Early Christmas present

I have lots of blogging to catch up on, but first I wanted to make sure I got a post out there about the early Christmas present we all received! Last Friday I took Ivy in to the allergist for her semi-annual check up to see if she had grown out of her milk allergy. They were really hoping she had, but he said it may not be until next time. So they injected her with the histamine, the control and the milk. Same as usual. About one minute in (after the nurse left the room) I realized something was going wrong! She was itching like crazy and had hives all over her back! I was really nervous that the allergy had actually gotten worse. So I went and got the nurse and when she came in, she said she was having a bad reaction to the histamine, but her milk spot was negative! Since she had to be sure (with all the redness and hives) she injected her again with milk in her arm and we waited 15 more minutes. It was again clear!! I was pretty pumped. I know a lot of people deal with much bigger problems than a milk allergy and I'm blessed that this was all it was, but I'm pretty happy not to have to deal with it anymore. Ivy was getting big and was starting to realize her food was different than Max and Mya's.

Going forward..I'm going to keep almond milk in her diet because I think it's good for her and is so high in calcium. And I will slowly introduce everything else. She has had some ice cream and yogurt and loved them both! We learned a lot through this ordeal about food and what all goes into food so in that respect, it was good for us. I also learned sympathy for others who have food allergies. It's definitely a question I will ask from now on whenever I'm entertaining or watching anyone's kids. We're still dealing with the peanut thing with Mya, but I think that will be lifelong and Mya is so good about asking if something has peanuts. Below are some pictures I took of her reaction to the histamine.

phone update!

I was going through my phone today deleting pictures and decided it was time for an update on what we've been up to. Here goes...

Max woke up last Monday morning with what I thought was pink eye. Turns out it was just an eye infection/virus of some sort. So he stayed home from school on Monday and then it moved to the other eye on Wednesday and got another sick day at home with mom. He didn't miss a day in kindergarten (other than for disney and a trip to MN) and these were his first missed days of 1st grade. He says he could get used to it:)



Here's our family picking up our Christmas tree! This little tradition of going to Menards to get our tree started last year when we set out to do the whole "tree farm" thing and get pictures of our family cutting down the tree. Turned out...the place was closed so we ended up going to Menards! Our tree is lovely and I have actual pictures of it, but not on my phone so it will have to wait until another post!



This is how Ivy and I do lunch when Mya (peanut allergy) is at school!



The kids have been having a ton of fun with our Elf on the Shelf, Mim. In fact, the little guy himself sent these Elf on the Shelf pillow cases straight from Nebraska the North Pole as a little gift! (more to come on the kind of mischief mim has been up to lately in a later post...)





Ivy is becoming quite the little iPad guru. She wants to listen to her Mother Goose Songs all the time. In fact...she's gotten to love listening to music so much that she doesn't want me to sing them anymore!



We hit up the Mississippi River Museum holiday party for members again this year. It was a really fun night of walking around the museum and eating really good food!



I was sick in bed yesterday with the flu. Max figured I was probably bored (he was right) so he brought me a word search!



Here are my 3 favorite skiers...ready to go to the slopes of Iowa! I thought they would last about an hour, but they made it 3 hours and I guess it was Chris who was ready to come home first! Thankfully Uncle Jeff came with as well so they each got one-on-one help since it was Mya's first time.

Turkey Trot 2013

As most of you know, the turkey trot has not been one of my favorite traditions.  Every year I start thinking about it mid-October and every year I do nothing other than think about it!  Other than year 1 (2001) when Brian was still recovering from his broken leg, arm, foot, etc. and the year that Amanda was 7 months pregnant with Grace (2009), I have gotten last place. So basically, I have never beaten a legitimate competitor. Until now. Thus...I am doing the recap this year. I told myself years ago that if I ever beat someone, I will write it! So here goes...


The tradition we all love to hate continues for a 13th consecutive year. Rules remain the same. You run it no matter where you are in the world. Never did we think this would actually mean someone would be running it on another continent!

Unbelievable weather in Decorah on race day (Saturday NOvember 30) It was a bit windy on the straight away, but overall we couldn't have asked for a nicer day to run!

