Mini Post Tuesday

I know this is normally "Mini Post Monday," but since yesterday was Joanna's birthday and I put up a birthday post for her, I thought she deserved all of the bloggy attention for the whole day.  So I decided to change to Tuesday for this week.  It's my regular feature, and I can.  So there.

• Have I mentioned here before that I think allergies are stupid?  If I have failed to do that, let it be  known:  allergies are stupid.  I have hit the point where I am very tired of having to cook every meal every day.  I just want to throw something easy on the table for a change.  I think the honeymoon stage, where I was all stoked that I was able to take 15 weird ingredients and make something nourishing and tasty, is over.  Now it is just all hard work.  For example, today I made pancakes for breakfast.  I still had syrup from a double batch I made last Monday, so I didn't have to make that again today, but I normally do.  I made tortillas from scratch for our lunch.  For dinner, I cooked a chicken and made gravy from scratch, carrots, rice, and a cake (from scratch).  Do you know how many dishes those things produce?  Now, because I hate when people post nothing but complaints (think Facebook friends who only have negative status updates...I cannot stand that!  If I wanted to hear someone complain, I'd double the kids chore list without warning and sit back to enjoy the ensuing mayhem.), I'm going to give you the silver lining (because there is always a bright side to every situation in life).  The bright side to all this work is that when the treatments are over, if there are still a couple foods we cannot eat, it will be a breeze to cook minus one or two common ingredients!  I won't even break a sweat having to prepare meals with no peanuts or no wheat!  A few missing ingredients will be no problem after having 19 common ingredients on the "no eat" list right now!
• They're back!!  Andrew's hair is finally long enough to curl up at the ends again.  I had to get the picture while it was wet, though.  When it's dry, most of it still goes straight, but knowing that they are close to sticking around makes me very, very happy.  Now I just have to find a way to cut his hair that will allow him to look like a boy and have curls. 

• I decided to have the boys actually give out Valentine's this year to the kids in their Sunday School classes and in their class at my Bible Study.  They were really excited because we've never done this before.  The old standby for Valentine's cards is to attach a piece of candy.  Since my kids cannot eat any of the candy out there (I know, I checked every single package ingredient list), I decided to chop up all our old crayons and make heart-shaped, color-swirled crayons to give out.  They turned out great, the kids had fun, but man! These are a lot of work!  Do you know how long it takes to peel the papers off a few hundred crayons? 

 Aaron and Ethan deciding on the perfect combination of colors for each new crayon.

In the oven, getting all melty...
• Shower tile is going up!  I just have to say, Jerry is totally awesome!  He has done such a good job on this bathroom - I am so impressed!  Where the empty squares are in the tile will be the same colored tile as the big wall.  I think this is going to look really nice when it is done!

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the two gaps in the tile here are for the soap dish and a ledge to put shampoo on.