Santa?

When Mark and I first realized that we were going to be parents, at some point we had a discussion about whether or not we would "have Santa" in our house. We decided no.

I'm realizing now, after going through a Christmas season with a 4-year-old, that this is easier said than done. Santa is everywhere on TV and in the stores, we can visit him in the mall, and all Chloe's friends have parents who promote Santa. Grandpa Barry also dressed up as Santa yesterday afternoon while we were over at Rose & Barry's for presents and dinner. Chloe thought it was SO awesome that she got to see Santa and that he gave her a present. (Kara not so much. She kept saying "No like it!" while Santa was there, and she cried a bit.)

After thinking about it a bit in bed last night, I have realized that there is nothing really wrong with Santa - its what we say about Santa that is important. What I find wrong with Santa is the "naughtY or nice" aspects, implying that you need to be good to get presents. This is why I think it is wrong:
1) You can't expect children to be good all the time. You can't expect adults to be good all the time either. We are all born as fallible humans, sinners. This is why God sent his son Jesus to save us, the reason we have Christmas in the first place.
2) Presents don't need to be "earned." Mark and I give presents because we like to, and because baby Jesus received gifts from the wise men. We will give our girls gifts whether they were "good" or not.
3) We are ultimately responsible to and judged by God, not Santa. If we are striving to be good, we should do so in an attempt to be closer to our Father and Maker, not to get presents from some fictional character based on a God-serving man from a few hundred years ago.

So next year, I think we'll make it simple, just like this year: a single visit to say hi to Santa (no photos), no presents from Santa on Christmas morning, a discussion about St. Nickolas on Dec. 6 (and likely later too), and maybe a visit from Santa at Rose & Barry's. No "Santa is pretend" from us, but no promotion of Santa either. I don't want to deny my girls the fun of pretend, but we want to keep Christmas focused on Christ.

Merry Christmas

Again we celebrate Jesus's coming to Earth to save us all. We are so thankful for this.

May you all have a wonderful Christmas, enjoying family and friends (and presents). We wish many blessings for you and yours.

Bathtime this morning.
Mark: "Chloe, hows the water?"
Chloe: "Perfect! My favorite temperature!"
Mark: "Yeah, perfect is my favorite temperature too."

Mommy! (So Cool!) and Happy Thanksgiving

Kara has just made the jump to calling me after nap and in the morning with "Mommy!" instead of with crying. Friday morning was the best example. I woke up to both of our girls calling Mommy from their beds :) Its cool! I love it!

I also wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. We are thankful for family, friends and the fact that the sun appeared while we were in church and it is now shining brightly outside!

Life...

...is progressing as normal. Not much to report, but what there is to share I will do so now...

Mark is working 10 hour days (finally). We miss having him home at 4, but appreciate the extra money it brings in, so we can do fun things like go out for meals.

On Saturday we took our girls to the miniature railroad in North Burnaby. Its a small park with lots of track and 1/18th scale engines that pull bench cars. Lots of fun!

Kara just keeps on talking more and more. It's wonderful! She's also really interested in letters, though all she can say is "A" and "O".

Chloe has now had 2 weeks of preschool, and is enjoying it like last year. We have to wait one more week, and then she also gets to go to dance class. Both times we have dropped Chloe off, Kara also goes to the story-time rug and really wants to be a part of preschool. I am sure the same thing will happen with dance class.

I am starting a dance class of my own tomorrow night. I bet I will be super tired and super sore on Tuesday morning! It will be nice to do something I enjoy by myself for 2 hours though :)

18 months (plus a few days)

Kara turned 18 months old on September 10. Wow! A year and a half already. And its been filled with tons of smiles, laughs and cuddles, and general amazement at our beautiful baby girl! Kara, we love you very much.

Chloe starts preschool tomorrow, and is really looking forward to it. She's been asking every day "is it preschool day yet?" for at least a week... definitely excited!

Otherwise, we've had a few sicknesses in our house the past few weeks, but we're all doing good now. We've got Kara back on wheat so we can get her tested in a few weeks for celiac disease. We decided to do it now as we're tired of always second guessing what she's been eating. So far she hasn't been doing too badly, so I'm hoping that's a good sign.

