Boxing Day

We spent Christmas Day with my family and Boxing Day with Rob’s family.  I didn’t take any pictures on Christmas but did remember on Boxing Day.    It is a tradition to get together in London with Rob’s family on Boxing Day, although the date has been a bit flexible, it’s usually on Boxing Day or close to it.  For the past two years we met at the school but now that London has a new, larger, church we moved back to the church.  Since we were back in London this also meant we went back to the tradition of going skating downtown at the outdoor skating rink.

We actually arrived a bit late so our skating time was rather short. But we still got a bit of skating in and since the girls aren’t really huge fans of skating they didn’t really seem to care.  Matthew didn’t even complain and he usually loves skating.

 

I think he may have been a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people since the only skating he has done is with the school which is only two grades at a time and there’s plenty of room still in the middle for him to skate around.  But he didn’t mind have rides around the ice.

After skating it was back to the church and it was nice the the kids had a separate area to play and make their noise and the adults could still hear themselves think. 

The kids played Cops and Robbers for some time downstairs for quite some time

Taking a break from all the running around

Games are usually played by young and old

Matthew and his cousin Evan.  Evan is one year older then Matthew and is often considered Matthew’s twin as they look quite alike.  This year I did not see the similarities as much, but on the family picture we got from Evan’s family you could definitely see the similarities.

Good food

 

… and good socializing.

   

Equals an enjoyable time.

Happy Birthday To Me

Okay, this wasn’t really planned for my birthday … it was just the date that worked, but the kids see it as something we did for my birthday, so we’ll go with that :)

The girls had their last day of school for the year 2011 on the 23rd.  It was only a half day and they were home shortly after noon hour, at which time they showered mom with presents before we headed out the door off to Hamilton.  After a chiro appointment and a few errands we met friends at Splitsville.  We both had coupons that we had gotten off of WagJag and KijijiDeals , so for $20 we were able to enjoy 1 bumper car ride each and two hours of bowling.

We went on the bumper cars first, figuring it would be busier later on and this way we could enjoy it by ourselves.    If you hit a persons bumper car in a specific spot on the sides it would cause the car to spin around for a few seconds before the person could carry on.

The kids having fun … Matthew chose to stay on solid ground and did not want to ride with anyone.

After the kids were done with their turn it was the adults turn

This was our kids first time 10 pin bowling.  They have been 5 pin bowling several times but this was a new challenge.  This was also the first time we went bowling that we could chose for each individual player if you would like to have bumper pads or not.  Previously when we played we all had to bowl with bumper pads because they didn’t move up and down but were placed there at the beginning of a game.  The girls played with bumper pads the first game and then decided to try without.   Marietta did okay, but Rebecca decided to stick to bumper pads a bit longer.  Overall they did pretty good for their first time 10 pin bowling.  I on the other hand could have used the bumper pads still (but had no excuse to anymore) … I suck at bowling so anything looks pretty good to me :)

 

Matthew started out trying to throw the balls with our help. Since the balls were so big he couldn’t even get them between his legs to get some good power behind his roll.  But he still enjoyed it.

 

He enjoyed it even more when we noticed another kid with one of these handy shoot for kids to use.  This was much more fun for him to give it a good shove and see it move down the lane at a decent pace.  He even got a strike.

The girls each decided the wanted to give this handy-dandy thing a try.  I got Marietta’s try on video, which was rather humorous as she was busy talking and turned around to say something after she placed the ball up top, only to turn back and see that her ball had already left without her assistance.

After our bowling fun we had supper together at Theo and Lidy’s and then we tried to let our overstuffed stomachs settle while playing a couple games of Blokus … and the kids had fun together doing their own things.

And so began the kid’s Christmas Holidays.  Rob on the other hand was just completing his first week of holidays.  He wrote his last exam on December 16th and had the following week off.  He took off for four days relieving some stress by doing his favourite thing … driving truck.  It was a good break for him, something he really enjoys.  It’s too bad that he has different holidays then the kids, but at least this gave him an opportunity to work for a bit with less pressure to be home since the kids were still in school and routine was still happening at home.

