homemade pizza

 Since mid last year we have owned a bread maker, its' used most day's to make our preservative free bread with no nasty traces of nuts or egg.
Every couple of weeks it gets the special task of making the perfect pizza dough....my children now love homemade pizza and mummy likes it too because it's so much healthier making pizza yourself .It enables you pick the things that are safe, healthy, yummy and have a load of fun in the process.
Although making pizza has become harder now the muchkins can't have pineapple, capsicum, tomato, most sauces and all the yummy things that are usually found in pizza!!!!

If you don't have a bread maker to make pizza dough, don't fret I'll give you a recipe to use.

People with dairy allergies and intolerance's may think that this blog clearly doesn't apply to them.....in most cases people think pizza must have cheese
well I'm happy to say your wrong!!! :)
This blog will give you a delish recipe for a dairy free pizza and you can easily change the 2nd recipe to become dairy free too (I actually liked the dairy free pizza more!!!)


YEASTED PIZZA DOUGH
1 tsp active dried yeast
1 cup water
1/2tsp sugar
1 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups plain flour (see following for gluten free)

Throw all your ingredients in your bread maker and press DOUGH,
or dissolve the yeast in the water with the sugar.
Mix with oil, salt and flours in a large bowl.
Blend and knead until smooth and elastic on a floured board.
Let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume (about 1 1/2 hrs).
Punch down and knead again a few minutes to make dough easy to handle.
To make two 30cm pizzas, divide the dough in half, stretch out to about a 15cm circle by hand, then roll out to 30cm.
Place on a greased pan and cook at 220 degrees c for 15min.

QUICK PIZZA DOUGH (YEAST LESS)
2 cups self-raising flour or gluten free flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp of Nuttlex (or butter if allowed)
enough milk or soy milk to make a workable dough (about 3/4 cup)
canola oil

Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.
Rub in the butter.
Add the milk gradually, mixing to a soft dough.
Roll out to form a circle and place on a well-oiled oven tray.
Brush with oil and bake at 220 degrees c for 15minutes.
Remove from the oven.
Cover with topping.
Bake until golden, about 15 minutes.

POTATO AND LEEK PIZZA TOPPING

Low chemical.Free of egg, dairy, gluten, nut and soy

enough for 2 pizzas

(taken from 'friendly food' recipe book)

 2 tbsp canola oil

2 leeks, halved length ways, washed and thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, crushed

3 (600g) white skinned potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

(we used 300g of white skinned potatoes and 300g of sweet potato)

ground sea salt

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh chives

grated cheese (optional)

• Preheat oven to 240 degrees C
• Put 1tsp of oil in a large non stick frying pan over a medium heat
• Add the leeks and garlic and cook, stirring often, for 8-10min or until the leeks are very soft. Remove from heat and set aside.
• Meanwhile, steam or microwave potato slices until almost tender. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.
• Spread half of the leek mixture over each pizza.
• Arrange the potato slices in a thin layer over the leeks.
• Sprinkle with salt and brush with the remaining oil.
• sprinkle with grated cheese if allowed (optional)
• Bake for 20-25minutes, swapping the trays around once, or until the potatoes and dough are golden.
• Sprinkle the chives over the pizza and serve.

GARLIC MEAT PIZZA TOPPING

Low chemical, free of egg, gluten, nut and soy.

-has the potential to become dairy free too!

enough for 2 pizzas

(recipe taken from 'The Failsafe Cookbook' with a few changes)

2 cloves garlic,crushed

chopped shallots

500g low-fat mince

2tbsp cornflour dissolved in 1 1/2 cups water

canola oil

salt to taste

cream cheese (optional)

vatirty of diced veggies (optional)

grated cheese (optional)

