They Are Listening and It's Okay To Be Human

So this blog title has nothing to do with each other, but I'm in a rambling mood, so just go with it =) The other day, I had to go the chiropractor and Baby Fox was complaining that he didn't want to go. Mini Fox piped up and said, Coco (what she calls him), Mama does everything for us, and takes us everywhere, the least we can do is go with her. This Mama heart almost exploded, they do listen (at least girl does).

As a mom sometimes we forget that we do have to take care of ourselves too. We do everything for everyone else, play chauffeur, driving the kids to karate, piano, gymnastics, soccer/baseball, you know the list goes on.

I remember last year when Mr. had to travel for work, I was in the car on the way to my favorite gym class. The kids were complaining that they didn't want to go to the gym, I mean complaining...I got frustrated and started yelling/crying hysterically. All this happened 2 minutes into our drive. They were stunned, speechless, not sure what was happening, they both started crying hysterically. I can only imagine what we looked like as we stopped at the light. I took a deep breath, calmed down enough to explain to them that I do everything for them, forgoing the gym multiple times a week so I can get them to where the need to go and all I ask of them is to go to the gym with me one day a week so I can go to my favorite gym class. All was good by the time we reached the gym 8 minutes later, hugs were had and all forgiven. (this all happened day 1 of 6 days Mr. was gone...not a good start to the week, but we recovered and had a good rest of the week).

I say this because we try to be so perfect to everyone around us. Sometimes we forget we are not robots and we have feelings that get hurt. It's okay to show our kids that we are human. That we cry when our feelings get hurt. We make mistakes and it's okay to ask for forgiveness. We all want our kids to have a perfect childhood, but remember you're human too. It's okay to have bad days, when our emotions are all over the place. Your kids will still love you and they won't remember that one day you go upset and started yelling, even when in your head you're thinking...stop yelling, you're being ridiculous, but can't stop...we're human. It's okay. You're kids know you love them and want the best for them. They'll only remember the good times.

So go out and be less than perfect.

Halloween Night

I know, one more day of Halloween talk and then I'm done...I promise :)

Little Miss though she was hot stuff walking around

and riding on the big kid plasma car. We found this Plasma car like, but for toddlers, we're hoping she'll get around faster, and that way Baby Fox has one and Mini Fox has one her size.

She got on this all by herself and was propelling herself all over the place

 Our full outfits, see my shirt? I actually cut off the sleeve, took the whole thing in and then reattached the sleeves. I think it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. The only size they had was a men's one size fits all, it fit Mr. it did NOT fit me.

Kids all ready to go

 Mini Fox's first official, I'm old enough to get my own candy. She held onto that starbursts like it was the last one on earth.

 So many to chose, not sure which one...what's Daddy want to eat, since I have no teeth?

They are all getting so big! 

Years past:

2012

Missing one kid

2013

The rest of the weekend was super lazy. Saturday we had the laziest of days, Mr., Mini Fox and myself were all sick, so we let Baby Fox pick out two videos from RedBox and let him watch movies all day long, sometimes you just need one of those days.

Sunday was sort of like that, I did the grocery shopping and then went to the movies, yep, I went to the movies with some friends for the first time in...I can't even remember. We saw Gone Girl. To tell you the truth I was in the middle of reading and just found it hard to finish, I was really dragging on reading it, so I figured I would see it and then finish the book if I thought it was worth it. Well it was so good, I really liked it. Definitely worth finishing!

And that was our weekend. How was your weekend?

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments

With Bella & Lisa for Weekend Link-up

Food Allergies: Something is Wrong

When I was thinking of what I should write about today, I realized that I've only briefly mentioned my food allergies, here, here, here and here (when I say briefly I mean less than a sentence).  So today I give you part one of my food allergies, how I found out I had food allergies.

Let's begin with the most asked question I get. No I didn't have this all my life. I found out when I was about 26, so yes I do know what everything tastes like, but over the years, I have started to forget what things taste like, like cheese, and ice cream, horrible I know!

So I'll start from the beginning. When Mr. and I were dating I had no problems. I would occasionally get a stomachache after eating, but justify the reason why. I ate a donut for breakfast, I ate too much Mexican food, I'm just really full. I kept explaining away my stomach problems. I was also getting sick a lot, getting sinus infections every 6-7 weeks. It was awful!

