Alayna's First Hair Cut

We went to Melissa's house today to play with Maddy and also so that Chad could help Jason (Melissa's husband) install some windows. With the focus on Alayna's eczema issues, I realized I hadn't combed Alayna's hair in several days. A dreadlock was forming! I commented that I really needed to get Alayna's hair cut. Melissa, who was wildly successful cutting Maddy's hair, agreed to give it a try. So, a big "thank you" to Melissa.....it looks awesome!

Alayna's having a tough time

We've had a whirlwind of a time the last couple of days. Alayna has been battling excema for well over a year now, but it really has gotten horribly bad over the last month.....of course, now that we don't have health insurance (we are covered again with Chad's new company starting Oct. 1st, soon). So, two nights ago it got so bad that Alayna had scratched her knees until they bled.....and I'm not talking about a small scratch with a little blood. I took Gavin to church and when I returned home Chad met me at the door frantically wondering where the first aid kit was. Of course, I knew exactly where it was and we had to clean it, but vaseline on it and bandage it with gause and medical tape (our biggest bandaid wasn't big enough). Poor thing was miserable! Chad said we HAVE to take her somewhere....this just can't wait any longer. So, next day I took her to our naturopathic doctor....I absolutely LOVE Dr. Jen at the Natural Childbirth & Family Clinic! So, we think its allergy-related. We're going to get allergy/food intolerance testing done in a couple of weeks (its a different dr. who does the testing and that was the soonest we could get an appt.) In the meantime, we're doing hydrocortezone cream and lots of vitamins and probiotics to get her immune system under control again. We talked lots and lots during the appt. and I mentioned my garden and we talked about all of the foods we've been eating lots of. She mentioned that the most common allergens for this time of year and from what her skin looks like are corn, tomatoes and dairy. Well, the only thing we've been eating in massive quantities are tomatoes!!!!! Dairy, sure, but we've always eaten lots of dairy. We won't know for sure until the testing, but I'm thinking that's probably the culprit! I'm avoiding all of those foods for awhile, though, until we know for sure!
My little monkey doodle in his Monkey Doodle diaper!

Cade ~4 Months~

Wow! Time flies! I can't believe that Cade is already 4 months old. Here's a pic I took this morning.

The Puyallup Fair

We went to Puyallup this weekend to spend time with Chad's family, attend our niece, Tate's, 10th birthday party and while we were there, we decided to go to the Puyallup Fair. Now, the fair is a big deal. Chad has fond memories of going to the fair each year when he was a kid. There are vendors who sell things, big barns of farm animals and tons of rides. Chad has been saying for years that we need to go to the fair and this is the first year we've gone. Above, Gavin got to try on a fire fighter jacket at the fire truck display. As for rides, Gavin was very specific on the rides he would and would not go on. The giant slide was his number 1 pick! In fact, he liked it so much he rode it twice....the first time with Daddy and the second time with me. He also decided he would ride the Ferris Wheel, which Chad went with him on. However, any ride that went round in a circle was a no go.....even the chinsy little kid rides he refused to ride.
We thought that it would be cute to get Gavin and Alayna on one of the little kid rides and they both were excited about this little motorcycle ride (basically a small carousel with little colored motorcycles), but as soon as we put Alayna on it, she freaked out! Gavin wouldn't ride by himself and the ride was for kids only, so I have no cute picture of the kids on the motorcycle ride and Alayna spent the rest of our time there in her stroller.

Megan (Chad's youngest sister) went with us and this was the ride she was most looking forward to. As you can see, you sit inside the bear and you go around in a circle and you can spin the bear (can you see the wheel that Chad is leaning on?) Despite its cuteness, this ride actually made Chad feel sick.....too much spinning!

A Perfect Post about Birth

I've been reading lots of blogs recently. Many have been about birth, which you all know I'm passionate about. I just came across a post that I read, then sat and thought about, then read again, let it sink in and (yes!) read it again. Its kind of an old post, but the truth of it is relevent no matter when it was written. Some of you don't care a hill of beans about this topic, and for you I don't recommend this posting, but if you are interested or even intrigued about this topic that I have become so passionate about, take a look here!

Gavin's First Day of School

Gavin's first day of school was this past Thursday, Sept. 4th. He was so excited to wear his new school clothes and take his new Scooby Doo lunch box to school with him. The day passed quickly for me as I had a Le Leche League lunch at a local park to attend. By the time we got home, it was almost time to go pick Gavin up. Alayna didn't even have time for a nap! Gavin seemed very excited when I picked him up. He said that he had a good day and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Once we got home, I made an after-school snack and the phone rang. It was the school manager (basically, the principal). She asked me the strangest question. "I have a question about Gavin," she said. "Is he supposed to be in kindergarten or 1st grade?" Startled, I blurted out, "Kindergarten....that IS where he spent the day today, right?" "Uh, no, actually he was in the 1st grade class today." "WHAT????" You can imagine my horror! Apparently, Gavin's name was somehow on both the kindergarten and 1st grade class lists so no one noticed that he was in the wrong class. It wasn't until the afternoon when they did some placement testing and were greatly concerned that Gavin did not seem ready for 1st grade! "He'll be just fine in Kindergarten," the school manager continued. Well, DUH!!!! I'm trying to keep a positive attitude, but the lack of communication and organization at this school is starting to worry me a bit. The school manager is new to our school this year and I'm trying to keep an attitude of grace knowing that its gotta get better, but with each mistake, its getting harder to do. Oh, and after I got off the phone with the school manager, I asked Gavin about what happened and he immediately started crying! He confessed that he had walked to the wrong room and wasn't sure what to do. Of course, I made sure he knew that none of it was his fault and that we'd get it all straightened out the next day so he could be in the right class.

Tomorrow is Monday and Gavin's first full week of school. I'm hoping that things start to go smoother and hopefully the communication improves. I think I'm going to see what I can do to volunteer and get more involved with the school. I know that's an excellent way to "stay in the loop". It will be hard to do certain things with Alayna and Cade, but maybe there are "paperworky" kinds of things that I could do at home.....we'll see I guess!

The Cat House

Some of you may have thought I was joking when I said our house is the neighborhood cat hangout. Here's proof! Alayna, Cade & I came home from dropping Gavin off at school the other day and this is what we saw in our backyard! It was like a little cat family! There was actually a 5th cat, a calico, but I couldn't fit all 5 in the picture together.

Labor Day Project

We decided to take advantage of a day with no rain to paint our house today. We put new siding on our house last summer and it really needed to be painted by this year. We planned to do it sometime this summer and before we knew it, summer was over! It really turned out to be a fun project.....labor intensive, yes, but fun. Gavin loved helping and the kids from next door came over to help as well.

Everyone working hard!

Cade, our foreman, did his job well as supervisor!

Of course, 20 minutes into the project, it became "boring" for the kids and Chad did most of the work finishing the job!

The finished product! We still have some trimwork to do, but the main painting job is finished....yay! So, what did I do during all of this? I painted a little during Alayna's nap, but between managing Alayna (who was inside playing, snacking and watching Scooby Doo) and nursing Cade, I didn't spend as much time helping as I would have liked to.