Allergies

Well it's official. Tyler is allergic to wheat, black pepper, garlic, cats, and mold. She is also sensitive to corn, soy, vanilla, chicken and chocolate. Poor girl.

Guess it's a new diet for the bryants.

Next up, allergy testing for Lexie & Grace.

Updates - Updates - Updates

It's been a little while, but in all fairness it has been a busy time around the Bryant house. (Thank goodness for our church hometeam! couldn't have made it through these last few weeks without them!) So here we go.. get ready for the ride.... a few weeks ago colds, stomach flu, fun times lemme tell ya. Food poisoning for me... oh joy. Then Tyler has to see a pediatric gastroenterologist... has a week of suppositories (please pray that we don't have to do that again!) followed by colonoscopy. 4 Days of "clean-out" with the last day being a clear-liquid diet. At first she was excited, since we told her she could have as many popsicles as she wanted.... but the novelty of that soon wore off. Feb. 26th Tyler has colonoscopy. Her sigmoid colon was very inflamed (but the rest of the large intestine looks normal, whew), so they took a biopsy of the tissue. Good news, they were able to see her entire large intestine, there were no polyps and they did not think she had Crohns Disease. She did so good, what a little trooper. The results came back from the biopsy showing a significant amount of eosinophil . The GI doctor thinks Tyler has food allergies, so it's off to the allergist. Last week we see the allergist, does the scratch test (which she did SO great... it also helped that she had a super nurse, Sally, who she really liked!), shows that she's allergic to mold and cats, but no food and because that test is only about 85% accurate, he wants to do patch testing. Also had her tested for Celiac disease, which praise God, came back negative. That brings us to this week.... or hell week as I am referring to it. :-) We have had an appointment everyday! It started on Monday going to the allergist. They gave us a long list of foods that we could bring in, so after review the list, we brought in 5 (we chose things that we eat often), in addition to the standard wheat, dairy, nut, soy and egg. Poor girl, almost her entire back is covered with tape and lots of little test "dots". Those have to stay on for 48 hours. We will go back Wednesday, Thursday and Monday for that. Today Tyler's pediatric GI wanted to see the twins to discuss the possibility of them having food allergies.... fun... not. So after a joyfuul rectal exam (Sorry TMI) it's on to the allergist for them as well. At least we don't have any scheduled colonoscopies for them.... yet. (Praying that does not come to fruition). Tyler had her first dental appointment today... (had a cavity in a molar) She did AWESOME!!! Not a tear was shed!! She was so proud... as was mama!! Next week I have a dental appointment, my follow-up with the endocrinologist and a scheduled visit the breast specialist, as the lump is back. As if that wasn't enough, in the middle of all this, we hit the one year anniversery of my FIL's passing, a very dear friend and I have decided to be leaders for a Women's Hometeam with our church,my uncle had a angioplasty (which was successful, Thank God), my grandma got good news from her breast specialist (Thank God),the 100th day data review was going on for school (as I am still working for the charter school in Tucson), Tyler started swimming lessons and tap and ballet, the babies started walking (see below) Thank goodness Tyler has spring breask for preschool, otherwise I would be a total wreck! And that's not even all of it... SO... if I haven't given ya a call or written an email, it's certainly not because I haven't thought of you... it's just been insane these last few weeks.... I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to the end of March!!! Hopefully all our appointments will be done and things will be back to family of five normal. :-) Please keep us in your prayers that all will go well the next two weeks. :-) We certainly have so much to be thankful for as the Lord has truely blessed us.

And how could I possibly forget to mention that BOTH Lexie & Grace are now walking!! It was so crazy how quickly they took off... They're so cute... of course I could be a little bias, but hey. :-) In other twin news, Lexie is cutting 2 molars... and when they're through, she will have 9 teeth. Grace has 3 teeth now (she cut a molar a few weeks ago) and is currently cutting 4!!! All top, which will bring her to 7 teeth. :-)

Otherwise all is good. The girls are growing, Tony is busy with work and he and I are great! (had a wonderful date night last week, gunna have another this weekend) Gus is good... gettin' old, Brenda & Gary (Tyler's goldfish from Walmart that we bought because they were cheap {in case we had to "replace" them} 3 years ago) are still alive and kicking and Matasha (as Tyler so lovingly calls her) the tarantula is doing just fine. :-) Oh and we got a home gym... Tony LOVES it and I like it too... no more excuses... there's no traveling involved... just gotta walk to the garage.... Hope all is well with you and yours!!