• Preheat oven to 240 degrees C
• If you don't have to avoid dairy, cut fingers from a cheese block and place along the edge of your pizzas, folding dough over the cheese to create a cheese crust.(optional)
• You can also spread a thin layer of cream cheese on the base of your pizza if allowed (optional)
• For meat topping, Stir-fry garlic and shallots in a little oil, remove from pan.
• Fry mince in a little oil, stirring until cooked.
• Add garlic and shallots to mince with cornflour mixture, reduce heat and stir until thickened.Spoon over pizza base and sprinkle with salt.
• Place your pick of diced veggies on top of the pizza for extra taste and colour, veggies may need to be microwaved or steamed before placing on pizza. We used diced zucinni and butternut pumpkin. (optional)
• Sprinkle pizza with grated cheese to finish (optional)
• Bake in oven for 15-20 min

Pretzel Butterfies

Do you often wonder what quick, low-fat and tasty homemade treat you can make for hungry kids....
Here is something they will not only  keep them healthy and safe, but it will make their imagination go wild and put a smile on their dial :)

I came across this idea in a 'Good Taste' magazine and tweaked it a little to suit the munchkins diet.

Carrot Pretzel butterflies
Serves: 2  Prep:10 min
(shown in top of pic)

Cut 1carrot in half length ways and into 2x10cm lengths.
Cover the flat sides of the carrot sticks with 1tbsp cream cheese.
Place 2 pretzels in the cream cheese to make butterfly wings.
Place 2 pieces of copped celery along the length of the carrot underneath the wings.
Break 2 small pieces off 1 extra pretzel and place above the whole pretzel's to make antennae. Serve immediately.

Celery Pretzel butterflies
Serves: 2 Prep: 10 min
(shown in bottom of pic)
Cut 1 celery into 2x10cm lengths.
Fill each piece with 1tbsp cream cheese.
Place 2 pretzels in the cream cheese to make butterfly wings.
Place 2 pieces of copped carrot along the length of the celery underneath the wings.
Break 2 small pieces off 1 extra pretzel and place above the whole pretzels to make antennae. Serve immediately

Variations:

• If your children have dairy allergies, try using peanut butter instead of cream cheese.
• If your child's diet allows sultana's and/or raisins you could incorporate them into the butterfly design. e.g. instead of the chopped celery or carrot below the pretzel wings.

Chicken Casserole

Since changing our families dinner menu, to suit the elimination diet I have been trying new recipes and finding the good, the bad and the delicious.
The elimination diet at a glance means no colours, no preservatives, no flavour enhancers, no sylicilytes, no amines...so basically no artificial foods as well as some natural chemicals which occur in fruits, veggies etc.

This recipe that I am about to share is not only easy, but it's quite delicious, good for a family or dinner guests, or when you need to take a hot dish.


Chicken Casserole
(taken from Sue Dengates 'The Failsafe Cookbook')

500-900g cooked chicken, diced
2 tbsp butter or nuttlex
1 or 2 leeks, finely chopped
1 clove garlic or more, crushed (I always put more garlic :P)
2 tbsp cornflour or arrowroot
1 cup or more of milk, soy milk or rice milk
salt to taste
2 medium potatoes, cooked and mashed
extra butter or nuttlex for topping

• Preheat oven to 200degree's C.Stir-fry leek and garlic in butter until transparent
• Add cornflour and cook for about one minute, stirring.
• Add milk and salt and reduce heat.
• Cook, stirring, over a low heat until thickened.
• Put chicken in a medium-size casserole dish, pour leek sauce over, top with mashed potato and dot with butter.
• Bake for 30 min until brown and crispy.
• Serve with steamed cabbage and green beans.

Variations:

1. With pasta: stir through cooked pasta or gluten free pasta
2. Chicken and leek topping: follow recipe for leek sauce and pour over chicken, use as a topping for noodles or pasta
3. Family pie: top pie with one sheet of commercial puff pastry instead of mashed potato
4. Asparagus: stir though fresh or drained can of asparagus (if tolerated, salicylates)

I hope you find this recipe handy and just as tasty as we did! :)

Pear muffins mayhem: easy fun baking for little hands

When you have a house full of runny noses, nasty coughs, clingy kids, a sunny day and a pantry that needs to be replenished with safe snacks.....what do you do?

