it turned out great!

Squash Offerings 2012

For FHE tonight we carved our pumpkins and made homemade doughnuts. Matthew needs a doughnut for his class Halloween party on Wednesday and since doughnuts are one of those things that we just cannot buy for him, we make them instead. I’ll admit that I don’t do it very often because they can be kind of labor intensive, so Matthew can count all the times he has eaten doughnuts on one hand. But really, I don’t mind the work so much when his response to a warm, glazed and sprinkled doughnut is, “That…was…AWESOME!!”

Before I show you how all our Jacks turned out, I want to share a couple of soundbytes from the evening’s festivities. We had a big bowl that everyone was using for their pumpkin guts. I was speeding up the gutting process by picking up the whole pumpkin and dumping the guts into the bowl instead of trying to scoop them out. Daniel thought this was a great time saving technique and at one point he asked, “Can I take a dump?” Kev and I laughed ourselves silly. And once Daniel realized what he has said, he laughed to. I just love that my kids are just as wacky as their parents!

Matthew has gotten old enough that he can do a lot of the actual carving by himself. He was vigorously sawing away at his Hulk-O-Lantern when he stopped and said, “My cheeks shake when I do this.” (Chuckle) He may be old enough to carve his own pumpkin, but he still has just a bit of baby chub in his cheeks.

Without further ado, here is how it all worked out:

 

A Girl and Her Boots

Malia has a thing about shoes. All summer she would shuck off her sandals as fast as she possibly could, but then it got cold and I started putting shoes on her so she couldn’t pull her socks off. They were cute shoes, of course. She never even tried to take them off. In fact, she prefers to have them on.

Then it got cold enough for her to wear the rockin’ boots that my sister-in-law, Danna, gave us for Malia’s baby shower. I love these boots. If they came in my size I would totally wear them. And Malia seems to have inherited my fancy for footwear. This morning I got all her clothes out and as soon as she saw her boots she started complaining. She grabbed them and held them out to me, holding her feet up as well. She complained the entire time I was changing her diaper and getting her dressed. Then we put the boots on…and she was perfectly content. She sat and admired the boots for a bit. She would not let me take them off her, even at nap time.

I’m equal parts proud and ashamed that my daughter has a thing for purses and shoes.

It Really Is Mesmerizing

It’s snowing outside. Nathan and Matthew were uber excited this morning when they saw the snow. And Malia just peeked out the window and noticed the snow coming down.

Seeing the first snowfall of the season through the eyes of my kiddos always reminds me just how magical snow can be.

Malia, My Baby…Although She Won’t Stay That Way for Long

The last couple of months have included many firsts for Malia. She outgrew the infant car seat which led to her first ride ever in a shopping cart. She thought it was pretty fun, especially because she had a traveling companion.

She has finally figured out how to so from laying down back to a sitting position and although she still lays on the floor and holds books with her feet, more often I find her sitting with a book in her lap. She folds her arms when we say prayers, although not consistently. She has become fearless about standing up and loves to stand at the piano and play.

She has also realized that standing up means that she can reach more stuff and subsequently had become quite a menace! She sings and jabbers all the time. She dances by shaking her shoulders back and forth. She has developed a liking for baby dolls, although she also likes to push cars around. And she has actually started crawling on her hands and knees which leads to the inevitable (at least at our house) sleeping with her bum in the air.

Yesterday she discovered her belly button and when I ask her where her belly is, she will slap her belly with her hands. She grabs at her hair and is constantly pulling out her hair clips and bows. If she gets a hold of a Kleenex, she will rip it into tiny pieces but she won’t try to eat it. When she finds something tiny on the floor, she will offer it to us if we ask and sometimes even if we don’t. She waves goodbye and occasionally says, “Hi.” She laughs and smiles and keeps us entertained!

Unlike Most Kids, He Actually Has a Valid Excuse for Not Eating His Peas…

Matthew’s latest round of blood work confirms our suspicions that he has developed an allergy to peas. He used to eat them all the time, but just over a year ago he quite eating them. He had a vomiting incident involving some split pea soup and that was our first big warning sign. We have been watching him for the past year and he has picked around the peas when he encounters them and been just fine. But two weeks ago he ate around the peas in his chicken noodle soup just like he always does and had a reaction anyway. He was coughing and generating a lot of mucus, both signs of an allergic reaction. I gave him some Benadryl and within five minutes it had all cleared up.  So peas are off the menu around here.

I’m not going to lie to you. I get a bit discouraged. With every new thing he becomes allergic to, it gets harder to imagine that he’ll ever get to the point where we can take him out to eat. And I get nervous about him developing other allergies. I especially worry about other legumes.  If he becomes allergic to soy, we are going to need another all encompassing food and recipe overhaul. I think I’m better equipped to handle it now than I was five years ago, but honestly it kind of stresses me out to think about it and I know there would be tears involved. But all we can do it keep taking one day at a time and see how things play out….

Oh, and one other tidbit: we did a general screening for seasonal allergies since Matthew has been having some red, itchy and watery eyes of late. He showed positive results for both test groups of trees, weeds, grass, and mold. At least all of those aren’t life threatening.

Shhhh!

I just finished a big project. I’m super excited, but I can’t show it to you yet because it is a Christmas present. However, I started planning it in late December last year and started working on it in March so that gives you an idea of why I’m so excited. So stay tuned. After the holidays I’ll share pictures. :-)

A Taste of BYU

Daniel is in sixth grade. That means student council. There are only three student council members from each class and Daniel was lucky enough (actually responsible, capable, and reliable enough) to get to be one of them. He has wanted to be on student council for a few years now and as the selection process was taking place he told me that he was hoping to be chosen but was not planning on it. Good kid. Sets his goals high but is realistic enough to know you don’t always get what you want. Anyway, today all the student council members got to miss school and go down to BYU for a student council conference. They learned skills in leadership, communication, and other things that will help them be successful student council members. Daniel had a great time and informed me that 1) the food was great, especially the doughnuts and chocolate milk (He’s not wrong. Probably the two best food producing entities at BYU are the bakery and the creamery.), 2) John Bytheway was totally funny and 3) he should have taken a notebook to take notes but never having done anything like this before he didn’t know. I hope the rest of the student council experience turns out to be as positive for him as the beginning has been.

Heehee!

This afternoon Matthew turned to me and said, “The only languages I know are English and jibberish.”

The Milk Trials

Cheese, I’ve missed you. Milk, without you my cereal has been a little dry. And cheesecake, I’ve been lost without you. Dairy, welcome back into my life.

Malia has been drinking milk for two weeks and thus far we have not seen any negative reactions. Not only am I enormously relieved (we’ll keep watching off course, but the fact that things have gone well so far gives me a shot of optimism), but it means that I have been able to add dairy back to my diet. I can’t tell you how delicious my very first grilled cheese sandwich tasted. Ooey, gooey and just perfectly crispy. It has been a long year.