Wishing For Time...

You know it has been a while since you blogged when you had to try 3 different passwords to get into blogger. Wow.

So these days I have about zero time for "fun". I would love to add about 6 more hours to the day.

I have lots of time for breaking up fights between the kids, cooking, cleaning, organizing, Bible time, playing and reading with my babies..... but ZERO time for fun.

So today I am just here to say hi. I hope you had a GREAT Christmas. We did :-) It was busy, but fun. Lula Mae really got into the story of Jesus this year and that made me so happy. Jayce is really enjoying having new toys to play with. I for one am ready for January!

I will be back in 2012! Enjoy the rest of 2011 everyone!

They Should Really Warn You About This In The Baby Books

*Warning.... this post is GROSS! I wish I was exaggerating, but I am so not. If you have the slightest weak stomach you may want to click that little x in the corner and come visit me another day. If you are offended by the word "poop" you may also want to follow the folks with the weak stomachs. You have been warned.*


There are things they baby books tell you, things you will never need to know. And then there are things that they should put in the baby books. Like how about the fact that kids will, if given the opportunity, play in their...ugh... poop. My daughter never once did anything of the sort. Ever! So, is it just a boy thing???? Are you ready for this people... I mean, take a deep breath and prepare yourself....


Nap time was over so I headed to the kids room to get them up, like always. As I hit Jayce's room the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. "Oh great, he hates being changed right away. This will be a fun battle to start the afternoon with.... ugh...", and I preceded to open his door.


People, what I saw when I turned the light on was worse than something out of a horror movie.


If you are eating.... do me a favor and put the food away. If you are even drinking.... you may want to put that down too....



"Oh my word Jayce... is that... is that....


oh my goodness.... it IS!!!! It's POOOOOOOOP!!!"


"Oh Jayce it is all over the crib! It's all over the outside of the crib! Oh Jayce!"


"Look at your hands! JAYCE!!!! (gagging begins.) Oh this is bad! This is really REALLY bad!"


"Ahhhh! Look at your shirt! Wait, no don't touch me! Ewwwwww (gagging way more) please just don't touch me. Ummmm let me run a bath! Yeah a bath...."


"Oh your hands son! Look at your hands! YOUR FACE!!!!"


(nearly vomiting now) "Baby it is all over your FACE!!!! Jayce what in the world were you thinking! Oh my word!"


"Don't look at me with that innocent face! You have it in your nose... it's in your ears... all over your eyes.... oh honey you didn't eat it did you? (gagging profusely) Come on, lets get in the tub and try to scrub you down."

Yes folks. That.Just.Happened. I wish I was kidding. It took me like half and hour in the tub trying to scrub all the dried poop off of him. Even after his bath with lots and LOTS of soap his hands still smelled like poop. Totally gross! It took nearly a roll of paper towels to get the crib clean and I had to wash EVERYTHING in the crib. And now, Jayce is not allowed to wear anything other than zipper pajamas during nap. It is basically number one rule in the Bell house right now because quite frankly I can't deal with all this again. I would have appreciated reading THAT page in a parenting book AT SOME POINT IN TIME so that I could have prepared myself.
Is it bad that I am praying for more girls? I mean.... can you blame me... I'm scarred. *shivers*

Switching Gears

Jayce's blood results are in. We have a few answers. We also still have questions.

Peanut allergy is positive, we will be avoiding it for 2 years and revisiting it to see if he outgrows this. There is a chance he will out grow it and that gives me hope. Until then he travels with an epipen wherever he goes.

Guess what came back perfect? The marker for gluten intolerance.

Our first test showed it was our culprit for his skin rashes, reflux and failure to thrive. So we switched to a gluten free diet and within days we saw improvements. Within weeks we had weight gain. We felt like we found out what was wrong. Then we ended up at the allergist having tests run on several major allergens and it felt like we switched gears.

The blood work showed egg as a big factor in Jayce. But no gluten. So why the change? Can the gluten free diet have skewed the results? Nope. Could the first test have been wrong? I doubt that.

I am looking at this as a healing. I know you could look at this as a case of misdiagnosis, but I am not. I think God took it away from Jayce. I think He heard our pleads and cries and my begging and took it away. I am counting this as a blessing and praising Him for it.

So now we are putting Jayce back on gluten and keeping him on a strict egg free diet. We will watch and see. Because that is our life with Jayce... watch and see. Wait.... wait.... and wait some more.

After a month of an egg free diet we will be heading back to the allergist to see what we think the next step is. If we have improvement, we will assume we have our ducks in a row... for the time being. If we don't see improvement we will more than likely be heading to the pediatric GI for a further test on the gluten intolerance. It is a possibility that the egg allergy and gluten intolerance are factors, but for now we are leaving that to God. He is taking care of Jayce and in His time we will have answers.

Keep praying for my little man. I can't wait until I can tell him we know how to help him feel better!


I will not be taking my gluten free tab off of my blog because I still think all that I learned could help someone out there.