Off to play with a new book Chloe got! Have a great day everyone.

Chloe's Birthday Party

Its a few days late, because I've been sick, but here are some pictures from Chloe's birthday party, which was on Saturday August 28 :D

Today's Walk

I've lined up a penpal for Chloe, and we had to walk to the mailbox this morning to mail the letter we wrote earlier this week. The mailbox is about 30 seconds from the park, so we stopped there after. The best part of the walk, though, was all the "look at this" we did between our house and the mailbox.

It rained for about 30 minutes this morning, so the first stop was the puddle on the road right next to our car for some jumping. Then we found a snail on the sidewalk, and I showed Chloe how it pulls its eyes in if we put a twig too close. I also asked if she remembered the name for the shape a snail's shell makes (she did!). Then we stopped and looked a huge devil's club plant growing by the sidewalk, and I explained that its a dangerous plant. Then we looked at a holly bush, and underneath discovered shamrocks (with the heart shaped leaves, as opposed to the clovers with circular leaves on our lawn). Then we looked at some rose bushes, and talked about how Grandma Rose is named after that flower.

By this time we were at the mailbox, and Chloe could reach to open it! Hooray!

At the park we helped Kara learn how to blow bubbles (we brought them along from home), jumped in some more puddles, went on the swings (where Chloe practiced pumping) and had lots of fun.

Happy Birthday Chloe!!!

Our little girl is 4!!! Wow!

Today was a great day for Chloe. Ruby came over to play at 9:30 and we did crafts - we made paper ring caterpillars and muffin cup butterflies. We played outside, sang silly songs and were just generally goofy. Aayla came over around 11, and all four girls (yes! 4!) played really nice until Kara's naptime at 11:30. Ruby went home at 12, and Chloe went with Aayla to her house for a cupcake tea party! Aayla's mom is a hair dresser, so she gave Chloe a pretty hairdo. They dressed up in princess dresses and did other girly things. It was a really nice treat for Chloe, and a great break for me.

I picked Chloe up from Aayla's house at 4:30 and we went to swim lessons. Of course Chloe told everyone that it was her birthday today, and that she was 4. When we were done getting changed after swim lessons, one of the pool supervisors was waiting at the front desk with balloons for Chloe. She was super excited! Then we came home, had dinner, ate cake and Chloe opened her present (a Dora toy and some new pants). Then Chloe watched an episode of Madeline, followed by me reading her two and a half books, and then about 10 minutes of goofing off with Dad.

All in all a wonderful, busy and happy day :D

(Look at those slightly sunburned cheeks!)

(Here you can see the remnants of Chloe's hairdo. We did go swimming...)

(And this is the cake I made right before swimming, and decorated in about 10 minutes between getting home and eating dinner.)

Just wanted to say things are going. We went to Abbotsford today - Emma (Paul & Greta's new baby) was baptized this morning, then we went to Mark's parents' for lunch, then dropped the girls off with my mom and went to the movie theatre to see "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World". OMG that movie was AWESOME!!!!

That's all, really :)

Swim lessons

Chloe and Kara are both enrolled in twice a week swim lessons for August. Every Tuesday and Thursday we show up at the pool just before 5, get changed and head to the pool deck. Chloe joins her teacher and two other almost-4 year olds. I take Kara to her class of 7 infants and toddlers from 6 months to almost 3 years. Don't worry, its parent participation. We have 25 minutes in the pool, and then its a crazy mad dash to line up for a change room.

We've had 5 lessons so far, and Kara is doing great. She knows to close her mouth and hold her breath when I put her underwater, and really likes being tugged around in the water. I can't really watch what Chloe is doing because I'm with Kara, but on Tuesday Chloe said "Look what I can do Mommy!" and proceeded to put her entire face under water! In just 5 short lessons I have seen Chloe's confidence in her swimming ability increase, she has become much more comfortable in water, and I've seen the increased confidence spill over into other areas too. For example, I took the girls to the park this morning, and Chloe was able to climb up the chain ladder with absolutely no help and no crying. Three weeks ago it was a struggle to get her to climb it with help.

I am SO proud of both of my girls. They amaze me, and I thank God for them often. Being a mom really is so rewarding.

