So I HAD to Blog About This.....

There is a Babycakes VEGAN bakery in Downtown Disney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How did I not know about this??? Just goes to show that I have been away from the blogging world way too long when something like this slips through my radar.

So basically Colin can walk up to the counter and order ANYTHING!

He is going to freak. We had been thinking about going this Easter and well, finding out about this put us right over the edge.

How could we not go?

I cannot wait to walk up to the counter and let him pick whatever he wants...he has never had that many choices even in Disney. Donuts, cupcakes, cookies, and breads oh my! He knows about the trip but knows nothing about the bakery. We want it to be a surprise.

This is how Miss C feels about that....

Mommy feels the same way too.

Even though we had to think long and hard about it.


But watching your brother eat anything that he wants and you eating your brother it totally worth it.

If anyone needs me I will be cutting coupons and eating Ramen noodles.

Pray For Soy or Thank God For The Washing Machine...

Either way we are praying today :-)

So the first title is because I have secretly exchanged Colin's Coconut Milk Yogurt for Soy Yogurt. I say secretly because if I told him it was Soy he wouldn't touch it..yay for food allergy awareness! Boo for food trials! Here is today's lunch...


A sunbutter and organic jelly sandwich on homemade bread, Triscuts, Carrots, PSU Pineapple Chunks, and a small serving of Silk Vanilla Yogurt. I threw in a treat from Trick or Treating and a juicebox and we have hit every food group. He had some soy last evening and didn't throw up, run to the bathroom or break out in hives. So if you are the praying kind please think of Colin as we try this since literally this would open a huge amount of eating out options for our little guy. Soy milk is everywhere now! So not only could he go to Dunkin he could also go to Starbucks :-)

Not to brag...but I will :-) I put this together today while breastfeeding Charlotte in a sling. So I totally felt all Earth Mothery today while actually accomplishing something. Which seems like a pretty big feat this week.

Hence the second title :-)

Charlotte LOVES running water. She is a bit demanding and desires to be held most of the day or in her car seat while running an errand. (Which I totally don't mind, my home on the other hand is requiring some attention) She is a pretty light sleeper so as soon as you put her down or come home she knows and is NOT happy about it. So I am thanking God today for having laundry all over my house because it gave me a few extra minutes between feedings since I sat Miss C. in her car seat in front of the machine. So if it wasn't for laundry I wouldn't be able to have lunch or blog today with both hands :-)

We did manage Trick or Treating which Colin enjoyed even though he gives most of it away to his parents but really, don't most kids do that anyway?



See no running water in the photo or a boob in her mouth. Miss C. Not happy.

I have no idea why it was so hard to find a newborn costume. I guess they figure that you should be a better parent and not take them outside at all. Hey, I read a study that is linking lack of Vitamin D exposure to Food Allergies. So uhh. We are outside a lot.


Here's Colin handing out candy. He said he actually liked this more anyway. As always he was a complete riot.

Gotta run, the machine stopped and she knows...

How Many More School Lunches Do I Have to Pack?!

I've thought about actually doing the math but I am pretty sure I would break down in tears. Packing a balanced and interesting lunch for a 5 year old who only has a few things that he can eat cold let alone things that he likes is just a bit overwhelming right now.

Now granted I'm sure that I am making this harder on myself than needed, but it's still pretty complicated.

I am however excited to have made a few purchases to make things a bit easier. We got a few new snack size containers for dressing and dip, and I found these packets...

Let me tell you, it's extremely difficult and messy to clean Sunbutter out of a tiny container after it has been in a lunch box all day. Yuck!
So even though it's nearly $7 for a box of 10 1oz servings, (and who knows how much to ship), I plan on placing an order soon just to avoid doing dishes.

In other exciting news we will soon have Minnie Mouse Bake Shop Chocolate Chip cookies to help us out during snack time. A girl needs to be able to grab at least one prepackaged snack on occasion, especially on soccer days.



These aren't our chocolate chip cookies but I couldn't find a picture of the 100 calorie snacks and well...looking at these makes me just as happy. It took ALOT of arm twisting and my stellar manipulating, I mean social work, skills to get Disney to agree to ship the cookies.

