Allergic to Peanuts

I had a suspicion that T was allergic to peanuts as she had broken out in a rash the few times I had given her peanut butter. She has has skin issues for a long time and our doctor had said that kids with bad eczema tend to have an underlying food allergy. So I finally brought T in to get her tested and it turns out in fact she is allergic to peanuts, as well as almonds and cats. I actually was quite relieved that wheat didn't come back! And while I know both of my kids could have celiac's, at this stage in their life, it is so much harder for them in daycare to not eat wheat and to actually understand it. I was dreading the thought of having to bring her lunch every day and trying to make sure she didn't eat the 1 year olds food next to her. I am fortunate that the daycare is a peanut free facility and nothing on the menu actually has nuts.

I feel fairly good in terms of dealing with a food allergy in terms of the peanuts as it is one of the most know food allergies out there. And we are familiar enough with food allergies with the gluten that it isn't too bad. What I am not actually looking forward too is dealing with the almond allergy. Since I bake gluten free or buy gluten free products, many times almond flour is substitute for flour. In fact, my favorite premade gf pancake mix has almond flour. Oh well, we will figure it out! She will get retested in 2 years and apparently 20% of kids grown out of their nut allergy, so maybe she will (at least the almonds!)

In the meantime, here is some of her cuteness!

Xmas Part 2

I didn't take nearly enough pictures while in Buffalo. We actually forgot our camera, so it was just on the phone. We enjoyed our time in NY for a few days with not too much snow on the ground, compared to MI! Went to the mall one day to play in the playground there and ride the merry go round a couple times. It was T's first ride!  Then, because I don't have probably any photos of the kids with grandma and grandpa, I took one of each. And those we the only pictures I took! Either way, we had fun visiting with grandma and grandpa and Eric's brother's family! 

Hair Cut

So P has (had) extremely long hair and EZ kept telling me we needed to cut it. Just so happens Evelyn is a hairdresser so up at my dads house EZ asked her to cut P's hair. We cut at least 6 inches off.  She's only had 1 other haircut in her life, just a trim back in March, so this was a huge change. She enjoyed it though! You can kind of see how long it was in the first picture. Oh, and T got a short trim to even up her hair. :) 

Running in the Snow

I'm chugging along with the marathon training. Through 8 weeks of 10, wow, almost halfway. So far, I'm finding the Hanson's marathon training plan doable. I've hit a high of 43 miles so far and a long run of 14 miles. I haven't missed a workout except for one day where I was suppose to do intervals of 4x0.75 miles at 5K pace and I was a bit under the weather and only did 2. So I still ran that day, just didn't complete the full workout. That means 6 days a week of running for 8 weeks. Whew.

While up in the great north, I ran with my sister in the snow/ice and let me just say, wow! Running is snow is SO hard! It was like running in sand (but not the hard compact sand). And running on slippery roads is never good. But I managed to get all my runs in and while I wasn't able to handle my 8 miles at marathon pace in the snow, it was just too hard, I know my effort level was there. When I got back to running on clear pavement, it seems so easy! This must be the secret to why my sister is so fast!

While I love the running miles with her, I'm happy to be back down south a bit to where it isn't 5 degrees and snowing outside when I run. Although I will say, I enjoyed the runs that were in the upper 20's and the snow was light and fluffy, that definitely beats out the 34 degrees and cold rain here!

Xmas 2013 Part 1

We did our typical travel up to the frigid north for the holidays. The girls did well in the car for how much driving we did. First up...the onslaught of photos from the snow covered first stop. Lots of playing in the slow, eating icicles, making gingerbread houses, playing with cousin A, and playing in the snow cave daddy and Uncle E build: