An Easter-versary‏

Happy Easter!






Not only did we celebrate Easter yesterday, but it was also mine and Adam's 12th anniversary. Although I gotta be honest, there was MUCH more emphasis on Easter. And that's totally fine with us. We typically keep our anniversaries low-key anyway--just a simple date night is our go-to. So we'll just have to schedule something for next weekend maybe. :)


Pay no attention to his lack of ring. Ironically, he forgot to put it back on after making hamburger patties earlier.


Anyway, we had a pretty great day. The Easter Bunny visited and left another treasure hunt for the kiddos, so they got started with the festivities first thing in the morning. And after a last-minute scramble because the Easter Bunny was such a procrastinator this year, their baskets came together nicely.


Easter baskets this year: skylander characters and cards for the boys; a watercolor paint set, hello kitty chapstick and socks for Lorelai; bubbles and a little bit of candy for them all. 


And we think the Tooth Fairy might have hitched a ride with the Easter Bunny, because Logan got a dollar and a Cadbury mini egg for his latest tooth that fell out on Saturday. :)




After breakfast, we lounged on the couch and watched Free Birds, because what better time for a Thanksgiving movie than on Easter, right? Ha!

We hosted Easter dinner this year, but kept it pretty simple and kind of non-traditional with a cookout. Burgers, dogs, baked beans, cole slaw and asparagus. No ham or lamb for us this year, which is fine by me. Although we did have deviled eggs, which is an Easter must for me. I also did some homemade greek vanilla frozen yogurt served over brownies for dessert. Although not everyone liked the froyo (ahem, Adam).

We ended the day with a back yard egg hunt with the cousins. The kids all ate waaaay too much candy yesterday (and somehow Logan managed to skip dinner and only eat candy? No wonder he was scarfing down deviled eggs and bananas right before bed last night!) but everyone went to bed happy after such a fun day.











All the NC cousins with an Iron Man photo bomb :)

Friday Faves

>>>Flip-flop weather! Need I say more? :)



>>>Scanpan. Maybe we're crazy for spending so much on a cooking pan, but I'm seriously loving our new scanpan chef's pan from Sur La Table. It has a lifetime warranty which is nice after our previous one broke, and has eco friendly non-stick coating so I don't have to worry about eating teflon. We got it last weekend and have used it every day (sometimes multiple times) since then. Our cost per use will totally justify the $200 price tag. :)

via

>>>Chickpea chocolate chip cookies. I made these on Monday (subbed Wow Butter for peanut butter) and they're surprisingly good! I've been heating them up so they're nice amd gooey and eating them for breakfast and/or snack all week. I'll definitely make them again. Although next time I'll be sure to blend the chickpeas much better. Each cookie has a couple of whole ones, which is kind of weird.

via The Hungry Tortoise

>>>Tortilla pizzas. I was too busy scarfing mine down (made several since last week) to take a pic, but I sliced up some zucchini and put that over some mozzerella on a pan-heated tortilla. Splashed some balsamic vinegar on the zucchini and sprinkled with feta and broiled (in my new scanpan!) for 2min. Seriously DELISH!

>>>Game of Thrones is back on. The flip side to that is Shameless, House of Lies and The Walking Dead have all ended, but GOT fills the void pretty nicely.

>>>Lorelai's new dress. I scored this gorgeous dress that Lorelai wants to wear for her birthday at a clothing exchange at my mom's church. Brought a garbage bag full of outgrown clothes and baby items, and walked away with a few dresses, a bunch of shorts, skirts and shirts for Lorelai this spring and summer.



>>>It's been the fastest week ever. I worked from home on Monday so I could be with Aidan and Logan, then all three kids went to Grandma/Grandpa "camp" on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was SO weird not having them home on a weeknight, then getting up and ready for work in the morning without them. Adam and I even ate dinner on the couch while we watched TV, which we never do anymore. Made it almost seem like a weekend in the middle of the week. So glad they're back though (even if they wanted to stay with Grandma and Grandpa forever) because I miss them like crazy when they're gone.

