PineCone Research is accepting new panel members

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As a member on PineCone Research you will receive an email once or twice a month asking for you to participate in an online survey. If you qualify and complete the survey you will be compensated for your time. The surveys are always completed on your computer and occassionally they will send you a product to test and then take a survey on that product. But remember you are compensated for your time.

This company is legitimate and I for one have enjoyed my experience with them. So if you are interested they are now accepting new panel members. Click here to read more and sing up if this is something you would be interested in doing.

Never take allergies lightly

I have been with my husband for 13 years now and one of the very first things I learned about him was that he is allergic to nuts. I have never been with him when he has had a severe reaction. He did have a reaction to a dish I made a few years back. It was one of those premade dishes and I was unaware it had walnuts in it. How was a I to know a pesto marinara had nuts. Ever since then I have been more careful on premade dishes that I buy. Thankfully he caught it right away and headed to the hospital and got it stopped.

I had always expected at least one of our children to come down with the same allergy and I knew once my daughter was born that it would be her. Since an infant she has had severe eczema and since eczema is very often linked with allergies it was no surprise that when I had her tested at two years of age that she was in fact severely allergic to nuts. I have always played the safe route and didn't give any of my kids any type of nut until after they were allergy tested. It's kind of funny that my almost seven year old refuses to eat nuts because he remembers me telling him he might be allergic to them when he was younger. But I go with better safe then sorry so that is fine with me.

While my daughter was at my parents house this weekend she ended up with her first reaction. It was a simple accident that could have happened to anyone. My niece wanted to share with her so she gave her some cashews and Samantha not fully understand that they were nuts ate them. She immediately walked over to my Dad and told him that her throat hurts. My Dad called me and asked if she was allergic, I was like um yes why. He told me what happened, I grabbed the two boys (half dressed) and the benedryl and ran over there.

When I got there she had a little bit of a rash on her chin and throat area. I gave her some bendryl and she seemed ok so I let her play. About five minutes later she threw up. And five minutes after that she threw up two more times. By then she started to get some hives so I grabbed her, told my mom were going to the hospital and I left. I drove like a bat out of hell and when I got there I parked in the red zone and asked if they had epi pens, when they said yes why I told them and we were rushed right back in. She didn't have many hives but I could see the swelling under her chin area and all she wanted to do was sleep which bothered me. Finally we got sent over to peds and by then she started getting hives on her cheek and arms. They gave her an epi shot and a dose of prednisone. We stayed for about 30 min to make sure she was getting better and then went back to my parents.

About an hour later she just kept getting worse. By this time there were more hives and they started to get very red. So off we went, back to see the Dr. By the time we got there I wanted to cry just looking at my poor baby girl. I can't imagine the amount of pain she must of have been in. I had given her more benedryl right before we ran out the door the second time so the Dr's said there was nothing they could do for her since she's already had that along with the epi shot. Just to keep an eye on her and if she worsens to bring her back. Thank god that finally about an hour and a half after the second dose of benedryl she started to clear up and once it started it was fast and within an hour she was completely cleared of all hives and redness. It was such a relief when it was finally all gone I just can't express how relieved I was.

I am showing these pictures to help show that just because it seems non harmful when it comes to allergies things can go from fine to worse in a matter of minutes or hours. Never mess around when it comes to allergies to foods!

These first two were taken at our first trip to the Dr's.

 

This is what happened AFTER she had already received the epi shot

After the day was over I sat down and talked with my husband and he told me from his experience the best way for it to be treated is to go to the ER (not urgent care) and they will give an epi shot followed by a shot of benedryl. The epi stops the initial reaction and the benedryl keeps it under control. So now that we have unfortunately experienced this I am glad I know what to expect and how to handle it.

My poor Dad felt horrible that this happened while he was watching the kids. I told him over and over that accidents happen and really it was only a matter of time that we had to deal with her allergy and that I am just thankful it happened at their house as opposed to at a friends house who might have no idea how to handle allergies or at school. I think the only thing that helped him feel better was getting a big hug from Samantha.

Sisters rock

Today was a very hard day. I will explain in another post later on tonight but right now I wanted to share how awesome my sister is. She called earlier and said she was going out to take some pictures and wanted to know if Jr wanted to come. Of course he said yes, well it was more like Y.E.S. MOM!!!! So she came by and picked him up and off they went. Two hours later they came back and I stole the pictures off her camera. Well it's not really stealing since it's my kid right LOL
Anywho Jr got to run around and play and be the single subject behind the cameras focus. To say he needed alone time like this would be an understatement. I think others who have more then one child will agree with me that it can be hard to spend one on one time with each child every day so the fact that my sister took him out and just let him be him was just beyond awesome to me.
So here's a few of the pictures that she took and I edited. We both share a love of photography.