Christmas Fabric Wreath

I have really been busy making things these past few weeks. I go through phases where I just love doing projects and this is one of them. First I want to show you my fabric wreath that I made. All you need is a cut up pizza box and some fabric.


Trace your bowl and cut out a wreath shape.


Next I took a long scrap of white fabric to wrap around the cardboard ring first to give it some fullness.

After a few times of wrapping the fabric around I secured the fabric with a dot of hot glue. I went around the wreath twice with my white fabric because I had plenty and I wanted a nice full wreath.


Then, when I was done with the white fabric, I started with my Christmas fabric, using that same method.

And here is my finished project! I took some of my left over fabric and made a bow to tie on as well. You could really have fun with this project, making it all your own! Easy!

Oh and I made a table runner to match it.... and a hanging ball thingy to hang off the light fixture... I may have gotten out of control.... what can I say, I am finally hosting Christmas and I want it to look nice. The good news is I am not spending a fortune on pre-made decorations!

Christmas Card Holder

In this house I realized we really don't have anywhere to really "set out" all of our Christmas cards this year. So I did some searching and found a quick, simple and frugal card holder I could make. Here is what I made!




I took one sheet of foam board, 1/2 yard Christmas fabric, Christmas ribbon and quilting tacks. I used packing tape to do the entire project, but a glue gun would have worked too. It was a very easy project!

*Cut out the tree form
*Cover tree in fabric (tightly)
*Crisscross the ribbon on the tree (tightly)
*Insert tacks at each crossing
*I also flipped it over after inserting the tacks and covered all the exposed tacks with a swatch of fabric, securing it with tape.

Ta-da! Done! How easy! I also thought it would have been neat to leave the foam board in a rectangular shape and made it look like a giant gift instead of a tree. No cutting the board then so that is an even easier option. I would say get some big fat ribbon to make a big bow for the top if you make it that way. Cute, cute, cute!

Who is feeling crafty?

A Great Christmas Book

I wanted to find a good book to really explain Christmas on a 3 year old level. Now, understand that I don't mean a book about the birth of Jesus, we have tons of those.... something different. There are soooo many books out there about Santa and trees and presents and elves.... too many honestly. Well, I found one that is GREAT!!!

It is short and very easy to read, which is great for younger ones. It talks about lots of typical Christmas things [Santa, presents, Christmas plays, candy canes, elves, etc.] but then explains the true meaning of Christmas. It talks about how fun all the other things can be, but how the real reason for Christmas is Jesus. I love the illustrations and colors of this story too. This book really gets right to the point in a very cute way.

We have quite a few books about the birth of Jesus and I think they are wonderful and very important, but this book is a great companion to any of those! This one focuses on all the things that bombard our little ones around the holidays. I want my kids to know that all of those things are okay, but that we need to focus on what Christmas is really about.

This book would make a great stocking stuffer! Check it out here.

My Little Man

Jayce is 19 months old now. Where has the time gone?

He is trying to be more vocal but he is still hard to understand on a lot of what he says.

He is ALL boy... loves to climb, loves to wrestle, loves to be messy... 100% boy for

sure. Although he does still enjoy wearing Lula Mae's tutu ;-)

I swear he is still mad that we took his paci away at 12 months. He finds this chicken leg everyday and sucks on it like a paci.... sigh.... get over it dear boy, you ain't getting that paci back.

We took him for his skin allergy test on Monday. We found out that he has an egg sensitivity (no big deal, it just causes a red rash if it touches his skin but does not affect him when he eats it) and he is allergic to peanuts.

This is what his skin does when he gets egg on it. Not pretty, but I'm glad it isn't a full blown allergy.

We now have epipens. I guess they do make me feel a bit more at ease. Being that he is 100% boy there is no telling what food he may get into without us knowing. At least we know with the epipen he is safer.

He is getting a little pit of fat on him! Getting a little chubby! Yay for his body healing so he can retain nutrition from food! Praise God!

After his skin test we were sent to have a bit of blood work done. I took Jayce myself and Charlie spent some quality time with Lula Mae. I expected the worst taking him alone to have blood taken. I was more than surprised at his reaction. Have you ever experienced peace beyond understanding before? Well, now I have. I held him in my lad and pulled his sleeve up. The amazingly sweet nurse wrapped the truncate around his tiny arm and felt for his vein. He watched her so intensely, never wiggling or whining. Then she told me to get ready and hold him tight. I held his little arm in place and put my mouth up to his ear. I began praying for him. He sat there, needle in his arm, with not so much as a quiver or whimper. Never once did he make a sound or flinch away. His breathing did not even change. It was so unbelievable! The nurse was so amazed at Jayce and just could not stop laughing. She told Jayce he was her best patient ever :-) That day is something I will never forget. He is my big strong boy!

So that is what is going on with Jayce right now. We are starting to figure out his little puzzle and are well on our way to making him healthy. God is taking such good care of Jayce!

Thanks to all of you who have prayed and are praying for Jayce. It means a lot to us!