This was our exact situation earlier this week so what better idea than baking together outside in the sun!
activity to entertain the munchkins. CHECK :)
a dose of sunshine and fresh air. CHECK  :)
Yummy snacks to eat. CHECK :)
Opportunity for learning. CHECK :)
Quite a mess. Oh well :P

I set up a table  with mixing bowel, 2 spoons and measured out the quantities of ingredients in separate little plastic bowels so the kids could get stuck in and mix it all up.

The beauty about muffin's is all the ingredients all get chucked in together in the bowel-there is not real beat this, then put this in, add half, mix again.
No complications, just chuck it in and mix.
                                                                 The other good thing about muffins is you don't have to mix them to a perfect paste, mixing the ingredients a little roughly and not too much mostly results in better lighter muffins. Too much mixing will end up creating a more dense result.

Here is the result of my munchkins sunshine activity....yummy!

Pear Muffin's

Low chemical. Free of egg, nut, dairy, gluten and soy
(simply pick the ingredients options that suit your family)

1 1/2 cup self raising flour or gluten free self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg lightly beaten (equivalent amount of egg replacement)
2/3 cup of milk, soy milk or pear syrup
1/4 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup of canned or fresh pear, diced

• Sift flour into a bowel and add remaining ingredients, stirring till mixed.
• lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan with nuttlex or canola oil and use a spoon to three-quarter-fill cups.
• Bake at 180 degrees for 15-20 min (we used a mini muffin pan and reduced cooking time)

Variations:

• Apple muffin's: add 1 chopped Golden Delicious apple (salicylates) and 1 tbsp extra sugar
• Veggie muffin's: use 1/2 tsp salt instead of the sugar and add finely diced such as chokos, brussels sprouts, potato and green beans as another good way of getting vegetables into children.
• High fibre: add 1/4 cup rice bran, increase milk to 1 cup.

Happy baking!!!! enjoy

Little man's Camping queries

 On a recent visit to one of our local second hand shops something caught my attention while I purused the children's books.

I often scan the shelf/table to see if there are any good old favorites or interesting reads for our little family.

On this particular day it was this book:
Just me and my Dad. by Mercer Mayer

At a glance and quick leaf of the pages it looked liked the perfect purchase-  a book centered around bonding time with Dad and a good introduction to camping, seeing as we are making our first family camping adventure with some   

friends next month.

Yes you read correctly, we are embarking on a tent sleeping, food prep lacking a real kitchen for a whole weekend with 2  food sensitive/allergic toddlers, only 1 of those who will be sleeping in the walls of a port-a-cot!

I'm actually not that scared though....I think?

When I get the food plan sorted I'll start relaxing I guess, as I am still getting used to the new recipes that are coming with the elimination diet.

Back to the book - I've added pic's of some of the pages so you can see the beautiful illustrations too

 Well it wasn't long before Declan and I had a read, in the comfort of the lounge all snuggled up ...Mummy started to read.

Declan was eager to hear about more about this camping thing that I had tried to explain to him at an earlier date and he wanted in on it.
So on we read both wanting to know what was coming next (Mummy hadn't read it before buying as it was only 50 cents!!!!! BARGIN).

All the usual camping activities unfolded on the pages-
picking the camping site, 'attempting' to pitch the tent, lighting the campfire, riding in a canoe, fishing for dinner, catching the prized fish, wildlife stealing the dinner and scrambled eggs................................EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Declan did a double take at the page, then looked at me with a very puzzled look.

"Mummy, not eggs....they make me sick!!!"

Mummy now realizing that Declan had put 2 and 4 together and got 10...getting very muddled and thinking that Camping means you eat eggs for dinner, obviously not a good reason for him to come camping!!

Mummy soon reassured him that even though in the book they had eggs for dinner, it didn't mean when we went camping we would have eggs. In fact we would be having much more tasty foods :)

Big sighs came from Declan and a resounding "Thanks Mummy!" *cuddles*

Declan still asks for the "camping book" to be read and he enjoys it even more, now understanding that he can eat "safe food" when we go camping.

He also reminds Mummy about his food requirements when we leaf over to the "egg page" :P

It's nice to see him becoming more aware of his allergies, even when someone hasn't pointed it out to him first.

