The b-day boy!

Today is Ryan's 30th birthday. So far he has had a day full of no fun (okay, a little fun).

He rode bikes with the kids this morning for a while on our new bike track in the back yard. I 'finished' it just in time for them to ride. Basically, it's just a 10' wide area along our back fence for the designated bike area, so the rest of my yard doesn't get too packed from all the riding.(Yep, the pit is officially filled in. No more yummy thanksgiving turkeys until we can get another one dug.)

He got orange mango juice with his breakfast. (Normally we don't have OJ b/c of E.)

He put up new trim on our front door so we can hang a security screen door and actually enjoy the cool evenings with the front door open.

His dad stopped by for a few minutes while in the neighborhood.

He is at work right now. Yep, he had to work on his important day.

Hopefully they sang happy b-day to him at work (thanks to a phone call from me).

I know his parents are going to stop by tonight after work to give him his b-day present. Hopefully he likes it-I told them what to get for him.

Hopefully he will have a clean house to come home to. (That's his present from us.)

He said he wants caramel popcorn instead of cupcakes. I've never made it before.

Who knows what else might be up my sleeve- I guess it depends on how much energy I have today. I have lots of plans but not enough energy to do it all....

Ethan

This post is completely about Ethan. Wow, that may be a 1st.

We had his follow-up appt today. The results were very encouraging. There were still the obvious no-no's like eggs/peanuts/etc. There were some false positives (he eats them just fine, but tests came back showing positive). But, there were several where his levels had gone down to almost nothing. Of those we decided to try sweet potato, lettuce, and sunflower seeds. After we do those challenges, we will sit down and discuss which ones we will try next.

Some interesting numbers for anyone interested: on the skin prick, egg was the worst by far, but on the blood test, egg showed 4.68 (3 being a pretty severe allergy) and peanut showed over 100! It's amazing that the skin prick didn't show that kind of reaction compared to the egg. Green pea used to be over 4 last year and now it is below 1. Orange showed 1.62 and he just recently had a reaction to it, so we know he is still allergic, and yet soybean was 1.87 (so higher than the orange) and yet he eats it everyday just fine. Soy is an obvious false positive, even though he was allergic to it as a baby. Corn was 3.4 (so almost as high as the egg) and we have corn tortillas at least once a week without any problems-so another false positive. Tomato went down a fraction of a point, so that might explain why he can have very small amounts of it without a reaction. He has been able to eat 1 tsp or less just fine, but any more than that and he has a reaction. Cantaloupe is almost non-existent (0.15), but he reacts to it more b/c of the cross reaction with his ragweed allergy than the actual food itself. Any of the melons will do this-you have an allergic reaction to the food when you eat it b/c the receptor sites think it is ragweed, so all melons are pretty much out for us until he can start allergy shots in a few years.

E has to start using his albuterol more. The Dr. heard way too much wheezing today. (It probably has a lot to do with me digging in the yard yesterday. He wouldn't listen when I told him to stay away from the dust.) We have to do the breathing treatments for the next 2 days and if he still needs it after that, we have to go back to the pulmicort-yuck. He hated that stuff and I don't like giving him steroids all the time. He had total mood swings and anger issues when he was on it last year, so I hope it doesn't get to that point.

Other than that, he's doing great! Hooray for developing immune systems!

Tonight K cleaned off and set the table all by herself! She was so proud of herself. Isn't she pretty good for a 28 month old? She's definitely my little momma. She is going to be amazing when she grows up!

I also got my front garden planted. We'll see if anything comes up. I had very good intentions when I started, making every little hole to drop the 2-3 seeds in and covering them very nicely with 1/4 inch of soil. By about the 10th hole (and only being finished with a VERY small area in the garden, I got tired. I ended up scraping the top of the soil off, sprinkling some seeds haphazardly around and pushing the soil back over. I did see a lot of seeds still sitting on the top of the soil. I never realized how big (relatively) that garden is! I'm tempted to cover the whole garden with shade cloth for a week or two, so it stays moist until things sprout. Hopefully I didn't waste all of the seed on the garden just to have none of it come up.

Hopefully the next garden I plant will turn out to be easier. Let's pray it's done by next week before it starts to get REALLY hot!

