The rest of pictures and a few updates

If you likes the preview earlier this month, you'll enjoy seeing all the picts from the family fall photo shoot: http://racheleagle.com/groth/index.html. Rachel did an awesome job! Now to pick a "Christmas photo."


A bit of this and that:

• I don't want to make too big of an announcement only to find out it's a premature own, but we're pretty excited around here about Nessa not using a pull up on over a week! Yes, this means at night and during nap times too!!!! Of course this started right AFTER we ordered another case of pull ups (7th generation via Amazon).
  
  
• Nessa is excited to be a pumpkin for Halloween. Please do not tell her that this isn't very creative. Not only is it what she wants, but I don't want her to learn that her mom isn't very creative when it comes to Halloween costumes either. She's dressing up at daycare, but we're not going to go trick-or-treating this year. (Megan will be with her Dad.) Nessa won't know what she's missing, and we decided that neither of us will miss it this year, and that way we don't deal with going through and figuring out what candy she can eat or not (what is gluten free in other words). I'm sure she'll go in the future, or we'll start hosting a fall party each year, but this year is going to be low key. We did find a costume at Goodwill last night that Nessa thinks is great, and that is all that matters to me. :-)



• Megan has gone to a Halloween party already, but still doesn't know what to dress up as for trick-or-treating. She wore her Dad's old dress blues Navy uniform to the party. Aah, that brings back memories from a previous life.



• I'm really settling into our fall schedule and really enjoying having more time with Megan this year. I don't even mind the car rides to La Crescent--not even the early morning ones when Megan has safety patrol in the morning. I've found some of our best mother-daughter conversations happen in the car/van! (And boy is it the age for that! For the record, being a big sister doesn't really prepare you for these talks.)



• Megan and I have still been doing yoga most weeks, and the last two weeks we've been doing restorative yoga instead. Megan loves this so much I don't think she's going to let me go back to the regular hatha yoga sessions (with her). It seems to restore Megan right to sleep she gets so relaxed! I have to admit it is great stress relief, and I highly recommend it.



• Megan is doing great with her trumpet, and I just found out she has her first band concert in December!!!! :-) And more importantly, she said she still loves playing it. Some of the songs are recognizable now.



• Nessa discovered barbies. I'm not sure if she knows that is what they are or not because usually they are just called dolls, and that's fine with me. They are all Megan's old barbies, and I don't anticipate actually buying any more, but I may be on the look out for more barbie clothes because apparently barbie clothes disintegrate with age or something. Well, what's your explanation for all the naked barbies I found? If you have an answer to that one, maybe you can tell me why half off them also didn't have heads, or rather didn't have heads attached? I don't understand how this happens to dolls in storage for years. They came out of storage because Nessa discovered the Barbie van (I honestly don't remember where that came from because I certainly don't remember buying it.), and then Nessa wanted dolls that fit in the van. So, softie that I am, I dug out a couple of barbies, and then when she wanted to fill ALL of the seats, I dug out more.
  



• Nessa has possibly learned to "play sick" in order to get to stay home and hopefully get to watch movies and do other things she normally doesn't get to do. :-( She was very convincing until she got what she wanted. OK, really I think Monday when I brought her home from daycare she was just a little under the weather, but Tuesday when she tried it again she couldn't keep from smiling so she wasn't able to fool anyone.



• We have already gone through the stomach flu (Nessa then Megan at Applefest time, and then Shawn and I at Oktoberfest time -- one reason there are no Oktoberfest photos this year), and now we all kind of went through or are going through some other virus. I'm hoping we're getting things out of the way so that we can be all healthy for the holidays!
  



• I also confirmed the over the last couple of weeks that gluten is total poison to my body. I am so used to feeling well now, and it feels SO GREAT, that when I feel ill, it feels REALLY bad. :-( Three times in two weeks I got gluten ... once by cross contamination of some sort when eating out, once because I plain wasn't careful enough when eating out, and once because I thought I would try "gluten free" oats and realized that even labeled gluten free I can NOT handle oats either. :-( So, to help heal and feel really good again the last few days I've gone to a 100% raw food diet, and I feel SO good again! What a difference from Monday night when I was sicker than I've been in a long, long time. I've gone 100% raw for days here and there, but generally it about 75 to 90% raw.
  



• Speaking of food -- I've also been busy blogging on the Green Smoothie blog! Please check it out, and please comment on the posts, and if you don't want to comment then let me know directly what you would love to read about there (or elsewhere, lol). Right now it is taking a chunk of my time, but I'm hoping once I get going it won't be as long. However, the inspiration I get from doing interviews and talking to the other bloggers is SO worth it. My posts may sound like I don't need inspiration, but I do need it -- A LOT. I mean you would think that feeling normal again would be enough inspiration, but nope, I'm human. :-)



• In other news, I've lost my cell phone. :-( I'm sure I'll find it right after I get a new one. I'm just trying to decide if I'm just replacing a phone or changing plans, etc. So, stay tuned for a possible new number, and in the meantime if you need to talk to me, ping me for an alternate number or call Shawn's phone on nights/weekends.



• And in really BIG news, Shawn and I are finally reading the same book! The Bible. ;-) Okay, not that we each haven't read from Bibles over the last five years, but now we're really reading the same one (okay Shawn ended up buying his own). It's the "Bible in 90 Days" which lays it out in 12 pages a day reading and has larger text which is surprisingly important. I'm really loving it even when I realize why I never read the last several chapters of Exodus before. :-) I'm reading lots of other inspirational stuff too, but I'll save that for another post.

Well, I know there are some things I forgot ... and a few things I intentionally left out because this is already a book. Hey does anyone remember when I actually hand wrote letters this long back in my other life (pre-email and yet living away from family and friends)? Well, I did. So, if you made it this far count yourself lucky that you're not having to read this hand-written.

Much more soon ... maybe even photos ;-)