In the last month or so he is also becoming more aware and talking about his besties (best friends) food intolerance's.

Most mornings at breakfast he will loudly proclaim that "Declan and For-Lia (Thalia) eat cows milk"

to which Mummy silently thinks 'Thank goodness for that!!'

Then Declan is quick to add that "Mummy, Austin doesn't have cow's milk he has special milk, cow's milk makes Austin sick!!"

I'm so glad Declan has a special friend that he can relate to on an allergy level, although the boys allergies are different, they have been around each other from birth and each understand that they are both special in their own little way :)

Yay for Declan becoming more aware of situations around food, as well as becoming more aware about "safe food" for friends!!!

Lets not forget a little Yay for second hand books.

Quick tips: (from Robin Stewart's 'Chemical free home' book)

• to disinfect a germy second hand book just pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds with a glass of water
• If books get wet place them in the freezer until the water crystallises and can be easily brushed off pages.
• If books have a musty smell: place bicarb soda in a fine sieve, then dust the bicarb soda lightly between the pages. Leave for a few days, then blow away bicarb soda and the musty smell!!
• If your book has mildew: Sprinkle with cornflour or bicarb soda and leave for a few days. brush clean.

allergy education wish list

I firmly believe that when it comes to allergies and/or intolerance's that knowledge is the key.
Education regarding allergies = Awareness and Knowledge
and Awareness and Knowledge = Power
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I have said in previous posts that I endeavour to bring up my children in such a way that they have confidence, pride, knowledge and awareness about who they are and that they are special despite the fact that they have a food allergy or in Thalia's case food intolerance's.
I want my children to know that they can still have fun and be proud of who they are despite the differences they might have when compared to their peers.
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I am constantly trying to find situations, opportunities and words to show/explain/teach them all these things and so far *touch wood* it seems to be working.
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The other day I received the star allergy alerts e newsletter (via e-mail) which has some very interesting fact and information along with some new products on their site.
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here is an interesting yet sad part of the newsletter:

Food Allergies and Bullying.

As if our precious allergy kids don't have enough to worry about... A new report has found that about 35% of children over the age of 5 with food allergies have been the target of bullying, teasing or harassment because of their allergies. Most reported the issues related to their having to carry medication, being set apart at mealtimes and getting special treatment.

Almost half of those children reported that the food they were allergic to had been waved in their face! This disturbing new trend is causing emotional issues in allergy kids including depression and embarrassment. We need to encourage our kids to report incidents immediately and addressed by the schools.

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Just another reason to educate children with allergies as well as their friends, family, schools, church etc.

If you are interested in receiving your own newsletter from star allergy alerts simply go to http://www.starallergyalerts.com/

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Another thing that got my attention was a line of new educational books for children with allergy's aimed at the 3-6 yr olds. Defiantly one for my wish list!!!!

take a look.

Fantastic NEW Freddy the Mouse Books!!

This gorgeous range of educational books aimed at 3 to 6 year olds, feature gentle informative stories about friends with severe food allergies and anaphylaxis.

The stories are told in a clear and relevant way, using characters that children cannot help but fall in love with! They offer an invaluable introduction to food allergies, and provide useful framework to support discussion between adult and child.

Priced at $22.95 each or the Set of 3 books for $54.95! (SAVE $13.90!)

Freddy meets Ginger - The fox who was allergic to eggs

Freddy meets Ginger, a fox who is severely allergic to eggs. As Freddy and Ginger have some autumn fun, Ginger eats some egg by mistake and soon becomes unwell. Join Freddy and his friends as they learn what to do when confronted with a severe egg allergy.

Freddy and Isobel are off to the beach. As they play with an exciting new friend, Isobel has some milk by mistake and becomes ill. Join Freddy and his new exciting friend as they learn how to help Isobel deal with a severe milk allergy.

Product details

Freddy meets Nutmeg- The squirrel allergic to nuts

Freddy meets Nutmeg in the garden, a young squirrel who is severely allergic to nuts. As Nutmeg is meeting friends in the garden, she eats some nuts by mistake and becomes sick. Join Freddy and Nutmeg as they learn how to deal with a severe nut allergy.

