A little News

We are moving to Tom’s Book List site. http://littlepicks.blogspot.com/ It is private so if you would like to keep up with us email me for a password.

So I realize I haven’t posted in forever but in my defense my computer is retarded and I can’t get the pictures to work. So family and friends that actually look at this I am sorry, we are alive and when the computer gets fixed or I learn how to get the pictures to Tom’s lap top I will do another post that is more exciting. I actually have one ready to go but can’t get it to work. Sorry.

I’m starting the post with Tom’s exciting day. RSL won the championship and so they are going on tour around the state bringing the cup with them. They chose a couple schools for their stop in Box Elder and one just happened to be Tom’s school. I know, so cool! His principal put him in charge of the assembly. He taught them a couple cheers and made banners for the big day. The only bummer was the players were in training camp so it was just the mascot Leo the lion but it was still a lot of fun. The guy in charge was really impressed that when he went to teach  the kids a cheer they already knew it. When it came time to let the principal hold the cup he called Tom up too because he knew what a fan Tom was.  He also gave him a hat. It was tons of fun to come watch.

An awesome moment for Tom. They had to wear gloves because no hands could touch the cup. Just a side note they told us the cup was made at Tiffany’s and is worth about $80,000. Thats a lot of money you’re touching honey!

Tom leading a cheer.

We sat by Tom’s class and all the girls by us were so cute with Madelyn and Olivia. They kept having them give them 5 and helped them stop crying when I left them there to take a picture of Tom holding the cup.

Every time we go to Tom’s school I feel like a celebrity because the teachers all LOVE our kids. (who can blame them?) Owen spent the assembly being held by teachers and luckily was tired enough that he just laid there and watched the chaos.

Another picture by the cup. This is when all the teachers got to come up. Madelyn and Olivia weren’t so sure about Leo for a while. Madelyn wanted to go home until I told her Leo was a nice lion.

Family picture by the cup. It was a fun day.

Some other pictures now. Here are the kids in the church clothes Ruth made them for Christmas. So cute! We are lucky to have such a talented grandma!

Owen is getting so big. He pulls up on everything now and even is starting to creep along this toy. I’m sure I’m just going to blink and he’ll be walking.

Madelyn has started drawing people and it is adorable! This is a picture of me. She also loves to write letters.

Here is Olivia just being cute. She has claimed this chair as hers.

This is my favorite picture. A few days ago I had a TON of stuff to do around the house and the kids were driving me nuts. The girls were fighting and Owen was clinging to my leg and I was getting nothing done. So I looked outside at the slide and decided it was going to come in for the day. It worked great, they played on it non stop all day and I got the house cleaned up. Owen loved it too and can slide down by himself (as long as someone catches him).

So instead of doing a post of pictures I am just going to write some thoughts because it is late and I don’t want to look through the pictures.  Sorry, I’ll do a picture post soon. I’ve been thinking a lot about food allergies, what a surprise since it consumes my life. I hate food allergies with everything in me, they make life hard in so many ways that you just don’t understand unless your children have them. I think my favorite story with food allergies lately was when Olivia and I went to Chuck O Rama with my parents, grandma, Emily, and Nathan. I told our waitress about Olivia’s milk and egg allergy and asked what she could eat. She went back and asked the cook and came back and said, ” she can have the macaroni and cheese because it isn’t made with milk”. I then said “but its made with cheese” and then she said “oh, she can’t have that either?” AUGH!!! You can’t depend on anyone but yourself!  But I have encountered a lot of positive things lately and wanted to share.  So here are my top 10 favorite things about living with food allergies.

#10 – Oreo cookies. When your child has a food allergy it makes you feel different. And I’m not even the one with the allergy. I try really hard to make my kids feel like they are normal and not freaks who can’t eat a bunch of stuff. Oreo cookies are THE BEST because they are milk and egg free (which is rare for a cookie) and they don’t say ” may contain peanuts” which almost every food in the grocery store is saying lately. I don’t understand why this is but a lot of foods are changing their labels to say this, which then makes me not able to feed it to Madelyn. So whenever we go to a party or some kind of get together with food we often bring Oreos because then we know there is not only a treat our kids can eat but its a treat everyone likes so they aren’t different. I know that sounds unimportant but it is very important to me.