Green beans galore

I LOVE green beans. Like seriously I will snack on them in the middle of the night if I cooked some earlier that day which is exactly what I did when I made a big batch of them on Monday for dinner. The left overs didn't even last into the next day LOL
This is my tried and true recipe for green beans.



1-2 lbs of green beans, washed and stems trimmed off
1/2 red onion, chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp butter or olive oil (whichever you prefer)
Garlic Salt (to taste)

Warm up a pan and start to melt your butter. After it has melted and is slightly turning brown add in your onions and saute for 1-2 minutes. You don't want to get them too soft because they will just turn to mush later on.Warm up a pan and start to melt your butter. After it has melted and is slightly turning brown add in your onions and saute for 1-2 minutes. You don't want to get them too soft because they will just turn to mush later on.

Add in the garlic and saute for another 1-2 minutes until the garlic is lightly golden.

Then add in your raw green beans. I prefer my green beans with a slight crunch so I do not cook them before added them into the sauteed onion & garlic.

Cook for approximately 7-10 minutes stirring frequently so the garlic doesn't burn. The green beans should still have a slight crunch. Sprinkle with a little bit of garlic salt, stir and then pour into a serving bowl and enjoy :D

Just looking at the pictures is making me salivate. I'm thinking a trip top the grocery store later might be in store to buy more green beans.

Wordless Wednesday

Yesterday while cleaning the kids room I got this overwhelming feeling to switch Shawn's crib into a toddler bed. Why did I do this? Well over the past six months or so he has become a master at climbing in and out of his crib. Seriously I have never seen a child get out of a crib so fast. It was as if the crib bars weren't even there. So I finally (after bawling internally) took off the crib bars and converted it into a toddler bed for my baby boy, who by the way will be 2.5 years old on the 30th this month.

He looks like such a big boy!

LOL leave it my kid to do this during pictures

My Jr man <3

Daddy trying to tell Mantha Pantha that there's nothing to be scared of at night (Ignore the pillow without a pillow case, I am constantly putting it on and as soon as she gets in bed she takes it off, yuck).

This was how he was sleeping when I went in to check on him. I just love the leg and arm over the side. Good thing for the rail or he would have rolled right off the bed.

Awww, I just love watching my babies sleep.

He only got out of bed once before he fell asleep which is better then when he was in the crib. He did wake up at 3 and 4 am to come into my room but that's normal, except now I put him back in his bed. So all and all it was a success!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well now it's a little belated but hey it's the thought that counts right! We went over to my parents last night and met a few friends before we went out. I love getting together with them. This is the third year we've done it now and not only do the kids have a blast with each other it's nice to have adult company and people to enjoy watching the kids with. I took over 160 pictures last night. I know maybe a little crazy but hey you never know when you could catch that perfect picture so I shoot like mad. 

Here are a few of my favorites from last night. 

Samantha and Madison posing before we go t.o.t.

My pretty little princess

Jenny and I

My Jr man dressed up as Jango Fett or as he likes to call it "Jango Fat"

I caught him sneaking a candy LOL

It's done, it's finally done!

When decided what to do for Halloween this year I knew I wanted to make my daughters costume. I'm not the craftiest person out there but how hard could a costume be to make. So I got all the fabric and went to work. All was well until I started working on it while I was tired and well just not thinking about what I was doing. I sat down and looked at the fabric and asked my friend Jenny "Why didn't I cut any of this fabric"? So I went to work and proceeded to cut all the fabric. Once that was done I went to put it on the elastic and realized OMG I cut ALL, yes every single piece in half! So now they were all too short too use. I think if Jenny hadn't been there I would have cried.
Fast forward to the following Friday (today) Jenny came over and saved the day with tons of replacement fabric. This time I made sure that I was cutting the correct way before I did anything. The end result, a beautiful costume for my princess. I'm calling it a strawberry shortcake princess tutu dress LOL I really don't know what to call it but I went with the color theme of strawberry shortcake and it is a dress so it works.

The finished product.

Her wand to go with her costume

Samantha was so excited to put her costume on and of course didn't want to take it off. I'm so happy she loves it because in the end that's all that matters.