They generally don't ship food but especially don't ship chocolate because it's just so stinkin hot there. So they sent a merchandise runner into the parks to search for the cookies and then read the ingredients over the phone. They agreed to ship them to us as long as we realized that they could be a mess by the time they got here. I assured them that my son eats all kinds of things that I wouldn't be able to choke down and that in fact he has never met a carb that he doesn't like. So they are being air mailed to us and we should have them in a few days. Yay! So thanks Disney for not only making a cookie in a cute package that doesn't kill my kid but for also being willing to ship it to me.

Milk/Egg Free Pioneer Woman Sheet Cake

I wanted to post a few links and share with you some of the things that I made this year as gifts.

But first let's talk food. :-)
This is the sheet cake recipe and instructions.

While this is a great recipe, Colin wouldn't be able to eat it.
This is my version.

Milk and Egg Free Pioneer Woman Sheet Cake
2 Cups Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
Mix Together

1/2 Cup Buttermilk (I use 1/2 Cup Rice Milk and add 1 Tablespoon Vinegar)
2 Eggs (3 Tablespoons Oil, 3 Tablespoons Water, 2 Teaspoon Baking Powder mixed together in a separate bowl till it fizzes. This is my general replacement for two eggs in any recipe)
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
Mix this together in a separate bowl and then set aside. I just use a large measuring cup that I use for the "buttermilk" and then add everything to that.

2 Sticks Butter (fleishmanns is milk and soy free)
4 Tablespoons Cocoa
1 Cup Boiling Water
Melt Butter, add cocoa then mix. Add boiling water and then let bubble for about a minute.

Mix your flour mixture, buttermilk mixture and cocoa mixture together. Pour into a sheet pan and bake for 18-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

While this is baking work on your frosting.

1 3/4 Sticks Butter (fleishmann's is milk and soy free)
4 Tablespoons Cocoa
6 Tablespoons Milk (I decreased this to about 3 Tablespoons Rice Milk and then added 3 Tablespoons Water since Rice Milk is really sweet)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
1 Pound Confectioner's Sugar

MIX THIS REALLY WELL! Otherwise you have lumps of sugar.

Unless you like lumps of sugar :-)

As soon as your cake come out of the oven pour frosting over sheet cake and spread.

Once I get the hang of making this I have a feeling this will be my quickest cake and frosting recipe. I can do this in under 30 minutes from start to finish.

Seriously, this is the best little chocolate cake that I have ever made.

If you make this let me know what you think...and as always, if you have any questions let me know that too.

I will do my best to answer them in future posts, by email or in the comment section.

And don't worry, I also made some crafty gifts too that I will be sharing later today or tomorrow. :-)

Food Allergy Expo....

This was far! We traveled on the turnpike the whole way which seems to make 2 hours feel like 10! But it was worth the trip! Colin kept looking at all of the cars and saying, "look at all of those people with allergies!" So even though it was crowded, hot and Colin couldn't have a lot of the snacks that were being offered at the vendors...it was worth it for Colin to see that he isn't the only little guy that has to worry about what he is eating.


Please excuse the funny face here on Colin, he was mid bite of a blueberry muffin.


We then headed to Chuck E. Cheese next door. This was WAY nicer than the one in York!


Again, excuse the funny face...that thing moves a lot, lol!

How do you like my hair? I needed a trim and I have been trying to save money so this is my $7 hair cut. I used a coupon for Great Clips that I got in the mail. I'm embarrassed to say how much I usually spend on a hair cut but honestly. I am just as happy with this as I was with the fancier one. Go figure!

Well I'm off to run errands for the rest of the day. I have a scheduled post for tomorrow that has my finished mini book from our cruise. I can't wait to share it with you!

We Are Headed Here Today....

This event is located at the Whole Foods Market in North Wales, PA. They plan on having a magic show, a rock band and several vendors all catered to kids with food allergies.

Colin is pretty excited to see if they have foods that don't hurt his belly. It is really interesting to see him in a store. He understands that he needs to read the label before he can eat it and has been looking at the pictures to get clues about the product.