Sleeping, sorta

Kara hasn't been a good sleeper since around 3 months after she was born. Waking up lots, wanting to nurse all the time, needed to be rocked or have her back rubbed to fall asleep. The past week and a bit has seen an improvement. Kara is now able to fall asleep by herself! We put both Chloe and Kara to bed at 8pm. I rub Kara's back for 2 or 3 minutes to let her know that its bed time, then say "Good night Kara" and leave their room. Only once in the last 2 weeks have I had to go back in and help her fall asleep. She is also staying asleep until around 1 am (as opposed to 10pm), and if I go in and give her a soother, she often falls back asleep until around 3am, when she wants to nurse. After this still isn't going well, with her often waking again around 5, and 6, before getting up for good around 7. So I'm not getting a lot more sleep, but its still progress, and it makes me happy :D

Birthday Bear

Chloe's birthday is coming up on August 24. Her friend Ruby's birthday was on July 30. As a gift for both of them, I took them to Build-A-Bear workshop on Thursday. They had a great time. Chloe got a pretty purple bear, and Ruby got a horse. (Though Ruby was talking the whole time we were driving there about how she really wanted a unicorn!) Chloe named her bear "Canolee" (say it like canola, but replace the a with an e), a name she came up with all by herself! They also got to choose an outfit for their friend, and a pair of shoes.

While the staff were helping us make the bear and horse, we mentioned that the trip was for the girls' birthdays, and all of a sudden they had "I'm the Birthday Bear" stickers, and they got a birthday song sung to them! Very cool, and unexpected.

Here's some pictures of our trip :)

Kara's Words

This is mostly just for us, so we can remember a small part of Kara's growing up. Her words are expanding so fast, and I wanted to take a snap-shot of her vocabulary at this point in her life. Here are most of the words she says and uses correctly (and how she says them).

baby (beey-bee)
dada
hi
bye
woah
wow
tickle (tik-uh)
more (moh)
bath (bah)
oooooh
key (keh)
no (nuh/nuu)
up (uhpuh)
uh-oh
door (dough)
mum

So many things...

The picture of Kara and me is from Canada Day. It was so cold we were wearing sweaters inside!
The picture of Mark and Chloe is from Ricky's wedding.
These two pictures are the ones that I currently have displayed on my monitors (yes, Mark and I have two monitors each). Every time Kara sees the picture of Mark and Chloe she says "Hi Dada." Its amazing.

Today we went to Abbotsford with Briana and Ruby. We went to Briana's parents' house and swam in the pool. All three girls had a BLAST! Kara displayed her normal "no fear", and Chloe was nervous-excited. By that I mean she spent a lot of time on the steps going into the pool, and would only get off the steps for a few minutes at a time; but she was laugh and smiling the whole time!

After a REALLY rough week at work, Mark is now on hiatus. That means we get at least two weeks straight of "daddy home days". I know all four of us are going to enjoy this immensely. Mark will also super enjoy sleeping in. And I might even get to sleep in once or twice!

Tomorrow we are going to Abbotsford to visit Paul & Greta, and to meet Emma. I am really looking forward to meeting and holding their new baby. Chloe is also really looking forward to seeing her cousin Ava.

Kara's Milk "Allergy?"

I guess I should start this post by saying that I was in Trail over the weekend for Coral's 30th birthday. I took Kara with me, and Mark and Chloe stayed home. I had a great time.

However...

I didn't limit what Kara ate in the way of dairy, nor what I ate. Ice cream cake, cheezies, lots of M&Ms. Super yummy, but now Kara is paying for my lack of caring. Though it turns out this was a very good test. Anyway, over the last few days Kara has slowly had rashes return to her legs, then today I noticed it on her tummy, chest and cheeks. I know she finds it itchy, and it looks horrid.

So after she went to bed today, I decided to look up milk allergies more in depth. I basically discovered that IF it is a milk allergy, its a Milk Protein Intolerance. Since its a super-delayed reaction, it is very hard to prove that she has an allergy using the normal skin/blood test that allergists employ. However, I am convinced that she is for sure allergic to milk, and will no longer give her anything with milk in it. And that means no more milk for me until I am no longer breast feeding her.

