Going Plural: So Many Pictures

     Summer has come and gone and I have not done a blog post. I was kind of hoping that nobody would notice.   It has been a fun and BUSY summer or at least it felt that way.

     I have enjoyed having Riley home during the day more. We got a chance to spend more time together and it is nice to have my big helper around. This summer, the Ames Police Department did an event, pretty often, called donuts in the park. It was fun to take the kids to go talk to the police officers, eat a donut and play for a while. It was always in a different location each time but with the same officers running it. My kids loved it! Sorry, no pictures, we were too busy having fun. The PD provided donuts, wipes(very thoughtful), chalk, bubbles and had a police car with the lights turned on.

    Keenan and Jon spent a very rough 9 days destroying then completely re-doing the bathroom in our house! The kids and I went to stay with Grandma for the week in Marion. I think I had the better end of the deal. We had a great time visiting! The kids got to swim, when the water was warm enough, it was a strangely cool week. We had a picnic at Palisade's State Park then they played on the beach for a bit. Movie nights at Grandmas are extra special too! When I came back, the bathroom was finished and beautiful, almost if by magic. The rest of the house was trashed though and took some time to clean up. Oh well, too much project for too little time. Thank you to Jon and Sheryl for all of your help. I love it and I think I am over the shock of feeling like I am walking into someone elses house when I walk into the bathroom.

My garden has been doing well this year. I planted pole beans, cucumbers, slicing tomatoes, orange cherry tomatoes, little eggplants and cherry peppers. I also planted some kale but the zinnias that Riley planted went crazy and are almost as tall as me. They are beautiful, she is so proud! She received the seeds as a part of her birthday gift from both Mom and Diane. All of the kids like to help but Riley is the biggest help with picking. The state says she has to go back to school so I am short of help now.

I have also had a number of Dr. appointments for both Riley and August this summer. Riley came back positive for a blood test for celiac disease at her 6 year well check and we were referred to a Dr. in Des Moines for an endoscopy and further education. August's eczema has been really bad this year so I have been bouncing around to appointments to discuss it and then to the store to buy all of the creams and unscented soap.

     Meet Fuzzy, the bear. Riley received him as a gift when we went for her endoscopy in July. She has been in love with him ever since. She did really well and the nurses loved her because she was so friendly, chatty and happy. They are more accustomed to kids freaking out as soon as the parent leaves them in a strange environment. She was happy to leave me, especially when she was getting pulled away in a wagon while getting to play a spelling game on a tablet! After speaking to our doctor right after the procedure was over(really fast by the way) she seemed uncertain. I had to wait until our follow up appointment at the end of July to find out more.

    Our appointment arrived and sure enough the doctor confirmed the suspicion. The tissue samples were, without a question, celiac when viewed under a microscope. The villi lining the small intestine were very blunted. I supposed I should circle back to why she had a blood test in the first place. Riley is very short when compared to a group of her peers and she had dropped off of her own growth curve for height. She can catch up because they also did an x ray to look at the growth plates in her leg and she has the bone structure of a 5 year old. A person with celiac can eat a very healthy diet but as long as they are eating any foods that contain wheat, rye, barley or oats (unless certified gluten free) they can be malnourished. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder where a persons own immune system attacks the small intestine after consuming gluten and damages the villi inhibiting nutrient absorption. There is no cure and someone does not outgrow it but it can be managed with a gluten free diet.

     I was sent home and told to follow a strict gluten free diet. I want to have a safe zone for Riley and cross contamination is a big issue so I have cleaned up our kitchen and removed most of the products containing gluten. I have stopped baking things with gluten and just buy some bread for myself and clean up well after getting it out. All of our main meals are completely gluten free. This is what I am comfortable with at this time. There is a wide enough variety of food that is naturally gluten free so I am in the transition of retaining my reflexes when it comes to cooking, coming up with a new set of favorites and modifying others if I can.

   I am currently working with an allergist on improving August's skin. I am trying to figure out which products make it worse, sadly just a lot of trial and error as there are a lot of moving parts. He is also going to have a few more allergy panels done to see if there are any other issues that may be causing his skin to overreact. He is going to tested for other obvious allergens(wheat, soy, etc) and for environmental allergens. The doctor said that most people never find out what is causing the eczema. It doesn't make me feel very positive but at least I am trying and I have been seeing some improvement with our current routine.

1st Grade
Riley had her first day of 1st grade on Thursday! She came home excited and in a great mood!

Other Silliness - a few of the things that we have been up to
Keenan made a mock up of our house for a chart for paying off the house and printed some for Riley to color. She had a lot of fun coloring it and took great care doing so.

Riley is making a cupcake shop out blocks and displaying them in a pretend case. She also had prices and let me buy one.

She made a map in the picture below, I love it!

The above picture says, Mom I love snuggling with you

This drawing Riley made of our house looks like a castle.

Beauty And The Beast Play

Riley received tickets to go to the play from the Munsons for her birthday. Before the play we went to Chick-Fil-A together. She loved it! The actors were really fun and did a great job. She got to go up and meet them when it was over. She wore her Belle costume also, just a little extra fun!

Keenan's Birthday was June 19th

Silliness Continued...

Make the fun
Be the fun

Just some dress up fun!

Nora had a great time painting!

Riley was busy at making her art creations on the back deck. I was noticing a trend in most of her portraits being goofy! I guess that is where we are right now and that is fine with me.

Riley's Art Store
This is a funny one. One day Riley said she wanted an art store so I said okay and set out a bunch of materials and she worked on this ALL day. She painted and colored and glued. Then...she wanted to sell her art and was really mad when I told her that we were not going to set up a stand like a lemonade stand to sell her art. She later set it all out in the driveway while I was harvesting things from the garden and she started hollering, "art for sale" at the top of her lungs. This didn't go on very long but it was really funny. I couldn't help but laugh. She followed me back in when I was done picking vegetables.