Its Tomato time!!!!

My Kitchen window sill....

Roofs all done!

They didn't quite finish the roof in one day... this am they worked for about an hour and then cleaned up for a few hours. They did an amazing job cleaning the yard. The roof looks great and is vented and the second floor is the same temp as the first floor!!! YAHHHH!!! Keira is one step closer to moving upstairs!

Water Country!!

Keira's Uncle Joe got us free tickets for Water Country. Keira was in heaven and Mike took the day off so it was a fun day!

A morning moment

Keira's book obsession continues. As soon as I got her out of her crib this morning she went to the living room and got a book and wanted someone to read it to her. Daddy was still in bed as you can see....

Rice chex!

After Keira spent our last playdate eating Aiden's entire container of Rice Chex I got her her own box. Its gluten/wheat free so we are good to go. She is obsessed. Today her diet is Rice Chex and breastmilk. I guess its better than chips!!

What did I get myself into???

Mike finally agreed to let me try cloth diapers!!!! If you aren't familiar with the "new" cloth diapers you should check them out! They are wayyyy different from the dust rag cloth diapers that our grandparents used to fasten on us with pins. They have some snazzy and very expensive cloth diapers nowadays. My idea is to try them.. and since we are trying them to save money I had to stay away from those adorable expensive ones.
I ordered a dozen unbleached Indian pre folds
http://www.little-lions.com/page3.html

and 3 Thirsties diaper covers
http://www.babycottonbottoms.com/thirstiesdiapercover.htm

We will keep you posted on how it goes once they get here and we try them out!!

Good Bye old roof

The old moss covered roof. Tomorrow the roof should hopefully be done ( new shingles etc and vented. They claim that it will be done in 1 day. They will be here bright and early at 7 am. Today they dropped off all the materials, ladders, and a HUGE dumpster in our driveway.

Yup Keira is eating her BBQ chips with a fork. Tooth number 8 has made its appearance!!! Its barely in but I am keeping my fingers crossed that soon it will be over until the next tooth arrives. K is no fun when she is teething.. she is whining, won't play and won't eat solids. Her diet the past few days has been Breastmilk and chips!
The big dumpster
The shingles and ridge vent.

I was desperate for a second to myself to I could eat some lunch so I gave Keira daddy's poker set to play with. Actually I think its Uncle Greg's but daddy is borrowing it. As you can imagine the poker chips are ALL over my house but I did get to scarf down a turkey sandwich with only 4 interruptions of K bringing me books to read. She is obsessed with books. All day long she brings me book after book after book!
In other less exciting news our truck failed its yearly state inspection this morning.... and Mike is pretty sure the Jetta will fail as well when we get it inspected in October. We don't want to put money into either of them because they are getting old and unreliable- and getting a new car is not an option at the moment. Not sure what we will do. I HATE MONEY!!!!!

The story of the window.....part 1

So if you read this blog you know that Mike is working on converted the extremely outdated bedroom on the second floor ( one of 2) into Keira's new bedroom. Mike has totally gutted the room down to the studs and is doing new everything (even electrical and insulation). We have an undormered Cape house which means we have slanted walls on the second floor ( which is essentially the attic) and not alot of windows. We had hoped to bump out the roof and create 2 full floors and add lots of windows but we don't have the 10-20,000 right now to do that. So what we did do is put in a larger window in Keira's new room to let in more light. Mike bought the window in Ebay for half price( its a brand new window). Yesterday he tore out the window and went to MA to pick up the new window. As he was working to frame in the new window it started raining and raining and lightening and crazy raining with wind etc. So Mike had to tape plastic and nail random pieces of wood over the window to keep out the rain. Thus out house looked very ghetto ( check out the pics below). Today Mikes dad and Uncle came to help him install the new window and its in!!!!! It looks great!!! I am so excited to see Keira's room when its all done. Anyways the pics below ( a bit out of order) are of the old window ( the dark pics) and the new bigger window and Keira stealing daddy's drink.
In other exciting news our roof is being totally redone and vented this Wednesday!!!!!!!! Which means that it will no longer be 100 degrees on the second floor! Of course that also means that we are very very poor at the moment. We might be eating alot of beans and rice for the next few weeks till we recover from the cash it cost to do the roof!

The story of the window.....part 2

The new window
new window

old window

Where the old window was before Mike cut out the hole for a bigger window.
Ghetto plastic over the window
Of course the sun came out after the rain storm...........

Playtime

We had a playdate at our house yesterday. Here Keira is stealing Aidan's snacks!
Louisa, Aidan, and Keira ( K still has Aidan's snack in her hand!)

Louisa and Keira

Allergies and stuffed shells

Yesterday I made 2 pans of stuffed shells. Here they are before I put the sauce on. The foil wrapped part in the corner of the pan is Keira's meat, egg , spice and spinach part minus the cottage cheese and mozzarella part. The shells came out great. I used only cottage cheese this time instead of my usual cottage cheese and ricotta mix. With the ground beef and spinach and tomato sauce its delicious. I made some rice pasta for Keira and mixed the pasta with the meat mixture and the sauce and she loved it! Even the spinach as it was hidden so she didn't know she was eating veggies!!!
Per Keira's doctor every few weeks we try wheat, dairy and soy with her to see if she has outgrown issues with them. I thought we might be having some luck as she had been eating wheat for about a week and doing fine and then the spitting up started again. She can eat about a tablespoon of yogurt without any issues. Annoyed with all of it I finally made an appointment with a pediatric allergy and immunology specialist in Boston that comes highly recommended from a friend of mine who takes her son with a severe milk allergy to this doc. I am just not sure if Keira has some mild food intolerance's or just issues digesting stuff. Maybe she doesn't have allergies at all and has some gut issues. All I know is she is 14 months and spits up with certain foods and gets a red red diaper rash with certain foods. I also want some answers about her probable asthma and wheezing and her environmental allergies ( we give her Zyertec now and that seems to help with the constant eye and nose rubbing) I need some guidance about the whole thing. Even though her regular doc said that the tests can be inaccurate with children they might be able to tell us something and there are many options for allergy testing. Enough is enough. I need some answers. We don't need referrals so I just made an appointment with the specialist . Of course its not till the end of October but it will come soon enough. So back to the wheat, soy, and dairy free ( with the exception of a bit of yogurt) diet for Keira. Its such a pain because she wants to eat exactly what we are eating and not something different I have made for her.

Lake fun

Yesterday we headed to the lake with some of my mama friends and their babies. The weather was in the 70's so perfect for being outside but a bit chilly in the shade for the babies when they were wet.