Goodbye Summer!



All finished.

I'm happy to report that after 18 days and some last minute help from my studly husband, I have finally finished pruning our hedge.

18 days!

A Celebration of Milk

We are happy to report that Amy's long battle with dietary restrictions in nearly at an end.  First with Gus and now with Kip, Amy cut out a mind-bending amount of food from her diet so that she could continue to nurse our kids in a way that helped their intestinal tracts to heal and develop normally in the absence of any allergens that were exacerbating the problem.  Having been cleared of everthing but milk and peanuts, Amy started introducing milk back into her diet yesterday.  We kicked off the trial by heading out for ice cream at Clumpies with some of our friends.

Join us in giving thanks for the reintroduction of dairy to Amy's diet!  It seems like a little thing, but let me assure you that it is not.  So you can sympathize, we'll give you a simple test: try cutting just dairy, wheat and soy from your diet for one day and see how you do.  Extra credit: try to do that while eating one meal out at a restaurant.

If you think about it, you can also pray that Kip would pass this next allergen test phase with flying colors and that she would be one step closer to growing out of her allergies just like her big brother did when he was her age.

On tap for dinner tonight: Papa John's Pizza!

Growing Up

Our little neighborhood library has a preschool storytime each week.  Last week, Gus was given his very own flannel board and tons of shapes that the librarian must have spent hours cutting out! 

This morning he made a car (of course), and then branched out to build a grocery store, stocked it with flannel food and then pretended to eat some (a hotdog with mustard).  I love watching him use his imagination!!

Ah, middle school...

Remember these?

Gus got one in a party favor bag awhile back and everytime I see it, I feel like I'm back in middle school:)

Speaking of which, I'm teaching the middle school girls Sunday School class this year.  We get together at our house each week and eat breakfast and read Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  A couple weeks ago, we made dinner for a family in our church that just had a little girl.  It was so much fun to watch the girls' enthusiasm and ability to make anything fun!

3!

In case you can't tell, this is Gus showing you how old he is. We had a swell party for his 3rd birthday last month at Partyville. It's basically this huge warehouse full of bouncy, blowup things, like houses, slides, etc. The kids had a blast and I didn't have to make food or clean the house:) That left Scott and me plenty of time to work on Gus' request for a firetruck cake! It was a joint effort....not bad, eh?

Thanks to all our neighbor friends for celebrating with us and for all the many car-themed gifts that Gus received!

And thanks, Mom and Dad, for coming down and freeing us up to spend some serious time on our cake building project:)

Games, food and cake: the perfect combo:)

Happy Birthday, Gus! We love you so much and are looking forward to watching you grow and change during this next year.