Family Pictures Updated

Since it is the tradition at this time of year to send out updated family pictures I figured I would share our updated pictures as well … which should eventually end up along the side of the blog with the other years of pictures.

 

    

 

Soooooo …. that’s the family pictures for the year 2011

Merry Christmas

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”  Matthew 1: 22, 23

What a blessing that God sent His Son to this world for us. May your celebration reflect the true meaning of Christmas, as you gather together with family and/or friend may you have a joyous time remembering the amazing gift of love the Father sent to us, so that those who believe in Him might be saved and have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”  John 3:16

We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Fructose Malabsorption

In the past I have spoken a bit about Fructose Malabsorption on this blog (see here for previous posts).  I haven’t talked about it for a couple years, but this does not mean that we have not still been dealing with this issue.   We have actually been dealing with it much more in the past couple years as it has made a major change in our way of eating. With four of us in the house having FM it’s hard to get away from it.  Previously we only lightly followed the FM diet, thinking that we were not a severe case, but now we have discovered that we have issues with fructans (chains of fructose) and have a much more strict diet as far as wheat and brown rice goes.  

In my last post about FM I was talking about Matthew and how we were struggling to figure him out but finally making progress.  Pulling rice out of his diet was the big change and it took a few months for his body to heal from the rice he had been eating (all the time) before that.  We now realize that this is because his diet was gluten free and the majority of gluten free foods are made with brown rice, as well as his rice milk, also made of brown rice.  Brown rice has fructans in it and we cannot handle fructans.  It took some time before we pulled Matthew completely off wheat.  We kept him on a lower amount of wheat for a year or so thinking that this was okay for him, but always struggling to figure out what would cause a flair up … only to finally clue in that he needs to be wheat-free.  Wheat-free has made a huge difference for all of us and while we hate not being able to have wheat, we do love how much better we feel.

In the past few years I’ve done a lot of reading about FM and learned a lot.  I’m still lost at times, as FM is not an easy diet to follow since there is no consistency on what works as everyone is so very different in their sensitiveness.   I know what the data and information about FM says, but also know that this doesn’t work for everyone.  We have worked through the challenges of this diet and we still have our struggles, but we have been able to find a more happy balance.  I love my food and I love being able to eat whatever I please so I do have trouble sticking to the diet, but I do not miss the days of constant brain fog, tiredness, fatigue, body aches and so avoiding these helps me to keep on track a bit more.

Since there is lots to say about FM and I know what a struggle it is for those who are trying to figure it out I decided to take the information that I have read and gathered and put it together so others can benefit from what I have had to figure out.  I continue to regularly get comments and e-mails with regards to FM and my previous posts about it and thought it might be wise to update my information and dedicate some more time to it.  So while I haven’t always been completely faithful to keeping up with this blog I do have a bit of an excuse since I’ve been trying to put together a new blog at the same time …. of course, one wonders how I plan to keep up with two blogs if I can’t even keep up with one.

For those who have stumbled across this blog looking for information about fructose malabsorption please check out my blog dedicated to this topic at:

Life with Fructose Malabsorption

The information on this blog is simply information that I have gathered over the past couple years or learned through trial and error, it is what works for our family but is not necessarily what works for others with FM since all are very different.  I by no means am an expert or specialist with regards to FM but I am simply putting together the information I have learned so that hopefully others can benefit from it

Caught Up

Can you believe that I can actually say I am caught up … wow … has this ever happened before?  Take note as I’m sure it won’t happen again for a loooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggg time.

I’m telling myself that now I have to stay on top of it and not get so far behind, but since I don’t blog regularly but only from time to time … time to time turns into a long time to a long time.  We’ll see how it goes, the girls try to keep after me to stay on top of it, it’s good to have someone to be accountable to.  Now I just have to get the blog into books.

Christmas Program

The school had their Christmas program a week early this year.  I’m not sure why, but seeing as the kids go to school right until the 23rd this year (as far as my memory serves that has never happened before … my birthday has always been during the holidays) it’s nice that the program is out of the way and we can dive right into holidays at the end of this week. 

Both Marietta and Rebecca love to sing and they love doing choir programs for school.  Marietta was especially thrilled this year when she was chosen to do a few “special” parts.

