Big Girl Cup

Last week I was browsing through Target's dollar spot and found some small plastic glasses that were on clearance for 50% off (yes $.50) I bought 2 and figured we'd give it a go. Yesterday we had a nice family breakfast of pumpkin pancakes, eggs, and turkey bacon. We also had orange juice. I grabbed one of the new glasses out of the cupboard and poured in some OJ about 1/2 way. She did really well. Occasionally over sipped or moved to fast, but pretty good for never really attempting before. She asks to use the cups all the time now. We have decided we will only use them when we are sitting at the table for a meal. So the past 2 nights she has had her milk with dinner in her cup. Last night she sometimes would put the cup to her mouth below her lips and you can imagine what the result was!! We spilled a little more milk last night than OJ in the AM. She did much better tonight. I can't believe how grown up she is getting!!

She is very proud of herself for using a "real" big girl cup. I initially called her sippy cups big girl cups when i took the stoppers out to remind her she had to be careful. As she was drinking today, she tells me "have to be real careful"

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

After a quick call to mom for the recipe and running over to borrow an egg at 7:40 pm from Brenda, Kelsey & I stirred up a batter of Mom's pumpkin bread using a gluten free flour substitute. IT WAS A SUCCESS!!!! Yeah, it tasted yummy and was very similar to the regular recipe using flour. I'm so excited that K-bear will still be able to enjoy pumpkin bread! Next attempt will be gluten free candy cane cookies....

Halloween Night

We started out after lunch by heading over to Gma & Gpa McD's to watch the football games while K napped. We figured that way we could get her up from nap and get her dressed over there. Kelsey wanted us to dress up as well, so I was a Vampire (sorta like a witch as I explained to K) and Lou was a Cowboy Sheriff.

We then headed over to our friend Megan/Matt's house to meet up with friends to trick-or-treat. Kelsey and Jack rode in our wagon. They got out and walked up to a few doors and sometimes we even just pulled the wagon to the door (I know...lazy) Kelsey was so cute..she kept saying "mommy, I got candy!" in the cutest voice. It's so funny to hear things like that come out of her mouth when she's never even had any. At one point I looked at her and she had opened a skittles bag and had one in her hand. I took it away from her and told her she wasn't allowed to have anything until mommy/daddy checked it.

We got back to our neighborhood about 5 minutes too late...we missed the rush of kids by a few houses. We stopped by our neighbors house on the way in so they could see Kelsey all dressed up. As usual, Brenda & Lloyd get the award for most awesome neighbors. They had a special treat for Kelsey...a fruit bowl, raisins, apples and grapes! She loved it and actually ate 1/4 of the fruit bowl that night before she went to bed.

All in all I think Kelsey had a really good Halloween. She keeps talking about it and asking about her bumble bee costume (Thanks Jennifer!)

Up Past Bedtime...

Kelsey was having so much fun being allowed to stay up past bedtime. She kept wanting me to take pictures of her, and actually smiled for the camera on cue. She wanted pictures with her Morgan too!! So I happily obliged.

Pumpkin Carving

We let K stay up past bedtime last night so we (Lou) could carve our pumpkin. We started by taking the pumpkin seeds out. Kelsey didn't want much to do with this, but did help when a few fell on the newspaper. We decided to do a Mickey Mouse this year. Instead of going with just the basic mouse shape, Lou found a more detailed template to use. It came out really great. I think Lou did an awesome job and after telling him that...Kelsey kept telling him that as well.

Like my daddy

I like to wear my daddy's hat (even though it's way too big on me):

Pumpkin Picking...

Well, okay since we live in FL it's more like choosing! After nap Kelsey and I met up with Daddy at the Methodist church to pick out our pumpkin and take some pictures. At first she was hesitant, but then she was trying to pick them all up. LOL We missed the fall festival they held b/c we were at Christine's wedding (Lou's sister), but hopefully we'll be able to take Kelsey next year.

