Trendy Girls...

Watch Out, Target... Part II

When Ava was a baby, Jeremy did a post on my blog called "Watch Out, Target..." It was a post with pictures about Ava's first time to sit up in the shopping cart. Well, I thought it was fitting to call this "Part II" since it was Greta's first time to sit up in the shopping cart :) This was also the first time she has sat on Daddy's shoulders :)

Sweet little smiling baby Greta:

Here is a picture of Ava (for comparison):

AHHHH!!! How strange is it that they are wearing the exact same outfit????!!! I promise I did not plan that! WOW! Too funny! I sure do love my baby girls!!

The Shrimp Basket

I probably talk way too much about the Shrimp Basket, but it is Ava's favorite joint. She talks about it all the time, so it naturally comes out in my blog posts all the time :) These pictures are from last Friday night. We were lucky that night. There was NO wait to be seated. We have waited as long as 1.5 hours to be seated. Sigh...the things we do for our children. I didn't get many photos of Ava because Greta kind of stole the show that night! She was in a great mood and was very content to play with her little toys that we brought.

Imaginary Play

When we play in the backyard, Ava pretends that she is going to go pick up some food from The Shrimp Basket. She gets on her tricycle and rolls around the yard until she is pretty far from me. She will then take my order and run to the farthest part of our yard to pick clover (which is pretend shrimp) After she picks some shrimp, she will get back on her tricycle and roll over to me :) It is pretty cute! 

I love seeing brain development in action. I love that she has an imagination. It is so cool that she doesn't have to have real shrimp to play like she is going to the Shrimp Basket. I know that imagination is just a normal part of development, but it is neat that I get to see this in action with MY child. :)

Here she is holding some "shrimp."

My other sweet baby girl.

This is actually "Diet Coke" :)

Picking Mommy's "shrimp" :)

Ready For Church

At The Mall

Daddy's Girl...

Who Knew?

I am blogging right now while my girlies sleep. We have a fun church activity later this evening, so I am hoping they both get the rest that they need.

About three weeks ago, I noticed some weird behavior from Ava. She was having a hard time getting to sleep for her nap and was waking fairly regularly during the night with night terrors. In the past, we have not had any problems with sleep. My kids are very good sleepers and nappers. We just don't have problems in that area. 

Jeremy suggested that she might be ready to outgrow her nap. I pulled out several of my sleeps books and read up on the subject. Statistically, most children do not outgrow naps until age 3.5-4. I had a really hard time believing that my 2 year old, who has always been right on target as far as the norm, would all of a sudden be ready to give up her nap that she so desperately needs. I just didn't buy it.

I started to think that it was her 2 year molars breaking through the gums. I started medicating her at night with Tylenol for pain relief and Orajel for numbness. That still did not do the trick.

So then I asked myself the one question that I knew Ava's pediatrician would ask if I was to take her in: "Have you done anything differently with her diet?" (Diet always makes a big difference) I started thinking about it and realized that, yes, I had done several things different. Ava's favorite flavor of anything is strawberry, so I had bought some strawberry flavored pop tarts, strawberry flavored nutri grain bars, strawberry flavored water drops, and sugar free strawberry jam. Yes, I know. Strawberry overload. The Nutri-Grain bars were for breakfast, the pop tarts were for snacks, the water drops were to add flavoring to her water because we don't drink juice, and the jam was for her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (And yes, I throw meat, veggies, and fruit into the mix)

I remembered a friend from church say that her son was allergic to blue food dye. His allergy was not one that caused breathing problems, it was one that caused hyperactivity and restlessness (the same symptoms that I was seeing in Ava) I decided to take a look at all of Ava's new foods and see what they all had in common. Do you want to know what I found? Red 40. In every last one of the foods that she was eating. I am not certain, but I believe that the number indicates the saturation of the dye. I will google it and find out. 

So, I decided to put all those foods away and try a little home experiment. I took her off of all the foods with the red 40 dye and replaced it with more natural foods (foods that she should have been eating all along, I just slacked off) I could tell a MAJOR improvement on day 1 of my little experiment. She took her nap with no problem whatsoever. It was the same with day 2 and day 3.

