The tooth fairy is going broke...

Aria lost another tooth! She currently has 3 gaping holes in the front of her mouth.

Legos

Kevin has been building his large scale star wars millennium falcon (it's a ship for those like me that don't know what that is) and the kids are loving playing with the bricks! Emmett designed his own plane by himself. Aria made her own ship too! Too bad they get upset when Kevin needs the pieces.

Swim Class

The kids started swim class two months ago. Aria has had some swim lessons before, but this was Emmett's first time. Both are doing great! Emmett finally put his head in the water today so his ears got wet. Aria can now float unassisted and can take a couple strokes on her own. She has no problem with water in her eyes or putting her face in...which used to be a hang up for her. Aria leveled up today in her class and got to pick out a toy! The kids also get a quarter after every class to pick a treat from a dispenser. I'm so glad they are enjoying swimming!

Birthday Trip

For Emmett's and my birthday we headed to NYC for a family vacation. We arrived on a Thursday by train and explored the Empire State building. We stayed in a hotel and then got on the Disney cruise in the morning. Two nights on the ship went quick with all the activities that kept us busy. Sunday we got back to port, spent the day at the Natural History museum and then headed home on the train in the evening. The kids did great and we all enjoyed ourselves!

 Walking around the city.

The kids had a ball seeing the characters

That's a happy face!

It was windy on the top deck!

This is the real Cinderella. *wink*

Goofy grabbed Emmett's hand and walked with him. It was cute until he looked back at me, made eye contact and then started to cry. Aw!

Dinner

Aria was impressed by the towel swan.

There was lots to see at the Natural History museum!

The kids were beat at the end of our trip.

Aria's Dance Recital

I'm so proud of this little girl. She had a dance recital today and she did great. She paid close attention, smiled, didn't appear nervous and totally enjoyed herself (despite a minor mommy mishap). On the way out for the recital we missed grabbing her bag that contained her shoes and tutu. It was frustrating because we drove 45 min to get there and then realized what had happened. I was very upset about it. Aria was not phased by it at all - the show must go on!

After she was finished, Aria told me that her teacher was dancing off to the side during her performance like it was a secret! It cracked me up.

The picture above is from a mini photo shoot I did with Aria right after we picked up her costume.

Looking offstage... "Hmmm, what do I do next?

So cute!

Dancing around with her tutu at home :-)

The recital was exhasting for Emmett. He fell asleep on the drive home and continued to sleep on the couch for an hour.

Emmett's Allergies

It all started with Emmett around 6 months old when we tried to introduce formula. It didn't go well and he vomitted every time he had it. I luckily didn't have to fight that battle and I continued to feed him until we introduced milk. As we introduced new foods we discovered more things he was sensitive to. He would get very red around his mouth or vomit. By 2 years, he took a blood test and we learned to avoid eggs, soy, peanuts, and peas. They couldn't test for it but he also had reactions to chickpeas. As time went on, we found more things that caused him to vomit. At 2.5 we went in to do skin testing and added to the list...melons, tree nuts, legumes, green beans and many environmental allergies. He is allergic to trees, grasses, weeds, feathers and cat dander. Thankfully, we are able to manage his symptoms with our cat in the house and he now gets a dose of claritin daily to deal with outside. A couple months and additional violent vommiting episodes later (one which included the use of an epipen as a precaution), I had another talk with the allergist and she ordered additional blood tests. We learned a couple interesting things. The best thing was that his allergy to egg and soy has lessened which gives us promise that he will grow out of this.
Below are the foods we should currently avoid:
Egg
Peanut
Tree nuts (walnut, pecan, almond, hazelnut, pistachio, cashew)
Soy
Melons (cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew)
Avocado
Raw tomato
Peas
Green beans
Sesame
Spinach
Beef
Coconut

We have not tested the following, but I suspect an allergy and we're also avoiding the following: chick peas, lentils, all other beans (legumes), and mango.

Emmett now wears a medical alert bracelet, which makes me feel a little better when I'm not around during school or at church. I've become a crazy label reader and I've learned how cook standard foods allergy free. We rarely take him to restaurants and so far we haven't done much traveling. We are soon leaving our comfort zone with a weekend trip to Grandmas (parentless) and some future vacations planned. It will be fine. I count my blessings that we have not experienced any life threatening reactions. We have great medical care and a few epipens around as backup (and thanks to what happened recently, I know I am capable of using one). Hopefully, he'll grow up and we'll reminisce about all the crazy things little Emmett was allergic too. We love this little guy; he's fun, energetic and brightens our everyday.

RIP Star

We knew this day was coming soon, our little hamster was showing her age recently. We originally got Star when Emmett was about a week old. Emmett was oblivious when hearing the news, but Aria took it a little hard. We talked her through it and after some tears, she was ok. We put Star in a truffles box and found a spot under the Aria tree. RIP Star, we will miss you.