Classic Evelyn Moment

Evelyn brought her baby doll to me and asked me to feed it. I informed her that if her babies needed fed that it was her job to take care of them. She proceeded to lift up her shirt and say, "Ummmm, where did dey doh?" I just laughed while she continued to pull her skin around and look for "them". She then started talking to herself.

"Hmmmm... belly button... uhhh... dere dey are!" Feeding of the doll commenced.

Headed to Iowa

Me and the girls are headed to Iowa tomorrow and won't be back in Kansas City until the new year. Here's a few photos of the girls over the last week.


Evelyn hiding inside her kitchen set.


Ready for the snow! Although she really doesn't like getting snow on her shoes.


Happy baby!

4 Months

Happy 4 month birthday Annabelle!

Weight: 15 lbs. 12 oz.
Length: 24 1/2 inches

Clothing Size: some 3-6 month, but she fills out her 6-12 month clothes as well

Favorite Activities: watching Evelyn, being held by mommy, smiling, napping, nursing

New Tricks: Rolling over both ways, holding toys and putting them in her mouth

Sleeping Habits: Taking 3 naps a day. Going to bed at 8, waking around 2 and 5 to eat, then at 7:30-8 for the day. No more swaddle!

More Allergy Problems

Evelyn is healing up from her latest allergic reaction.

Sunday night I thought her belly looked bloated. It hasn't looked like that since we took her off of gluten.

I noticed Monday morning that she had some blisters on the back of her thighs and bum and racked my brain to think of what she could have gotten into.

Then it clicked. I asked her what she had for snack at church. Her enthusiastic response..."fish"! Ugh. We pack a special snack for her, but apparently she found a goldfish cracker somewhere and decided to give it a try. The result was a day of blistery rash that seems to be healing up now. I knew they contained gluten, but when I looked up the ingredients online I discovered that they are cooked in sunflower oil as well.

We are currently having her tested for celiac. The traditional way to test for celiac if a child is displaying symptoms is to have them eat gluten every day for 2 weeks and then do a blood test. The results are not certain from this method though. So if they are positive at that point then you have them eat gluten for 6 weeks. Then you put them under general anesthesia and do a scope to take out a piece of their intestines for testing. I REALLY don't want to put her through all that. She would be a wreck the whole time while eating all that gluten and I would rather her not have to undergo anesthesia.

So we opted for another option. We sent in a swab of her cheek to Entero Labs to do a genetic test for celiac. It will tell us if she carries the gene that would make it possible for her to have celiac. If she has the gene, it will be assumed that she has developed celiac based on her symptoms. We get the results back in about a week from now.

Part of me is hoping beyond hope that she doesn't have it. It would be a radical lifestyle change for all of us. We would have to eradicate all gluten from our house. We already struggle to find restaurants where she doesn't react to the food, but we would have to be even more careful about this.

But on the other hand it would be nice to have an answer for why she has these problems. Her true allergy tests come back that she has no problems with any foods. It was only the ALCAT food sensitivities test that gave us any results. If she doesn't have celiac I will be on a quest to figure out how to heal her little body so that hopefully one day she can eat without worry!

Sweetened Pork Roast

This is one of my new favorite dinners. We had it last night and it was a hit with everyone.

Sweetened Pork Roast

1 pork shoulder roast (bone-in)
unfiltered apple juice
apricot spread
salt
pepper

Season all sides of the roast liberally with salt and pepper. Sear in a pan over medium-high heat on all sides (1-2 minutes per side). Pour 1/2 cup of water into the pan to loosen up the brown bits.

Place in a crock pot on low heat. Pour in apple juice to come 1/3-1/2 the way up the roast. Add 2 heaping tablespoons of apricot spread and whisk to combine. Pour the water from your searing pan over the roast. Roast on low for 1 hour, then reduce heat to warm for around 8 hours.

Remove the roast from the liquid and pour the liquid into a pan to make gravy.

Serve over egg noodles with roasted carrots.

Family Pictures

Enjoy!

The last one made me tear up a bit. :)

Evelyn-isms

Evelyn is both a challenge and a joy to me everyday. She does such funny and entertaining things sometimes. Some things that always bring a smile to my face...

