Halloween 2014 {2nd year on the Ketogenic Diet}

Can I just say how glad I am that Halloween is over? It is probably the hardest holiday on the Ketogenic Diet. Thanksgiving has food, but a lot of that is easy to make similar Keto approved items. Christmas has candy, cookies, and gingerbread decorating parties, but it also has presents and singing. Valentine's is kind of a pain when your kid can't eat any goodies, but it's the easiest one to ignore and there are always cute stuffed animals to give instead of candy. There is quite a bit of food involved with Easter, but it's pretty easy to stuff eggs with money and little prizes instead of candy. Halloween though, pretty much revolves around candy Owen can't eat. He also can't wear face paint, use temporary tattoos, or carve pumpkins without gloves. Even with gloves, we have to watch to make sure he doesn't get anything above the gloves.

Now a huge part of it is just Rod and I stressing about things that usually don't happen, but it makes things tense instead of fun. We end up worrying about every possible thing that can possibly go wrong. Although I never worried about him biting through a glow stick which someone else's Keto kid did this year. By the way, if your child does ever eat a glow stick, poison control recommends giving them milk. Then if they are on the Ketogenic Diet, you have to give them a bunch of oil to counteract the milk. One more thing to add to the worry list for next year, right?

Owen just wanted to poke at his pumpkin with the little carving blade

Anyway, most of the things we worried about and prepared for, never actually became problems. The kids had a blast, as usual. Owen only asked twice if he could have any candy. Most of the time, he was just happy to get to ring doorbells. He LOVES ringing doorbells. This year he also discovered door knockers and had fun with those too. Brenna thinks all the candy belongs to her. She just helps herself to everyone's treat bags. She won't share her own though, like a typical two year old.

Morgan told Brenna that her pumpkin was cute. To which Brenna replied " No It's not! It's scary!"

I didn't get many pictures of the kids in their costumes, as usual. I just don't seem to have enough hands for the camera. I only made one costume piece this year, everything else was recycled from previous years or the dress up box.

Devon was a flapper, Connor was a hunchback, Cameron was a troll, although he couldn't wear the mask most of the time because Brenna was scared to death of it. Duncan was a wizard (I wouldn't let him be a which hunter, because I'm mean), Morgan was a witch ( which is the reason Duncan wanted to be a witch hunter and the real reason I wouldn't let him), Owen was Frodo again, he refused to be anything else. Brenna was a butterfly, fairy princess. All three because being one or the other simply wasn't good enough. Baby Carlitos was supposed to be a tiger, but he was really grumpy due to cutting teeth and refused to wear his costume. Luckily he's adorable anyway.

The kids are actually coming down off their sugar high pretty well. I didn't get any complaints when I told them they had to get dressed and do their chores before they could have any candy. The Candy Fairy arrived late Halloween night and replaced Owen's candy with a Lego set and some color change glasses, which he is thrilled with and Mommy finally got to take a nap, so we're all pretty happy right now.

4th of July!

We started our 4th out by rushing to get some food made up for Owen so that we could actually leave the house since we took last weekend off of cooking to go camping. Once we had enough meals to make it through the day, we headed out to the island for fireworks and a barbeque with Rod's family.

After dinner, we headed back out here to do some more fireworks with my Sister and her kids and their Dad and Stepmom. We were also joined by Kristi, Simon, and Baby Carlitos.

Finally, we headed home and put some very tired kids to bed. 

Father's Day!

Yes, I know I'm a few days late with this post, but it's been a long busy week and I've been tired. I've actually fallen asleep on the couch every night after dinner and had to woken up to go to bed. So, the Father's Day post didn't get done until today.

We spent most of the morning making Keto food, then we headed over to Rod's parents house for dinner. Kristi and Simon joined us with baby Carlitos.  I can't believe how big Carlitos is getting. He's getting rolls now! The kids also got to play with their cousins for a while. Owen cried and cried when Caleb left. The Zonisimide withdrawal is making him extremely emotional. We dealt with this type of behavior when we started the Zonisimide. It leveled off after about a month. We'll be taking him off of it very slowly and I'm really hoping he doesn't stay this emotional the whole time.

