Easter

This little blazer came into my life many moons ago.  You might think it's seen a lot of action with 4 boys, but you'd be wrong.  

It took 4 boys and 7.5 years for size 3 months, the Easter season, and a baby to come into alignment.    

The universe was in our favor yesterday.

Easter is my favorite holiday.

I love Christmas, too.  But to me it's just the precursor to Easter.  Jesus Christ was born and he lived a perfect, sinless life.

He taught us how to live by word and example.  

And then he gave His life willingly, as a sacrifice of love, to pay the price for the inevitable and unavoidable sins and pains of the rest of us. God is a God of laws and for each sin committed, there must be a repayment.  As hard as we try, for as many times as we apologize, we do not have the ability to make ourselves clean. Only Jesus can do that.

No unclean thing can dwell with God. And living with God and the rest of my family again is one of my sincerest desires.

Jesus Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane for me; for all the times and ways that I have messed up, chosen the wrong thing, and been stupid.  

He did it for you, too.

And after that horrible pain and death on the cross, when those who loved Him most felt that hope was lost, He rose and lived again!

And because of that, we will too.

But we don't have to wait until we're dead to live again.  

When things are dark in our lives, when we are weighed down by disappointment, poor choices, fear, and mistakes, when we begin to feel that our hope is lost, it is not.

Just as Spring always follows Winter, we can begin again.  With the help of Jesus Christ we can get up, dust ourselves off, and continue on, maybe even with a hop in our step.  Because isn't that a miracle? Aren't we so lucky to have that chance?

Instead of moping through life, ragged, dirty, and tired, the love and atonement gifted to us by our brother Jesus Christ means we can always live with a hopeful heart and light in our eyes.

"Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life." ~S.D. Gordon  

Nuts, Sprouts, Finn, and Garth

I don't even know what's been happening the past few weeks.  Let's see...two weeks ago Finn, Jack,  and I were patronizing Costco.  I've been doing whole30 for the past 38 days (it's wonderful, in case you were wondering, but more on that later) so I was passing up all the samples.  As it drew time to pick Ava up from her art class, we made our way to the checkouts.  On the way, we passed what I'm sure was the very last possible sample before exiting the store.  I picked up a nut cluster off the tray, offered it to Finn and he gladly accepted.

By the time we got to the car I noticed that he was still happily chewing.  As I buckled him into his car seat, he coughed, got  few little pieces on his hand, and then rubbed his face.  Those two little pieces stuck to his cheek and in less than 20 seconds both nuts were respectively sitting on their own little red hives.

I noted it but drove on to get Ava.  I watched in my rear view mirror as the spots and redness spread. Soon his whole face was red, especially around his eyes and he rubbed and rubbed them.  In the art class parking lot, I called Costco to see if they could track down what I had actually fed him.  They were very helpful but told me they were sampling many varieties of nut clusters and we could not be sure which flavor (and therefore, ingredients) he had eaten.

I called my mom and she insisted on Benadryl right away.  Thank heavens she did. I would have given him some when I got home, about an hour and a half later, but knowing what I do now, I am so glad I did not wait.

I had to call the pediatrician's office for the dosing, which they gave me, and also gave me a referral to an allergist, and a strict admonition for him to avoid all nuts until he was tested.

I've fed him so much peanut butter in his life with zero reaction, plus the only words the Costco  sample lady spoke to me as I picked up the nut cluster was, "these are made without any peanuts." So I was pretty sure peanuts were not the culprit.

One week later, a scratch test solved the mystery. Finn did so much better than I anticipated with it.  He cried a little but was easily distracted by skittles. When the doctor returned to our exam room with the results, the first thing she said was, "This is very serious.  This is the type of allergy that kills people".  She definitely had my attention.  She went on to incriminate cashews and pistachios (my two favorites!) and branded them strictly forbidden.  He can't have the nuts or any product made in the same facility as ones that process tree nuts.  Right now, it seems fairly manageable because I am in sole control of his food.  As he grows it could become more difficult to manage.  The doctor told me that I am to tell every person who may ever give him food that he is severely allergic to "tree nuts" just to be safe.  But that I can be more specific with his food because I know that we only need to truly avoid cashews and pistachios.  She said he has a 15% chance of outgrowing this allergy (please, please, please let that be true) and that we will retest in 1 year.  She wrote a prescription for epi pens and said we must keep one in his presence at all times.  It seems overboard, but better safe that sorry, I guess.