Oh, and I almost forgot- my baby isn't a baby anymore! J FINALLY has a loose tooth! One month away from being 6 1/2 yrs and my baby's baby teeth are starting to fall out! They grow up so fast! Before I know it, he'll be bringing girls home to meet the family.

Progress!

Here is my garden so far. I was just experimenting and buried some sprouting potatoes from my pantry. I didn't cut them into individual 'seeds' like you're supposed to. I would have taken me too much time. :-) I just took the whole potato and put it in the ground. Each 'plant' has about 2-4 individual plants. I was really amazed at how fast they grew. They have only been in the ground for a month and they are 12-18" above the original soil level. I have no idea how long they take to grow or how big they will get. Anyone have experience with potatoes that can help enlighten me? I have been burying the stems like everyone says to do. On the biggest plant (in front) I think I have added about 9 inches of soil and the other two about 6 inches. I'm actually just happy to have something green to look at, even if they don't produce much.

I should have my front garden planted by this weekend, if all goes well. We have the waterline for the sprinkler system piped to the backyard and capped off (it goes right under my front garden and I didn't want to dig it up later to put sprinklers in). We're waiting for a miracle and hoping the miracle is in the form of cash so we can actually afford to put sprinklers in the backyard. In the front garden, we are trying onions, garlic, carrots, and broccoli. I know it is too late to plant most of these things, as they should have been planted in the fall, but we're going to try them anyway.

I'm still trying to figure out where I'm going to plant my corn patch. I read about companion planting a while ago and I'm determined to try it out this year. We will have corn, soybeans, and squash. They are supposed to help each other grow by providing structure/shade or nutrients for the other plants. We'll see how it goes. I was going to do it on the south side of my house, but after touching the soil and realizing it is sun-baked SOLID, I decided I wouldn't even try there. I'm thinking about putting it next to my south fence, but that's where I'm planting my blackberries. Maybe it won't harm the blackberries too much to have other plants surrounding them. I'm hoping to get some citrus trees in, too, but we'll see how the budget goes...

We just inherited an old trampoline from our neighbors that just foreclosed. We cut it in half and are trying to make a garden shade out of it. (Kinda like Dad's chicken coop.) Only, I'm not sure we have enough pipe to hold it together. I just can't remember exactly what Dad's looks like, so I'm just trying to fudge it. I hope by next year we will have some yummy strawberries growing underneath it!

It just feels nice to actually accomplish something! I feel like a plump balloon, but I can still move when I need to (barely)!

I love my husband and baby prep

Last night, Ryan stayed up all night making tamales. We've been trying to master the skill for a couple years now, but could never get it just right. I was always the one trying to do it.

This time it was Ryan's project.
I let him make the dough, spread it and fill it, and roll the tamale up. I stood there and watched in awe as my husband did all of this in less time than I could have ever done it. After he had assembled all of them, I took strips of corn husks and tied a cute little knot on all of them to hold them together.

Yes, that's ALL I did. Ryan did all the rest of the work. He seasoned the meat with green chilies and tomatillos rather than the typical red chilies. These tamales turned out better than ANY I have EVER tasted before. It must be in his blood (and obviously not mine). And anyone that knows Ryan, knows that any food he cooks has FLAVOR! Ooh, these were so good!

We ended up with about 50 tamales. Some of these haven't been eaten yet and are being frozen for easy meals after the baby's born.

The only thing I have done to prepare meals is make a few pot pies (thanks Celia for the recipe)

and tonight I froze some extra cookie dough. (Are cookies good enough for dinner?) I did make some granola for an easy breakfast, but K and E decided to dump THE ENTIRE CONTAINER on the floor Sunday night. I was a little upset! I'm hoping to have plenty of easy freezer meals for when I don't feel like cooking after the baby's born. Most of my meals can't be frozen, though, so I don't know what I'm going to do for most of them. Maybe just make a seasoning packet for them and dump it in when I need it? Has anyone frozen homemade corn tortillas? The tortillas are probably the most 'difficult' part of my meals, even though they aren't difficult at all.

I just hope I recover as easily/quickly with this one as I did with Kate! I was bringing other new moms meals just 2 weeks after Kate was born.

Just 11 more weeks to go...if I make it to my due date. Hopefully she doesn't spoil Ryan's graduation ceremony!