Santa?!!!!!!!???

We told Lily we were going to see Santa. She was excited and was ready to put on her "hoHO" hat! As we circled through the mall looking for him - she called out "Santaaaaa where are you." And then we found him. We were all still kicks and giggles until it came time to sit on his lap... She was less than thrilled and quickly pulled out all of her little cute/sad tricks. All I can say is that Santa was.. um... less than jolly himself. He truly summed up what we expected an Alaskan Santa to be. We paid for our pictures and laughed all the way home -- we'll surely be able to tell Lily about her trip to see her Alaskan Santa. At least it wasn't all out bawling this year!

DISNEY WORLD!!!

We had a blast... what can I say. We had a great time in a magical place, with some great friends, food and fun!! Mozzie and Papa Pernell GRACIOUSLY flew all the way up to Alaska for us to have our fun in the sun. As you can see from the pictures.... we desperately needed the sun.
We had a wonderful time - the kids did great AND Mozzie and Papa survived! Thanks to them... the only way we were willing to go was if we didn't have to fly with the kids!
We were able to see all the parks with the great military discount that we got! We spent day 1 in the Magic Kingdom doing all things Disney. Days 2 - 5 we saw Epcot, toured the countries, Hollywood Studios and the Animal Kingdom! The food was amazing and Disney was SUPER helpful with all of the allergies/food restrictions I had while there. We enjoyed our hotel and even swimming in the pool.... OUTSIDE? Can you believe that? People can swim in water that's outside without freezing. Who would have thought...
I tortured our friend when I made them endure Figment's ride... my favorite as a child. It wasn't my fault that we rode the Jungle Snooze (Cruise) OR this fine ride showcased here.

We were able to ride Space Mountain even though it was closed... thoroughly enjoyed the Hollywood Tower of Terror and the Toy Story Mania rides! Those were some of our very favorites among others. We even enjoyed all of the Christmas decorations! What a GREAT time of year to go to Disney... we hardly waited in lines at all. We even had a great team plan our trip and itenarary at NO charge to us! Let me know if you're planning a trip to Disney and I'll pass you their information!

Lily and her veggies...

And this video is older... but still so cute. Lily LOVES Nemo and she gets really worried about him - she's constantly telling him what to do! LOL So before he gets taken away Lily tries to warn him several times. Now when she watches it, she repeats several full lines... mimics everyone (Bruce the shark is hilarious) and usually always screams about 2 seconds before anything scarey happens and then reassures me "ok mama, it's ok" HAhaha. Funny girl. I had some of Reese giggling.. but I deleted them by accident. Oops!

Christmas Cookies and Bathroom stories... wait, did I say bathroom?

Yep - that's right. Bedtime stories sounds more appropriate - but not here :o) Lily is currently taking notice of the potty and occasionally wants to sit there... She's made a little progress and managed to do her thang once or twice - but we don't hold our breath. Today was particularly funny because not only was she tring to do her... um.. #2 thang (again, only partially successful and even funnier to watch Josh clean it up) - she asked for her book and politely sat and read it. What did we do? Grab the camera like good little parents.

We decided to have a little fun... err - make a little mess. Ok, more like A LOT of mess and make some Christmas cookies! I made them all up, allergen free of course -- and prepared the icing during nap time! Then it was time to decorate. Lily had a BLAST and especially loved the sprinkles. She would get so excited when asked for the sprinkles that she'd start saying "skpwinfoisoid" and look at you in a hurry for you to pass them her way!! Despite her sprinkling MUCH more than her cookies - it was a good time AND the cookies? YUMMMMY.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

We miss our families for sure... but we decided to do Thanksgiving our way. Complete with a chicken (no turkey here!) and a full menu of dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free food! Believe it or not, it was all GREAT!
Reese even enjoyed her first solid foods - some yummy sweet potatoes!











Lily appreciated our efforts and ate her WHOLE PLATE! She even had some seconds! (Josh had thirds but shhh, don't tell that I told you that)

 

Bath time is SO much fun

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

We are alive and well... I just haven't caught up on here lately! WHEW - forgive me... my hands are fuller than you can imagine!
Lily's tests did come back. It basically just shows allergic responses are going on in her GI tract. So for now, she is to remain dairy, soy and gluten free. In December we'll trial her on gluten and reintroduce it into her diet to see how it goes! Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.
Reese continues to be a sweet, cute and absolutely adorable little girl! She's smiling and giggling a ton - she loves being on her belly and playing with ANYONE who will give her attention! She has a temper for sure and will let you know immediately if you're not doing what she wants you to do! She does suck/chew on her hands but is primarily a paci girl! We've had some ups and downs with possible allergies with her lately but we *think* we're in the clear. She hasn't started solids yet because of this! She's starting to be able to sit up for small moments on her own - mostly on a soft surface because she'll face plant at any moment in time! She loves to be scared and just laughs with her whole body when you startle her! She also thinks Lily is the funniest thing around.
Lily has proven to be one smart cookie. She cracks us up (and drives us crazy...) every single day. She's learning a ton and I couldn't even begin to count the words in her vocabulary. She's very... charming. We think she has a future in the arts considering how dramatic and expressive she can be! She is the life of the party everywhere we go and people just adore her. That same spunk can drive mom and daddy to the edge some days as well!! We're just so thankful to have a healthy, happy girl. She's a different child since going on her diet and we've thankfully had solid stools for over 3 weeks now! Never thought a turd would be so exciting...
We celebrated Halloween by carving our Elmo pumpkin and then heading to church for our Harvest Party. Reese was a doll and just happy to be in her stroller and Lily had a blast! She didn't know what to do with herself with all the cool things to do! She hardly even noticed all the candies and treats that she couldn't eat! She enjoyed her bottle caps, sweettarts and nerds though! Thanks to "Mozzie" for sending the adorable ladybug costumes. They both were SO stinking cute I could just eat'em up. You can see a bit of Lily's personality in the picture below... including her climbing into the basket on the stroller and demanding to go out to the car this way. Ahhh, that's my child. Miss Independent.

