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.