Mr. and I got married and were in wedded food bliss for about a year and a half when the stomach issues started getting worse. I decided to keep a food diary, I wrote down everything and how I felt afterwards. We narrowed it down to dairy, cheese, ice cream my beloved food. So we thought maybe I was lactose intolerant. I started taking those Lactaid pills. It worked! ...for about a week...

Mr. and I discovered that BJ's had the BEST happy hour ever (not sure about now, since this was quite a few years ago). We were frequenting it at least once a week. Each week we would get different mini pizza's (half off), a beer and of course their famous Pizookie

yum!

Anyway, one night we met there after a particularly hard day at work and went about our usual order of 2 mini pizza's (one of them was the Southwest Pizza, and I think a BBQ chicken one) to split, beer and of course the Pizookie. We finished, I was feeling fine and we got into our cars and followed each other home. By the time we got home (about an 8 minutes drive) I was in so much pain I could barely walk. Mr. had to practically carry me upstairs to our condo. The pain was so bad, it felt like a million knives were stabbing me and then someone was twisting the knife. It was horrible, I was in so much pain that I eventually passed out and slept the rest of the night.

When I woke up feeling much better I knew I just wasn't lactose intolerant, that it had to be the cheese...little did I know. I made an appointment with an Allergist for just after the new year. I went in, she asked questions about my diet, what I ate the most of, did I eat this or that..first we took a blood test to see if anything would come up in my blood work. It turned out negative, I was disappointed, I knew something was wrong.

The next step was to do the famous "scratch test". Let me tell you it's as awful as it sounds. Especially if you are allergic to everything like I am. I had over 80 scratch test performed. And by the time she was done even putting the allergens on my back, the first ones were already starting to react. But we had to wait 20 minutes to get a full reading. My mom was with me and she was staring at my back saying, wow this is amazing, you are allergic to a lot. I told her, I know, it hurts! Around the 10 minute period the nurse came and and with wide eyes, said, I think you're allergic to his, let me wipe it off to give you some relief. They were starting to bubble. 20 painful and itchy minutes later the doctor came and "read" the results.

Want to know what it said? Come back next week, haha, just kidding. It said that I was allergic to EVERY tree, plant and grass in Southern California. Crazy right? It also said I was allergic to milk, soy, corn, peanuts, chicken and most nuts. I can eat cashews, but I just don't like them. I'll let all those allergies sink in for a second.

Think of everything that has corn syrup in it...yep all those things gone. Doing a quick search I found this site with a list of corn products and a list of potential corn products. Did you know that food labled with anything 'ose, like dextrose, sucrose can be a corn derivative? Also carmel color, ascorbic acid, sorbitol (used in gum), citric acid...those are just to name a few others. It's everywhere.

It was a hard adjustment, but I think this has gotten long enough, next time I'll go into the first few months and how I dealt with it. Let me just tell you, there was a lot of pity parties, party of one going on.

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments

Legoland Part 2

I didn't realize there was going to be a part 2...but there is, click here for part 1.

First, during the day they had trick or treating for the kids, Baby Fox loved it, they gave away magazines, candy, and some other random stuff:

But I have to tell you what happens AFTER you're done with the park...




Cousin #4 was staying at the Legoland Hotel, so we went and had dinner with them at the hotel. Let me tell you, they take Legos to a whole new level in that place. Everything was legos, from the picture frames to the flowers! I guess they change the pictures out depending on the season.

The kid activities (all told to me by my cousin)...first when you get to the hotel they give the kids a scavenger hunt to go on. They kids have to figure out a number sequence, and when they get all 4 numbers, it opens the treasure chest in your room, which then has legos that the kids get to keep! Each room has a bucket of legos for the kids to play with. 

Getting to your room is fun too, when the doors close the elevator becomes a disco dancing floor.

The rooms have bunk beds for the kids to sleep on. Each of the three floors has a different theme, they were on the adventure themed floor.

Back downstairs they had about 2 hours of entertainment for the kids. When you get to the hotel they tell you the theme of the night. Our theme was...Halloween Scary, or something like that. They have this huge pirate ship and it's "moat" is FILLED with thousands of legos...so the kids to get to building something to fit the theme of the night. Then a princess and pirate came out and did a Simon says type of game with them, charades, and then the building contest.

Each kid gets called and explains his or her lego creation. The night we went there were over 55 entries.

We didn't win, the girl that won had built a lego witch.

