Seabreeze, Take Two!

We had so much fun at Seabreeze for Avery's birthday, that everyone decided we wanted to go again sometime this summer.

With our work schedules and summer activities, Thursday was the day. Gabe took the day off and my in-laws, sister-in-law, niece and nephew all joined us again.

We got there right when they opened and the kids were so excited. The night before, Avery told me she was going to ride the Bobsleds and Bear Trax (both roller coasters) this time. She went on them last year and wasn't really fond of either of them.  Well, she didn't disappoint. In fact, she loved both of them so much I think we rode one of them 6 times and the other 8 times!  She was hooked!

Bianca, Owen, Molly on Bobsleds

Avery and Gabe on Bobsleds

Avery (orange shirt) with Bianca on Bear Trax

Bear Trax

Avery and Owen also tried the tilt-a-whirl and loved it-they rode it twice in a row!

It was a cool day-low 70s so it wasn't ideal for the water park. The crowds weren't that bad and the lines were relatively short.  Molly and her kids only stayed until around 5. The rest of us stayed until close to 8pm!  It was a fun, full day of rides, games, and more rides! Good times!

Happy 10th Birthday Owen!!

We've had some very busy weekends around here lately!

Part of our past weekend was celebrating our nephew's 10th birthday! How he is 10 already I have no idea! About a month after I met Gabe was when his sister announced she was pregnant-and it's hard to believe it was that long ago already!

We went over there on Saturday for a family get together.

This one was quite the ham when the camera came out...

It was supposed to be a pool party, but with the weather around here (highs in the low 70s in August!), it wasn't really warm enough for swimming to take place.  So the kids played, we had dinner, then did presents and cake. 

Owen got some really nice stuff-lots of soccer things!!

And yummy cupcakes for dessert...

Happy 10th Birthday Owen-you're officially in the double digits now!!

Gearing up for Kindergarten!

We're gearing up to have a Kindergartener in 2 weeks from today (someone hold me!)!

I took Avery out a few weeks ago to buy her school supplies. She had fun finding everything and putting it in the cart. And she picked out a new thermos for her lunch-pink of course!  We already have several lunch boxes and we bought her a nice Land's End backpack for her birthday. So I think she's ready to go!

Last week we received her teacher assignment in the mail. We haven't found anyone in her class yet. All of the neighborhood kids are split up-none of them have the same teacher!

Also last week we had her lunch/bus orientation. Avery and I went and first we sat through the lunch presentation. Then we all got on the bus and rode to another elementary school in the district. Avery loved riding the bus with me!  Once at the other school, they had to rotate through 5 stations about bus safety. Honestly, it wasn't organized well at all. Our first station was done in 2mins and every other station took about 10min. So you can imagine what happened-huge crowds of people at the following station!  Avery wasn't thrilled with it either because a lot of the stations were for the kids only-so they had to get on the bus and do whatever on there by themselves (no parents). With her not knowing anyone, she really didn't want to go alone. And I pushed her to do it and she cried most of the time we were there. I just kept telling her "this is for the kids only. Mommies and Daddies don't ride the bus to school-you do!" At least she did it-through tears-she could have flat out refused and caused a huge scene. But she didn't-thankfully!  And afterwards, she kept saying how much fun she had (did you not know you were crying the whole time?!).  So we'll see how the real deal goes in 2 weeks.

So the only big thing we're waiting on is her bus schedule-which won't be out until next week (nice and last minute). And tomorrow both girls are getting fresh haircuts for back to school!  I think next week we'll be starting our version of Kindergarten boot camp-everyone starting to get up earlier and going to bed earlier. I'd rather deal with the tiredness now then when school is starting up. I'm dreading it just because I don't want to get up early everyday!  I like being able to "sleep in" until 7:30 on my days off. Now I'll probably have to be up around 6 everyday. Ugh.

Let the fun begin!

Peanut Butter Cookies

I found this recipe online somehow and it sounded to easy and too few ingredients to be true. If you've ever made peanut butter cookies, you know the list of ingredients can be much longer than this. Since it has only 4 ingredients, it seemed too easy and couldn't possibly hold together or taste good.  Of course I had to try it out since peanut butter is my *fave* thing to eat! And believe me, I wasn't disappointed!

Peanut Butter Cookies
1cup chunky peanut butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
3/4tsp baking soda

1. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Roll into balls and if desired, make criss-cross pattern with a fork on top.
2. Bake at 350 for 8-10min.

(Notes: I used chunky peanut butter, but I'm sure creamy would work just fine. I did do the criss-cross pattern and I also sprinkled just a touch of regular sugar on top like you would a regular PB cookie.)

These turned out great. Unlike other PB cookies I've made, they are not dry or crumbly at all! Very moist and delicious! And of course, super easy! They'll be made again!

Brayden's Birthday

Over the weekend we celebrated our friend Brayden's 4th birthday!