Barlkey got a little jealous that his Mama was holding the baby.

Rod and I got a new barbeque for our combined birthday/ Father's Day present. Our old one gave up a while ago and we've been using the little camping one ever since. I didn't get pictures of it yet, but Connor and I set it up and we used it for Rod's birthday dinner on Monday. Today, I used it again to make a barbeque hamburger for Owen who was upset about not having hamburgers with everyone else on Monday, but I didn't have a new burger recipe ready for him then. He was very happy to get a hamburger today even if he only got 19 grams and had to have 5 grams of mayonnaise on it and a syringe of oil and a glass of cream to go with it.

Since we've been a little behind this year, we also gave Kristi her Mother's Day present on Father's Day. Hey, we were only a little over a month late!

The big boys helped grandpa work on a new puzzle. The little kids tried to help, but I'm sure you can figure out how well that went.

Grandpa and Duncan managed to find time for a little nap.

Then we headed home and put some very tired kids to bed. The big kids had been to the prom the night before and the little kids had a sleepover with a cousin. So everyone was very tired and beyond ready for bed. Then Mommy and Daddy got to watch a movie all by ourselves. I won't bother telling you which movie because it was so boring I already forgot the name of it and I definetely wouldn't recommend watching it. It was nice to have some quiet time with the kids asleep though. That doesn't happen often now that we have teenagers.

Updates {June 13, 2014}

The quilt Owen got during his latest hospital stay.

Yesterday was my birthday! I got some yarn. Gorgeous merino/ silk yarn that is actually going to be something for me since I refuse to waste anything with silk in it on the kids. I also got some new stitch markers and some really nice artisan hand lotion. Best of all my Mom came up for a visit. Due to busy schedules on both ends, we don't see each other much lately. Today, I used some of my birthday money (yes, I got money too) to get my hair cut for the first time in almost a year. It feels so much nicer now.

Rod brought home dinner last night so I didn't have to cook on my birthday. Although I did make shortcakes since I decided I wanted strawberry shortcake with our own fresh, homegrown strawberries instead of cake. That also meant that the kids didn't have to try to shove 43 candles into a birthday cake for me. Which is always a good thing.

This is our busy season! I know we're always busy, but June gets really crazy. My mom and nephew Braeden have birthdays on the 9th, then my birthday is the 12th, then Rod's is the 16th, and my nephew Tyler's is the 22nd. Throw in Father's day and it just makes me thankful that we don't have any weddings or graduations to attend this year. Especially with Owen's recent hospital stay and the upcoming ones. It looks like we will be in the hospital every 2-4 weeks for quite a while. Tomorrow the older kids are going to the Starlight Teen Prom. Devon is really looking forward to it, but Connor and Cameron are attending under duress because Mom thinks it's good for them. There's also the Boy Scout Camping/River Rafting trip at the end of the month and Devon leaves for Boston the 25th. I can't even keep track of everything enough to blog about it. We should have some good pictures this month though! Assuming that I remember to charge the camera, of course!

Easter Eggs!

My husband is so wonderful that he decided to dye Easter eggs with the kids while Devon and I were in Seattle visiting Kristi, Simon, and little Carlitos.

Dying Easter eggs is especially fun when you have an assortment of eggs to start with. We have white, beige, pinkish, green, and blue eggs along with the tiny spotted quail eggs. We also have all sizes from the quail eggs up to jumbo. It's always fun to see how the different dye colors look on the different colored eggs.

Rod even remembered to put gloves on Owen. We don't know if Easter egg dye would cause him to have seizures, but after the markers and the pumpkin did, we aren't taking any chances.

Brenna threw a little fit because Rod wouldn't let her hold a cup of egg dye. All the other 23 month olds get to hold their own Easter egg dye, don't they?

She finally calmed down enough to enjoy the finished product though.

Didn't the quail eggs turn out great?