But it was a great way for the kids to blow off a little extra steam, get their creative juices flowing, and for the parents to sit back and relax and watch it all. Tip: Get there just after the park closes so you can be sure to get a table and chairs. We got there about 5:45 and we found the last two small tables.  It was such a great way to end the evening. Sitting in the lounge area, eating dinner with the kids ran around and built legos and played.

I'll end with 3 reasons why you need to go to Legoland/Legoland Hotel.

1.

It's not as crowded as the other amusements parks as this park is really geared toward smaller children.

2.

It opens at 10am and closes at 5pm so the longest you'll be there is 7 hours (unless you do the Brick or Treating, so add another 4 hours).

3.

The hotel is awesome, and has so much for the kids to do, you could seriously take them there and they would never know :) Okay they might because there's no rides, but they would have the time of their life...

4.

And one more because I'm nice like that. You can always get a discount to get in. Barbara's Cereal almost always has a coupon code to get 40% off. Also if you Google, you can almost always find a buy one get one free*, so we did buy one (me) get one free (Baby Fox) and then did a 40% off to get Mr. in (Mini Fox was free), so our grand total was about $120 for the 4 of us (Disneyland is $96/ticket!)

*the link provide says park hopper tickets, so I called and told them I only wanted to go to Legoland and didn't need a park hopper so they sold me just the Legoland ticket for $83 (the price of admission for Legoland) and then got a free one too. So just call and they'll do it for you, saves you almost $20.

I was not paid to tell you guys about this, I just went and thought it was a great experience for the family and thought I would share the wealth.

After 5 Years....and some Weekend Stuff

I was itching to get out and start shopping for the Fall Challenge (not too late to sign up*, do it!). Anyway, I really wanted to take advantage of Target's Cartwheel, so I asked Baby Fox if he wanted to go to Target with me. He always loves going to Target, mostly because he probably gets a toy every time he goes. Anyway, I told Mr. that I thought tonight would be a good night to have just us to go dinner. So Baby Fox and I went to Target and then went out to dinner at Cheesecake Factory. It was great just spending some time with him.

It's blurry, but I don't care

He's put bread in his mouth for a smile...he's such a boy!

When we got home, put Baby Fox and Mini Fox to bed, I wasn't sleepy (it was 9pm), but Mr. was, so off to bed he went and I stayed up and watched Star Dust and this: I haven't watched one of these episodes in forever!

Saturday morning we took Baby Fox to get a much needed haircut. At first he was super hesitant and crying, but then realized it didn't hurt to get your haircut.

And then he realized he wasn't going to get a toy for getting his hair cut, cue, end of the world type crying.

We went to Whole Foods afterwards to pick up some food...Mini Fox's first time in a cart.

She was doing pretty good, until she decided to turn around.

I've been wanting to hand this picture for 5 years, yes we've lived in our house for 5 years, and Mr. finally hung it. I love it!

Mini Fox was sleeping, what better time to take a selfie?

Finally finding a spot to hang some more pictures. So happy to finally have some stuff on the walls. We spent so much time patching holes and painting it was hard to put more holes in the walls, but it felt good, and I might go on a picture hanging craze.

Saturday night we went to my Aunt and Uncle's for dinner. It was yummy and my sister was there, always a good time.

They were the only kids there, so we brought a movie for Baby Fox to watch.

This girl finished before everyone, and played nicely with this while we all finished dinner

We spent the night at my Aunt and Uncle's, and let me tell ya, Mini Fox is a loud sleeper and she sucks her pacifier all night long...

Taking a walk to the park before it got too hot.

Whenever Mini Fox was on Mr.'s shoulders, Mini Fox would pull his hair, Mr. told her not to pull on his hair and that it hurt, so her solution, is to just not hold on at all...talk about giving Mama a heart attack, but somehow she stays on and has a smile on her face the whole time.

On our drive home, we saw a clown car..litterally, a guy dressed up like a clown in a car that said clown car on it. You can't really tell, in this picture, but this guy has a little tiny hat on his bald head...things you see in LA.

While the kids were sleeping I decorated our mantle for Halloween.  Yep our family room has a bunch of toys everywhere, Mom Life...

He's smiling...

She's smiling...which do I pick? Both...

To end the day we talked with Grandma for a bit.

It was a good weekend, so far next weekend we have NOTHING planned...yay! But I'm sure we'll find some trouble to get into though...haha.

How was your weekend?

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments

and with Bella & Lisa
*this is an affiliated link and I will get referral money