Runners started the race at 10:30 AM...just in time for us to recover slightly from the night before, for Grady to be up from his nap,  to allow the kids to eat lunch and be at the free movie matinee with Grandpa Rog by noon!

Kiddos were fabulous this year. All 4 of the big kids (Max, Mya, Olivia and Grace) gave it their best shot. To see those little legs moving around the track was awesome. At the 3/4 point of the first lap, Chris was yelling at Max to slow down. He was keeping up with him step for step. Olivia, Mya and Max all finished the race and got a recorded time! Looking forward to watching these guys grow up together and continuing the tradition.

Everyone really enjoyed not being lapped this year. Spirits were much higher at the end of the race, even if times were down a bit:)

Yellow shirts were in full effect. It took some digging, but we found our old "Go Tara" shirts from 2007 and made some homemade "Go Tony" shirts. It was sad that they weren't there to run with us, but we wanted them to be with us in spirit!

Twenty two days after giving birth, Amanda was out jogging around the track while pushing the stroller and finishing with a respectable time all things considered.

Rog and Pat were on kid patrol and timing duty. I fully expect Rog will be back in action next year. A certain 2 year old was a handful this year:) She wanted to continue the tradition that one kid has to start bawling as soon as everyone takes off. Next year my bet is on Grady.

Overseas runners didn't quite get the trot in on time even though they are 15 hours ahead of us. Tony had to leave for mainland Japan so they were a little late on the run. Don't worry though...we did not reveal our times until after they ran. I didn't want them having an unfair advantage! (like they need it, but hey..)

Times for 2013 are as follows:
#1: Anthony Brown: 5:54
#2: Chris Hoden 7:48
#3: Tara Brown 8:20
#4: Max Hoden 9:02
#5: Beth Hoden 9:04
#6: Brian Huinker 10:35
#7: Mya Hoden & Olivia Huinker: 12:55
#8: Amanda Huinker: 13:35

                                                      proof that Tara ran one mile:)

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We went up to the twin cities on Wednesday afernoon. Ivy had a terrible time the first 2 hours because she basically woke up from a nap and we put her in the car. So we stopped at my parents for 10 minutes and she did better the rest of the way. We spent some time with Chris's parents and then Jeff came a couple hours after us. It was funny how exctied the kids were to see Uncle Jeff! He lives here in Dubuque, but they acted like they hadn't seen him in months!

Thursday we went down to Grandpa Bill's for a great day of feasting, ads reading, resting, feasting some more, crafting and ads reading some more! We hadn't met Chris's cousin Gretchen's daughter Emma yet so the kids loved seeing her.




Thursday night Chris, Jeff and I headed out for some Thanksgiving shopping. We couldn't believe how many stores were open and we had to see the madness. We went to Wal-Mart and basically walked out as soon as we walked in. The people were nuts. One little girl asked a store clerk how much something was and the store clerk yelled "I DON'T KNOW, WHAT DOES IT SAY??" I just had to laugh. So we went to Target and stood outside in line for 40 minutes freezing our buns off and laughing about how crazy we were. It was worth it..we got what we wanted and got out of there and back home in about an hour.



Annual Hoden family photo!


Friday we headed down to Decorah to see my family. We stopped first and my aunt Mary's house and met up with my parents, brother and Tony's parents and sister and families. The kids had a blast running around with the other kids and the adults had a nice time laughing and probably drinking a little too much wine! Afterwards we put the kids to bed and met up with the adults at Brian and Amanda's house for game night. Tara and Tony were surely missed, but it was neat how all the people there were there because of Tara and Tony. We'll have many many Thanksgivings with them in the future and I can't wait.

Saturday we ran the annual turkey trot. All of the details are coming soon when our family members in Asia run:) I don't want them knowing our times before they run because it could give them an unfair advantage! I will leave you with two things...1. My time had to have been affected by the wine the night before. 2. I didn't lose for the first time ever!