I'm so strong...I gonna pick this pumpkin up!

Check out my baby pumpkins

This is the pumpkin we chose

Aunt Christine's Wedding (& Uncle Gary)

Last weekend was a joyous moment in our family. Christine and Gary made it official and were married down at the beach in Delray. Kelsey was in the wedding along with her cousins and she did magnificient. She sat all by herself (next to her cousins Ryan & Colin) in a chair during the ceremony and was soooo good (Mommy & Daddy were in the wedding as well so we were standing). At one point she started taking handfuls of her flowers out of her basket and dumping them on the sand..then she decided just to dump over the entire basket. Everyone who was watching was laughing at our little princess, I had a hard time controlling my laughter too.

She took NO nap that day as we were totally out of routine, unless you count the 10 minutes she slept on the way over to the ceremony. I was dreading the meltdown that I expected to happen at any moment. To our complete shock and surprise she was WONDERFUL!! She was up until about 10:20 when she finally fell asleep in my arms. She enjoyed herself dancing and running around. She was really great with family she had never met before and even willingly went to them to dance and just be carried.

The things they say...

I was making a left hand turn today onto a side street. There was a car parked/stopped along the right hand side of the street with their brake lights on about 50 yards away. Mind you, they were on the grass. All of a sudden from my back seat I hear "Dude, get out of the way!" I busted out laughing as she continued to repeat this over and over. I guess I should be happy it was this she said and not "you dumb*ss learn how to drive" Just another reminder that we really do need to watch what we say, because she will store it away to use some other time. It's great though that she used it in the right context...double bonus points for her!!

Sweaty Bubbles...

It's mid-October and it was 92 degrees last week!!! Yikes. We did have a blast playing with the bubbles after nap though. But my girl was all red & SWEATY!!!

New diet so far...

It's been 3 weeks and so far I don't feel like it is working. I've seen some worse reactions since we've changed her diet. The only thing I have not concentrated on yet is making sure the soy is totally out. That will be my new focus. I need to call the dermatologist back and check on something. When we got the allergy report, garlic came back pending. So, I'd like to know if it is something we need to worry about since I use garlic in everything. I really hope this starts helping soon.

Playdough and fresh air

Last weekend while Lou & I were working in the yard, we moved Kelsey's picnic table out into the grass and shade by the swingset. I let her bring her play dough out to keep her occupied.

She's so funny because she only likes to play with one color at a time. She can't open them by herself and kept wanting me to open and shut them. I finally got her to keep the lid off of more than 1 color at a time.

No, I'm a Big Girl....

I bought Kelsey a little cell phone that talks at the dollar store the other day. Some buttons ring when you press them and others talk. Well one has a lady that says "Hello, Can I Help you please". On the way home from the store Kelsey kept hitting this button over and over again and responding to the lady, "No, I'm a big girl!" I finally listened and realized what she was responding too. I just laughed and told her even though she's a big girl, people can still help her. :-)

First Popsicle!!

Gma McDonald has a bunch of really Big and Really Juicy yummy watermelon growing in her garden. We have a bunch in our fridge and needed something to do with it so it wouldn't go bad. I had recently read on a yahoo group I belong to about making watermelon puree...so we did just that. I took out the food processor and put it on the island, while Kelsey slid the kitchen chair up to it. I loaded it with watermelon and put the top on. Quickly I jumped back to take a picture and told Kels not to touch any buttons. As soon as I snapped a picture, she hit the button to turn it on. (She's made pesto and some other things with me before using the food processor). We then strained it through a sieve and poured it into some popsicle molds I bought a few months back at a kitchen outlet store. We put them in the freezer and I told her after nap she could have one.

She was very excited after nap to be able to eat her popsicles, even though she had no clue what it was. She was so cute hesitantly licking it..and then I showed her how to take a bite. She had the biggest smile on her face.

After she was finished she ended up throwing a huge tantrum b/c she wanted another one...yeah, that was Fun!!