It's here!! Send me an email or a note if you'd like a new catalog! I've got new jewelry on the way if you want to come over and see it OR if you'd like to host a party! If you're not here in Alaska (as most of you aren't... darn it...) you can host a catalog party and earn discounted and even free jewelry! Wonderful company to work for... because YOU are much more important than what you wear... it's Just Jewelry (get it? just jewelry? nothing more... because you're MUCH more than that!)

And... just a little favorite here :)



I have pictures to post - but alas, I have no time it seems. Imagine that with 2 under 2?? For those of you that haven't heard - Lily has had a time lately with her tummy. She's been intolerant to dairy (more specifically the milk protein) since she was tiny, but we kinda thought we had outgrown that! She doesn't eat any primary dairy (cow's milk, yogurt, cheese...etc) but we had been giving her bites of foods prepared with dairy here and there. Well... what we thought was going well, quickly went astray! Lily just had a lovely 6 weeks worth of diarrhea (sorry for the gross information here. Would you like me to include pictures??) All of this resulted in many loads of laundry, a nasty rash, and a cranky child (wait... she was already a... "spirited" child). We got to see the GI doc this week as she was visiting from Hawaii and she proposed she think Lily now has a soy allergy. Ohhhhhhhhhh bother.... that's quite a diet this kiddo will be on! If you've ever read labels - you know right about now that soy and/or dairy is in EVERYTHING! So, we prepped Lily (read 1.5 days of no eating, only clear liquids and 8 doses of Miralax to clean her out) and all went in Thursday morning for her to have a scope! She had an endoscopy all the way down into her small intestines and then a colonoscopy. The dr said afterwards that Lily had a lot of mucus in her stomach which could be normal... other than that, her small intestines looked very "worn out" she said - not like they were suppose to look... very bumpy where they were suppose to be smooth and so forth. Her colon had some irritation and lymph nodes present that would come with an allergy response... but this area was not as bad as she was expecting.
Sooooooo all in all - we just have to wait for the biopsies to give us results! She didn't seem alarmed and said she was still expecting the same results as before the procedure... possible allergies -- as well as she wanted to test for celiac disease. So we're just in a holding pattern for now until we hear! It'll be a few weeks... so we're just sticking tight.
We appreciate your thoughts and prayers - but we truly feel blessed. We'll be glad to have an answer and get this little girl on her way to feeling 100%!

 

Well, I was going to get a cute "matching" picture of the girls again. This was before church... and you can see how happy these two were. LOL - so we just decided to go with the one shot and try again another day. HA Reese now weighs 10lbs and is just over 11 weeks old! Lily is 24lbs and almost 20 months old! CRAZY!

 

This moment was slightly sweeter... required no bribes and ended without tears OR tantrums!

 

 

The Loves of my life... starting with the big guy in the middle!
Thanks to Aunt Nina and Uncle Scott for the girls' outfits!

 

Awww - this was sweet Lily somewhere around 8-10 weeks!

 

Peek-a-boo

 

This picture really wasn't as sweet as it looks... the unedited version probably shows my hands bribing Lily with jelly bean (our latest, unapproved parenting tactic)

 

Gig'em Aggies (Josh interpreted this picture for me...)

Grandma and Poppy to the rescue!

That's right - Grandma and Poppy Elston came to rescue us from exhaustion! It was a quick trip for Grandma - but she sure was a favorite around here! Lily seems to occupy anyone that will give her attention :) We failed to take ANY pictures it seems? I sure hope Grandma and Poppy got some!! Lily hasn't mastered any of the grandma's names... but she sure now how to act goofy like Papa and call for Poppy (and she still does! daily!) Guess it goes hand in hand with her being a daddy's girl!

 

Love the orange shirt by the way!

Poppy and Josh helped give me a new closet!! I didn't get before pictures... but here it is after! All the shelves and drawers are new and I now have 2 hanging racks where I had 1 before! Reese's things are now loaded into the shelving unit and it's GREAT! Thanks for all the hard work guys!!!

 

I'm still doing clippies at www.hyenacart.com/KKsClippies -- just a little slower than before :) Here is a set from this week! It's a "custom" set... meaning not what I had in stock but specifically what the customer asked for! A monkey, shamrock and a cupcake!

 

Here's Reese in some of our VERY favorite PJs of Lily's!

 

And in a clippie of her own!

 

Finally - Lily decided to wear a little something else on her head...

 

And her infamous "tripod" -- she started doing this and we eventually named it! Now she does it on command - LOL This one is even a no hands version!

 

We miss you Papa!!!

And we'll be missing Mozzie too as she flies out tonight... CRY!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA





Our first family outing! We took Lily to the zoo to see the "Moo" (moose) and "Raaaar" (bears, tigers and all animals that roar) Everything else barks like a dog :) Ohh but the birds... they do tweet!