It feels like home...

I am in love with this house, the only thing that makes me sad is we are only renting it :(
I would buy this house in a heartbeat! It is the kind of house you want to raise your children in, and eventually grow old in. It has history and a story to tell, the person who owns this house grew up in this house, his father grew up in this house. It is beautiful inside and out!
I am happy that we have a yard for our kids to play in. Happy that I don't have to carry heavy groceries up 3 flights of stairs to our apartment anymore. The kids both have their own rooms and Allen and I don't have to share a room with Jaxon anymore :)
There are 2 other houses in the same drive way (more like a small road) one directly behind us, and one at the very end which we can barely see. I am home most of the time with the kids and hardly ever see anyone from those two houses except when the owner, who lives in the house at the end, when he or his son mow the grass. On both sides of us there are fields of carrots, across the road is a field of corn. There is a beautiful view of Blomidon from our deck and you can clearly see the stars at night.

The view from our deck, carrot field - trees - Blomidon



The front yard

The kids love it here, Keisha has a bigger room than she's ever had.

 Jaxon has lots of room to "crawl" around :)
Keisha has been in the trees in the front yard.
Allen gets to be a big kid and play with them with no worry of other people to watch out for no worries of the kids getting to close to the road.

Well it may not be ours to keep but for now it's home :)

Our fun filled weekend!

So this past weekend we kept Keisha with us (she usually goes to her mother's on the weekends) and we all went to visit some friends on Saturday that were camping in a campground in Annapolis called Dunromin. It's a nice place, Allen and I camped with them last year, I decided that camping with a 7 month old and Keisha wouldn't be my idea of a good time so we didn't go this year. Visiting was good enough for me and the kids :) they both got to cool off in the pool that is there, and of course Keisha loved that, to my surprise so did Jaxon! He was kicking and splashing all with a big smile on his face!

Keisha is "miss independent" in the water and actually freaks out if one of us touches her. I don't know why, because neither of us has ever done anything to make her not trust us in the water. The only thing I can think of is she doesn't want us to make her get out..ha ha. She truly is a water baby though, you will never see her happier than at a beach or in a pool.


On Sunday we went to Upper Clements Park! We had a blast! Keisha behaved very well and I am so proud of her. The only time we had a problem with her was the water slide...we waited in the line for quite a while and had a plan, Allen would go down first and wait to get Keisha when she went down then I would go down...Well that didn't work at all, Allen went down and waited, but Keisha wouldn't go down, and that meant I didn't get to go down either, so Keisha and I walked back down the stairs and I went down later by myself.
She is usually a thrill child so I don't know what scared her about the water slide, but she went on the Flume and the roller coaster :)

This is after they came down and splashed!

I am not one for roller coasters and it's not something that Jaxon could do, so him and I went to the little kiddie pool while Allen and Keisha went on the roller coaster, He of course loved it. There was a little girl there that took a liking to Jaxon and came over and started talking to us. She couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old, so cute. She says " I can walk on my knees in the water." I said "You can?" She says "Yup". Then she says "I have a baby brother" I asked her how old he is and she says "I can't remember" I laugh. She starts talking to Jaxon and making noises for him and he goes crazy laughing and kicking and splashing her, it was adorable! I think he wants Keisha to pay attention to him like that, she tries to I think, but it's not her thing.

I took Jaxon on a kiddie truck ride. Him and I sat in the back and Keisha drove :)

I can't wait for next year when Jaxon will understand better what rides are all about :) Although he had some serious interest in the steering wheel, drives like his daddy, one hand on the wheel :)

Cooking Gluten Free

Keisha has Celiacs disease, which means she can't have gluten.
I have been having fun experimenting with some Gluten Free recipes for Keisha, and so far so good..I have made Popovers, which are amazing!

And Pancakes that I found kinda on the dry side, Keisha likes them, I'll modify the recipe next time...

And Banana Muffins..also amazing :)

There quite a few recipes I want to try now that Keisha will try new things. People ask me all the time "if she can't have gluten or wheat, isn't it hard to feed her?" the answer is no. There are plenty of gluten free foods available and are getting cheaper. We also have Keisha on a casein and yeast free diet (casein is a protein in dairy products) because I have personally done a lot of research online and in every book about Autism that I can get my hands on, and they all say that casein and yeast affect them in negative ways. I asked Allen if we could try it with Keisha and he agreed, so far we can see a big difference in her she is far less moody and aggressive. Keisha, before this, would eat up to 6 gluten free buns with at least 1 slice of cheese on each a day! Not to mention the 2 or more minigo yogurt she was also eating a day! Those buns have yeast and casein in them, not good :(  So I went researching again and found a recipe for buns that had no yeast and I switched out the cow's milk for almond milk like I do with every other recipe :)
I have also noticed that since she doesn't have those "toxins" in her system she is more willing to try new foods, she now eats just about anything when she's home, and I mostly cook gluten free. It's much easier than making 2 different meals and maybe a little healthier for all of us ;)


Example of supper - Pork roast, steamed broccoli & cauliflower, green and yellow beans and basmati rice.

As you can see, she enjoys it :)