Last night while at the mall we passed an ice cream vendor. Colin asked if he could have ice cream and we of course said no because the store didn't carry his ice cream. He said, "I figured the sign over there has nuts on it."

He then asked for a rootbeer float and we told him he only had about 6 more weeks until he can have one at Disney. :-)

So even though this is a two hour trip today and Matt keeps complaining about "wasting the whole day," we are making ourselves go. It will be nice for Colin to see other little kids doing the same thing as him.

Right now anytime I overhear someone talking about their child's allergies I make Colin go over and say hi. He usually wants me to do it but you can tell that he enjoys meeting others who live the same way he does.

So wish us luck as we navigate our day and hopefully those frozen coconut ice cream bars will make it home in the cooler. I would hate to have them melt since they are $5-$6 for a box of four. I can't tell you what they taste like since we save things like that just for Colin since 1. they are expensive and 2. they are hard to find.

But they look just like a Dove Bar and Colin loves them!

Stamp Storage

I had a vision last night while participating in the chat at Studio Calico. I have an activity case that I found at Target for about $2 that I have been using to store my photos that are waiting to be scrapped. It's a little bigger than 8 1/2 x 11 so it fits a whole sheet of photo paper perfectly. Well I looked at it last night and thought, you know, I bet that would hold stamps. I have been storing my stamps in CD cases but even they are starting to take up too much space and aren't super accessible when they are in my cabinet.



I LOVE THIS!

I can see everything and this can easily sit on the side of my table without taking up too much room. I am planning on purchasing a few more so I can fit the rest of my "cool stamps" in them. This binder is organized with Studio Calico and Scarlet Lime Stamps. I will make another for alphabets and another for journaling spots. I'm so excited!



Also if you wouldn't mind, please keep your fingers crossed for me. I submitted my application today for Disney's Mom's panel. If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with Disney :-) But even more than that, I really enjoy planning each trip and helping others realize how easy it really is to manage. So whether it's questions about managing behavior or navigating an airport with a toddler I'm usually able to help. (Or if I am standing in line at Gymboree and I hear a Mom say that she's worried about her upcoming Disney trip since her child has food allergies. "Your child has food allergies? Do you have a pen? Here's the number to Special Dining, her name is Brenda, and this is how it works!" That really happened by the way, lol!) I enjoy helping because once I figure something out I believe in paying it forward. So I applied, as I'm sure 20,000 other Disney loving Moms, but I am realistic that there are a ton of qualified applicants. Hopefully I can represent all of the scrapbooking and food allergic Moms:-)

I will be uploading LO's soon, I completed 3 and just have to decide which ones I'm submitting and which ones I'm sharing.

I did try loading the video but it didn't seem to work. I'm sure I will have time this weekend since I think it will be raining most of the weekend. *sigh* At least I should have time to scrapbook!

New LO's to Share....

I have been busy this afternoon editing LO's to update my gallery. I guess I need to keep my mind off of my little man's first day of Pre K! Even though it's in the same building and there are a ton of teachers that know exactly what Colin can and cannot have....I still worry that there is a learning curve and tend to carry my phone with me everywhere I go. But considering we got this far into today without any phone calls I'm sure that I had no reason to worry, lol!

I wanted to share this LO that I finished up last night. For some reason I have been stuck lately in the mojo department and I have a feeling it has to do with the lack of edited photos to work with. I am setting a goal to at least edit one or two a day. Honestly I can do a ton more than that but for some reason my brain just sees how many photos that I have to work with and becomes overwhelmed. This is generally followed by mindless internet surfing.

Speaking of mindless internet surfing I finally joined Facebook. I have no idea what I am doing to please request to be my friend and give me some guidance, lol! I have no idea who is talking to who with all of those posts.

Oh right the LO....



This was fun to put together and I only used one sheet of Studio Calico paper and a few scraps to complete it! So not a major dent buster LO but fun nonetheless!

See I used one sheet so I most certainly need to replace it, right?

So Let's Talk About Disney....

Whether you have been reading awhile or just got started, it's pretty obvious that I'm a tad obsessed with Disney. There are quite a few reasons that I enjoy this magical place and some of them are even related to bringing my son, however I have realized that one of the reasons that we go to Disney is because,

I need it!

To many people that may sound strange but I can assure you that the Disney bug has captured me fair and square. I don't talk a lot about what I do for a living, mostly because I'm too busy talking about scrapbooking, but the type of work that I do lends itself to needing a bit of make believe magic in my life.

That's where Disney comes in.

We planned our first trip because we heard that they had Rice Milk and other crazy things that Colin eats and we were thrilled with the idea of eating out while taking Colin when he was little enough to believe the magic is real.

Then I walked on Main Street and realized that the magic was real!

So for a week I pretend that all is right with the world, we go for ice cream like any other family and I'm reminded that people are nice...even if they are being paid to be nice to you. :-)

So I guess I'm feeling the pressure a little at work since so many people are struggling right now and when an opportunity opened up (work related) to take a bonus trip in a few months, well I jumped on it.

So we will be headed there this October and I'll be honest, it's a bit of a stretch for us since we are planning this so close to when the final payment is due.

So we made a plan and are sticking to it.

1. No extra purchases, period. If it's not in the budget, we're not doing it. So no Starbucks, scrap supplies, clothing, odds and ends for the house, eating out, fancy hair cuts, cosmetics, etc.
2. No extras while on the trip. We are bringing ears, glow sticks, and those fan water bottles from last year.
3. We are eating what's on the free dining meal plan and nothing extra. No dinner shows that take 2 meal credits, no 2 sit down meals in the same day, nothing extra.
4. No...well for just a few dollars more we could... We are staying at Pop Century (A value resort) and while it is tempting to stay at a nicer resort since things are much cheaper right now, we don't need it and are appreciative enough of the opportunity to just see the mouse. We don't really care where we sleep.
5. And most importantly, no credit. This is all cash and whatever we decide to bring for spending money while there is all we will spend, that's it.

So to do this I have to cut some corners and think a little differently. Anybody else interested in a challenge? So I thought it would be fun to post some of the ways our family is saving money and links that I have found to be helpful.

Money Saving Mom
This website has inspired me to spend less money on groceries. I am learning how to "CVS" and remembering how to cut coupons. This woman has a family of 6 and spends $40 a week on groceries. There are just 3 of us here and I spend WAY more than that. I am pleased to report that I saved $40 by using coupons on my last shopping trip.

I wasn't even close to only spending $40 but a girl has to start somewhere :-)

CVS Store Circular
I have been studying these and doing the math to determine how to get "free money" and still only purchase things that I actually need. Last week I earned $11 in "free money."

Okay that was a long post but I will be back soon with a crafty post. I am working on a LO and a mini and should have photos of both soon.

As always thanks for stopping by and if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them!

A LO and A Giveaway!

So it's been awhile since we have done a RAK here on the blog and guess what I found...


While using my Cuttlebug last night I found my missing Swiss Dot Folder. I had bought another one since after a serious clean fest, I was still unable to locate it. So I thought I would share this extra one with a lovely blog reader. Just comment below if you are interested in the giveaway...and if you have it already and just want to say hi that's okay too!

Below is a scraplift of the wonderful Lisa Truesdell's LO of the week on the Studio Calico Blog. You can see it here.

I have been a huge fan of her work for awhile now and am always excited to new LO. Thanks for the inspiration Lisa!


We don't go out to eat often, mostly only on vacation in Disney and the occasional trip to Chili's since they do a good job preparing Colin's food. It's just too hard sometimes and the other times that it's not that hard, I'm just not up for the possibility of someone making a mistake. So needless to say, Colin hasn't had a ton of experience learning how to behave in a restaurant. So if you are ever out and about and see a monkey who swallowed a Mexican jumping bean that's probably us and I apologize in advance :-)!
Happy Saturday everyone and I will keep the giveaway open to Monday or so. Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Only about a month to go....

Till Colin gets to hang out with all of his Disney buddies on the big boat. To say he is excited is a major understatement. Poor kid, he keeps asking, "they are going to make me waffles right?" For those of you who are new here, Colin has multiple food allergies and an Eosinophilic disorder. Basically that means he has a few allergies that are like the regular ones you hear about in the news, milk and eggs, that are life threatening. He has a much larger list of allergies that while they aren't life threatening, cause severe discomfort, skin issues and damage in his gut. A lot of kids who have this disorder are unable to eat food at all and are fed through a G Tube in their tummy. We were able to avoid that step since we were able to find the foods that cause the damage and remove them from his diet. Needless to say, we eat a lot of chicken in our house, lol! But this is the reason that Colin has been taken to Disney so many times in his short life already. They are FANTASTIC at managing his allergies and for one week a year, our family feels a little more like everyone else. So we go in the off season, bring our umbrellas and cross our fingers for good weather. But the weather doesn't really matter because it really is all about the waffles :)



Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzil. Pattern Paper: SEI. Buttons, Photo Corners, Turns and Brads: American Crafts. Letters, Journaling Cards: Reminisce. Other: Ribbon, Trim.

So we are starting to think about what we need for this trip, getting all of our forms and passports together and trying to figure out what we will do for food when we are not on the ship. It takes a lot of planning to travel with Colin but it's totally worth it and we are extremely appreciative that we even have the option to travel. So I am trying to get photos scrapped from previous vacations before getting a ton more photos to scrapbook. We will see how I do. I did a major purge of the 2000 photos on my hard drive, (remind to back those up). I think I'm done to 1800 but that is still a ton of photos that need to be scrapped. I'm thinking photo albums are in my future, lol!

Thank you Willy Wonka

For making artificially flavored candy that contains little to no nutritional content, (which means no allergic food proteins). The cute packaging in plastic eggs is a sweet bonus. I'll be honest. Easter stresses me out a bit. Eggs are the one food that really could threaten Colin's life. He's had significant reactions to small amounts of milk in the past. He's never touched an egg or has ingested a product that contains eggs. However, his egg numbers are way higher than his milk numbers. So as much as I have been enjoying all of the beautifully decorated Easter Eggs on my usual blog hopping tour, I unfortunately will not be emulating any of those techniques or photographing pretty eggs in baskets on this blog.
Ours will be plastic, fake and filled with not so good for you candy that is just perfect for Colin. :)

So there went my work at home day...

I'm trying to salvage it as best I can. I typically work 9 days every two weeks and on the 10th day I try to catch up on everything that I didn't get a chance to do over the last two weeks. Well, I thought I would be ahead of the game by going to the grocery store yesterday so I would have to do it today, (you know then I might get to scrap). I took Colin to the Tree House at Giant while I shopped. It was jammed due to the impending storm and we needed a ton of stuff. I don't know what Colin was playing but he fell asleep on the way home. AT 7:00PM! This from the kid who never sleeps. I unload the mountains of groceries while he takes a cat nap. I then proceed to poke him, shake him, drop things around him....he wouldn't budge. He didn't wake up until he had an accident on the couch at 10:00PM. *sigh*
If you come to visit...I would sit on the love seat. I'm just saying.

He then didn't go back to sleep till 5AM. *double sigh* So when I saw that it was a blizzard outside at 9AM, I'll be honest, I did think about how long it would take me to shovel the drive way and still take him to school. Although I realized all of the trouble of waking a cranky toddler and shoveling snow wasn't worth it.

So I have a helper today, he promised to "let me work." I'm setting a goal of one load of laundry. Hopefully I'll meet it, lol!

Here's a LO from 2008's Disney vacation. Colin's first rootbeer float. the ice cream parlor on Main Street has Rice Dream ice cream for Colin. It may not seem like much to everyone else, but the fact that the whole family can go for ice cream without me having a cooler of dry ice with me...well that's priceless.

Cupcake Pops

I made these for Colin's Valentine's Party on Friday. The white ones are Colin's and the brown were for the rest of the class. I got this idea from my new favorite website Bakerella.
When I saw these I knew I needed to make an allergy free version.
I used my Wacky Cake recipe for the cake, safe frosting, dairy free white chocolate chips for Colin and regular melting chips for everyone else. Colin was so excited to share them with the class. When he got to school he yelled, "hey guys, guess what my Mom made!" I only had one left over and Colin wanted to save it for Daddy. I was planning on making these look like cupcakes but it was late and I needed to draw the line somewhere, lol. These were a hit and something that I will definitely make again.