TGIF!!

Spring Fever

The weather has finally been mostly nice lately, so I've got a bad case of spring fever. I wish it was the kind of fever that makes me want to clean...but in reality, it's the kind of fever that makes me want to spend all kinds of time outside. And um, doing anything except blogging, apparently.

Aidan and Logan are out on their 3-week (minus 2 snow makeup days) intersession from their year-round school, so I took last Friday off to just hang out with them. It was one of those perfect days where you're exhausted at the end of it, but smiling like a loon 'cause it was just that wonderful. Maybe my bar is low because we didn't do anything all that exciting, but it was crazy productive, and the best part was that it was quality time with them and only them--a rare thing these days.

After dropping Lorelai off at daycare, we started off the day bright and early with a trip to Target for some Starbucks and shopping. They browsed their stuff, indulged me while I browsed my stuff, we smelled candles for a riduculously long time and cracked jokes about the ones that smelled horrible.

Our next stop was Petco, at their request. Adam's not on board yet (um, at all) but the boys and I are really interested in fostering cats through the Independent Animal Rescue after talking to the representative for a long time. Seems like a good way to introduce the kids to the responsibility of having pets without the immediate life-long commitment. We'll see...

Anyway, then we hit up Michaels to browse and ended up with the makings for jewelry instead of the makings for a spring wreath like I'd intended, oh well! I like my two new pairs of earrings better. :)



Our last stop was Walmart, where we loaded up some other stuff we needed, as well as flowers and vegetable plants, because on a whim, we decided to plant a garden. It's been four years since we've had one (it didn't do so well the last time--basically never got watered since I was very pregnant with Lorelai that summer, oops!). The boys are really interested in helping, so it seemed like a perfect thing to do. We took turns hoeing the garden (but let's be real, I did most of it), potting plants and watering. Hopefully we'll have our very own strawberries, tomatoes and peas soon! And zucchini, if I can manage to find a plant.



To cap off our day and take a "break" from the gardening, we took a jog down to the neighborhood playground where the boys played for a while. On another whim, we decided to finally--after 11 years living in this neighborhood--walk the nature trail that winds along our neighborhood creek. I figured if I was going to do it at all, it'd have to be now, before the snakes all wake up to come "play" and the foliage fills in too much. It was such a great walk! Of course I had to grab a stick for protection just in case, because we all know how I feel about snakes...

We jogged (well they jogged--I did some HIIT sprinting/jogging, go me!) back home and played outside some more until Adam got home with Lorelai. At the end of the day, the boys and I were filthy and tired, but so proud of all we did, and the fun we had together. And bonus for me--I logged some serious calorie burn with all the activity, since I only sat down to drive and eat the entire day. And hoeing is seriously hard work. :)

Lorelai says

I know I've missed a bunch, but these are the Lorelai-isms I managed to write down over the past few months since the last post.



Mommy: (pointing to her right foot) Which foot is this?
Lorelai: Um, right!
Mommy: Yes! Which foot is this? (Pointing to left foot)
Lorelai: Left foot!
Mommy:(pointing to right hand) What hand is this?
Lorelai: Ummmm, yellow?
Mommy: No...try again.
Lorelai: Oh! Green!


Mommy: how do you spell your name?
Lorelai: L...E...R-S-T?
Mommy: not quite. LORELAI
Lorelai: Oh. L-O-RST
(And then we did a massive name spelling drill with all of us telling her and quizzing her, and now she can spell it correctly. Aaaand we sometimes still call her Lerst, ha!)


Mommy: Let's brush your teeth, Lorelai.
Lorelai: I'm not Lorelai, I'm a cow!


Lorelai: Ew, what is this, I don't like it!
Teacher: Fruit cocktail. It's got all the fruits you already like, just try it.
Lorelai: Oh! I like fruit cottontail.
(Her teacher was so tickled by this, she had to tell me all about their conversation. I guess Lorelai kept calling it "fruit cottontail" for a while, cracking everyone up.)