Ugh.

Congratulations & Happy Birthday

Mark's sister-in-law Greta had a baby girl earlier today. We welcome Emma Joy Nicholson to our family. Congratulations to Paul, Greta and Ava.

And we wish happy 28th birthday to our daddy and husband. We love you Mark. Thank you for everything you do for us. You make us very happy.

Cake!

So, its a week and a half late, but here goes anyway.

Last week, Uncle Lee (Mark's bro) and his kids came down from Vernon for a week. The very first day they were here, we got all of Mark's family together and had a big June/July birthday party for me (June 11), Mark (July 14), Violet (July 19) and James (July 27). Due to our food restrictions, I made the cake. And what a cake it was!



I made gluten free carrot cake, topped it with dairy free cream cheese icing, and then made rolled fondant for the turtle and flowers too!



The rest of Lee's visit was also fun. Chloe got to go to Playland with Uncle Lee, we went swimming, hung out on Canada Day (which was so cold!) and played some too.

Kara continues to try out new words, such as "car" and "jump". And "new", though it sounds like a mix between "new" and "no".

This is the last week of work for Mark before summer hiatus begins. We're looking forward to having daddy home for a few weeks, and hopefully going to the park now that it looks like summer might be here. Speaking of parks, we're off to the water park with some friends when Kara wakes up from her nap.

I am also headed to Trail with just Kara this weekend for my friend Coral's 30th birthday. Hopefully Kara doesn't hate the super long car ride too much... *fingers crossed* I'm dropping Chloe off in Abbotsford with Grandma on Thursday, and Grandma will bring Chloe home to Mark on Friday when Mark is done work. I'll be arriving home sometime late afternoon/early evening (preevening?) on Monday. It will really be nice to see Coral again.

Smart

I don't know if its just that I have forgotten how Chloe was at 15 months, but it seems to me that Kara is smart. She understands SO much of what we say, listens super well most of the time, and even though she's only got a handful of words (she mastered "more" today), she can very easily tell us what it is she wants. She figures things out really quickly, and wants so much to be like her big sister.

I'm not sure if she really is smart like I think, but I KNOW she's amazing.

Sleeping Cutie

Kara was really tired yesterday afternoon, so I put the TV on and put Kara on the couch. I went back to the kitchen to work on dinner, and 5 minutes later went to check on Kara. This is what I found :D

Sisters

Just a cute picture of my two girls :)

28

Today is my birthday. I'm 28. I was commenting to Jordy & Juana last night how I sometimes feel really old, and other times feel really young. In our group of friends from camp & Abbotsford, Mark and I are among the oldest. Yet I am definitely the youngest in the group of moms I know out here, and we are the youngest parents in our little group of 5 houses with young kids on our street.

So anyway, I'm 28 now. Hooray?

Sick

Kara had some sort of bug yesterday morning and threw up a few times. She went down for a morning nap and was fine afterward, so we went to David & Stephanie's wedding. Well, I think Mark got whatever Kara had, as he has been sick since about 4pm. Hopefully its super short like Kara's was.

Get better daddy!


Edit: So about 3 hours after I posted the above, Chloe and I both got sick. So all three of us got very little sleep. We're still really sore, but at least we can all eat again.

Congratulations David & Stephanie

2 weeks later, and another wedding is over. Thankfully this time none of us were in the wedding party. We could just go and enjoy the wedding and reception. Both were very nice. Though the wick on the unity candle was in an awkward spot, and it took them too many tries to light it.... but they persevered, and we got a good laugh out of it :)

We wish Dave & Steph a very happy life together. They are both great people and I know they will be greater after taking this wonderful step.


Also, I made cookies this morning so I would be able to have dessert. They were tasty. :D

5 AMAZING YEARS

Today is our fifth anniversary! WOW! It has been eventful and wonderful and sometimes hard, but it has all been worth it. We have two beautiful daughters that we love and we are just as silly as ever, if not more. Love and marriage sure are fantastic :)

This is us 5 years ago:

Ricky & Audrey's Wedding (and our little flower girl)

Our friends Ricky & Audrey got married yesterday! Yay for them! Chloe was their flower girl. So cute!

See:


It was a long day and Chloe was very well behaved. Mark was also a groomsman - very handsome! It was tough on me to take care of both the girls, though thankfully I had our friend Juana helping me out before the ceremony.

Here's all of us dressed up in our finery:


Everything else around here is going well, though both Mark and I are feeling very tired. In fact, I'm going to go put Kara to bed now, and then go relax on the couch with a book. Good night!

Happy Mother's Day

Moms are wonderful. In fact, my mom took Chloe to Victoria this weekend - it doesn't get much more wonderful than that.

So thanks to all the Moms out there who love and cherish their kids, who work hard so kids can play, and who generally just rock. Your kids love you.

Tired

So I wrote this part on Monday:
We're all alive, and all tired. Mark had a stag on Friday/Saturday, and while he was at it, the girls and I stayed at my mom's. I also went to a stagette on the Saturday afternoon. Then Sunday was a going-away party for my sister who is at this moment on a plane on her way to Thailand(!!). We often seem to pack too much into a weekend and end up more tired on Monday than we were on Friday (like now).

And now its Tuesday. We're feeling a bit better today. Still tired, but I managed to sleep until 8:20, which is very amazing! Mark is only working 8 hour days right now, which is helping with us feeling better sooner.

However, we've still got a very busy May. This weekend is Mother's Day, and another stag/stagette combo. Then we've got 2 weddings and our anniversary (5 years!!!) later in the month. Thankfully there are no birthdays to worry about.

I'll go to bed now. I need sleep.

Gluten Free Gamer

Blair was over a few weeks ago and suggested we grab "glutenfreegamer@gmail.com". Sadly, it was taken. However, over the weekend I realized a need to have a place online to store recipes I like and want to use again, especially since half of them come from other people on the internet anyway. So, let me introduce my other blog to you:

http://glutenfreegamer.blogspot.com/

Hey, we'll even throw in game related posts every once in a while! :)

Celiac testing, etc

Kara's skin rashes have prompted me to do a lot of reading in addition to the diet modification. Here's a summary of the important points to help those reading understand (hopefully).

1) Celiac disease testing occurs in two stages. The first stage is a blood test. The second is an upper-intestine endoscopy done, which takes a small piece of her intestine and sees if the villi are damaged.

2) If Kara's rash is indeed from celiac, it is called dermatitis herpetiformis. Testing for DH is done through a dermatologist, and if it is proved by this test, no further testing for celiac needs to be done, since DH cannot occur without celiac being present in the first place.

3) These test require a diet of constant wheat exposure for 2-4 weeks before they can be completed in order to be valid, and have the best chance of a proper result. They also don't work properly for children under 3 because their digestive systems aren't fully developed. So we keep Kara off wheat for another 2 years and then work on getting referrals, blood tests, etc.

4) It is recommended that all members of a celiac's direct family are tested as well, such as parents, siblings and children. Some doctors recommend that secondary family (cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.) get tested as well. It seems that studies show having a celiac relative makes your chances of also have celiac 1 in 22. (Normal occurrence rates are approx. 1 in 132.) This means that Mark, Chloe and I should probably be tested, especially since I think my sister Alie may also have celiac.

Please remember that Kara is not confirmed celiac. However, until we get her tested, we are treating her as if she has it so that people at public places such as restaurants have a chance of understanding what her condition is, and what kind of help we need from then. It also means we're eating out a lot less, which is good for the pocketbook.

Baking up a storm

Kara's birthday was just over a month ago. With her birthday money I bought 3 gluten-free cookbooks. I am now attempting to put those cookbooks to good use. I've tried some random recipes and some "replace a normal food" recipes to varying degrees of success. I've also tried just substituting a gf flour mix in place of normal flour - it works well enough for cakes and muffins, but not much else. I'm baking muffins at least once a week so that I have breakfast food (since I'm off wheat/gluten right now too), and 2 kinds of cookies (one normal, one gf) at least once every two weeks. Mark, my mom and I have all remarked multiple times that it really is a good thing I like to bake.