Food Allergies....

Kelsey's bloodwork from her food allergy test came back.....They tested her for 96 foods and she had a reaction to 63!! Luckily 49 of those reactions were low, but she had a few moderate and serious reactions. Moderate means she can have them every 4 days.....those are a bunch of cheeses, pineapple, lamb, soy and gluten (which is in like EVERYTHING!) Her serious reactions are things she can NOT have...Cow's milk, casein, lactalbumin, cottage cheese, and beef. I was so overwhelmed at the Dr's office that I did not ask any questions. I had quite a few meltdowns that day. I felt like I had lost control. I had control over everything she eats and I knew what I was looking for on labels and life was good. Now I was immersed into a whole new eating plan that I knew nothing about. I'm learning a little more everyday and it's getting a little easier. My friends are great and have sent me websites and cut out pages from magazines with ideas for me. Immediately I changed her milk..we switched her to almond milk (since goats milk it twice the price of almond and since it's mammal milk I'm pretty sure it has lactalbumin) I had to switch her breakfast to a gluten free dairy free cereal, she was used to having a bagel or a waffle. Since then I have found a local health food store that carries gluten free dairy free waffles and bagels!! Wish us luck on this new adventure.....

What do you want for dinner??

"PITA CHIPS AND HONEY!!!" was Kelsey's reply....um, let's see...No! How about meatballs and ABC's??? Thankfully she agreed.

Sorry for the delay....

I had major computer problems and had to totally restart my computer from new. I'll be posting a few blogs in the next couple of days to make up for it....stay tuned!!! Some of the postings will be backdated so you may need to scroll below this posting to see them.

My Kitchen Helper....

We have family breakfast every Sunday. This past Sunday I let Kelsey he me make the blueberry pancakes while Lou was out on a run. She pushed her chair to the counter, we washed her hands, and then we began. I measured things out and then let her dump them into the bowl. After I stirred everything, she then took the spoon and stirred some more. I didn't let her help in the actual cooking part, I told her she has to wait until she's older because the stove is very hot. She was so excited and ate 2 pancakes and her cheesy scrambled eggs.

She had so much helping me with the pancakes, I decided to let her help me make the pesto for our dinner. We picked the basil and rinsed it. Again K pushed her chair over and we washed her hands and then pushed her up to the middle counter. Kelsey put the basil in the food processor, then the garlic cloves, I let her reach her hand in the bag and put a few handfuls of walnuts in and lastly she sprinkled in some Parmesan cheese. I put the top on and let her press the button. We then opened it and scraped the bowl, shut it back up, I drizzled some EVOO while she hit the button again! She thought it was so neat. After I even let her try it....if I let her she'd have eaten half the bowl of pesto, she Loved it and really enjoyed having it on her pasta and chicken for dinner.

Eating is a foreign language

The things this child eats...I didn't even eat until I was WELL into my 20's. We took her out to Olive Garden for dinner when Lou got home from his Orlando meeting. We ordered her a kids meal, next time I won't do that. She ate the salad and some breadstick and a few bites of her spaghetti, but she mainly ate Gnocchi and fried Calamari. It's hilarious to hear our 2 yr old asking for "more no-key please"!

Jumping in....

Our little fish is doing so good and she loves the pool. I had an open day (nothing going on) from my mom's group, so we went swimming after the gym until lunch. She was swimming great and jumping in as well. I started teaching her when she would jump in to swim to the steps. This video is when we were getting out (why she only has 1/2 a bathing suit on) and she wanted to jump in again. I decided to let her even though I wasn't in the pool with her (I was right on the step). In the video she doesn't make it to the step b/c I ran out of time/film, but she did make it there after she flipped over. I can't say it enough...her lessons are the best money we ever spent last year. We used Tiny Bubbles which is similar to ISR. (Sorry my voice is so loud!! The microphone must've been right by my mouth)