~I had the space heater turned on in my bedroom and she walked in front of it, pulled her pants down, and warmed her tushy.

~She loves to turn the noise machine on for Annabelle before she goes to sleep and reminds herself every time to "no welly loud". She used to try to turn it up as loud as it would go.

~She likes us to walk around the house in circles with her. Our house has a loop you can walk and she is content to push a stroller or just walk around it for much longer than you would think it would be entertaining. A couple nights ago I think the 4 of us spent half an hour just walking around in circles while Scott and I chatted.

~She calls her white forks her Jesus forks (pronounced: she-she fok) because she has a white lego that says Jesus on it as well.

~She refers to going potty as either yellow poopy or brown poopy.

~When asked what she would like to eat she usually responds with either chips, meat, carrots, yogurt or french fries. One day though she asked for hot cow.

~It will be a miracle the day that I can keep clothes on her for the entire day. Every time I turn around she has peeled some article of clothing off. Her usual excuse is that it's either "aw dirty", "aw wet", or "too tight".

~She thinks tooting is absolutely hilarious and points out whenever someone does it while giggling.

~She is an absolute wreck on laundry day because she sees me putting her favorite shirts and pajamas in laundry baskets to take downstairs. This week she particularly upset to see her purple socks and blue monkey shirt have to go. She had to walk down to the basement with me and see me put them in the washer to be reassured that they would be ok.

~She loves to make Annabelle happy. She will give her hugs and kisses and bring her toys to cheer her up. Then she will tell me, "Ah-belle no sad!"

~She will go through 5-6 napkins in the average dinner because she can't stand having any food on her hands, tray, or the table and hates reusing dirty napkins.

Sister Love

Annabelle - 3 Months

Annabelle turned three months old last week. It was much easier to keep on top of these posts when it was just Evelyn around to keep me busy!

Weight - 14 lbs.
Height - I have no idea :)
Clothing size - 3-6 months
Favorite things to do - smile and talk, nurse, be swaddled up tight, suck on her hands, play with her big sister

Halloween

For Halloween this year we continued the tradition of going to the zoo for Boo at the Zoo. Evelyn loved getting to see all the animals. She talked all morning about going to see the giraffes, monkeys, and bears.

The Gimpy Arm

A Night in the Life of the Behrens

We're having a rough week around here.

It started on Wednesday when Evelyn ate a chip that was cooked in sunflower oil. A single chip. She was up 8 times in the night that night. Yep, 8 times because of a single chip.

The next evening she was rough-housing with Scott and fell on her arm. She was in a lot of pain with it, so we called the nurse at urgent care. She recommended just giving her some pain reliever, putting ice on it, and having her rest, then see how she was doing in the morning. We decided that in the morning we wouldn't ask her about it or anything, just see how she acted. She woke up at 10:00 p.m. and spent most of the night with Scott sleeping in the recliner because she sobbed and cried "owie" if you left her alone.

Friday night was also rough with Evelyn waking up multiple times in pain and Annabelle deciding to sleep poorly as well.

Last night I decided to actually pay attention to the time when we woke up in the night to get an idea of how she was really doing. Here's a run down of our night.

8:00 - both girls went to bed
11:00 - I went to bed
11:30 - Evelyn wakes up crying and needs comforted back to sleep
12:30 - Scott came to bed after being out with a friend for his birthday
2:30 - Annabelle wakes up to eat
3:30 - Evelyn wakes up
4:00 - Evelyn wakes up
4:30 - Evelyn wakes up and won't calm down or go back to sleep. She's ready for another dose of pain medicine, so we give her that and after spending some time on daddy's shoulder, she falls back to sleep.
6:00 - Annabelle wakes up to eat
6:15 - I hear squeals of delight coming from the nursery
6:20 - The squeals turn to cries so I go feed Annabelle again to put her back to sleep
6:35 - More delightful squeals are heard and she doesn't want to go back to sleep
7:37 - Annabelle goes down for a nap
7:38 - I go back to bed
7:40 - Evelyn wakes up
8:00 - I give up and tell Scott I need to trade
8:15 - Annabelle wakes up

For Halloween Scott and I are being zombies. No costume needed.