#9 – Supportive neighbors. We went to our friend’s house for New Years and she planned the entire menu around our kids allergies. She called and checked every food’s ingredients with me and then double checked it when I got there. It was amazingly sweet and it was nice to have some sympathy for what we do every meal. I have another neighbor where my kids play quite frequently and she always calls to make sure she can serve them whatever snack she is giving everyone. Its nice to know people are aware and are looking out for them.

#8 – An awesome primary presidency and primary workers. I have got to say the nursery workers in our ward are amazing. They have me check out every treat they have before they give it to Olivia and instead of being annoyed they tell me repeatedly how they try to be careful because they want her to have a positive experience with nursery and not get a tummy ache. They are so sweet! I was really nervous about primary with Madelyn because there are so many more people that can potentially give her treats so I went and talked to the primary presidency before she went in. They now have separate treats for her in the closet and the member of the presidency who buys the treats checks them out with me before she gives them to her. It is very calming to know my kids are safe when I am not there.

#7 – Great Harvest in Logan. We were in Logan a while ago and our trip went longer then planned and the kids were hungry. I cringed at this because it is REALLY hard to find places that Olivia can eat anything. The store we were at was right next to Great Harvest so I took them over to ask expecting to get a teenager who knew nothing tell me “I don’t know”. This is what happens at 90% of the places we go, hence the hardship in finding places to eat. Well I did get a teenager who said I don’t know but he went and asked the head baker guy who came out and told me every ingredient to every bread they made and also told me  I could special order breads without the egg wash (which was on all of them but 2). He then took one of the two breads she could eat and made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the back away from the other sandwich products that were all milk things. (Don’t worry, her and Madelyn didn’t sit by eat other!) He was SO NICE and took a ton of time to help me even though it was really busy.  I want to go back there again just because he was so understanding and nice.

#6 – My mom. I’ve been going to her house about once a week lately to work on a quilt. My mom is on a quest to find different things that Olivia can eat and actually found some soy yogurt that she loves and a couple new cookies  and chips that she really likes. One time she even bought soy milk because the time before we were there she kept asking for milk and it broke my mom’s heart that she couldn’t give her any. Thanks mom for helping me find new things to feed Olivia.

#5 – Cold Stone. I went there and noticed they had a sorbet flavor that said non dairy. I asked if it had any milk products in it  and she told me she didn’t know. But she came back like 10 seconds later with the COOLEST thing I’ve ever seen at a restaurant. It was a laminated sheet with every product they made and every common food allergy and what each one had in it. And it turns out she can eat this sorbet. So another time I took Olivia there and I told the person who helped us how much I appreciated that there was a milk free treat for my daughter. The manager came out and told me there were other flavors they could make and if I let them know they were more then happy to make them. It was a cool day!

#4 – IHOP. Man we this sounds like we eat out a lot! We were just at IHOP and they have a thing where kids eat free. Well Olivia couldn’t eat anything off the kids menu that was the free things so the waitress let us create a meal for her of hash browns, sausage, and fruit and didn’t charge us. She didn’t have to do it but was just really kind.

#3 – Allrecipies.com I am trying to find new things to make for dinner all the time and allrecipies has this cool feture where you can not only put what ingredients you want to search for but what ingredients you don’t want. It isn’t perfect, it has to be worded as exactly that ingredient in the recipe, but it is helpful. By the way if anyone has any scruptious meals they make that are egg, milk, and nut free let me know.

#2 –  Madelyn. She has started asking  me if Olivia can have the treat they are given if someone else gives it to her. I love how she is always looking out for her. Granted she isn’t asking if it has peanuts in it but we are working on that one too.

