A BIG Smile

New football cleats.......... $17

Thermal Underwear.......... $25

Dunford donuts for the team...........  $13

The Cost of seeing the smile on Gib's face when playing football in the snow.......... Priceless!

The first snow storm was GREAT this year.  I don't remember getting snow like this all year last season?  I was home with the girls yesterday.  I was trying to be a party-pooper.  I thought we were too sick to play outside in the snow.  But who can tell that to an excited 4 year-old who has just seen the first snow storm this year?  Within a couple hours we were outside building snowmen.  Meet Bucka and Loda (I have no idea where Emmy came up with those names!).

I don't remember it being so much work to build a snowman when I was a kid.  Maybe because my dad did all the hard work... I will never forget the BIGGEST snowman ever built in our front yard.  We were so proud of it.  I love memories of our great Utah snow!

Gabby's FPIES story...

When Gabby was just 8 weeks old I knew there was something different about her digestive system.  She was constantly throwing up and had diarrhea.  She had frequent heart-burn and indigestion.  Her poor bottom ALWAYS had a painfull rash.  No matter what I did, nothing helped.  She was often lethargic and listless after feedings.  She cried and cried, obviously in pain.  Then, I started seeing blood in her vomit and stool.  Her pediatrician wanted to discuss her "failure to thrive".  No words a mother EVER wants to hear about her child.  We were referred to a specialist, Dr. Hendershot, who has a background in pediatrics and specialized in allergy and immunology.  He quickly helped us solve the mystery and got Gabby on a path to recovery.  She was diagnosed with Food Protein-induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES).  It's just a fancy way of saying her digestive system is intolerant to certain food proteins and it caused her to develop colotis.

Common treatment is to identify and eliminate the offensive foods.  This was a bit more complicated because I was committed to breastfeeding.  I immediately avoided milk, soy, corn, egg, peanuts and rice.  I avoided all 6 of these food groups for 2 months and Gabby recovered remarkable well.  By the way, only about 50% of nursing mothers transfer enough whole food protein through their breast milk to cause a problem.  Lucky us!  For the next two weeks, I continued to avoid our top 6 but slowly added rice.  After no negative effects in Gabby's health, I repeated the process with corn.  Within a couple months, I was avoiding milk and eggs, only.  It was a difficult way to eat, at first.  We were used to reading labels to avoid milk, eggs and peanuts because of Emmy's food allergies, but it was different when I had to live it myself.  When my breast milk dried-up at 8 months, we started Gabby on a soy-based formula without any problems.  As she grew, we added a new solid food every week.  I always kept a food diary and documented her reactions so we could find a correlation, if needed.

The reason I tell you this story now is because Gabby just had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Hendershot this week.  He said most children outgrow the intolerance by age 3.  Those who don't often have troubles with eosinophilic disorders.  I am happy to report that the only food group Gabby is avoiding is soy.  Did you hear that, Gabby is drinking regular milk, the milk that comes from a cow!  This is a HUGE victory for Gabby.  After lots of prayers, Gabby has outgrown her disease!

We feel so blessed that her health has been stable.  My heart goes out to those poor children I have gotten to know from the UFAN network who can only ingest elemental formula.  I pray for those little ones and hope for a cure...

Emmy is four!

We celebrated Emmy's 4th birthday back in August and I never got the chance to post the photos.  She got a new bike for her birthday.  She was so good at riding.

Unfortunately, she had a minor fall her first day that resulted in a scraped knee.  After we fixed it with a band-aid, she got right back on the bike and rode around the block.

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On the Saturday following her birthday, we got a bouncey house and invited over friends and family to celebrate.  These two had so much fun together.

 

Emmy took the picture below...

Grandpa Brems got right in the bounce house with the kids.  They all had so much fun!

Emmy felt so special and had a great time!

Pumpkin Pancakes

We love having breakfast for dinner, sometimes.  Tonight, Emmy and Gabby helped me make dairy-free pumpkin pancakes.  We had so much fun cooking together that it was worth the little-bit of extra mess created by two crazy toddlers!  And the best part, the girls ate all their dinner because they were so proud of their creations.

Creepy Creature Cupcakes

I had the day off today with the girls so I wanted to do something fun.  Last night I made some milk-free chocolate chip pumpkin cupcakes so we could decorate them this morning.  There's nothing like cupcakes and frosting for breakfast!  We found such a cute book at Utah Idaho Supply for $0.99 called Monster Party.  A brother and sister, Mondo and Magnolia, plan the best Halloween party in Monterville history.  Tragically, the bakery runs out of Creepy Creature Cupcakes on the day of their party!  So, they get creative and all the friends decorate their own monster cupcakes at the party.  We read the book together (as well as Gabby would allow) then decorated our own Creepy Creature Cupcakes.  Emmy was so creative.  She named the cupcakes Mondo, Magnolia, Monster Mommy, and Muddles the Dog.  It was fun to hear Gabby say "Eyes", "Nose" and "Lips" and put the candy where she thought they should go.  We talked about different shapes and colors.  Emmy was good at predicting what colors mixed to make orange and purple.