Sending our love!!
T,J & the girls

Spending time with Gramma Becky

 
 

Last weekend Gramma Becky came up for a visit. The girls had a great time and Tony and I had a date night!!! (We went to The Melting Pot with some friends, rode the Harley... we had a great time!) Here's just a few pictures of some fun times they shared.

 
 

A well deserved break from a hard days work....

 

The weather was great and after cutting the grass and seeding the yard, what better way to cool off than a quick run through the sprinklers. :-) She made one trip around the yard, then decided she was done. Then informed Tony and I that she needed a nice dry place to "bask in the sun". She really is just too funny. :-)

 
 

Coolin' Off

 
 

Yum!


 
 

Tyler and Daddy

 
 

Tyler LOVES working with her daddy and of course I LOVE watching them together. Getting ready for the green-grass season is something they have always done together, so of course I had to snap a few pics. Looking at these really made me realize just how big she's gotten... I remember when she was little out there trying to help push the mower. :-) LOL Those two are so funny together.... I don't now of any little girl who loves her daddy more then she. :-) And it wouldn't be complete without "throwin' up the goat" (as Tony has proudly taught her) Rock On Dude! :-)

 
 

Our little arteest

 
 

We have a lot of arts and crafts supplies...LOTS. The one thing she REALLY LOVES is painting. She has never been big on coloring.... but give that girl a paint brush and she's full of bliss. :-) Here's just a sample of there beautiful creations she comes up with. :-)

 
 
 

Look Mom... we're helping.

 

When I work late at night, sometimes I don't always feel like filing, so I usually have a pile that I need to take care of.... well I was working on our taxes, got them done and went to bed. The next morning I was in the kitchen... thinking "gee, it's awfully quiet... hmmmm" Oh my! My nicely organized file pile was no more. No more of that.... ahhh, the joys of 1 year old twins.

 

WEEEEEEEEE!

 
 

This was a grand moment... for those of you who don't know, Grace DID NOT like swinging outside... really did not like it, but when Tyler would go outside, she would just sit at the door and watch her... so I have been every so slowly trying to get her comfortable. Well this was the day! She had a blast and now doesn't wanna go slow for a minute! I LOVE the look on her face. She is such a happy girl! How blessed we are!!

 
 

Hey you with that black thing.....

 

She was all smiles.... this is until I brought out the camera... Poor girl, she should know by now that her Mama is snap-happy. :-) I think she may be telling me she's done with the pictures... LOL

 
 

We's growin' us a gardin!

 
 
 
 

I have always wanted to plant a garden. There's just something to be said about picking the fruit and vegies you've grown... beside the fact that it's a WONDERFUL thing for Tyler to witness... She just LOVES planting... seeing how things grow. So I asked Tony if we could build up a planter bed, which he thought was a wonderful idea. After a lovely Sunday afternoon in the yard, our bed was up, our soil was in and our seeds were planted. I had Tyler pick out what she wanted to plant. She chose peas, carrots, watermellon (which we planted around the trees) and mammoth sunflowers.

We started by germinating the sunflower seeds, then we planted them. Tyler's BFF Natalie joined us for the afternoon, and they had a blast.

It will be interesting to see how it all goes.... we have carrots (LOTS of carrots) in areas together... mixed in with peas. Sunflowers are in the back and our watermellon have just sprouted. :-) Can't wait to eat um' up!

Spring has arrived!

 
 

Last year we adopted a lovely little lemon tree from Grandma Becky. :-) We planted it, but did not get any fruit.... SO not the case this year! We will be LOADED with lemons! YEA!! We LOVE spring!


 
 

SWIMMING!

 
 
 

Tyler started swimming lessons this month with Ms. Natascha and loving it! She is doing SO good... I don't think anyone would have ever known that she hadn't swam all winter. :-) These are from her first class... our little tadpoll is gettin' bigger! We are SO proud of her! She's diving for rings on her first day! :-)