#1 – The fact that it is forcing me to cook at home and cook from scratch meals that are healthier for my family anyway. Okay, so maybe I hate this one too because sometimes it is nice to have convenience but in the end I love my family and spending time with them is always a good thing. (even if the dinner is burnt because I am not a great cook and gross because it is a new recipe I am trying) So I love you family and lets all hope Olivia out grows her allergy and Owen doesn’t have any.

Owen finally got some toys that are suitable for boys.  Most of his boy toys consist of cars, and I couldn’t help making a jump.  Since that is what you do with cars.  Well the video below explains my joy and elation at having a boy.  He understand the things that are important about being a boy even at this young age.  Very, very proud.

Jumping Tonka Trucks

Olivia is asking if the track is broken in the background along with whether I would like to use the car that she has deemed as hers.  However she reneged on her offer as soon as I took it.  She is a terrible tease, but I guess she comes by it honestly.

Olivia is learning to talk a lot more, one of her favorite words being No.  Along with this new found ability she has become more independent and demanding the following video explains this fairly well.

Picking Out Clothes

I don’t know what got into me, but I cut Madelyn and Olivia’s hair today. I’ve been wanting to cut Olivia’s hair into some sort of bob for a while. Tom said he needed his haircut this morning so I figured I’d do everyone. You can tell they are not professional, but they are a pretty good first try I think. Its a good thing they are little and don’t know what their hair looks like. Maybe I’ll be good by the time they are teenagers.

I learned a lesson which now that I think about it I already knew: hair shrinks when it drys. I didn’t mean to cut her hair this short but I think its cute anyway. I don’t know how to make the front looks good, that is the part that bugs me.

A view from the back.

I only meant to give Madelyn a trim. A combination of her moving at the wrong time and me not being able to get it even forever made it much shorter then planned. And then as it dried it got even MORE short. Yikes!

Welcome to another glimpse into the crazy house. Life is going good and so fast! Here are some of the things we’ve done lately.

Every once in a while I try to take a picture of all 3 kids. I have yet to get one with all 3 smiling at the same time but this one at least they are all in focus.

We really need a new family picture and I am too cheap to pay anyone to do it at the moment so we had Jill take some pictures. Olivia decided that she was NOT going to smile for anything for some reason so she has a scowl in every one. This was my pick for the best one.

So anyone who knows Tom knows he loves soccer, and roots for the home team ReAl Salt Lake. They made it to the MLS cup which was absolutely amazing and  he and his family were WAY excited. We had them come over and watch and it was really fun, even for me who doesn’t follow soccer. Here is a picture after they won. I wish I would have taken it 2 seconds later since right after this shot Tom lept into Lisa’s arms and all 3 fell onto the couch.

Another shot of the excitement.

Here is a cute picture of the kids.

Madelyn playing ponies.

Olivia playing on lion. Her hair is finally long enough to put into pigtails, so cute! Her language is getting better everyday and as it improves so does her opinions. She definately knows what she wants and won’t budge!

Owen’s big news is he has 2 teeth now. You can’t really see them very well in this picture but they are on the bottom in the middle. I was very glad they finally broke through because he had been drooling like crazy and his nose had been running like a faucet.

Madelyn had another dance recital. The first one was on Saturday morning and she was so excited! The only problem was the teacher forgot and was in snowy Logan on the day that it was a blizzard. So we rescheduled for the only other time we could do it, at 7:00 at night. Madelyn participated for about 2 minutes and then went back stage and hid on a platform. She even laid down for a while, I thought she was going to fall alseep. I guess that’s what I get for expecting a 3 year old to do anything at bedtime. Oh well, the lessons are free and there will be other recitals. Another side note is I helped make the tu tus and was running out of time so Tom helped make one. He was very proud.

Her dance group has grown by 2, we’re just missing the teacher’s daughter in this one.

This is Owen getting his first taste of sugar. Grandma Cox got some dirty looks from me at first but then I decided that is what grandma’s are for, giving grandkids the treats mommy won’t.

He gets around and into things really well now. He’s also entered that lovely stage where he finds any small object on the ground and eats it. We’ve already had a gagging/throwing up incident. I guess it makes me keep my floor cleaner.

