Joy is 4!

Today my precious Joy turned 4!

Last night at dinner she said. "When I am 4 tomorrow then I will know everything! Right?" 

(Well, she doesn't know how to smile in pictures)

This poor girl has been waiting to turn 4 for the past 8 months.  She was super excited to get a big girl bike.  - It was in great shape at Goodwill for only $10.00, I couldn't resist.  She also can't wait to go to the beach!  Hopefully now that she is 4 she won't be so afraid of the ocean.

The Pool with Cousins

Last week we got to go up to Anthem to visit cousins TJ and Josiah.  Norah came too but had to go home early.  

We spent the morning playing at TJ's house and getting horrible group pictures of the six cousins.  Horrible.

Then we went to a splash park but it got boring fast and it was SO hot out.   So we went to the Anthem Community Pool and had a blast!  

 

Claire loved the slides

 and got her first chance to go off a real diving board. 

  She was even brave enough to try the high dive - but only once. 

The little kids enjoyed the shallow pool and ran around in it most of the time.

Josiah enjoyed the water. 

But he did not enjoy Claire trying to feed him.

 He's a cool guy.

 

Catching Up - Summer Overview

We have had an excellent summer so far and the best part is - it's not over yet!  Next week we'll be heading to the beach with my parents and at the end of the month we'll be camping with the Jack's family again. 

We finished school the last week of May,  just in time for VBS which was directly followed by Kid's Camp.  Claire had a blast and was especially proud that she caught her first fish.  She ate the raw heart and became a member of the Lonely Hearts Club.

Later in June we celebrated Claire's 7th birthday.  She wanted a My Little Pony party. (gag my with a stick)  Rainbow Dash is her favorite so she had a Rainbow Dash cake and pinata. 

 More than anything else in the world she wanted a skateboard.   I can't believe how well she does on it!  It is amazing, she runs and jumps on it while it's moving and all sorts of dangerous things.  

 Joy decided to finally try on the magic swimming mask and viola!  She is able to swim underwater now!  Her swimming skills improved greatly this year.  

We decided that Joy does have a gluten sensitivity - nothing too bad but when she has gluten she gets very tired, her tummy gets bloated, and she has extreme thirst - and therefore bed wetting problems.  She seems more sharp and with it when she is off it also.  She doesn't eat gluten at home but we're not going to say she can never have a piece of cake or pizza ever again. 

 At the end of June, Paige turned 2!!!!!!!!!!!

What a sweet little dumpling girl this little horror turned out to be!  She is the bomb.  So much fun, tough, hardly ever cries, mostly happy, lovingly etc. etc.  She also just potty trained herself.  Seriously,  all I did was supply the little toilet. 

 Her birthday theme was Bubble Guppies.

More party swimming.

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Oh yes, and she also got her very own big girl scooter similar to the ones sissies have.  She is very proud.

There's been lots of slip - n - sliding,  

 Storm watching,

Pool going,

 

and playing in the irrigation. 

After Josh was finally home from his many camps and days away, we are ready for a family vacation!

We got bored after all the activities and sports slowed down so we started school two weeks ago.

First day of school photo.  

Sporty Girl

Claire has had a busy summer so far.  We enrolled her in a couple parks and rec classes along with her YMCA volleyball league and it has kept her on her toes.

 

Overall, we have not been very impressed with YMCA.  In basketball she had a terrible coach who left her not liking the sport very much.    Luckily,  the city of Gilbert had a basketball clinic, 2 nights a week and it has helped her a lot!  Not only does she love it but she has improved SO. MUCH.   Several times now I have picked her up from practice to find out that she won the game or challenge that they had that day.  She got way more out of it than she did the whole YMCA season.

The YMCA volleyball has not been much better.  When more than half the kids on the court are black holes, it is really defeating.  Games are mostly spent waiting for the opposing team to serve the ball into the net.  45 minutes of practice once a week is just not enough.

So we put her in a 2-week volleyball camp that met for an hour and a half every single day.  This made a huge impact on her volleyball skills.  (look at that concentration)

 

 She seems to have a knack for the sport (meaning she actually tries to hit the ball) and we hope that she'll continue to get better and one day be an EVAC Eagle.

Her shoes can testify how much work she is putting in to her sports skills.

She is so proud that we bought her new shoes today for the next season AND she even learned how to tie them all by herself!

 (Normally I would not buy rainbow/cheetah shoes, but they scream Claire and were on super clearance)

Dieting - Elimination Style

For the past month or two Joy started complaining about being really tired.  She would ask to go to nap, she would lay on the couch and watch her sisters play.  No matter what we were doing she was always tired.  She also has this weird habit of saying she is "SO hungry" and begging for food but as soon as we sat down to eat she would be full without even taking a bite.   Her tummy is always bloated and her skin eczema has been bad still.  The tiredness thing made me a little concerned.  We thought that maybe she was anemic since she doesn't eat enough food to get the necessary nutrients.  I took her to get some blood work done to see if that was it, and hoped that it wasn't something much more serious.