Isn't this the funniest photo ever?

Oh and did I mention that we are going on the big boat? The big, black, red and white one? With Mickey Mouse? We are in the midst of planning to go on our first cruise in a few months. We are beyond thrilled. Colin is just happy that he will have pancakes and can watch movies while in the pool. He keeps asking, "they are going to make me pancakes, right?" Going to Disney is one of the VERY few perks of having food allergies when the majority of the culinary world doesn't have policies in place that make you feel comfortable enough to eat there. We can't take Colin for an ice cream cone as a treat so we take him to the Caribbean. Makes sense right? Needless to say we have been spending a great deal of time explaining that not everyone gets to go on vacation and that we are very lucky and blessed to have that opportunity.

So in an effort to complete one project before starting another, I am working on finishing Disney LO's from the last two trips. I edited a bunch of photos and actually printed some too. I'm planning on using a D Ring album and just putting all Disney related pages in there. At least that's the plan anyway.

Speaking of planning, I have tons to do to finish Valentine's treats and Colin's shirt for his party. So that's it for now!

Cupcake Interrupted

Well this morning got off to a stellar start. There was a child in Colin's class that was celebrating a birthday today so I needed to bring in a cupcake for Colin. I defrosted them last night and was planning on making the frosting then too. I just couldn't get up after I finally got Colin asleep. So I woke up this morning, made frosting and lovingly decorated mini cupcakes with pretty frosting and sprinkles. We were doing pretty well, I remembered everything that I needed for school. PJ Day-Check, Rice Milk-Check, Jelly Beans-Check, Cupcakes-Check. We get to daycare and as I am getting Colin out of the van I drop the cupcakes.
Upside down.
I started to cry. I told him that I was so sorry that I smashed his cupcakes and that they were still yummy. We finished running into the building, because it was FREEZING, and Colin said, "I'm mad at Jesus right now." I said, "Jesus didn't make me drop the cupcakes, why are you mad?" Colin said, "because he made it too cold today and I am mad at him. I'll eat the cupcakes."

To top it all off, he missed the party anyway. They were having another party this afternoon for another child so he ate his smashed cupcakes then.

I'm here!

Wow, it's been awhile since I checked in. We have been extremely busy getting ready for vacation, finishing projects and taking on extra things because I have so much extra time on me hands, lol.

Colin just started playing 4 year old soccer, yes he is 3 but kicks like a 5 year old so we figured we would give it a shot. So far so good. He's learning some valuable skills and doing lots of running. He actually said he was a little tired today. He very rarely says that. To get him on the team I needed to be a coach so I haven't had a chance to get any photos yet. I'm going to try to bring my camera next time and try to sneak a few shots of him playing with the big kids, it's so cute.

So do you want to hear my crazy list of things that I need to do before we go on vacation? Yeah, so I decided to make tee shirts...those need finished, I made allergy free cookies and doughnuts, I plan on making cupcakes and muffins yet, a new flavor of ice cream and I need to pack Colin staples (just in case they can't make anything that he likes while we are there), coordinate with the house sitter, buy Colin new sneakers 40 mins from here, pack, finish laundry, iron, pick up dry ice for frozen food, tie loose ends up at work, oh and most importantly...finish scraping last year's photos before taking more. I'm sure there are like 10 other things that I need to do that I haven't thought of yet. It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Did I mention that we are going to the Mouse? For the third time? Please send prayers that all of the hurricanes stay in the ocean and that it is only hot and miserable there versus hot, miserable and wet.

Here's my public service announcement for today. Disney does a great job with managing food allergies. Yeah! It's because of Disney that my son knows what the inside of a restaurant looks like. They really have a great system in place, and if my kid wasn't an anxious eater, I wouldn't need to bring a thing with me. How nice would that be?? Colin still gets a little worried if he doesn't recognize the food in front of him. Which is actually a good thing. I would rather struggle with getting him to trust me and try new things than to just eat anything and get sick all of the time.

