a room with a view...

so i spent half of my weekend painting the mural in baby j's room. it is probably half done - maybe a little more. can you guess which children's book this is from?*

* hint: a person's a person, no matter how small.

Christmas Post Script PS

Forgot to mention another early christmas present...

across the street from t-man's school is (actually, was) an old gas station. since august they have been tearing down the building, pulling the old tanks out of the ground, etc. so there is always some construction vehicle to point out to the kids on the way to and from school. a few months ago, i asked t-man what he thought they were building there and he told me "it's a dunkin' donuts mama." i had to laugh - he thinks we're still in boston! there are 2 dunkin' donuts here in town, but the closest one is a 15 minute drive away. how i wish...

anyway, t-man has been telling me it's going to be a D&D for months now. so i finally asked him 2 weeks ago,

"why do you think it is going to be a dunkin' donuts?"
"because my teacher told me."
"which teacher?"
"miss deb."

oooh - miss deb is not one to exaggerate. so i asked her when i picked t-man up from school - and she confirmed it! best of all (when you have 3 kids), i think i saw a drive thru - which is also very dangerous - it makes it too easy to get a coffee there all the time. i've just got to buy stock in the company...

Christmas Post Script...

In all the excitement and chaos of the holidays with 3 little ones, i forgot to mention the wonderful early xmas present from sweet baby j - starting monday or tuesday night (damn i need to get better about writing these things down), she has been sleeping a solid 6 - 8 hours at night! whoo hoo! lets hope this trend continues! i haven't been getting this many hours of consecutive sleep in months!

Merry Christmas to all...

christmas is the best with little kids. their excitement is infectious. it's intense, exhausting, and lasts as long as it takes to rip open all the presents - about 15 minutes. but it is all worth it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

one lazy sunday morning...

this morning was my turn to "sleep in". baby j woke up at 7 am for a feeding. i was so tired that i decided to nurse her in bed. this means she fell back asleep while eating and i did as well. when i woke up around 8:30, i was staring at an angel.

she looked so sweet with her eyes closed accentuating her long lashes, mouth slightly open in the shape of a tiny heart, and her little breaths with the occasional sigh. it is such a catch-22. i wanted to hold onto this moment forever but at the same time i'm ready for her to grow up and start sleeping through the night.

well i grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots in hopes of having it both ways - she can start getting older and i can remember this moment always...

i'm too tired to care...

picked up our xmas cards today - they don't look so good. i screwed up the family photo and didn't lighten it. i didn't realize how dark it was until i saw it printed out. part of me plans on sending them out anyway - the other part of me can't let go of how bad they look. it doesn't help that when i showed them to hubby, the first words out of his mouth were "it looks like crap." i can't decide which part of me will win this one.*

* who are we kidding - it will be a miracle if i even get xmas cards out before valentine's day...

it is a small world afterall...

went to a neighborhood ladies night out friday in effort to have some sort of social life again. i had been at the host's house for over an hour when i happened to noticed a small print hanging in her kitchen.

"is that? - never mind..."
"what?"
"well, that picture looks like touchdown jesus."
"it is touchdown jesus. my husband and i went to notre dame."
"my husband and i went to notre dame too!"

i'm in a small city (pop. <100,000) in NC and a couple who graduated with hubby live on the same street as us. i don't think there are many ND grads in the area...what are the odds????

away in a manger...

t-man's christmas program at his preschool was this morning. i was the proud mama of not only joseph, but baby jesus as well!


the sweetest moment was when baby j was crying her head off because it was time for her to fall asleep (which she of course did in the manager AFTER the program was over) and t-man looked down at his baby sister, leaned over, and kissed her on the forehead to settle her a bit. it made my heart melt.

unfortunately, i was not able to get a great picture of all 3 of my little cuties together, but here are a few of my attempts...

i'm in xmas cookie hell...

xmas and hell probably shouldn't be in the same sentence but today it is for me. baked sugar cookies this morning with little miss k - what a mess! flour everywhere, pieces of dough all over the place - baking with the kids just stresses me out. i think it is because unlike cooking, you need to be exact with your ingredients with baking - which is hard to do when the kids insist on putting a tsp of vanilla in and half lands on the countertop or when you turn your back for a second and they shove their face in the bowl to inhale raw butter before you even mix in the sugar! i know i need to relax about this - but i just haven't learned to do so yet. patience is what i want for xmas, but until then i'll just try to forget that we still need to decorate the damn cookies.

i guess xmas won't be early this year...

talked to t-man's new allergist this morning. we got back the results of his blood work and it was mixed. no great news, some good news, and some not so great news. for those who don't know, t-man was diagnosed with an egg and a peanut allergy about 3 1/2 years ago.


the background:
when he was 11 months old, i gave him some of my pancakes and he broke out in hives around his mouth. his eyes were itchy and watery as well. it wasn't a severe reaction but it was enough to mention it at his 1 year appointment. so they tested him for not only egg but a slew of other common food allergens (shellfish, wheat, corn, soy, peanuts, walnuts, etc.). he came back positive for egg and peanut.

for the past few years, i've been ultra-anal in eliminating the allergens from his diet in hope of giving him the best chance of outgrowing the allergies. when we got the initial diagnosis, i gave my mom not only all the products in our kitchen containing egg and nuts, but those that could have been contaminated as well - jelly (from knives with peanut butter), mustard (traces of mayo from double dipping a knife), etc. we are an egg and a nut free house, and we limit the food he eats outside of our house. we even avoid products that have been produced in a facility with eggs and nuts. it has been inconvenient to say the least.


i can't fully explain how stressful it is to go out to eat, travel, and even play at other people's homes. i'm constantly on alert - when he was first diagnosed, i even had dreams of t-man having an anaphylactic reaction and me having to administer the epi-pen to him. fortunately with time, i've learned how to "live around" his allergies - using egg replacers when baking, bringing "safe" cupcakes to birthday parties, cleaning the airplane floor of any peanuts before he gets into his seat, etc. it has become habit. and now it is the strangest feeling when i am out with just little miss k - when we can grab some munchkins with my D&D or that we can stop to eat anywhere without a second thought - it is the feeling of freedom.

anyway, t-man's numbers are very low for egg now. that's the good news. the ok news is that they are not low enough to do a food challenge this year, but if this trend continues, we should be able to do one next fall and hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) he will be able to tolerate egg in a year. as for the peanut, that is the bad news - his numbers were trending down. he was at 0.9 2 years ago. now, it jumped to 18! the allergist can't explain it. and the allergist is not convinced that he is even allergic to peanuts because he has never had a reaction (we've never given him peanuts) and the tests have a high rate of false positives (as much as 50%). but the numbers are way too high now to do a food challenge (could have done one at 0.9 - but he was only 2 at the time). so we don't know what is going on and won't know more until next year when we do another blood test. so it is status quo - we keep doing what we're doing. i just keep reminding myself, it could be worse. this is manageable.