Please Don't Pass The Wheat (milk, peanuts or soy...)

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since my last post. Things here have just been crazy. With the holidays around the corner and Natalie being diagnosed with a wheat allergy, things have been a little out of control! Anyway, more on that later. Here is what we have been up to!

I love being able to eat lunch with my kids. Here they are just hanging out at the table. Julia is just my silly goose. She is always making some silly face. Natalie of course just eggs her on. They recently had their dental check ups and the dentist told me that Julia is advanced on her teeth, she has tons!!

 Natalie had her Christmas program at preschool. It was so very cute. Abbie isn't in her class, but they had the performance together.

Natalie loves to wear dresses and she has just been waiting to wear this one! I thought she looked so cute and even gave me a great smile!! Yea Natalie!!

Here is Ethan, Abbie's little brother, hanging out with Grandma, playing peek-a-boo with Jeff.

And here are our sweet girls singing their hearts out.

And here are all her admirers. Of course MiMi brought her flowers...

And here is Natalie with one of her best friends, Abbie.

With getting ready for Christmas, we have a few gifts under the tree! Julia has just decided to make good use of the gifts while we have got them!

We had a great night exchanging gifts with our friends the Brown's and the Couture's. Below Natalie had opened her gift so fast that the present fell out of the bag and she was looking for it, Such a goof ball.

 Here are the big girls opening up their gifts with some of the babies watching!

I love bows. Mom got the girls this one and I think it is just adorable.

Here is Julia playing peek-a-boo with Jeff in the kitchen.

Julia currently loves two things, Elmo and Santa. I found these overalls at a craft fair and I knew she would love them!!

The other night I asked Jeff to watch the girls while I run downstairs for a minute. When I came up I saw that she was decorating my while with Dora stickers. "Jeff!!!"

This is just my girls being goofy. Something they are really good at!

So, Julia loves everything about Santa, except for the "real" thing. I thought we would go down the road and get a photo taken at a local church. I loved that we were in our coats and I thought that they turned out great! Oh, did I mention that they were FREE??

Of course the girls have lots of Christmas PJ's, but when they saw these in Jeff's size at the store, they had to get them for him!

Julia is such a big help. Here she is helping me wit the dishes.

And here they are helping Jeff make garlic bread. This is of course before Natalie's diagnosis. Natalie had gotten her face painted to look like a reindeer. It was so cute.

Darryl retired this year. Here he is at his retirement party. It was pretty emotional. I know that he is going to miss it. So, what is he going to do with all his free time?

www.rhodesredangus.com

On Friday Natalie had her Christmas party. Here she is at her table eating her cookies that I made.

Natalie went shopping with Daddy today so Julia hung out with me. We decided to make cookies. Julia's favorite part is rolling the cookies out. We tried them wheat free and they turned out really good!!

Kendra came by tonight to do a gift exchange with us and Julia loved what she got. She has the best Godmother ever!

So, on Friday, December 9th, Julia had her allergy check up. I chatted with the nurse earlier in the week and we decided to test Natalie due to chronic stomach pain. Julia seems to be doing OK, but isn't growing as fast as she should be, but other than that she is great. We found out that Natalie is allergic to wheat and they thing that she might have a GI issue. We have pulled wheat from her diet and she hasn't complained about any stomach pain. We see the GI doctor on Monday, I am hoping they think that it is silly that we are there. Cooking with all the kids allergies is a challenge, but I know that we will overcome it. So, if we decline a dinner date, you know why!

We are so excited for Christmas. It is going to be so much fun with the girls I can't wait.

Thanksgiving and beyond!

Wow, it has been a while since I have updated the blog! We have been so busy, I have had a hard time finding some downtime to get it done! So, kick back and see what we have been up to for the last month!

In early November we went to a birthday party to celebrate my cousin's twin's third birthday. They had it at an inflatable play zone and the girls had a blast. All of my photos came out blurry because they were moving so much! Jeff did get a video of us going down a large slide.

The next week the girls and I headed to Kansas City to spend some time with Adam, Danielle and McKinley. We jad such a great time and they were wonderful hosts!

Julia had a great time playing with someone her own size!

Here the girls are ready to head out to go shopping!

We ate at a resturant called T-Rex. The service wasn't great, but they did a great job with our food allergies and the atmosphere was great! The girls were scared at first, but after a while they warmed up to it!