Here's another funny story...you know I need to make up for not blogging for like weeks. My wonderful husband is not thrilled with eating breakfast in the Castle. He thinks it's expensive and that we have a boy and he's, (Colin but he really means that he, Matt)is not interested in eating with the princesses. Um hello, I want to eat with the princesses. He doesn't realize that Disney is like a scrapbookers shangrala and that I will be in all of my glory snapping all of those photos. Jeez, if they had that Bibbidi Bobbdi Bo Boutique for grown ups I would so totally sign up and pay the price of our flights to get all gussied up like a princess. And I would proudly walk around the park like I dressed like that every day.

So wish us luck, it's a lot of work and I will be exhausted when we get back. So if you made it to here...you definitely deserve some eye candy. And I have tons, here's a bunch of layouts that I submitted that haven't gotten picked up. So they are free to share! So enjoy and I will talk to you soon, hopefully with an updated to do list that has everything checked off.

It's been a crazy week....

I've been working on lots of projects and have just started an online organizing workshop at Simplify 101. It's great and has really started me thinking about the right system for me at home. It was the motivation I needed to make a home binder for all of my bills and important documents. Now I can just flip through pages to see what is due rather than opening all of those envelopes. A simple project really but it made a world of difference.

We had a major scare this week with Colin at school. His milk was accidentally switched with another child's. After taking one sip he went to his teacher and said that it wasn't his milk. That's when he started vomiting, breaking out in hives and having labored breathing. So my public service announcement this week...if your child has food allergies, tell everyone that works with him that it is OKAY to give him his Epi Pen. It seems scary to do it and "what happens if he didn't need it?" But in reality, it's better for him to have it if he didn't need it then not to have it and it be too late. The gravity of this hasn't really hit me yet. I'm sure it will soon. We are extremely lucky that he knows so much about his health and new to go to his teacher right away. I'm amazed that he knew enough to just take a sip. Colin is fine, it was rough for about an hour and once home we gave a breathing treatment and Benedryl. It was a learning experience for everyone involved and we now know to make our emergency plan a bit more specific.


Anyway I just realized that I haven't shared a LO here in awhile. So here is one from Blue and White weekend at PSU. I have several mini books that I just completed. Any tips for taking photos of them?

Thank You!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind words and thoughts over the last couple of weeks. This has definitely been a transition for our family and especially my son. Thank you for helping me keep this in perspective as well as all of the resources that were provided to me as well.

On a different note, anyone know what they want to be when they grow up? Me neither. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about this, I'm kind of hoping that I'll get a letter in the mail saying, this is what you need to do and you start on Monday. Wouldn't that be nice?! Anyway I've been MIA for a little bit and *gasp* I haven't scrapbooked since I attended the CKMB crop. I did get my room back in order and reorganized. I made a really cute inspiration journal, no one was super impressed. Everyone that I have shown it to, non scrappers, thought it was pretty weird but I like it. Once complete I will post pictures and share them with you, those that will understand and appreciate it, lol!

Is there anything else left to eat?

I can tentatively say yes. We got test results the other day that indicated that he came up positive to Wheat and Barley. *sigh* It was one of those things that I thought maybe but never really allowed myself to get too caught up in the idea, I mean, how can I cook without wheat???? We pulled it out of his diet two days ago and so far he has tried everything that I offered him, he's such a good kid. I went shopping, did some research online, (thank you internet), and purchased a few items that Colin actually thanked me for making. Who knows, even if it helps a little it's worth it. For the most part he is pretty healthy but we still have the occasional week long bought of infection/stomach upset/vomiting that we can't really explain. And I don't know why but it's just different that having a cold or flu. It always starts the same way, he starts scratching his fingers and his scalp. Sometimes that's as far as it goes and sometimes we get everything else and hives. *sigh* We will give it a try. SO our official list of foods that we are avoiding are as follows....Milk, Eggs, Soy, Lemon, Turkey, Beef, Fish, Nuts, Wheat, Oats, Barley.

Wish us luck! We are going to need it!