  

Creepy Creature Milk-free Cupcake Recipe

 1 box Duncan Hines yellow cake mix

1 egg

1 egg white

15 oz can pure pumpkin

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 C Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

Pillsbury white frosting

Food coloring to color frosting as desired

We went to Peterson Farms to pick pumpkins last Monday.  The girls pushed child-sized wheelbarrows, played on tractors, took a hay-ride, and picked the best pumpkins ever.

Gabby was very concerned about getting the right pumpkin.  She saw this one from way down the row and kept pointing until we got the right one.  It was bright orange with a perfect round shape.  That's her Daddy's girl!  Emmy, on the other hand, likes the abnormal pumpkins.  She liked the ones that were multi-colored, weird shaped, and scarred.  That's my girl!

 

Silly girls

These two have so much fun together.  I am so thankful they have each other.  Growing up can be tough business but I hope they remain close and are always there for each other.

They sure do make me laugh.  In the past couple weeks, Gabby has created some interesting situations.  Both are the result of her desire to be "grown-up" like her big sister.   Let me warn you, both are potty stories.  If you are disgusted by poop you should stop reading now.  They were just too cute to not document, so I apologize, but here goes...

Last week, after work, I picked the girls up from Gib's parents.  Five minutes into our travel Emmy started screaming that she had to pee.  I pulled over on a side road but couldn't convince her to go in the dirt.  We went another 5 minutes to the nearest gas station.  Gabby was wearing only a diaper because of a series of unfortunate events leading up to our stop at the restroom.  So, I grab my mostly naked Gabby and screaming Emmy and run into the gas station bathroom.  Emmy gets to the toilet before she has an accident.  Whew, crisis averted, right?  Think again.  Emmy is potty-training Gabby.  So, when Gabby sees Emmy on the potty she gets REALLY mad that she can't go, too.  She makes a stinky #2 in her diaper then tears it off on the restroom floor.  Now I have a completely naked 2 year old with a diaper covered in poo.  I can't put the messy diaper back on Gabby, so I clean her up and wrap my arms around her to cover her private parts.  We try to quickly exit from the gas station, but my girls were sucked-in by their marketing skills.  Right near the exit, there was princess apple juice!  There was no way we were leaving the gas station without two princess apple juices.  So, I checked out at the register with a naked 2 year old.  A guy came out of the beer cooler to whistle at Gabby and ask, "Who's the streaker?"  I can laugh about it now.  I will never forget the image of my naked 2 year old, surrounded by strangers, in a busy gas station.  I thought of so many ways I can better prepare to avoid another disaster like this in the future.

Just last night, we were at Chad and Ashley's house celebrating Logan's fifth birthday.  Can you believe he is 5?  Anyway, Gabby loves Marlee's froggy training potty.  While I was playing a quick minute-to-win-it game, Gabby got into the bathroom, did another stinky #2 in Marlee's potty, used her hands to pick up her "nuggets" and put them in the big toilet, used the toilet plunger and the toilet brush to stir the contents of the potty, and spilled a gallon of water on the bathroom floor.  I don't know how it happened so fast!  What a silly girl.  I've got to keep a better eye on her!

Fall leaves

It was so beautiful outside today, we went into the mountains to see the fall leaves after church.  The brilliant colors were almost magical.  I loved Emmy's four-year-old vocabulary describing the beauty around her.  "Those leaves are so bright they are pink and red and orange and yellow and green at the same time."  We collected all different colored leaves from the ground.  Gabby found one that was so soft and felt-like on it's backside she had to taste it.  I guess I can't blame her after we had talked about using her senses to see and smell the leaves.  It only seems natural she would want to taste one next :)

All tied-up

I just had to post this picture.  The other night Gabby had a restless night and this is how I found her in the morning.  As you can see, her shirt is all tied-up around her.  Oh, how I love this girl!  I hope I always remember how she is so much fun to cuddle.  She loves to curl up in my lap then she takes my arms and wraps them around her just how she wants them.  She keeps readjusting my arms until she has them exactly to her comfort.

We love St. George

We love spending time in St. George with my parents. It is therapeutic to leave our worries and responsibilities at home and dedicate a weekend, in which, the only objective is to have fun with family.  We had fun swimming. We hiked in  Zions.  Gib and I celebrated our anniversary by going out while my parents watched the girls.  It was the perfect balance of fun, rest and relaxation.  Can't wait for next time!

A Visit from Gib's family!

Gib's family was able to visit from Pennsylvania.  Emmy and Gabby loved spending time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Here are a few of our favorite moments from the visit:


Ghost Towns!
We toured through Tooele county looking for abandoned Ghost towns.

 

 Below is a picture of the "buried treasures" we found with metal detectors.  Despite our inability to strike it rich, everyone had a great time being outside and the kids loved digging for treasure.

Good Food!
We had some fantastic cook-outs.  Phillip made delicious bacon-Swiss burgers and Gib made Tri-tip that was to-die-for!  My favorite part of the night was an enactment from a creative 13 year-old.  Love you Nick!

 

Gateway Discovery Center!
This place is so creative.  Fun for the kids and adults, together.

 It was the best when Gib was made into a robot-man.