Hmm, what else?  As day 30 of the whole30 drew near, I knew that I was not going to stop.  Way back when, in 2012,when I had that horrible, undiagnosable sickness and I was in complete misery, eating this way was the only thing that seemed to help and ever since then I have truly come to believe in the sayings,


"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food"

and

"The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison"


In starting this 30 day spread of no sugar, grain, dairy, or legumes, I was hoping to get my hormones back on track after having and nursing Jack, find some more energy, and fit into my clothes again. One of the first noticeable changes was one I didn't anticipate at all.  For the past long while, every single morning when I woke up, my lower back hurt terribly.  Like so terrible that it took me five minutes to stand up completely straight and bending down to dress was just torture.  I chalked it up to being tall and having absolutely zero ab muscles.  I kept telling myself that once I had the time and energy to exercise again, I should really work on my core and hope that this terrible back pain would go away.  Well, wouldn't you know that by day 2, the morning back pain was completely gone.  And on day 5 my milk came in.  My milk had been waning for many weeks and I hadn't nursed at all in over two. I wasn't really happy to have it back but I mention it only to illustrate how much our hormones are tied to what we eat.  Overall, I just feel so much better than I did before I started.  And I am slowly making my way to the bottom of the piles in my closet, to the clothes that haven't seen the light of day for at least a year. On day 30, I finally weighed myself and had no regrets saying goodbye to 11 pounds and 16 total inches.  And have a new found love for brussel sprouts. It has taken a significant amount of prep work (I pretty much cook myself a week's worth of food on Sunday) but the way I feel has made it worth it.

I enjoyed the second installment of my Chicago birthday trips to visit to my parents with Jack.

I love them so much and I can't believe that their mission is almost done. I have been so lucky to see them as much as I have.  I will go back down to Texas next month to hear their homecoming talks before they pick up their storage units full of stuff and head off to Michigan.

My Finny baby turned 2.  He was in love with his football cake.  When you ask him how old he is, he still says 1.  When reminded that he just had his birthday, he'll say, "Yeah, habee burday, fut-ba cake!"

My phone died  right before we sang to him, so the pictures are on Dan's. I'll have to add them later.

He has started referring to Jack as "Jacky Baby!" and it's the cutest thing.  I must get it on film.  Whenever Jack wakes up or cries or he sees him after they've been apart, he yells, "Jaaacky Baby!"


Finally I got to celebrate my birthday one more time by going to the Garth Brooks concert.  And I wore my boots in his honor.

It's hard to believe that I was pregnant with Finn when we saw him in Las Vegas.  That concert was the best of my life and I distinctly remember saying that I didn't need to see him in a big arena with amplifiers and a band if he ever toured again. I did say that.  But I am so glad we went! He is such a showman and the concert was A-mazing.  I screamed every word to every song and Dan didn't even seem that embarrassed of me!

Dan got us tickets for the 10:30 show (Garth's second of the night) so that we could put all of our children to bed before we left.  It was the latest we've stayed out in, I don't know how long.  The concert started late, sometime after 11pm. I almost fell asleep waiting because that is way past my bedtime.  But as soon as he hit the stage, I was awake!

We didn't get home until 2:15am.  Our lovely friend, Emily, always ends up doing the worst jobs for us, and was our middle of the night babysitter (THANK YOU, EMILY!) Finn has been sleeping so badly, waking up multiple times a night and of course Jack is still Jack.  We said our prayers and crossed our fingers that they would both stay asleep for Emily's sake.  And as luck would have it, we arrived home, said our quick goodbyes to Emily, shut the door, and both boys started crying.  It was perfect timing.

And  perfect night.

I You

So there I was, standing in my closet, minding my own beeswax, trying to find something to wear, when Finn walks in.

He looks up at me with his big eyes and points out the oval emblem on a suitcase stored in the corner that he wholeheartedly believes is a football.

 Then he walks over to me, wraps his arms around my legs and says, "I you, Mommy" which translates to "I love you, Mommy."

And March 11, 2015 joins the three other First Unsolicited "I love you" days and goes down in Elise Colton history as one of the best days ever.

Finn is 2!

Finn was born two years ago today.

It was the first birth of my children attended by not only my husband, but my mom and Dad as well.  I labored just how I wanted and got the best epidural at the last minute.

The first thing I noticed when he was born were his huge dark eyes and the signature birthmark on his shoulder. 

Life has been a whirlwind since that day!

  For the past few weeks he's carried around a bouncy ball and his "football card," (which is actually a McDonalds gift card with a football player on it) as his most prized possessions. 

He still loves a good bottle, his  paci, his taggie blanket, 

and his siblings, 

especially Jack.

 He loves buses and trucks,

 books and music.

He has a naughty streak.

 He's reached Gold Status as a tantrum thrower.

 He knows where we are when we are driving around town, yelling out whatever landmark is nearby. 

Chuch! (Church!) 

Dorse! (Store!)

 Duke's goose! (Luke's school!)

Mac's goose! (Max's school!)

 Home!(Home!)  

When I'm putting him to bed I always whisper sweet nothings in his ears. And he always whispers back in his soft little way, "Wa you" (I love you)  and  "mama's baby". 

He's obsessed with football, basketball, and BYU (they're synonymous really) even though we never really encouraged it. He can spot the Y logo anywhere, any oval shape is undoubtedly a football, and he yells "touchdown!" at just the right time. 

He idolizes his dad. He wants to be where he is and do what he does. And if he has to grow up, modeling himself after Dan would be my favorite option.

From Instagram: 

Two years ago today this big eyed beauty came into our world. His adorability is his saving grace, but my favorite part about him is that he's mine. Forever. Happy Birthday, Finn Baby!

Black and White

The bad news was Ava had a 24 hour tummy bug.  The good news was, while she was laid up and we weren't doing school I  had time to play with my baby and my camera.

Baby Jack, 5 months old.

And just because color and light speak to my soul, I will contradict my own title.