Waiting nervously for her turn to say her narration.  A fair amount of kids did narrations, but Marietta and her partner in this narration were the only ones who were loud enough to it without having to go up on the pulpit and use a mike.  She has happy about this (is that a thing to be happy about?  to be so loud you don’t need a mike??  hmmmmm)

I was unable to get any pictures of Rebecca this year since she was behind too many kids and we could not see her. It’s always too bad when you can’t see them good, but I know she sand to her hearts content, she loves to sing.

Marietta also sang a short duet part, again without the mike because of her volume.  Since she is currently taking voice lessons this gave her some incentive to put some extra effort into her singing, pronunciation and clarity  … giving her lessons more of a purpose then just singing to the living room walls. 

 

The last song was beautiful and received a standing ovation … after it was asked to be sung a second time because it was so nice.  The teachers joined in for this song … so here’s my mom, who teaches Grade 2.

 

Marietta’s Photos

To follow are the pictures that Marietta had taken and been working on in Photoshop and which I enlarged and had framed for her.

 

 

Gift Exchange

Santa arrived at the beginning of December this year.  On December 2nd we had our annual family gift exchange.  The girls are each given $20 to help cover the cost of their purchases.  Last year we set a limit of $5 per person and we supplied the money for them to buy their gifts.  This year we supplied them with $5 per person and the limit was set for $10 per person, anything over $5 they had to spend out of their own money.  Our shopping is mostly done at the thrift store, although some gifts are also found at Wal-Mart and such.  Rebecca is not much of a shopper and needs a bit more guidance from Rob and I on what to buy or what kind of things to look at (even though we all make a list).  Marietta on the other hand has to be dragged out of the stores and such as she loves to shop and find the best bargain possible.

Some thrift finds from the gift exchange:

Mighty Machines video for Matthew

Rebecca found a jean skirt for Marietta, something she had really been wanting

Marietta found me a new Oil/Vinegar bottle since the lid/cork does not stay in my old one anymore

Marietta found a large serving spoon for Rob seeing as he’s always complaining that our serving spoons are not big enough

Marietta felt  bad for the great deal she got this porcelain doll (the girls collect them) for Rebecca that she made a point of finding another gift for Rebecca also.  (We had specified that you did not need to spend the full $10 limit but if you found a good deal for something worth about $10 that was good enough)

   

So she also got Rebecca the game Battleship which she found at the thrift store.

Beside our gift exchange Rob and I also bought the kids a few things.  We did run into a bit of an issue trying to think of something for Matthew who does not need any more toys and we couldn’t think what else to get for a four year old that would be extra special.  I stumbled across a $1 Leapfrog Leappad  at the thrift store for him … since he loves playing with Vivian’s we figured this was a good find for him … and he has been enjoying it since.

We got each the girls a sewing basket.  We had actually given Marietta one for her birthday but it had not really been what I had in mind at the time (see birthday post) so when I stumbled across these ones I scooped them up before I had trouble finding them again … I’m sure her other container will come in handy for something else.

 

Rebecca received Season 4 of Road to Avonlea, which she is collecting but we have all been enjoying as our Friday night family video for some time now.

For Marietta I took some of the pictures that she has taken and has been working on in Photoshop and had them printed and framed for her for her bedroom.

But the highlight of the evening by far was the WagJag find I got for them.  They were ecstatic about this gift (as was I on the good deal I got).  I knew they would be excited about it, but it was so nice to see the thrill and joy from them when they read about their gift.

Reading the certificate/coupon they received

I printed up a copy of the certificate/coupon for them along with some pictures of horses to dress it up a bit.  The coupon entitles each of them to:

Three 90-Minute Western or English Riding Lessons

 

Both girls are extremely excited about this.  Rebecca was just giddy the rest of the evening (that’s why we saved this gift for last) and could hardly contain herself … she most certainly couldn’t sit still after that as she would just bounce and giggle away on the couch … so excited.

Since a friend of theirs also received one of these coupons (for her birthday) the plan is to go together for the lessons in the new year once the business of the holiday season settles down.

It was a fun evening together, after opening gifts we enjoyed some snacks and the girls got right into a game of Battleship and the kids went to bed happy (so did mom and dad ;)