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Another book that wasn't in the newsletter but is definitely a must on my wanted books list is The BugaBees friends with food allergies:

   

Written by Amy Recob, BugaBees characters are based on the eight foods that account for 90 percent of all allergic reactions:peanuts, tree nuts, fish, shellfish, milk, soy, eggs and wheat. "The BugaBees -Friends with Food Allergies" brings fresh optimism and fun to children dealing with the everyday challenges of managing a food allergy. Additional activities and talking points in the back of the book inspire further learning and teaching opportunities for young children and their caregivers.
*Price includes extra $5 P&H charge.

 Price: $ 24.95 AU + postage and handling

Freddy meets Isobel - The mouse who was allergic to milk

so there you go, thought I'd share my finds

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Here's to allergy awareness and knowledge, educating my munchkins to live a life with allergies and do it well!

tried epi-pen

We have never been in the situation where we needed to administer an epi-pen for Declan (which we are VERY thankful for) although we always have to carry 2 pens with him at all times..just in case.
It makes me feel sick just thinking about jabbing an epi-pen into my son but I hope that if and when it is needed I will be able to do it without hesitation and not even have to think.

Epi-pen's have used by dates and when they expire the usual routine is to hand it back to the chemist so that they can dispose properly of the sharps even if it has not been used.

So when we noticed that one of Declan's epi-pen's had expired we thought, if it's just going to be chucked out by chemist staff anyway why don't we practice on an orange or mandarin to see how hard you really have to push down on it, if we can feel the click when the needle is correctly inserted etc.

Tonight Andy tried the expired epi-pen on a orange, we were both very shocked and surprised to see the needle after coming back out of the orange...the whole whopping 2cm of needle!!!!! :O

Andy said that he felt the click and as you can probably see from the photo he was pushing quite hard into the orange.

I'm glad we did this little exercise,those little bit's of information might just make the difference. Thank goodness we have the technology and intelligence in this day and age to have such a life saver of a pen!

It also reminds me that we are still yet to buy a trainer epi-pen for family and friends to have a look at and practice with.

Here's hoping we never have to use one for real

plip, plop, drip, drop- rainy day crafts

With the rainy weather coming and going for the last month now, our house has embraced the opportunity of craft time around the theme of rain!! surprise surprise
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needless to say it can be hard at times to entertain little ones and big ones for that matter when outside is wet, wet wet and all one can hear is the pitter patter or gush pour of the ever constant rain :S
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one must muster all their energy into coming up with activities, idea's, opportunities and play, at a time when imagination and

creative spirit may be the only way to avoid going bonkers!!
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I wanted to share some of the crafts we have made

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Plip, Drop, Drip, Drop rain

To go with the rain theme, as well as the obsession my children now seem to have with Umbrella's I came up with this craft activity. .
I gave them both a sheet of white paper with a silhouette outline of 2 children cuddling. Cut out an Umbrella out of patterned patter and put it all together with glue.
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After supplying them with blue paint, paint brushes, chucky glitter shapes, gloopy glue and white cotton wool balls- they had everything to make their very own magic rain creation.
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I found this cute little rhyme to set the scene for them:
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Plip, plop, drip, drop
The rain begins to patter.
Plip, plop, drip, drop

Watch the raindrops spatter. 

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  Plip, plop, drip, drop

  The puddles are shinny and round.

  Plip, plop, drip, drop

  They're scattered all over the ground.

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  It was immensely cute when Declan suggested that the two  

  children where none other than "my cute sister Thalia and

  Declan" -I love that my munchkins have a special little bond

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  Thalia loved playing with the glitter and Declan had a great time making the puddles with paint and glitter combined, even a rainy cloud made an appearance.

The cotton wool clouds just weren't Thalia's thing, typical girl sticking to all things bling!

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Rainy weather man
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Declan and I got our crafty hands together to make our very own weather man and a very stylish weather man is he. Okay so he might be made out of a toilet roll but he is transformed with much imagination and love to become what he is today sitting on a shelf very proudly, he even has his own custom made umbrella :P
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 Here he is in all his pride styled and created for the rainy weather.

