Balloons

I am so glad the dollar store sells bags of balloons. I have now invested in a quite a few bags, because I can't handle any more 2 hour meltdowns from McKay because he can't have the balloon that is on the TV. Yes, it was funny for the first few minutes, but it got old fast! This boy love's him some balloons!

30 years old

Tonight was a very special night. It is my brother Spencer's birthday, and I decided that we should start celebrating that. After all, it is the day he was brought to this earth, even if he only spent a short amount of time here. I made some pretty amazing, yellow cupcakes with Raspberry butter cream frosting and bought balloons and invited my family over. I also invited my family members out of state to participate with us to make it even more special. We sang Happy Birthday, ate cupcakes, talked of memories and our love for Spencer, and then went outside and let our balloons go, sending them up to Spencer. It was so sweet to watch my 10 yr old niece's eyes tear up. She really didn't know him, as she was just a baby when he passed, but she still has an overwhelming amount of love for him. . I am so greatful for my family, that we have Spencer in heaven, watching over all of us.

Happy Birthday, my angel in heaven!

Like Mother, Like Son

Well, it looks like McKay is following the trend of being my little twin. Along with the good things, he unfortunately got my negatives. Like, my stomach problems. Like I said in my previous post, I have been having lots of them. McKay has as well. After months of problems with his tummy, we finally did a stool sample and cultures of it to make sure there wasn't any parasite, or something like it affecting him. Good news, after 3 days of waiting and one phone call from the lab saying " umm... has McKay traveled out of the country?" I said no and she then said "hmmm.. um, OK" and hung up. Really? they made me wait 2 more days to get an answer while I tortured myself thinking he had some weird parasite you only get when you go out of country. Good thing he doesn't but they sure need to change their procedure of asking that question. Maybe explain why there were to calm the parent down.
Anyways, so after finding out there was nothing they could see wrong (story of my life) they advised I need to start trial and error. Just like I am doing for myself. We are starting by taking him off all dairy. Since, when he was a baby, he had an intolerance to it. So far, we have be doing it for 1 day and I already see a slight difference. yay! I am hoping this is the answer and we don't have to go through much more trial and error. I have also decided that since I haven't started the gluten free, officially yet, I will wait and see if this helps him. If it does, well I will just try it with me since he is having the same problems as me. Hopefully we find an answer for both of us very soon.

Gluten Free

I've been having a lot of stomach problems lately. well, really for the past 8 years. Its just getting worse and I have yet to find the completely reason. I had a colonoscopy yesterday and was hoping it would provide me with some answers, but it didn't. So, I am taking it into my own hands now, especially since the Dr. did not seem interested at all in helping find whats making me so sick.
I decided I am going to start by taking certain foods out of my diet to see if that helps. I have gone gluten free before, for about 3 months. It helped a little, but I don't think 3 months is long enough to help as much I need, so I am going to try it again. This time, for at least 6 months. If I see improvement in my symptoms I will keep going and hopefully over time it will get better and better. If I don't see improvement in 6 months, to a year then I will then start over and try taking something else out of my diet.
I have written food journals, keeping track of what makes me so ill when I eat, and pretty much I have come to the conclusion that everything does. I can't pin point just one item or food group, etc. So this will be the best way I know how to solve the problem. I am going to start doing this cold turkey on Monday. I really hope to see some change and that I start feeling better. I am sure tired of being sick all the time.

Halloween 2011

Halloween was so much fun this year. Yes, McKay doesn't really understand it, but after a few houses he did start to realize if he walks up to the door, someone hands him candy and he walks away. It was pretty dang cute, but as cute as his tiger costume. I wish I took a video of him walking around in it, raar'ing at people. He seemed to love dressing up and he was such a trooper. We had such a long day. We first went to Steve's work to show McKay off to everyone, then we stopped by Grandma My's work to trick-or-treat. We then went to Layton hills mall to trick or treat, and then finally home that night to do a few house around us. It really is just for the parents the first couple years. I just loved watching go to doors and try to take handfuls of candy, get distracted by all the cute pumpkins on porches, and of course the best part for him was chowing down on the candy. We let him have a little, afterall, he did all the work for it, right?

The aftermath of a Kit Kat bar.
He sure loves chocolate, just like his Daddy

Caught red handed, or should I say chocolate handed, sneaking a candy while trick or treating

He know's right where the good stuff is

Aw, proud Daddy and his tiger cub

The Friday before Halloween, Steve's family had a party. It was such a fun night, even though I didn't win at the dance off. It must have just been a bad day for me because I have KILLER dance moves.

We had a contest to see who could make the scariest monster face. I certainly was far from scary. Actually, my whole little family was far from scary. We just can't help but be cute, even when we are trying to be mean.

We topped the party off with the classic game of, eat a donut off a string without using your hands. Most of the peoples fell off before they could finish but it was fun. I went home finding donut in my hair and on my clothes. Hopefully this party will be a tradition because it was such a blast!