Goodbye Gluten

The results are back, the surgery over and it's official. Katelee has celiac disease. She is going gluten free. The diet will be a bummer at first (and at times later-birthday parties, school lunches, church snacks, etc) but we will adjust. I am so glad we found out what was wrong. She was in a lot of pain and it was so sad. Many people with celiac don't manifest the excruciating symptoms, but the damage is still being done to their insides and attributing to higher risks of other dangerous illnesses-cancer (lymphoma), thyroid disease, anemia, internal bleeding, malnutrition, etc. Anyway, we are working on not cross contaminating her food from ours. Here she is pre-surgery at Primary Children's: It's a disturbing sight seeing your child go under anesthesia and flopping around the table like a fish. But the grape scented gas worked, and she was off to sleep in no time. She woke up very unhappy but was back to her happy self by the end of the day. If anyone has super great bread/rolls/cakes/cookie recipes that are gluten free, please share! Also, here is Grant after his school play. He was obviously Benjamin Franklin. For some reason, he isn't wearing the pink barbie glasses I gave him to wear for his big speaking part. He looked dashing and spoke ever so eloquently!

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun Halloween, with lots of treats...I thought I would show Brenna's trick-her walking. If you would like to see videos of this click here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_3FhT3QtU or here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMIf04Ghhg She is 8 months, won't sleep through the night, or eat well, or grow teeth or hair, but she is on the move! Here are our costumes this year, as well:

Katelee the spooky Ghost
Grant was Vader, Darth Vader (yes, he introduced himself like that)
Me the witch (I know, I know, why didn't I dress up?!) Brenna was a bumble Bee on Halloween and a pumpkin for some of the parties-two costumes, what a lucky girl.
Dave wanted to be a lost soul...misguided and confused...one neighbor just said he was dressed like a loser, assess for yourself!

Spooky Stuff...

Our month has been thus far filled with fun and frightful activities! We love picking out our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, taking field trips with preschool,
and going to Cornbelly's. We have also been happily watching this little one taking steps. While it is adorable, at times I feel like it is slightly disturbing! She just seems too tiny!

We also love going to see the witches every year. Good times...

I have always thought the boys in our family were a bit more on the scary side, but this year, us girls take the cake. I have come to this conclusion due to the following examples:
Brenna-She seems to have an affinity for creatures of the night! She still insists on night time feedings! Me: Apparently, my hair is unruly. (Really, I already was aware of that, Grant just pointed it out to me the other day.) We were discussing how we could style his mop for crazy hair day and he answered he could just do it like mine...how I was wearing it right then...which is normal for me. Yikes.


Katelee: The other night I heard Katelee get up and go the bathroom. After I heard her conclude her business, I was certain she returned to bed. I discovered I was wrong when I heard snip snipping right by my ear. I awoke with a start, to find Katelee Edward Scissorhand-like with dangerous object in hand. Good thing I just opened my eyes and didn't sit up when she whispered my name because I quite possibly could have been injured! She calmly said, "mom, here are my scissors. They were in the bathroom." It was a sweet delivery, just very unsettling in the dark and at 3am. Hope your Halloween Haunts are fun!

Yours or Mine?

There are times when I look at our children and I claim them as my own...refering to them as mine, etc to Dave. There are other moments when I talk to them about "his" children.

Ex: I told Dave about my cute Grant when he defended Katelee against a bullying boy, exclaiming, "Don't hurt my sister!" I am pretty sure I referred to Grant as his father's son when he held a restaurant plastic kids cup, and with all seriousness asked me "Mom, when you die, I get this right?"

Katelee is my girl when she says things like, " I love everyone in the whole whole world, and my family." I am certain she comes from Dave when I see her in her dance class not twisting as the other 3 year olds, but dirty dancing to herself in the corner against the mirror...definitely not a trait from me ;)

Brenna cakes is all mine when she giggles and crawls across the room for me, stands on her own or squeals. She is Dave's when she gets into the Cheetos bag and we turn from pushing the kids on the swings to see her laying in a bed of the processed product with one hanging out of her mouth like a pastuerized cigar....definitely her dad's!

She is 7 1/2 months old and starting to stand on her own and even take a step or two...walking is not too far away! My friend Kelsey took this sweet pictures of her.

Good thing my kids have to claim me as their mom all the time, even when my actions are less than becoming!

School and Snowbird

Katelee started pre-school this week. We are doing a neighborhood rotation with some other moms and little girls in the area. I think I can keep up with the curriculum at this age, so I feel ok teaching it! When she gets a little older I may be a bit rusty, but the alphabet is right up my alley! I told her to get her backpack on so we could take a few pics and this is what happened:

The girl is summed up by these words: silly, goofy, crazy. She keeps us laughing. We also got to spend some time up at Snowbird this week. My grandparents had a time share there and now my parents take care of it. We look forward to the week there all year. It is fun to spend time with family, walk, swim, hike, go on the playground and eat a lot! Brenna loved her first swing slide experiences. She giggled and smiled the whole time. We had a great time with the exception of Katelee karate chopping me in the neck all night long. We may need to rethink the sleeping assignments the next go around!