It was a pretty nice day-although not really warm enough to enjoy the pool like we were supposed to (although a few brave kids went in!). The girls had fun on the swingset though!

Carly and Cassie

Avery and Cassie

We had some pizza and wings and some yummy homemade ice cream cake! Delish!

Birthday boy!

Brayden's Grandpa made this cool cut out of him-it was traveling around through the party and was really neat! After cake, it was present time with cut-out Brayden!

After presents, we did a lot more playing before heading home. As always, it was a super fun party at their house!

The Lions Say "Roar"!

Last Friday I took the kids to the zoo along with my Sister-in-Law, niece, and nephew. The kids had been asking to go, so it was great timing that Molly suggested it for a get together!

We got there right around when it opened and waited for them to arrive. The girls liked watching the rhino break apart a stick.

Once they arrived, we were off to see the animals!  I didn't get a ton of pictures this time, but we all had a lot of fun. It was pretty crowded that day (the parking lot was crazy!), but didn't seem all that bad once inside. We worked our way back to the safari area....

Avery, Cassie, Bianca, Owen

Avery, Bianca, Cassandra

and we stopped there to have lunch. After lunch, we saw the lions and the kids played on the safari bus for a very long time. Then we found the baboons and were cracking up at them sleeping. They were all in funny spots and funny positions totally passed out!

Yes, he's asleep!

We saw the elephants and then the kids played in the sandbox for awhile. After that, we started the trek to the front of the zoo to try and get them headed out! Of course that meant stopping at the playground for a half hour (which was crazy busy) before I could drag them out. On our way to the car, Avery asked if I wold take her picture with the meerkats!

And ever since our visit, Cassie will say, "The lions say "Roar" and the elephants go (insert elephant sound here)." It's so funny!

Dairy Free

Remember that cough I told you about months ago?

Well...it's still around.

Cassandra responded great to the 2 meds (Singulair and Nasonex) at first. Then we tried weaning her off and it's been a nightmare since. We cut out the Singulair and the coughing started right back up. So we put her back on it....but she didn't respond to it.  Back to the allergist we went (in April) and she was kept on those 2 and they also added in 2 inhalers for her as well. One to do twice daily and once as a "rescue" inhaler for her coughing "fits".  

She responded well to those so we were told to keep her on them for a month. We stopped in mid-May and she was ok for about 2-3 weeks.  Then the cough returned. We went to the allergist again in June and he told us to keep her as she is for about 6mos. Basically 3-4 meds a day for the poor girl.

I've also been talking to my chiropractor a lot about it (she has a degree in nutrition as well) and she strongly feels that the inflammation causing her asthma is tied to food and an unbalanced "gut". She suggested trying going dairy free for awhile because I guess dairy is a big trigger for inflammation in a lot of kids. That along with adding in some probiotics and Vitamin D should help clean her gut out.

Well...about 2 weeks ago or so we had another really bad night of her coughing so we decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot. So on Friday 7/11 we started her on a dairy free diet. 

I'm not going to lie....it's hard.

Some days have been easy and some have been challenging. I've had moments in Wegman's where I want to cry because everything I normally buy has dairy in it. I've also had moments in Wegman's where I'm thanking God that something doesn't have dairy in it.

The hardest part has been milk (to drink) and yogurt and mac-n-cheese. Thankfully most of the other stuff we feed the kids doesn't have dairy in it. I've tried a few different yogurts for her and she's not really thrilled with them. I found one mac-n-cheese that she ate-if she will again who knows! But the drinking milk is very hard. I tried almond milk first since it seems a lot of people like it. Nope-she knew right away it was different and drank a few gulps and that was it. Every meal I gave it to her and every meal it sat there. This week I bought rice milk and she's not thrilled with that either. She'll take 1-2 sips at a meal and that's it. And it's only because I sort of make her drink a sip. She doesn't do it on her own. I might try coconut milk this weekend and see how that goes. Beyond that, I'm stumped.

We haven't had the challenge of going out to dinner yet or going to a party, etc. I know those will be hard. I found a bakery that makes dairy free cupcakes so I think I'm going to stock up on those for when we have a party to go to. At least she won't feel left out!

And it's really hard telling her she can't have something, especially if she sees someone else eating it. We always will say "no" and she'll ask why. Our answer? "It has milk in it." Lately she'll just say "ok."  At first, many tears were shed when we said no, but I think she's starting to catch on. And it's funny because now Avery will ask "does that have milk in it?" before we give something to Cassandra. So she's looking out for her too.

I could see this being easier if your child had a life threatening allergy to something and you had to cut it out of their diet. But doing it by choice is hard for some reason. And like Gabe said, I never imagined we'd be one of those families that has to read every label before feeding it to our child. I'm not sure how long we'll do this for. Ideally 3-6months, but really we're just taking it one day at a time.

If any of you have any suggestions for us, we'll take all of the help we can get!