Okay I decided that this picture of Brighton with his jack-o-lantern is to cute not to post.

These other pics are from his Orange Party at school. Happy Halloween!!

Slow Week

This week is very slow. Brighton has to hurry up and wait for Halloween. Baylor is of course oblivious to it. I am scared he won't keep his costume on, as he didn't seem to like it when we tried it on :(

Normally I would include pictures of our jack-o-lanterns here, but the truth is that I am not really proud of them this year. We did them on Sunday after a late night Saturday and it shows... We do have two sitting on the porch though. We will never miss this tradition. We have a lot of roasted seeds to enjoy now too!  Is it really only Tuesday????

Halloween Party!!

Lacey and Mickey had a Halloween party last weekend. Since the hostess went as Tippy Hedron, from the movie The Birds, it had an Alfred Hitchcock theme. So much fun!!

The Antley's did a great

job decorating their home. I was impressed! I wish that I had taken more pics. Here is the outside with the red carpet. This was BEFORE Mickey untangled all the birds. It was a fun, fun night. The backyard had a closed in black porch with a strobe light, scary music and a fire. Good thing Lacey's new next door neighbors haven't moved in yet! 

Jason and I went as Batman and Robin. We thought Brighton would get a kick out of it and he did. Jameson and Michael got to stay for the beginning of the party, and then my parents took them home.

Duck Dynasty (Todd and Mickey)

Mickey & Lacey (Chris and Drea)

Scary Jimmy!

Mail Order Bride and the Geek who ordered her (Alecia and Jake)

Batman & Robin, Season and Jason

Nerd and witch (My mom and dad)

Diary of a Scared Mom

I have to say that when we left the allergist after Baylor's testing last week, I was discouraged, but I felt in my heart of hearts that everything was going to be okay, and that his levels would come back low, especially the peanut one. I got the call yesterday with the blood test results. In addition to what they told us Tuesday (Milk, eggs, and oh yes, PEANUTS), Baylor is also allergic to wheat, sesame seeds and soy. Hmmm, funny about the soy because he has been drinking soy milk for a solid week now and has been doing fine. The nurse said that percentage was low and if we felt comfortable and it wasn't making him sick, then we could continue with it. Anyway, the peanut allergy level was pretty high. On a scale of 1 to 100 he was an 85. 

Not sure what this face means

Bad news. After much reading, I have found that there is no way to detect how severely your peanut allergic child may react to accidental consumption. Every reaction could be different. Before these test, Baylor ate a small bite of a peanut butter cracker and vomited pretty badly. I was hoping this would be the extent of his reactions but learned that each reaction a child with a peanut allergy has can be different. He could vomit one time and then the next experience  anaphylaxis http://www.peanutallergy.com/content/articles/recognizing-anaphylaxis-and-how-to-treat-it
So, there is no telling how severely Baylor could react with peanut contact in the future upon anything accidental happening. SCARY AS HELL STUFF. We will take this very seriously. We have the epi pens now and will have them with us at all times. It changes everything. We have to read all labels, watch what he eats, train him and his brother on monitoring intake of all food and being aware of their surroundings. No more peanut butter or peanut products in our home. Brighton will only eat WOW Butter from now on. http://wowbutter.com/ All family members and caregivers will have to be on board and they all have been supportive so far. The scariest part is when I send him off to real school, or over to friend's houses. Peanut allergies rarely go away as most others do with age. Please think of us and pray for us and Baylor. I am a "Nutcase" over this right now, and probably always will be.
As for  the other allergies, he will most likely grow out of them as he gets older and will probably be able to tolerate small portions of them as Brighton has been able to do with his milk allergy. Brighton can eat chocolate, cheese, etc.. but cannot drink a glass of milk alone. So, we will test those waters. If I am wrong and he cannot tolerate moderation, then I will have to resort to putting us on a glutton free diet. 

Meanwhile, Baylor has been eating a ton and is willing to try everything. He ate grilled chicken, and zucchini along with the rest of the family last night! No more bottles or formula!! 

Twins

Brighton loves when I dress him and his brother like twins! This weekend we have Halloween festivities to enjoy, and next week actual Halloween!! 

Pumpkin Patch Time Again!

Saturday Lacey and I were planning on taking the kids back to Redwolf Farms Pumpkin Patch. It was a wash due to the rain. Luckily the weather on Sunday was much nicer. I will say though, "60 Degrees" which was the predicted high, felt a heck of a lot hotter!

  They had the big tractor pulled hayrides, the petting zoo, the maze, the playground, tractor races, delicious food from the grill, corn bins and of course selecting pumpkins from the patch. This year they added a huge bouncy slide! 

 This was Baylor's 1st time. He could not participate in much, but he enjoyed the hay ride and I put him in the corn kernel bin for a minute.

