To The Woods We Will Go....

Things have been busy here....busy and stressful. Stressful and busy! Have you ever wondered what the title of our blog meant? My husband came up with the title many years ago around the FIRST time we tried to sell our house and move...before we even had Benjamin. To the woods we will go! That has been our goal forever. Finally it is going to happen. Our house is under contract and we are supposed to close on or before Oct. 31. So two months left. We have yet to find a house that fits our needs though. This is where the stress part is coming in...as time ticks away and we are another day closer to being homeless! We have seen perfect houses and perfect properties, but never the two together. Issues with cess pools, HOAs, a back yard that consisted of a very dangerous cliff, etc etc....Cla says we won't settle. WE are looking for our "House of Dreams". The house we will raise our children in and live forever.....Our Ingleside (if you aren't an Anne fan you won't get that and you SHOULD be an Anne fan.)

So we are primarily looking in Carbon County Pennsylvania.  I took a few (very few) pictures when we went up to look at houses a few weeks ago.  Really took pictures of these trains to show Ben so really gives you no idea of how beautiful the area is, but here ya go anyhow.

Oh, and I beg for prayers that we FIND our Ingleside!!

downtown Jim Thorpe

My little pixie girl had a good weight check yesterday.  Truly I was shocked and I credit only St. Anne (and my mom who apparently stuffed her with food the day before) who I have been begging with prayers.  So she gained back the 4oz she lost last time plus two more ounces for a total gain of 6oz.  So she has squeaked by once again!!

And speaking of Anne.....you know I have always dreamed of having a little redheaded waif-ish girl who I could put in old fashioned dresses and braid her hair and she could be my Anne Shirley.  So I got the redhair and curls and the waifishness but she is sure taking her time growing her hair!!  But lookie here!  I got her hair up in two little adorable braids *sigh*  I SWOOOOOONNN!!!!!  I love it and she so needs to keep her hair up because her curls are just....well, a bit nutty and it gets so tangled and knotty and it is impossible to brush and she hates having it brushed.  So hopefully she will let me keep her hair in braids and we can avoid some of the nightmare aspects of having the most adorable hair ever created.

Holy crow...just look at this face!!!!!!  I joked to Cla once that since she is Anna and not Anne ("Anne with an E") that when she is old enough to have her first e mail address she should be AnnewithanA@whatever.something.  I am hilarious...I know.

So on to Beatrice.  An interesting thing about her.  We almost never call her Beatrice.  She is almost exclusively Buggy.  Yet, if you call her Buggy she acts like she is deaf....won't look at you, doesn't care.  If you call her Beatrice she turns right at you and smiles.  Could a 7M old be showing preference?????  So I HAVE been putting in an effort to actually refer to her as Beatrice...since she seems to like that better LOL

So I mentioned somewhere along the way that she tested positive for a dairy allergy.  She has since had further testing and is also positive for egg and peanuts.  And she is ridiculously sensitive.  If you think about milk while looking at her she breaks out in hives and I am only BARELY exaggerating!

This morning I was loading the dishwasher and she was trying to climb in it and she will put anything in her mouth and eat it.  So my hands were all wet and dirty from whatever I was putting in the dishwasher but I had to quickly grab her and whisk her away so I could finish up.

When I went to get her out of the pack and play she had broken out in hives LITERALLY in the shape of my hands, right where I grabbed her.  You can see where my fingers were around her body under her arms.  There was some dairy on my hands when I grabbed her.  She is just SOOO sensitive!  I shudder to think what would happen if she actually ingested something.

No picture of Ben, but he recently saw the allergist as well.  He had a scratch test done for egg and he had just a very small reaction.  So he is scheduled to do an egg challenge next week at CHOP.  So he might be able to have eggs again.  And we did a challenge at home with dairy and he has been doing fine so he is back on dairy too!  This of course changes little for the household since Beatrice is starting to eat table food and so I still need to cook egg and dairy free.....

Ohh and homeschool starts Monday Sept.3!!