Then last night, we took our family out to eat at the Shrimp Basket. It is absolutely Ava's favorite place to go. She pretends to go to the Shrimp Basket when we are at home. And she asks for it whenever we leave the house for anything. I think it is so funny that she has a favorite :) Back to my story, though! I ordered her the child's shrimp basket (also her favorite) with cocktail sauce and ketchup (also faves) I wasn't even thinking about the red dye in either of those two things! She ate and we had a great evening. Fast forward to 3:00 a.m. Ava woke up screaming with another night terror. She laid in our bed this morning for an hour and a half bouncing off the walls. I think I have found my answer!

I am not ready to call this a food allergy. I will just call it a sensitivity. Either way, I am not going to give red 40 to her. Jeremy wants to have her tested, but I am a little resistant to spend money on proving something that I have already seen evidence of at home. But, since he is the leader and guider of our home, I will defer to him. This is something that will change the rest of her life and how she eats, so I guess I can understand why he wants a definite answer.

With all that being said, let me list a sample menu of what Ava's diet has looked like for the past few day:

Breakfast: Eggs and bacon or Peanut butter and honey toast (on low carb bread) and milk

Snack: Pretzels or baked pita crisps and ice water (it has to have the ice in it for Ava to drink it)

Lunch: Grilled chicken nuggets or Fish sticks with green beans, peas, or corn and ice water

Snack: Pretzels or baked pita crisps and ice water

Dinner: Fried chicken strips with Ranch dip (she has to have her ranch) with a vegetable and milk

I can tell that this diet has really made a difference. I am going to start adding more fresh fruit to her diet and see if that also helps.

I know from my education, that one of the first things a (good) doctor would do before prescribing ADHD medicine to a child is ask the parent to change the diet. I am very hesitant to give a child ADHD medicine just to make the hyperactivity go away. Since I am planning on homeschooling, I wouldn't give it to my kids anyway. There are too many side effects. So, hopefully, this will work for us.

To the Ava of the future who will one day be reading this: don't eat foods with red food dye in them! Don't even try it! :)

Alabama VS. Southern Miss

Last night was our first Alabama baseball game! Jeremy and Chris (another minister that works with our congregation) took all the teens to a game, so I decided to tag along with the girls. We had a really good time! It was cold and I certainly did not dress for the weather, but Jeremy came to the rescue and bought us a warm houndstooth blanket. We are slowly but surely getting acclimated to this Crimson Tide thing!

My Girls And Me

Last Sunday, I had planned for our family to all wear Red, White, and Blue to worship because the following day was President's Day. Let me just say that everyone did wear the color motif I picked out...except me! It is a good problem to have, so I am totally not complaining, but none of my blue dresses fit. They were all too big. So, I had to wear my green dress. No big deal, I guess :)

Miss Greta Beth

Miss Priss is officially a crawler!! She started doing the Army crawl a few days ago and has since moved on to bigger and better things :) She started getting around really well this morning. Luckily, our house is already baby-proofed from Ava. This baby girl brings so much joy to our lives!

Donkey Fast

Yes, my title is a weird one! But I can explain!

When Ava plays in the backyard, she likes to see how fast she can slide down her slide. She is totally creative and has decided that different characters from the movie "Shrek" dictate the rate of speed in which she slides. For example: 

• Princess Fiona Fast is kind of slow.
• Shrek Fast is faster than Princess Fiona Fast.
• Shrek II Fast is even faster.
• Shrek III Fast is so fast that she rarely wants to go Shrek III Fast :)
• Then there is DONKEY FAST! Donkey Fast is like the fastest she can go!
• There is also Farquaad Fast. She has recently added Farquaad Fast, so I am not sure exactly how fast that is. I think it may be even faster than Donkey Fast because she slides with so much gusto when we ask if she wants to go "Farquaad Fast."

I cannot believe that my two year old came up with this system! She is a smart one! She is so funny! I just wanted to make sure that I recorded this little tid-bit on the blog. She might get a good laugh out of it one day :)

More Randoms:

Normally, I would have individual blog posts for each of these events, but Blogger is acting really weird tonight and I am not able to upload photos with the ease that I am accustomed to. So, these will get lumped together for my sanity's sake :)

Panera Bread:

Tuesday Night Activities with the Youth Group:

Randoms of Greta:

Playing "School" with Ava:

The Shrimp Basket has changed Ava's life! Almost everyday, Ava pretends to bring me popcorn shrimp from the Shrimp Basket. She LOVES this restaurant. We went last night and Ava ate almost everything in her kids combo. She was so hungry! Greta was so good during our meal. I feel like we might be able to go out to eat a little more often.