Tomatoes and Toilet Paper

We saw Rachel's post of Layla with toilet paper curlers, and we decided to try it with Natalie (we used Kleenex though). All I can say is, so cute, and not that much work! We'll definitely have to do this one again.

The before picture:
The after picture:

And here are the kids helping me can. Carson was awesome at peeling the skins off the tomatoes and peaches. I figured he'd get bored after a few minutes, but he never did! He peeled almost the whole box of tomatoes in one sitting, and he could peel them faster than I could cut them up. Definitely more help than I could ever have hoped for! And of course Natalie wanted to help too, though I think she ate more than she peeled. We had a great time canning, and now we have a bunch of peaches, pears, pie cherries, salsa, and spaghetti sauce! Yummy...

Goodbye Rice, Hello PIZZA!

Okay, I'm being dramatic. We're not getting rid of rice, but we ARE adding pizza and other gluten foods! Carson's blood work came back negative for celiac, so we're going to slowly add gluten back into our diets! Mike will have to get in to get his blood work done, but until then he's going back on gluten as well. I am going to monitor Carson's other foods so that we can hopefully get a better idea what causes him to vomit every 6-8 weeks. Or it could be cyclic vomiting, which is like migraines for children, but vomiting instead. Anyway, we don't regret our 8 months of gluten free, because we've learned a ton about the things that really do upset Mike, and we'd never have figured them out otherwise. Carson is thrilled, and so am I. I'm going to have so much time on my hands, now that I don't have to make EVERYTHING from scratch!

Old and Sick

Here's Carson on his third day of preschool! The first two days were at our house, so I didn't have the time to do a proper first day for him, so we did it today. He's so excited to go that he's been wearing his backpack all morning. Natalie got Carson's little backpack when he got his bigger school one, and they're both happy now. They're getting so old, it's hard to believe.

As I said, last week was preschool here, and it was a crazy week. We had preschool Tuesday, then on Wednesday Carson had his vomit-every-fifteen-minutes-all-day routine, and then preschool again on Thursday. Now, don't judged me yet for getting all the other kids sick, because he doesn't have a virus or anything that does this to him. It's a reaction of some kind, and we're still in the process of figuring out if it is to gluten or something else. It is a very frustrating thing for all of us here, and we'd sure love to figure out exactly what it is that causes him to get sick. I'm taking him to the doctor tomorrow to see what we can do about figuring this out, so in the meantime, any prayers are appreciated, and if you have any ideas, we're open to those as well.

Here are the kids and Mike making sculptures out of clay. Carson is such a little artist, it's crazy. Sometime I'll have to write a post and show pictures of all the artsy things he does as a three year old. He can make better clay sculptures without any help than I can! He gets that talent from his dad! Natalie always wants to do what her brother is doing, so here she is playing with play-doh.