Last night I tried making a gf pizza dough. It was edible, but the only thing that made it taste like pizza was the toppings. Today I made coffee cake, which was better than the pizza dough, but it didn't have a struesel topping on it because I haven't figured out how to make one without flour AND without butter :P

The hardest part of Kara's diet is the no dairy. For example, I had to make her part of the pizza with soy cheese that doesn't really melt, and I also had to make sure it wasn't contaminated by the cheese the rest of us were having. It just isn't the same. Also, Chloe and I had popcorn today, and I have to pull out some for Kara before I added butter, and then make sure she didn't eat any of the buttered popcorn.

The most important thing for me right now is to read the label for every product at the store. I have to avoid wheat and all other gluten flours (which means anything with malt is out because that's made from barley), I can't get anything that has the generic term "alcohol" (such as vanilla extract), and then there's all the dairy terms - butter, milk, cream, lactose and casien to name a few.

I've also been doing research into celiac disease testing, and I know that will make life horrible when we get around to it in a few years. But more on that later, I'm going to bed.

Uh-oh!

Kara's first word is offically "uh-oh!" Any time she drops something, she says it. Its really cute :D

Poor Kara is sick with a cough. Its not frequent, but when she does cough its quite icky sounding. She's also got a bit of a runny nose.

We've had both Kara and I off wheat for 2 weeks now (and Kara off dairy too), and her skin is mostly better. She's had one breakout (it happened last week), but I'm not sure if it was from cross-contamination, or some other potential problem food. I've been keeping a food diary for both of us, and we'll take an in-depth look at it when we go to the naturopath on Friday.

The other crazy thing happening is that Kara is climbing up onto Mark's computer chair. This means that we cannot leave the computer room door open if no one is in there.

I don't want to leave Chloe out, of course. She's still doing preschool (she loves it), she's back at dance class (also enjoys it), and her and I are both learning to play the violin (its slow but fun). I think she's getting the short end of the stick with my no-wheat, as I don't make her favorite foods (noodles, chicken nuggets, hot dogs) as much any more since I can't eat them with her. But she's coping, and is really careful to make sure Kara doesn't eat anything with wheat or dairy.

Off I go now to make us lunch, then make a batch of Gluten-Free cookies for me and Kara, and a batch of normal gingerbread cookies for Mark and Chloe. This whole two-diets thing is really crazy! :\

Happy Easter, etc

Hey! We're alive. Really, I promise :)

Our lives have been busy. Mark is working again, 10 hours a day, with a few 11's thrown in. He comes home from work at 6pm exhausted, and gets 2 hours to eat dinner and spend with our girls before they go to bed.

Yesterday we moved Kara's crib into Chloe's room. We're hoping that will help her slowly get to the point where she sleeps through the night. I am so tired of her waking up 3, 4, 5 times a night. Sometimes she's up every hour from 12 to 6. It makes it really hard for me to get sleep, and Mark was suffering too.

Still working on Kara's food intolerances - they're not "allergies" because she doesn't have an almost instantaneous reaction to them, her reactions take a while. We've got her off wheat and dairy and they slowly seem to be clearing. However, since I'm still breastfeeding her, I also need to be off wheat, and mostly off dairy so that she's not getting any of it through my milk. Its really hard to come up with ideas for lunch for me, and its absolutely impossible to go out for food. Mark and Chloe got to have pizza for dinner on Friday, while I ate a chicken caesar salad - without croutons :P

Easter this year was good, but busy. The girls and I went to Rob & Karen's house in Mission on Saturday for dinner with my mom's side of the family; meanwhile, Mark was at his brother Paul's house for Battletech. Then yesterday I drove my mom to the airport for her trip to Hawaii, we had an egg hunt, went to church (the service was awesome), then did the crib, and then went to Mark's parents for dinner. It was good, but we're tired now.

And now I go try to make some headway in the mess that is our house...

Ni-hao Kai-lan!

Kai-lan was at Lougheed Mall today for a "meet & greet". Cousin Ava was there too. We got pictures!

Happy Birthday Kara

Wow! Kara is 1 today! She has grown so much and done so many things in her first year of life. Its amazing to think of all she has given us, and how much more we still get to see. We thank God so much for the blessing she is.