Saturday afternoon Grandpa Rog took the 4 big kiddos to a movie and the rest of us watched football, went shopping, and hung out in some peace and quiet! Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Olivia and Mya had a lot of fun in the bathtub as usual:)






The kiddos before the race:)

Movember and More

Chris spent the first week of November out in the woods of Maine looking at John Deere equipment with customers. And since it takes him a few days to get a beard looking decent, he decided it would be the perfect year to participate in "Movember" and grow his facial hair in support for Men's health awareneess. Here's the progression in pictures. First the full beard, then a goatee and then a fu-manchu. Yes..I let him go to work like this!! I have to say...it all kind of grew on me:)








Last week was the boy scout cake auction. You had to bring a dozen cupcakes/cookies or a cake or some sort and they had an auctioneer there to auction them off to families. I made some s'more cupcakes. Just a chocolate cake mix with marshmallow cream for frosting and then sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs and a hershey bar. I made a few extra for us and they were pretty tasty! Also Chris's mom made us some homemade dark chocolate fudge when we were there last so I got the recipe and made some for various things we've had going on in the last couple of weeks. It is so tasty...especially over ice cream!





Last Saturday our neighbors hosted the 2nd annual Friendsgiving. We all brought something from the traditional Thanksgiving meal and we all got together to celebrate before the holidays come and everyone's schedules are so busy. Here are a couple of pictures of the turkey and the enormous kids table:)





And lastly....Max and Mya came home from school with lots of Thanksgiving crafts and creations this week. They were all great, but this was probably my favorite. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I have so much to be thankful for this year and I'd definitely have to agree with Max:)

birthday, baby and snow!

For Ivy's birthday we took the kids to Happy Joe's to celebrate with some taco pizza for most of the family and a sausage pizza (hold the cheese) for Ivy! Here are a few pictures. Max and Mya were pretty happy that they got to eat Ivy's ice cream sundae:) We had some dairy free cake at home and opened presents afterwards.











Here's Ivy enjoying some cake 1 day after her birthday. I have no idea why I let her do that two days in a row. What a mess!



Last Thursday (11/7) my first nephew Grady Lawrence Huinker was born! Grady is my mom's maiden name and Lawrence is Amanda's Grandpa's name. I just love his name for so many reasons.

We went up to Decorah on Saturday because I couldn't wait until Thanksgiving! Once Mya got over the fact that it wasn't a girl, she was pretty smitten. She wanted to hold him a lot. Max was not interested and Ivy was a terror. She just kept holding out her hands crying "hold it, hold it" She was a bit rough and had to make an early exit with Grandma and Grandpa. He is one cute little boy and has a couple of proud parents and big sisters:) I'm excited to see him in 2 weeks.







Lastly, the snow hit us early this year! It snowed on Ivy's birthday so the kids had to go outside and play of course. Ivy had been watching it snow all morning so when it was time to go out and play she wanted to play in the "snowing". This past weekend Chris took Max and Mya to the ski swap and got them all geared up for this year's ski season! They're pretty excited about it and saw that they were making snow at Sundown the other night so it's probably just around the corner.

2 years old!

Dear my sweet Ivy Anne,

Happy 2nd Birthday! You are such a blessing to us and we continue to be thankful that you came into our lives every day! I've been working on you telling people you're "2" and apparently I worked too hard on it because now you think your name is "2" and if I ask you how you are, you answer "2". You are quite the little brown-eyed girl. I feel like I could write about you for days, so here goes the abridged version of what you're like right now.

Max and Mya are still very big fans of yours. They get really jealous if you show more affection to one of them. You are so excited for them to come home from school. You ask quite a bit in the afternoon "Max and Mya be home soon?" Mya is awesome about playing with you and Max is awesome about doing things for you when I need help. Sometimes I think you refer to them as one person.."maxandmya". You're starting to close the gap on Mya being the happiest to see Daddy when he comes home from work. You get pretty excited about it. He was gone last week and when he got home, you asked to "wrestle daddy" within 2 minutes of him being home. And of course being the dad that he is, he got down and wrestled even though it was dinner time and we had company! Your other favorite game to play with dad is "get you" except you're horrible at it and always run towards the person getting you instead of away!