Don't eat the corn!! 

Now we can look forward to Halloween! We have more pumpkins at our house this year than ever. Cannot wait to eat all of those seeds!!! 

Recipe Time: Baylor's Super Scary Souffle

Ingredients:

1 Cup of milk

1  or 2 angry eggs

1 spoonful of peanut butter

And you get....

This is me, trying to have a sense of humor about the bad news that we got at Baylor's allergy test yesterday. Not all all surprised that he is in fact allergic to milk, just like his brother. Not to shocked to confirm the egg allergy, as I cooked him an egg a week ago and he threw up pretty badly afterwards, but on top of these,  the DREADED peanut allergy too?? Come on! The allergy test itself was not to so bad. Time consuming but non painful. Once they found the peanut allergy though, they sent us for blood work to see how severe it is. We are waiting for the results. It is unlikely that he will grow out of the peanut allergy as most people don't.. We will do our best, and read labels, ask restaurants about what oils they cook with, and carry around the epi pen :(  We just have to be super careful and hope that everyone in Baylor's life  as caregivers (Teacher's, parent's of his friends) will be super careful as well. Poor little baby!! 

B is for...

Brighton, Baylor, Baby Boys, Blue Eyes, Bare feet, BROTHERS. I love this picture. They are not smiling, sort of zoned out looking in fact, but it is still a cute one. 

We had a pretty low key weekend. Brighton got to have some fun as GiGi and Pop took him to another pumpkin patch. 

Today Jason and I are taking Baylor to the allergy specialist. We have to find out what kind of milk he can drink and ween him off of his costly formula.  I am hoping for the best as many things seem to make him sick :(  He has been a very good eater lately. His favorite is green peas. He will eat all that you put in front of him!  He has also tried and liked BBQ, and butter beans. Hopefully he just has some kind of gag reflex or something and he is not allergic to anything major, but we have to find out for sure. Wish us luck!

Star Student of the Week

Brighton was chosen this week by his teacher to be the star student of the week. He got to bring home a special star bag with fun art supplies in it and complete his poster. 

The spot light is on him in school this week. On Tuesday he got to bring in a chosen possession to share with the class (one of his monster trucks that our friend and neighbor Michele gave him) as well as a book that he wanted read to the class. He chose "Tails" which is a very cute interactive book by Matthew Van Fleet. It was a hard decision between that and his other one by the same author, Heads, which is equally cute. 

Brighton has been wanting me to read to him very often lately. He likes these two, and always "Where The Wild Things Are", Goodnight  Moon, as well as the Halloween parody "Good Night Goon" which is pretty funny, by the way. 

Fun week for him! We have all been enjoying some cooler, fall like temps this week. 

Season & Jason~Celebrating 8 Years Together!

It is almost hard to believe that it has been 8 years since we got married. That's kind of a long time! The last couple of anniversaries, we have been under some stressful times (building a house, having kids, you know..) and we did not really celebrate our anniversary properly. We decided that needed to change this year. We went on a get away last weekend to the North Georgia Mountains. We visited the town of Helen. I went there as a child and it was pretty close to what I remember. 

Helen is a cute little tourist trap only about 3 hours away from us. It has an Alpine Village theme.  It is nestled in the north Georgia mountain area and surrounded by the Chattahoochee  River, beautiful waterfalls, wineries, and nature. We stayed at a cute inn that had the bed and breakfast concept but was much more private. http://sylvanvalleylodge.com/ We loved coming home from exploring during the days to relax on the grounds and balconies there. We even had a nap one afternoon while Jason got caught up on college football. Napping during the afternoon? Yes this means that we went on this trip childless!! In fact, it was the 1st trip that we had been on together in years without children or other couples. We have traveled plenty over the last few years but not since our trip to Mexico has it been just the 2 of us. Why didn't we do this sooner?? It was wonderful to be able to enjoy just each other and was really so relaxing. 

Breakfast at the inn each morning, shopping in Helen, and hiking up trails to see waterfalls, enjoying good food... what could be better? The Inn even hosted a wine tasting on Saturday afternoon. OH! but one of the best parts was our lunch Saturday. After a large breakfast at the inn this was the perfect way to spend the middle part of the day. 

Dark German beers and a HUGE pretzel with beer cheese. Yum. 

It was a great way to reconnect. The kids stayed with Max and Connie. They had a great time going to a pumpkin patch. I don't think they missed us much!! 

We were grateful to get away with each other and have decided to try to do it every year. We were happy to see the kids on Sunday though!!  Tuesday was our actual anniversary and we celebrated at home after the kids went to bed. We enjoyed a nice dinner with champagne in our own dining room! 8 years and counting!! Happy anniversary!!