Finding things that Olivia can eat is such an overwhelming job at our house. I bought some Ghirardelli’s brownie mix because it was on a really good sale and after I got it home I noticed there are no milk or egg ingredients. Your supposed to add an egg but I added something else to substitute. I don’t know how a brownie mix with chocolate chips is milk free but Olivia loved it. Most treats she can’t eat so it was fun that she could help me make it and lick the spoon.

So the whole reason I’m doing this post is I took the CUTEST picture of Owen and had to share. He is getting so big. He sits up great, rolls and turns, and now army crawls. He can get all over the place. I can’t believe how fast he is growing. You can also tell from the picture he is drooling like crazy, he’s teething, so fun.

Here is another picture of him sitting up playing with a toy. He loves his new perspective on life.

Olivia is loving dressing up like a fairy lately. It is so cute.

Owen and Madelyn playing together. Madelyn is so good with him and he adores her.

Madelyn loves to help and is actually getting pretty good at it. She was really quiet last Sunday for a while and then came out SO excited saying she had cleaned the toy room and she wanted us to come see. I was expecting some stuff to be put on the shelves. Well it was TOTALLY clean, like how I put it away. We were amazed and she was SO proud.

Another picture of Owen and his huge smile. He is so fun to have.

We have this little alligator that rolls across the kitchen floor and the other night the whole family ended up in the kitchen playing. Then it progressed to dancing and then ended with a dog pile on dad. It was fun. I love my family!

The past couple weeks we have had Madelyn and Olivia both get the flu and then all 3 kids (yes that’s right ALL 3) get ear infections within 2 weeks. Madelyn’s was so bad both of her eardrums ruptured. So needless to say life has been a bit stressful at  our house but I think we have finally made it through the worst of it. But even through the sleepless nights we still managed to have some fun. Here are some of the pictures.

Madelyn got a necklace with lip gloss in it at a birthday party.  This is her proudly showing off her pretty princess makeup job.

Owen has grown up so much! He can sit up, move all over the floor by rolling and turning (crawling is coming soon!) and he eats baby food and LOVES it. Here is his first taste of food. YUM!

I love watching little kids discover new things about their body. Olivia’s new discovery was that when you put your finger in your ear it makes the sound change. We were just sitting in the front room one night and she kept putting her fingers in her ears, then get this very thoughtful look on her face,  and then take them out. It was SO SO FUNNY to watch!

Having kids so close is definitely an adventure. I had someone tell me that Owen and Olivia are “Irish twins” and in a lot of ways it is like having twins with them being so close. Some things overlap in their development and needs like we have two cribs, we have traffic jams at the high chair when they are both hungry at the same time, and they are both still teething. And then I feel like I am just leaving some stages of development with Olivia just to start them with Owen. For example Olivia is finally getting old enough that I don’t have to worry about her putting everything in her mouth, but Owen is now becoming grabby grabber and shoves everything right in. Olivia is also learning what not to get into (for the most part) and Owen is just starting. The other day I heard someone getting into the Connect Four game and told Olivia to get out. Then I saw Olivia was in the kitchen with me. I went over and Owen was terrorizing the game and having an absolute hay day that he could get into the box and get the checkers out.  Do you think we’ll survive our year of potty training in the future?

Madelyn had her first dance recital and it was so much fun for her and me. I was so proud of her because she defied our predictions and actually got out there and had fun. True she started out with her typical Madelyn attitude of standing there sad and not doing anything but after she warmed up she was hopping all over the stage. She and her friends were adorable!

This is her at the beginning not wanting to do it.

Happy Halloween! Here is the costume crew on our way out. Its nice that they are still small so we only went to a few houses and called it good. Between the two of them they are allergic to most of the candy out there anyway so we had candy at home for them to put in their pumpkins. I can tell this is going to be Olivia’s favorite holiday as she gets older. She is our candy freak and had a mouth full of candy the whole time we were gone. She has a mouth full of skittles here.