You talk All.The.Time. New words every day and we're always surprised at what comes out of that little mouth of yours. Your favorite thing to say is "I hungee mommy" and "I need somesing eat". you are starting to say some funny things...you call John the Schwans man John Deere, you think suckers are called soccer balls, and chipmunks are chipmonkeys.

You still love "a couple books" before bed. Your favorite book these days is a mammal book that Max got at a book fair a couple of years ago. You are obsessed with asking "what is that?" You have gotten pretty good at naming them yourself too. Some strange ones that you know are meercat, bush baby and a spider monkey. I have never known so much about mammals in all my life.

You love love love to sing. You can sing most of twinkle twinkle, baa baa black sheep (baa baa sheep to you) happy birthday, the ABC's, 5 little monkeys, and several of the songs from your Kindermusik class. You are very demanding in the car when you want to listen to music. We're worried you have ADD of music...won't even let one song finish before you're demanding another one! You get some looks in church when you continue on singing the song when it's over. It's pretty cute to hear you say "holy, holy, holy" when the rest of the congregation is quiet!

You are still a good sleeper at night....especially before the time change, but I think we'll get back to that eventually! You go to bed around 7 and get up around 6:30 or 7. You are a 90 minute napper. Really would be nice if you'd extend that a bit, but Mya and Max were the exact same way so I'm not surprised! You climbed out of your crib once, but it was in the middle of the day when you were playing in there. You haven't tried yet when it was nap/bed time. You still love your blankee and pacifier. You used to ask for bankee/paci as if it was one thing, but now you know the difference between the two. You say pac-eeee-fier and I smile every time you say it. The comments from people have started about how you shouldn't have your paci anymore, but I just can't do it yet. I guarantee you won't go to kindergarten with it:)

You are all about pretties just like your big sister. Make-up, jewelry, lotion, nail polish, purses, shoes, dresses, etc. are some of your favorite things. You eat lip gloss so we have to be careful when we give you that! You are right about 25% of the time when I ask what color something is, although when I ask you which one you want, you always say "the blue one" no matter what. You love to color with markers, but unfortunately haven't grown out of the whole "color on your face" thing yet. You love to take my order and bring me my "food" when we're playing outside in your playhouse.

You are still an almond milk drinker, a pretty good eater (when we can get you to sit down for more than 2 minutes), are just under 30 pounds, size 2T clothes, size 5 diapers, are a pain in the rear to get dressed and to change your diaper, love to take baths with Max and Mya, to run out and see the kiddos when they get off the bus, are a pain to go shopping with or out to eat unless we give you unlimited food/drink the entire time, and are starting to resist the stroller. You are way better with thank you than you are with please, say excuse me really well, only have two levels of your voice, (loud and very loud) love to announce to anyone who will listen that you "waked up", you hate dogs and cats, love to put your babies down for naps, will occasionally watch Curious George or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for a few minutes, don't care at all what you wear (even jeans), and you call anything that goes in your hair a headband.

Phew! That was a long one! Your daddy and I are so lucky to be your parents and I can't wait to watch you grow!

Love, Mommy

11/11/11

11/11/12

11/11/13

Switch Witch

For some reason, this Halloween I was really the Grinch when it came to candy. I didn't want to pass any out, I didn't want my kids to get any, etc. I came across this idea in a blog that I read (100 days of real food) about the "switch witch". The friendly witch comes to your house and takes your candy and replaces it with a toy! Seemed like a good idea to me. I let them have the candy for a few days, but it was driving me nuts for several reasons. 1. allergies 2. my lack of self control 3. Ivy doesn't need any candy, but she's getting a lot harder to trick these days 4. they fought nonstop about who got what, who got more, etc. 5. we have been cavity free so far and I intend to keep it that way!

So...this week we set out the candy bags and put their names and ages on the bag (so she would know what to leave) and the next morning, there was a toy in place of the bag! They were so excited and haven't said a word about their candy since!




(Max left this note on an envelope full of target coupons for toys that came in the mail this week. 100% his idea:)