A reminder of what she was like at 3 days old:
And 6 months old:
And here she is today :)

Allergy test and birthday party

So, after waiting 3 months to see an allergist for Kara, we finally had our appointment on Friday. We went in, talked a bit, the allergist did the typical skin-prick test where they put whatever the allergen in the food is on the skin and make a small scratch. If the scratch flares up into a hive, that's an allergic reaction.

NOTHING HAPPENED.

Something is still causing Kara's eczema, but apparently its not easy to identify. This does mean that all Kara has is an "intolerance" though, so nothing she eats should be life-threatening. But we need to go back to the doctor and see what he says, since I want to know why her skin is so icky.

Today was Kara's birthday party (she's 1 on wednesday!). We had our parents, my sister and Mark's brother Peter over, ate food and gluten-free/dairy-free cake, opened presents and visited. It was a nice, low-key party. Here's Kara eating cake!

Torch!

We went downtown today to see some of the stuff happening for the Olympics. After waiting 40 minutes in a line to go on a walkway about 20 ft up for a nice view of the torch, we got this picture:


We also went to Robson Square (OMG busy) and LiveCity Yaletown at David Lam Park. Panasonic had a booth there, with two 103" 3D HD tvs. WOW. This picture if from there:

We had a good time today, but we're really tired now.

Pretend play is great

Around 2 or 3 this afternoon, I was feeling really tired. I went and lay down on the spare bed we have in Chloe's room so that Kara could play while I got some rest. Chloe came in and decided that I would be Chloe, she would be mommy, and she would put me to bed. So she did our normal bedtime routine for me: got me (pretend) water, asked me which toy I would like to sleep with, rubbed my back and tucked me in. She even ended with my customary "I'll see you in the morning." I was so sweet, and reminded me just how much children want to be like their parents.

We've also been playing a lot of "pirates" (spurred on by her Dora's Pirate Adventure DVD), going pretend fishing and making pretend cookies. 3 year olds are fun :)

Missions

Lat week after church (January 24) I told Mark that I had been feeling God's calling for a few days that now is my time to get into missions work. Yesterday at church the sermon was about missions, and it really drove home that calling. It hasn't taken more shape than a general calling yet, except that I know I'm not being called to serve in the church (ie with Sunday school). I'm supposed to go out (somewhere) and do something to help people in need and who may not have heard of Jesus before.

So, if you would please take a moment to pray that I would know where God is calling me to, and that He would provide abundantly so that I may do what he is asking of me.

Thanks, and have a good February, everyone!

Doin' fine

Everything is plodding along slowly here. I hurt my ankle (not badly) on Sunday morning, but am mostly recovered now. I just can't walk fast. Kara only crawls about 5% of the time now, though she's still relatively unstable because she is so small. Chloe is in preschool one day a week, and she's absolutely loving it. Mark is still off work, but production for Season 2 of Stargate: Universe has started (as in, the art department and writers are working), and it looks like Mark will start late Feb or early March. Everything else is pretty much status quo.

Oh yeah, my mom got new furniture, so we inherited her chair-and-a-half. Its AWESOME.

Its Serious

It is now obvious that we are dealing with a severe food allergy (or maybe more than one) with Kara. Some time late Tuesday or early Wednesday she ate something that her body thinks is bad, and now she is covered from head to toe (well, ankle) in little red spots. Not quite hives, since they have stayed separate spots, but more raised than normal eczema is.

We've been to see a normal doctor regarding Kara's eczema already. We got a referral to the pediatric allergist, but we have to wait until March 5. So for now its two more months of guessing what foods we can and can't give our baby, while all she wants to do is eat more and more. I'm grateful that I can still breastfeed her (since lactose is probably an allergen), but the amount of food she wants is starting to be more than I can realistically supply.

Things we're pretty sure Kara is allergic to:
(Or, it seems, that her body has an auto-immune response to)
Milk (cows AND goats milk are both no-touch right now)
Wheat
Corn

Other things we may need to avoid:
Cinnamon
Oats (they naturally contain gluten, which might be the problem with wheat)
Yeast
Nuts
Soy

So far we haven't had any anaphylactic responses, which means no trips to emergency, thankfully. But its really hard on all of us, especially Kara.

Sleep?

Kara is not sleeping well. Its super frustrating. That's all, just needed to complain.