Noah As A Redhead….

There’s just not much one can say about this one.

Happy Birthday Tristan!

Look who’s 5!  Chris and Laura invited us all to the bowling alley for Tristan’s birthday party this year.  We had a blast!

Alexis goofed around on the bowling alley furniture with Aunt Carissa and Noah hung out on the alley steps.  He thought he was such a big boy running off by himself!

  

           

Getting To Know Things…

Noah’s getting very interested in discovering new things and finding out whether he fits inside of them…

He likes to stick his arm in the door of the new Little People house to push the button that makes the phone ring.  One night before we went to bed, I couldn’t find my phone.  When Bill called it, the inside of the house lit up.  Noah had put my phone inside with the play phone!

 

He’s also getting very good at stacking the Mega Blocks and knocking them over again.  He had Grandma going for quite some time stacking them up as high as he could reach! (I think Alexis’ dress actually matches the blocks rather well!)

And the big sister took it upon herself to help me feed Noah.  He didn’t seem to mind!

 

Happy Birthday Ethan

We all gathered at the Brandon Pizza Ranch to celebrate E’s birthday!  He made out like a banchee with gifts and is well on his way to saving up for a major purchase… but he hasn’t said what’s on his wish list!

Getting both the little kids to look at the camera these days is a rarity!

Ugly Sweater Christmas!

They’re ugly, we know.  We decided to mix things up this Christmas with my side of the family and had an “Ugly Sweater Contest".  The funny part was that while we had months to find our sweaters, I think all but one of us bought them the morning of the party at our local thrift store.  It was actually amazing how many “candidates” we found in one place, not to mention in the right sizes.  All but one in the picture above came from the same store. 

As for Mom & Dad, yes, they participated… but were far from winning.  Better luck next time!

 

As for the winner, Brent took top spot!  He bought his on e-bay and I think he decided it looked like a snow globe threw up on him.  Bill got second place (we found his sweater in the women’s department!) for the scalloped neckline.  He wasn’t there when I picked it out but was totally game when he saw it!

Uncle Brent, Tristan and Alexis played “Santa” this year and handed out all the gifts.  She’s getting really good at it!  And Tristan did a great job recognizing the names on the packages!

~Noah loved his jogging outfit from Auntie Carissa~

    

And we had a hard time deciding who was cuter in Alexis’ new apron & pot holders.  But Noah was pretty adorable with the face printed on his new bike helmet.

 

Hoping for a ride, Alexis figured out she fit in Uncle Brent’s new cooler…

 

And to wrap up the night, we had arranged a game of dice.  We all brought $10 gifts with an alcohol theme.  Brent created a “7 shooter” by attaching 7 liquor shots to a shot glass.  Noah figured out exactly what they were for without any coaching.

Allergy Testing X 2

We didn’t get our hopes up but still anticipated the kids’ allergy testing for the year.  We found out nearly a year ago that Noah is allergic to eggs and more tan 2 years ago that Alexis is allergic to milk and soy.  Six months ago, the allergist said we could test in 6 months because her soy allergy could be close to going away.  So, we had a glimmer of hope for that.

So, this time around, we had them test Noah for egg again as well as cat & dog, just so we knew whether we should medicate him before going to places that have them.  Take a look:

Translation: He’s not allergic to dogs or cats (whew!) and his egg allergy has reduced a bit (that’s the big one on top to the right).  The allergist says we can start to try testing him on foods that are well cooked with eggs (cookies, cake, etc).  Haven’t done that yet, but will let you know.

The news wasn’t as expected for Alexis.  We mentioned that she had a reaction to a bagel with peanut butter on it and so the allergist suggested we test for peanuts.  He also did milk, soy, dust mites, and tree nuts:

The bad news: the largest welt (lower left) is for peanut.  We also added dust mites.  her soy was about the same (though he said we could start testing her on products with soy) and the milk reaction did lose some strength (it’s the second largest one).  He hopes that this time next year, we’ll be talking about testing her on some milk products.  Here’s hoping!