After lunch Julia fell asleep so we took Natalie for a snack. She voted for cookies and they were yummy!!

We also took the girls to ride a double decker carousel at a local mall. Neither one of them had done anything like that before and they had so much fun! The didn't want to get off.

Julia is mad that we aren't on it yet!

The last time we went to the donut store Julia was really mad that she couldn't eat the donuts that everyone else was. I decided to try and see if I could make some that we all could eat. I found a recipe on line that said all you had to do was fry biscuit dough. Wow, really? I tried it, put some melted chocolate on it and the girls went wild! I am so excited.

  

Julia loves to talk on the phone. Most of the time she doesn't say anything, but she is really cute when she is!

We also celebrated Jeff's birthday, a couple of times! This nigh we had dinner with his Dad.

The next night he enjoyed a peaches and cream cake that we made for him! It was yummy!

Natalie had her Thanksgiving party at school and when I walked in and saw her in this pilgrim hat, my heart melted!

Durning Natalie's Thanksgiving party they played a "pluck the turkey" game. Each feather had something fun for each kid to do. It looked like so much fun that we did it at our Thanksgiving dinner!

Also at her Thanksgiving party they did the Turkey Tango!

I love all the time my mom spends with my girls. I also love all the great things that she teaches them. This isn't one of my favorite things!

I also love it when I am trying to get my kids to do something on video and I can't get them to!! Here are two great examples. I want her to say, "Elmo" in the first video. She loves Elmo, but calls him, "Melmo." It is too funny. The second one I am trying to get her to say, "No!" It is her new favorite word and she really is good at saying it!

Natalie also says some pretty cute things, when she will do it!

Julia is so much more active than Natalie was. Julia climbs everything and is my wild child! Here are two great examples.

We have been so excited for Thanksgiving. We decided to host it here, with all allergy safe food. This is the day before and the girls wore their turkey shirts while we made some great yummy food!

Julia loves to be in Natalie's bed. I think she would sleep in there if we let her. This is Natalie telling Julia that she has to go to bed. Her face is the best.

I made my step mom's Mexican chocolate cake, dairy free of course, and it was great!

It is Thanksgiving!! My dad got the girls these cute dresses when he was here and they couldn't wait to wear them!

Emily came to eat Thanksgiving with us and Natalie was just a little bit happy.

Here we are!

For the first time I got to have a kids table and I was so excited! I think the kids loved it too!

Jeannie and Chloe are sharing a bite of yummy and "safe" food. Chloe is also allergic to milk.

Here is the Grandparent's table.

Here is the parent's table. Notice my new dining room? I LOVE it!

Julia loved the kids table! Once the other kids left she had an opportunity to take whatever she wanted to off of the other plates!

We had a couple games that we played. For this one everyone had leafs at their place setting. They wrote what they were thankful for on them. I read them and the girls taped them to the tree.

I have had to put up most of the things that Julia could climb on. When these chairs came back out she was pretty happy.

We also played a game similar to one Natalie played at her school. She helped me come up with what people should do. My favorite was "Be a princess six times." I have no idea what that means, but Pa Pa Don was a good sport when the girls dressed him up!

Chloe trying on the pilgrim hat.

Chloe and Julia hanging out in the playroom.

The older girls played a WII dance game and they had a great time!

Jared and Julia.

Jared and Natalie.

Natalie and Emily.

My side of the family.

Jeff's side of the family.

So, we tried to get a photo of the all the girls and this is what we got!

The Couture's.

So, there was a little bit of wine drinking at our Thanksgiving, maybe too much, since Jeff caught Julia doing this later that night!

Carrie and I went out for a little Black Friday fun. This is what Wal-Mart looked like at 10:00 on Thursday night!

Now that Thanksgiving was done, it was time to get ready for Christmas. I was so excited this year, as the girls are so excited!!

I think this is one of my favorite photos of Natalie.

Julia loved putting the ornaments in the tree. That is right, she didn't hang them, she stuck her arm in the tree as far as she could and let it go.

Natalie is old enough now to really help decorate!! I love how she kept the hat on the entire time.

We even let Natalie put the star on the tree!

The girls are pretty proud of their work!

 

Julia is totally bothered by things on the bottom of her feet. Here she is disturbed by the glitter that she has on her feet from the ornaments.

She even asked Natalie for some help!

I can't believe the holiday season is upon us! We have so many exciting things coming up. I just can't wait!