Lorelai: Don't stand on your phone, that would be terrible. I'll call the police if you do that. (A friendly warning while I was doing some ab exercises in front of my phone on the floor, ha!)


After I had put Lorelai to bed like I do every night, she gets up and comes into the boys' room.
Lorelai: When am I going to bed?
Mommy: Ummm, now. I just put you to bed a minute ago...
Lorelai: Oh! I'm crazy!


Lorelai: (while watching the Super Bowl) I really don't like football. I like Ariel. 



Lorelai: Mommy did I tooted? Smell my butt! (Classy alert--she said tooted instead of farted.)




 (Check out more Lorelai-isms here.)

TV Junkie

Adam and I are total TV junkies. We typically spend just about every night after the kids are in bed, from 8:30 to 10ish on the couch, vegging out in front of one of the many shows we watch. It may not be quality together time and we may be rotting our brains and being anti-social, but honestly, after a long day at work, it's the way we both choose to relax, and I'm glad we can do it together.

 
Via. We'd much rather stay home and watch TV than go out!


Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything, but here's the list of shows I record and watch religiously (only 4 shows on this list are ones I watch without Adam--I really wish he watched Scandal so I'd have someone to OMG with, ha!):

The Walking Dead (last night's episode, Holy $&!@ you guys!)
Shameless
House of Lies
Homeland
True Blood
True Detective
Game of Thrones
Downton Abbey
House of Cards
Orange is the New Black
Sons of Anarchy (still can't get over that season 6 ending, OMG)
Banshee
Strike Back
Scandal
Grey's Anatomy
Parenthood
Vampire Diaries
New Girl
Big Bang Theory
Parks and Rec
How I Met Your Mother
Survivor
So You Think You Can Dance

And let's not forget about the dearly departed, much loved:
Breaking Bad
Dexter (Adam and I binge-watched all 8 seasons over the course of a couple months and we were so sad to see it end!)

There are several shows that we used to watch on a regular basis, but we chose to not put on our new DVR. I'm kind of proud of us for cutting back. Although I should also probably say that I've got Revenge cued up on my Netflix list, ready to go at any point. :)

Not that I have much more room in my schedule...but am I missing any other really great shows?

3rd annual peanut allergy update

Lorelai had her annual allergist appointment at the end of January and exactly like last year, there's good news and not so good news.

First, the good news. We did a full nut panel (skin and blood tests) for the first time, which I requested because I really wanted to know whether she was also allergic to any tree nuts. The skin tests for pecan and brazil nut came up slightly positive, but the blood tests on all nuts came back negative. Woohoo, no tree nut allergies!


Marks for all the other 5 nuts were not measurable.

And she was also really good for the entire appointment, even though we had to wait FOREVER and they took a bunch of blood from her. She didn't shed a single tear! She still won't let any doctor near her ears with the otoscope, but she's come SUCH a long way since her early days of sheer terror at any kind of doctor visit.



HOWEVER. She still can't actually have any tree nuts on the advice of her allergist, since there's a high probabability of cross-contamination with peanuts, and the high co-existence of peanut and tree nut allergies. The doctor doesn't want her to develop any new nut allergies. So we continue to avoid any and all nuts (except coconut, which she's negative for, and it's a fruit) until/unless she grows out of her peanut allergy.

More bad news: the dip we saw last year in her peanut allergy levels that gave me such hope that she'd outgrow it were apparently a fluke. She's back up to her initial level when we first had her tested. According to her doctor, "The dip in the level in 2013 is not uncommon in food allergic children as there is some variation in the annual levels seen. The reasoning for this fluctuation is not well documented in the literature. This peanut IgE level of 5.06 along with the skin test greater than 5x5 mm screens out offering Lorelai a challenge to peanut this year."

