Foods I am grateful for....

We've been dealing with Morgan's dairy, egg, and nut allergies for 6 months now and I am happy to report that it's not as bad as we thought it would be.

I wanted to put together a quick post of some of the foods that make our life easier. Some speciality, and some not. These are in no particular order. I didn't feel like organizing the order blogger uploaded them in.


1. Tofutti - soy cheese. We've only ever tried the cheese slices, but it makes a grilled cheese, Morgan will eat. Yay!




2. Costco organic animal crackers. Delicious and allergen free. Yippee!!



3. Ritz crackers. Buttery crackers with no dairy? Why, yes sir-ee, they do exist. Thank you modern manufacturing and artificial flavorings. :)

4. Ener-G Egg Replacer. I think a box of this stuff is about 6 dollars. However, 1 box is over 100 eggs worth. Good deal! Food storage here we come!

5. Soymilk - She won't drink the stuff, but very helpful for cooking and other things. Rather an obvious choice, but it's quite useful all the same.


6. Duncan Hines cake mix. Be still my ever beating heart! A cake mix without eggs or dairy in the mix. After her birthday cake drama, I am so pleased to find an easier solution.

7. Nucoa margerine. The only dairy free margerine sticks I have been able to find. Oh and look, it's no burn. Check your grocer's refridgerated section.


I know there are others, but these are my favorites. There is life after allergies! Now I can just hope she will outgrow most of them.

Splash Park

My Mom and I took the kids to the Splash pad at Jaycee Park in Tempe. We got there pretty early, and we had the whole thing to ourselves. It was pretty nice.

Joshua LOVED the water gun shooters and would run over everytime they came on. One thing I really liked about the park is that the water wasn't on a timer or anything like that. You could go and push the button to start the water anytime you wanted. Maybe if we keep going back my kids will get more used to the whole thing and actually want to get splashed a little more!

I think you can click on the collages to see a bigger version.

The Stock Shop

As I mentioned in my last post. We picked Papa Darv up from work one day and gave him a ride home. Thankfully my FIL mentioned that they had lots of baby animals that Joshua might want to take a look at. He loved going to Papa Darv's work. I'd never been there either, so it was pretty fun to see that it was so picturesque.



I asked Joshua to count the number of chicks. He gave up at 14.




This was probably Joshua's favorite animal. It was "fluffy bunny." He even stopped a random customer and told them to look at the fluffy bunny. It is a Lion Head rabbit. Furry little guy.

Life is funny like that

Sorry no pictures on this one.

Here is how this week has been going. It's a bit depressing, but stick with me to the end, it's not all horrible.
Tuesday - My Mom watched Morgan so I could pick up my FIL at work in Glendale and take him home to East Mesa. (That was a 100 mile adventure.) While I was out Morgan threw up. Later that evening she started with diarrhea.
Wednesday - I had a Doctor's appointment that had been on the books for months so my Mom took one for the team and watched both kids so I could go to the Doctor. I was put on a new prescription and so the Doc wanted a blood pressure check after I had been on it a while to make sure it wasn't affecting my blood pressure. I paid $35 for the pleasure of sitting in the hallway while the MA took my blood pressure and went "yep, it's okay."
Wednesday evening Morgan starts vomiting up everything that goes down and we have a peachy night.
Thursday - I take Morgan to the Doctor, who then sends her to the ER. We spent about 5 hours in the ER running tests and getting rehydrated. She was just on the borderline of needing to be admitted, but thankfully we got to go home.
Thursday/Friday - Ryan wakes me up at like 4 am and he is sick now too. We shared a sad little chuckle as we said, "Happy Anniversary" to each other.

That's right, today is our 5th anniversary. We had awesome plans for tonight, dinner and a movie. As it was becoming increasingly clear over the course of the week that we wouldn't be going anywhere I started to get depressed. However, it seems apropos now. The whole for better or worse, in sickness and in health deal. We've had a busy five years and this week shouldn't be any different.

I married my perfect match. Neither one of us are perfect, but we are perfect for each other. I'm so happy and blessed to have such a wonderful man who loves me so much.

We are picking a new anniversary date for this year. Anyone have an anniversary in the next weeks or so that they want to share with us?

One other final uplifting thought. I have the best friends and family around. When Morgan got really sick, it was like a call to arms. My pathophobic(okay it's not quite a phobia, but she is very germ conscious) mom was at my house almost everyday this week helping with the kids(even did the dishes, wahoo), my sister offered to watch Joshua overnight if Morgan was going to have to stay in the hospital, my Bff offered to come down to be at the ER with me, and I tons of well wishes and thoughtful notes from other friends and family. Thanks to everyone for being so awesome. It really helped me get a good perspective on what could have been classified as a really horrible week. Thanks everyone!! I'm not that great at showing gratitude, but I am truly grateful.

Conversations with Joshua II

About a week ago I found pen marks the arms of both our couch and the loveseat. I called Joshua over and asked him what happened. He said to me, "I was tricking you, Mommy." Oh lovely!

Yesterday we were driving through a parking lot and Joshua saw the same make, model, and color of my car. He immediately started insisting that we were going to drive a new car home. Why he would pick the same old car, but he was sure determined. It didn't matter how I explained about how buying cars went, he was going to go home in that new car. He was pretty broken up when he had to claim into the same old car he came in. Poor thing!

Last night Joshua and Morgan were fighting a whole lot. After Morgan went to bed I wanted to pull Joshua aside and try to talk to him about getting along better with his sister.
Mommy: Joshua we need to talk about what happened tonight with you and Morgan
Joshua: Okay Mommy. This and this and this happened and and and.... this and this and and and this.
About 5 minutes later he finished his account of everything that had been said or done that evening. Then he says to me, "Okay Mommy, I'm done." He proceeded to continue playing with his toys. Apparently he had a few things he needed to get off his chest too.
I'm thinking, well I'm glad we had that talk.

Today we went to Lee Lee's Oriental Market in Chandler. It's a fascinating place if you've never been, but since I don't know what a 1/4 of the ingredients are I have only ever bought panko bread crumbs there. It's full of new and interesting sights and smells. Anyways, this was Joshua's first time there and as we were walking around he kept saying to me, "Mommy this is spooky."
Then as we were browsing the aisles he picked up a bag of brown mystery product that was right at his arm level. He kept asking what it was, and when I finally examined more closely, I determined it was chewing tobacco. AWESOME! Too bad the camera was at home. I'd definitely be attaching that snap shot with my Mother of the Year nomination packet.

He is such a character!

Kids about town.

We've been taking a few field trips around town recently and had some fun times.

Adventure 1: Fountain Park in Fountain Hills. If you've never seen it, it's a GIGANTIC fountain that shoots straight up in the air.


Morgan falling in line with the ducks.


Sleeping kids on the way home! Yippee!


Adventure 2: 2 story carousel at Superstition Springs Mall. We were in need of an excuse to get out of the house today and an excuse to get El Metate for dinner, so I headed over to the East side so the kids could ride the merry-go-round. Joshua was too afraid to go up to the top level this time, but I think next time he wants to. If I was willing to pay again, he was all set to do it right then and there. Hmmmm... maybe that is why Joshua wanted money to give me!

Conversations with Joshua I

This is the conversationwe had in the car today...

J: Mommy, I need some money.
M: You do? What do you need money for?
J: I want to give the money to you mommy.
M: That's nice, but what do I need money for?
J: ummm, to buy stuff with.

On Sunday I was having a conversation with my 4 year old niece about why her Mommy works. Apparently part of that conversation stuck with Joshua.
Too funny...

America's Next Top Baby Model

About two weeks ago I made this skirt for Morgan. I was trying desperately to get a good picture of her wearing the skirt where you can also see the button flower that I sewed on for embellishment. She was not cooperating at all. Ryan took this snapshot, and I love it. You can't see the skirt very well, but I think Morgan looks very "model-esque." I'm thinking Italian Vogue, or maybe she could be the spokesbaby for Crocs. She is after all showing off their product so well. (Someone watches America's Next Top Model if you couldn't tell)

Later I'll take a pic of the skirt on the hanger, and then post about all my recent craft endeavors. :)

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