Declan had much delight in sprinkling the rain (rice grains) over him to create the pitter patter of rain.

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Obsessions of the heart:

Simply too cute not to share

Firstly Thalia's creation to the left was created after Thalia found this very special bubble picture in our collage box.

Thalia is besotted with all things bubbles at the moment and can relate most things in life back to bubbles :)
So when she found this picture she was very quick to show mummy, a decision was made with Mummy's help to stick the picture on a piece of paper for painting time.
Thalia enjoyed using one of her other favorite items...FOOD  to paint away and create her own apple bubbles.
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 She was so amazed when I cut the apple in twain and said we could use it for painting, my little miss piggy may of been offended at first that I would use precious food in such a way but she soon grew to love the way the apple made shapes on her special paper.:)

 Declan's creation's above also show some of his obsessions of late.

 The painting up the top has been titled by Declan "the fly and the hungry frog"

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 Declan stared his painting by painting a big green blob and asked "what animal is green mummy?" to  which I answered "a frog". Declan quickly made it his task to create a frog crafting his green blob into not just any frog, but 'the hungry frog' from one of his favorite books.

In the book the frog has big googly eyes so Declan told Mummy in good time that he must have some googly eyes for his frog.

Mummy whipped out some plastic crafty eyes from the cupboard and off he went.

Soon he added 4 long legs, a red tounge and the frogs lunch- a fly who also desperately needed googly eyes :P

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It was so cute to see his mind at work, focusing on his special goal to create a much loved character from the pages of a book.

Although the result of the journey is adorable, it was the journey that hit that special spot.

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The painting below shows a one minute painting by Declan which after much consideration he slushed his hand in the blue paint, slapped a little hand print on his paper and exclaimed "my best colour is blue!" :)

He is certainly making it clear  in more than one way lately his love for the colour blue: choosing clothes, pointing out blue objects and having a soft spot for all things blue.

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It's a wonderful thing to see both my children's personalities coming out more and more each day and crafting is one of the many ways in which they can express themselves, we love craft!!!

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So what crafts are you doing today??

We looked! And we saw him! The Cat in the Hat!

The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house. All that cold cold wet day.

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The first smidgen of an extraordinary book by the one and only Dr. Seuss!!
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At this point in time I would like to say something very important.... If you have never read a Dr Seuss book SHAME ON YOU! and if you have never heard of Dr Seuss I am afraid that you NEVER have lived. If you haven't, you should,these things are fun and fun is good :)

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Only a Dr. Seuss fan would understand.

Lucky for my Dr. Seuss loving munchkins and I, we had the opportunity to share a very special Dr. Seuss experience with some friends.

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Our local shopping centre put on a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat concert for children in the school holidays for a week so we made it our priority to be there.

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A few of our friends got together the week before in preparation for the big day.

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One of the mother's (otherwise known now as 'Cat in the Hat hat making extraordinaire' :P) had a great idea of helping the kids make their very own Cat in the Hat hat's to wear to the concert.

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Somehow,this said Mummy made up a template for the hats, how they would be put together after the kids had a chance to get to work at crafting their hats....the hat templates even had the stylish ability to have the extra special kink/bend that is seen in the
book itself !!

There was much enjoyment as the children applied the gloopy glue, sparkles, feathers and squiggles to their very own hat templates..waiting for the master hatter to do her magic and put the pieces together for 5 very special little Dr
Seuss fans to wear (I hear she had a little help from a male friend mad Hatter !)

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The day came and the children were very proud to dub themselves mini Cat in the Hats as they entered the much anticipated concert.

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There were lots of owwww's ad ahhhh's as the munchkins saw the Cat in the Hat himself, we danced the Cat boogie, listened to the wonderful 'Green Eggs and Ham' being read and shared the Dr. Seuss love with all present.

At times things resembled a 3 year old mosh pit :P

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After the concert we continued to push our prams of little Seuss fans through the shopping centre, each one parading their hat off with pride, all the way to the playground for "intermission".

After a short play and a quick trip to the loo's we were on our way....Meet and Greet with Cat in the Hat!!!!