We didn't really have a doctor so we went straight to a lab and had it done.  I warned Joy about what would happen and she seemed okay with it because it would help us find out why her tummy was always hurting.  This little girl was such a champ!  The place had nothing to make it more "kid friendly".  I just held her on my lap and she watched the whole process without flinching, crying or making a sound.   About halfway through she said in a quiet, deep voice "Ow, that hurts"  and then she was done!  I was so proud of her.   We got some pizza afterward to celebrate (her favorite food).


The results came back completely normal so we were relieved but frustrated that they didn't give us any answers so we took her to a new doctor - Dr. Jensen.  He is an integrative M.D. and wow, what a difference!   He actually LOOKED at Joy,  he spent half and hour with us (as opposed to the 2 minutes we are accustomed to) and I felt like he actually was trying to figure out what was causing her symptoms rather than throwing a prescription for zantac or hydrocortisone cream at us.  He wanted her to go on an elimination diet for 3 weeks, hopefully her symptoms will clear up and we will slowly introduce the eliminated foods back one at a time to see what/if any of them is causing all her problems.

SO,  we started the diet.  NO: dairy, eggs, gluten, various grains, corn, oranges, peanuts, soy, meat besides chicken and sugar.   Wait, what?!   Rice is okay.  Thank you God for rice!  I found a 1 week meal plan with recipes for this exact diet and that has helped immensely.  We are ALL doing the diet to make it fair for poor Joy and who knows?  Maybe it will help us in unexpected ways.

Paige is doing great on it. She had a few days of cracker withdrawals but is fine now.  She is the happiest and loves spaghetti squash spaghetti.

Joy is having a good attitude about the changes because she knows it is to make her feel better.

Josh is being a good sport, I am impressed.

I am trying not to die and spending 5 times longer in the kitchen than I normally do.

Claire is not. happy.   Here she is crying over carrots for lunch and sweet Joy is trying to console her.


"This is good." has a new definition for us.  It used to mean,  "This food tastes great by normal people's standards! I would serve it to guests!"  Now it means,"I can swallow this."

Rice pancakes are "good"


 Zucchini, apple, banana, rice flour brownies are not.


Today marks one successful week on the diet.  We have noticed little, if any change - which is discouraging.  But we are sticking it out for three weeks so we can say we did and be sure, once and for all that it is or isn't a food sensitivity.

It's not all bad.  I kind of enjoy the challenge and it is broadening our horizons.  
The biggest plus to this diet is that the girls have stopped begging for food 24/7. Knowing that your next snack is going to be a vegetable makes you not so hungry.


 

Chicks!

Ever since I was little I have wanted to hatch and raise chicks.  So when the opportunity presented itself I jumped at it!

A sweet family from our church had some broody chickens so they supplied us with 12 eggs and an incubator - Plus a whole lot of new chicken knowledge.

At first 21 days seemed like a short amount of time.  Indeed it is considering the transformation taking place inside the eggs. BUT it was the longest 3 weeks of my life! Worrying about temperature and humidity, second guessing the 3 different thermometers I had in the incubator (which all read different temps!) and hoping that some would make it out alive.  I've read that 60% hatch rates are consider good.

We only candled the eggs a couple of times. We found that 5 of the eggs were not fertile, we cracked them all open and there was no growth whatsoever, just a regular, warm egg.  The other 7 all seemed to be alive and well. It was amazing to see the movement inside.  

On day 19 at 11pm. I suddenly remembered I needed to take the eggs out of the egg turner and raise the humidity in the incubator for hatching.  (horror stories of half hatched chicks becoming shrink wrapped in their own egg goo swirling through my mind) I quickly set everything right in the incubator and as  I put the lid back on I heard a "Cheep cheep!"  I thought for sure I was hearing things but a little later I heard it again!  How on earth can a chick chirp from inside an egg?!  I googled it and sure enough it is common.  Wow!  I felt so helpless thinking of the poor chick in there begging to get out and of course there was nothing I could do.   I couldn't even tell which egg it was coming from.  I was up late that night!

The next day the girls were ecstatic to hear the cheeping and see some "pips" take out of one of the eggs.

That night we went to AWANA and when we came home we found the first two hatchlings flopping around in the incubator. 

 

  A third egg was about to hatch so I let the girls stay up and watch it.  So amazing!   They finally went to bed at 10:30pm.   I noticed another egg was about to hatch so I stayed up to video tape it.  It was so cool yet frustrating to watch.

I'm so glad I taped it because when I got up early the next morning to go to work (after 3 hours of sleep) the last eggs had hatched.   I couldn't believe that they had all made it out - no casualties or drama.  I put them all in the brooder where they are happily making musical peeping sounds.

The girls are in love. 

 Five of the chicks are black or mostly black 

 

and two are a brown and yellow. 

 

I think the black ones are females because they have longer wing feathers (I've watched youtube videos on this) but that is just my very unprofessional opinion.  Interestingly, the two brown ones were the first to hatch and seem to be a little bigger and more aggressive than the others. Time will tell I guess.

In the meanwhile we are enjoying these precious babies.  In a week or two they will be ugly teenager birds.