Component Value
• IgE Allergen Peanut 5.06
• IgE Allergen Almond Nut <0.35
• IgE Allergen Brazil Nut <0.35
• IgE Allergen Cashew Nut <0.35
• IgE Allergen Hazel Nut <0.35
• IgE Allergen Pecan <0.35
• IgE Allergen Pistachio <0.35
• IgE Allergen Walnut <0.35
• IgE Allergen Coconut (Fruit) <0.35


REFERENCE VALUES for serum IgE levels
Class IgE kU/L Interpretation
0 <0.35 Negative
1 0.35-0.70 Equivocal
2 0.71-3.50 Positive
3 3.51-17.50 Positive
4 17.60-50.00 Strongly Positive
5 50.10-100.00 Strongly Positive
6 >100.00 Strongly Positive

Big fat bummer. Although it doesn't change anything we're currently doing to manage her allergy (avoidance, epi pen on hand), it just means that she's much less likely to outgrow her allergy before she enters kindergarten, where she'll be in a much less controlled environment than her peanut-free daycare. I know there's so much more awareness these days, but that still doesn't ensure her safety. If someone could tell me without a doubt that she won't have an anaphalactic reaction to peanuts, I'd feel better. But there's no way of knowing, so I picture the worst case scenario and get all mama bear scared for her. :(

At least we haven't had any scares (knocking on all kinds of wood here!!) or problems with avoidance, and the boys are still really good about looking out for her, so she's got lots of people around to protect her. Fingers crossed for a legit downward trend soon though!

#snOMG. Over it.

It's almost freezing and raining/wintry mixing out side. The northern part of our county had pretty bad ice, with trees down and power out, so what was a 3-hour delay turned into another school cancellation. Luckily Adam was able to take the boys to work with him and Lorelai's daycare was open on schedule so I got to go into the office. Much better than the cancellation on Tuesday due to ice, where I had to take 4 hours worth of conference calls from home plus do the rest of my work, with 3 kids to keep quiet in the background all day. Yeah, they watched two movies that morning.

Needless to say, I'm SO over the cold and inclement weather. The sun and its warmth need to make an appearance, because my mood is taking a hit. Or that could be the fact that I've been watching what I'm eating so I'm pretty much in a constant state of hangry. Or both. Oh, and that's probably why blogging has taken a back seat these days. I've got several posts to share, but haven't been the least bit in the mood to write. #sorrynotsorry.

Anyway...in the spirit of catching up, and hopefully saying an offical goodbye to winter weather, I feel the need to share our snow day from three weeks ago. And I have to document this for my own memory later, since it rarely snows like this in NC.







Unlike the last snow day we had, this one wasn't hyped nearly as much. Oddly enough, it turned out way worse. On Feb 12, Adam went to work in the morning to one of his properties an hour away. School closed early, and it started snowing right when I got to the bus stop at 12:30. I talked to Adam and asked him to make his way home. He said it wasn't bad out and he'd leave soon-ish. By the time the bus pulled up at 12:40 and we headed to daycare to get Lorelai, snow was sticking to the sides of the roads. I pulled up to daycare at 12:45 and made a frantic call to Adam to get his butt home ASAP. By the time we left daycare shortly before 1pm, a full dusting was covering the roads.



Adam did make it home safe and sound, although it took him a full 3.5 hours, and he couldn't even make it back to his other office to drop off his co-workers. They ended up hanging out at our house for a while until their husbands could come get them. Although all things considered, he made remarkable time compared to my mom, who took the same amount of time to go SIX MILES (!!!!) to her house. CrAzY!







We got 4 inches of snow in 4 hours, and then some, totalling what I guess was 5 or 6 inches by the time the sleet and freezing rain came rolling in overnight and throughout the next day. Luckily we didn't lose any trees or power.





We were basically snowed in for 2.5 days while school was closed, but it was actually not bad at all. I didn't mind that snow--in my mind, it was one last hurrah for winter before warmer temps rolled in. Hahahaha, fooled me! We've had a couple of warm days since then, but winter keeps.coming.back. A 50* temp swing in the course of 24 hours is just ridiculous.


Spring, where are you??

Go home, winter. You're drunk. I need some spring in my life.


70* on Sunday, 20* on Monday. UGH!