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Very special photo's were taken and some very tired children in need of a bite to eat before bed piled into cars for a McDonald's feast. Following a lot of Seuss talk, nibbling, munching, slurping and crunching the munchkins found some energy and couldn't resist a play in the McDonald's playground before departing.

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A fantastic day had by all, I don't know who was more need of a nap...the mummy's or their babies but needless to say we enjoyed ourselves to the max -

the smiles, laughs, giggles, dancing feet, bopping, jumping, some tears, cuddles, kisses and meals between friends was all worth it!!!

Allergies suck!!!!

Most of my readers will probably already now that Declan deals with his life threatening egg and nut allergies in day to day life, as well as his asthma and Eczema.

Friday was his follow up allergy prick test and check up to see how he is doing, also to test Thalia for allergies now that she is old enough for the prick test to be accurate.

D day (Friday) soon turned into dooms day as the results started to unravel :(

Declan's prick test soon showed that his egg and peanut allergy numbers had doubled since June last year and as we thought his dust mite stayed the same at 13. Peanut being the more severe jumping from a 11 grading to a whopping 25 and egg nearly as severe jumping from 11 to 22!!!

Both the allergist, Andy and I were surprised to see the numbers rise and everyone expected a decrease if anything, according to the allergy specialist Declan's home life and food are very safe and what we have been actively doing for him the past year is all good.

The rise in numbers is apparently due to the exposure he gets though other people ......simple things like hugging, kissing, playing and spending time with people who have recently consumed egg and or nuts, who may not realise that even 6 hrs after eating these foods they can pass on egg and/or nut particles to Declan and in turn boost his vulnerability to a very bad reaction.
If his number's continue to rise the epi pen may not work on him in the situation where he needs it to overcome a bad reaction, this is the hardest thing to stomach and it's so hard to even type it.

For the prick test alone he needed more than the usual 'magic spray' to stop the reaction and itching....it wasn't until they had given his oral medicine (equivalent to an epi pen) and a tablet that he started to look like himself again.
It was very scary to see him that way.

To help the situation I am currently trying to find a anaphylaxis playgroup where Declan can have a safe environment to play and socialise, as well as having the bonus of meeting other families who are living a life similar to ours.
We are brainstorming all different ways to possibly lower his numbers....prayer is a big one!

On a positive Thalia's prick test was all clear...YAY!!!!!!
No food allergies, dust mite, animal allergies or grass/tree/mould allergy's :)

Thalia is at risk of getting a dust mite allergy due to her very dry skin gene and bad eczema.
The specialist after seeing Thalia let us know that Thalia and Declan's eczema were both diet related.....grrr more food issues!

So my little munchkins have now been put on the moderate elimination diet (thank goodness it not a strict one). This means that they can have no preservatives, colour's, flavour's, most processed foods, a well as a whole chunk of veggies and fruits and a selection of meats!
They are not allergic to all these foods but are simply intolerant so it's nothing compared to the severe allergy's Declan faces.
There are also not items we have to make flee from our house and Andy and I are welcome to eat them.

it's actually easier to list the items that they can have because the list is soooo much shorter :0

Saturday after the tests proved to be a interesting challenge, doing all the food shopping with the new diet commencing almost took me the whole day...Mrs flanery's, health food shops, coles, Aldi, Woolies and the butcher, thankfuly mum and dad came for the ride and made things a little easier.

I'm also very blessed to have a lovely friend who is the encyclopedia of the elimination diet due to her son's intolerance's, who is helping me get started....THANK YOU!!! you know who you are ox

Both the kids were weighed as part of the check up and are healthy weights, Declan at 14kg and Thalia at 10kg. The allergist always checks Declan's height due to the risk of stinted growth for the steroids in his medication and creams, they don't seem to be affecting his height at all though and he is currently 96.5cm.

So there you have it our D day in a nutshell (for lack of a better word)

Here I am again trying to get a shopping list together and plan menu's ready for the week ahead but I'm feeling much more confident this week about it all and I know we can do it.

God never gives us more than we can deal with!!! I just have to keep reminding myself.