Tummy Time

Annabelle has very little patience for laying on her tummy when she's awake, but I did convince her to try it out for a little while this afternoon. She's getting so big!

My Monkies

Hungry?

Scott was hanging out with Annabelle when she started to get fussy. She went after what she was looking for, but was quite disappointed when she didn't get the result she wanted.

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we took Evelyn and Annabelle to the pumpkin patch for the first time. Evelyn loved it! Annabelle wasn't a fan of how sunny it was.









Yes, she's waving at people. :)

2 Years Old!

My dear, sweet Evelyn is a 2-year-old. She turned 2 last month, but I'm a little late in posting because I was waiting to get these pictures of her.


She now weighs almost 23 lbs. This is a big weight gain for her that happened once we figured out some foods she is allergic/sensitive to including gluten and sunflower. Once we took those out of her diet, she quickly put on a few pounds!

Favorite Things...
How she says things is in parenthesis

Books: The Foot Book, What's Up Duck (Loud book), Every Cowgirl Needs a Horse (Neigh-neigh book), The Jesus Book (she-she book)

Animals: ducks (duh), geese (gee), horses (neigh-neigh), dogs (dah or puppy), cats (titty-tat)

Activities: Playing outside pushing her stroller or wagon, going to the park (swing slide), playing with duplos, reading, cooking in her play kitchen, playing in the sink with the water, cleaning-she dusts, vacuums, and mops, being mommy to her baby dolls

Foods: Meat and ketchup (meat-meat and chechup), french fries, carrots, bananas, berries, almonds, raisins, and plantain chips



Other New Things about our Cutie

Potty-training! She is mostly potty trained, except when chooses not to be.

She knows her colors and loves to tell you what color things are.

She has reached the "why?" phase. I get asked it at least 100 times a day. We are working on her not asking why when she is given a direct instruction, but instead saying "Ok, mommy". She's starting to catch on.

She's still taking one nap a day around 1:00. She goes to bed at 8:00 at night and wakes up anytime between 6:00-8:00 in the morning.

She is obsessed with flies when they get in the house. She wants them instantly swatted.

She can be very demanding about how she wants things and we are working on teaching her that she does not control everything, and that that's ok! She will tell you where she wants you to sit, which fork she wants to eat with, what assortment of stuffed animals and dolls she wants to sleep with, what Annabelle should be doing while she's awake, etc.

She has started saying, "I no like that" when we give her things to eat that don't look like something she is used to eating.

Whenever someone leaves the room or isn't around when she expects them to be, she will ask, "Where _____ go?"


There are so many wonderful things about her and her love of life. She is definitely a challenge for me each day, but her smile always warms my heart and brings me so much joy.

8 Weeks

My sweet little Annabelle is 8 weeks old!


She brings so much joy to our lives everyday.

Licking the Beaters

Evelyn has picked up on one of my favorite past times (who am I kidding, I still love it) and seems to enjoy it just as much as I did/do!

Comparison

In the pictures below Evelyn is one month old and Annabelle is almost 6 weeks old.


Evelyn


Annabelle

5 Weeks Old

Annabelle is 5 weeks old this week and growing like crazy. She is starting to fall into a more predictable pattern throughout the day which is nice. She goes to bed between 8-9 and gets up around 7. I think I preferred when she slept in later! She naps about 3-4 times a day and eats....a lot. :) Here's some recent pictures of my little beauty.

Trip to Iowa in Photos

2nd Annual Tometich Family Reunion
(Scott and Evelyn are missing because it was nap time)


Annabelle sleeping on her Aunt Mandy


The Behrens Family


Annabelle meeting Great-Grandma and Grandpa Behrens for the first time


Annabelle and her rolls sitting with her sister


Annabelle and Franklin

 

Evelyn pretending Abby is a horse

 

Evelyn eating with Jonathon and Ryan - I think she ate more than both of them combined

 

Evelyn and Annabelle in the outfits Aunt Mary got them

 

Annabelle hanging out with mommy