Since this is my blog and all, I'm going to be vain and talk about myself. Actually, it makes more sense to start with me and my issues with food.
I have many many many allergies. Some of them are odd. Ok, most of them are odd. To me allergies are just as normal as say...breathing. I just assumed that everyone had their share. Imagine my dismay when I learned that not everyone has allergies. It was enlightening to say the least.
Among my many allergies which include dust, pollen, animals, and some medication, I am also allergic to food. It's been really hard to figure out exactly what foods I am allergic to. The earliest ones I can remember discovering were cashews (from my sister's soccer games) and then vegetables like snowpeas, cucumbers, and green sweet peppers. Now this list has grown to include many more, however there are certain peculiarities when it comes to my exact allergies.
Vegetables. I can eat them cooked, but if they're raw, I have to watch out. I can have a few pieces of raw vegetables if I eat them plain, more if they are in something like a salad or with a dip.
The same thing goes for fruit. Not all fruit though. But then that's how it started out with the vegetables. For example, my husband and I have learned that a strawberry shake is fine but a strawberry-banana shake is out of the question.
The hard part is that my allergies change all the time. I never completely rule out a food because years later I may be able to have it again. On the same hand sometimes I can be eating something to suddenly discover that I'm now allergic to it. That's fun.
Throughout all of this I have dealt with pretty bad stomach and intestine issues. It will randomly strike leaving me disabled. Luckily for me this usually happened at night leaving me awake for many hours or on the weekend where I never had to miss school because of this.
We thought this might be nervous induced as I would get sicker when something big was happening, like for the start of the school year, or if a big project was due. And no, I never caused this myself. We wondered if I might be lactose-intolerant because I would have cereal in the mornings and I would get sick before school.
Then I started high school. Starting early morning seminary was wonderful! I'm not sure exactly why, but when I was in high school I didn't get sick at all. I thought I had just grown out of it.
Next came college. Second semester it came back but with a vengeance. Most mornings I would wake up ill and then would throw-up. I went to the school doctors but really, that was a joke. After being asked millions of times if I was pregnant (certainly not! I was not married and on my period) or if I had issues with my weight (again, nope! if anything I knew I needed to GAIN weight!). It was sooo aggravating. And they basically had no idea. But they gave me more allergy medications and some heartburn medication too.
Then I got married. And it continued. I saw (or talked to) an intuitive healer who told me my stomach didn't produce the right kinds of acids. So now I am supposed to take acidophilus and hydrochloric acid. No joke. I'm not a medicine type of person. I HATE having things that I have to take, especially when I'm not sure that they really do anything.
More than anything I wish all of it would just stop. Then I got pregnant and everything changed. I definitely had morning sickness that lasted almost the entire pregnancy but I didn't have any environmental allergies. Now I'm not pregnant but am just waiting for my body to get back to normal and see what else is in store.
For my family - doesn't he look JUST like me in that above picture! I love it!
This is probably the first post-pregnancy picture I've liked of me. And the kid doesn't look too bad either! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
He can sit all by himself!
The whole party just tuckered him out. He slept through all the noise and even having people take pictures of him using their flash. What a little trooper!
There's some lore surrounding this building but basically, somehow the blueprint was for a tall skyscraper and this skinny four-story building was built instead. I got this image from here. Really, you should go check that website out.
I made funfetti cupcakes with gold wrappers, then I tinted some cream cheese frosting red (which took FOREVER!) Then I rolled out some fondant and cut different shaped stars out of it. Lemon extract and gold shimmer powder were mixed together to create a paint which was then painted onto the stars. 
It was so much fun! I can't wait 'til the next birthday party! 
So, he's just over five months old and can't sit up yet, but he LOVES to be sitting with the help of others. 
I just love his little smile and laugh! He sure is excited over something!
This was taken in Oregon but somehow got uploaded here. I LOVE this license plate holder, I think when we saw this car we were actually listening to Car Talk...oh how I love NPR.
(And in case you can't read it: "I'm not laughing at you, I'm listening to Car Talk from NPR" classic!)
I was taking pictures of the people in the mini van. First Super Boy (on the right) decided to stick his head out, then Happy (not wanting to be out-done by his brother) joined in and lastly my sister is waving for the camera so we know she's there too.
Here's some of the coast of Portland. I wouldn't mind living here.
And of course here's proof that we were there.
I couldn't choose just one picture of us to post so because I'm so vain I decided to post them both.
Some random road we were walking over that I thought was just gorgeous.
Right across from the ballet (that's where Stephen took me on this surprise outing) was this water exhibit that apparently is talked about often among planners.
This was taken on the eastern side of Oregon. We followed the Columbia River which is the border between Washington and Oregon.
This is looking towards Washington, there were these crazy steep and dangerous looking cliffs and then there were vineyards just right in the middle of them.
Here's our son on the journey. It's neat to see how much he's grown and changed, his head didn't even touch the patterned part of the top of the car seat and now he's almost too long for it!
Making some cute faces.
The leg that needs to be rescued.
His whole sleeping self. I LOVE holding him while he sleeps and having him just cuddle up to you...that's probably my favorite thing right now.
And here he is during his afternoon nap.
This child always has his arms out, he was never a fan of swaddling. Except that one time I couldn't get him to sleep for the life of me and someone else swaddled him and he went right to sleep. I've tried it since and it's NEVER worked again. So weird. 
He loves to sleep with a blanket and he used to snuggle his face right into it so I started using the afgans my mother made for him 'cause there's holes in them so I feel like he can breathe easier. Thank goodness those days are over!
I can't believe how big he's getting!!
The ducks were not afraid of us at all and came right up to us which really scared me at first.
I wish we had more parks like this in AZ!
We managed to find a bench right on the water although the water was so stinky you really didn't want to be that close.
This is Limpy. 
When we first showed up the ducks were scattered across the lake, but as soon as we started throwing our copious amounts of bread into the water the ducks flocked right to us. There were so many ducks in such a small space that sometimes they had to fight it out to get the pieces of food. Limpy was the result of such commotion. After the fight he limped the rest of the night and I resorted to hand-delivering him my pieces of bread. Such an epic tale for so meager a creature. 
The ducks were super friendly (I almost typed frisky!) and would eat right out of our hands.
Matt was the adventurous one and tried feeding the duck right out of his mouth. Can you say GROSS?!
We all had so much fun. This probably lasted over an hour until we realized we were stealing all the ducks away from the little kids who came with their parents. We gave the rest of our bread to them so they could enjoy in the fun.
