All Around Update

So I know that I haven't posted about Christmas or our wonderful trip to California yet, but I thought I would start off the year with an overall update on the Menkes.

Jake is currently on his iodine free diet and has been for 2 weeks now. It has been a little over a year since he did radiation treatment so he needs to be tested again to see if he needs another treatment. He had his blood work done today and then they will let us know if he is ready to take a small dose of radiation. After he takes it he will be tested to see if he needs the full dose. We are praying that all is well and that he doesn't need any treatment. While he is on this iodine free diet he cannot have dairy, eggs or anything with salt in it, which is all a pain, but he also cannot have his thyroid medication which is the real kicker. He is handling it like a champ, but is pretty tired most of the time.
Jake went snowboarding on Christmas Eve day and said it was practically perfection out on the mountain.
I have been extra busy....cooking. Super lame I know, but since Jake can't have anything premade or from a can, all of his meals are pretty time consuming. Everything has to be from scratch. It has been pretty educational and much better than it was last time around. I have made tons of bread, french bread, spaghetti sauce, tortillas, corn bread, black beans (this was a big success for me because I tried so many times the last time he was on this diet and never succeeded), my first turkey-and turkey broth the next day so we could make soup, a whole roasted chicken-and chicken broth the next day for soup and other things, stuffed peppers, salad dressing, Belgian waffles and so many other random things that we could think of that didn't require eggs or dairy- I can use iodine free salt. There have been at least 100 things we thought of to make but then somewhere in the recipe it calls for beef broth or bouillon or a can of this or that or milk or an egg or cream or ketchup or mustard or mayo or one of the millions of things that has salt already in it. I am getting used to the cooking and being in the kitchen so much but the really tough part is thinking of new things to make

Other than cooking I am keeping busy just getting ginormous.
I'll be honest, I'm a little afraid I am going to give birth to a 15 pound baby boy. Launi and Lila were big babies and I didn't put on a ton of weight with them or ever feel too huge....uh, I can only hope that how big I am and how much weight I have put on doesn't really affect my baby's size too much this time around. I have 2 months left and even though I am huge, I still feel great and feel like being pregnant is the greatest. This little guy is still nameless so feel free to leave any and all suggestions you might have for us. The girls are keeping me on my toes at all times and making me laugh constantly throughout each and every day.
Miss Lila is oh so very busy. She is still a fabulous big sister but the more she is able to run around the nicer she is to everyone. She doesn't like to be away from Launi much and even though they can torture each other, sometimes I think they think they are sewn together.
Lila has been beyond silly these days, constantly saying incoherent nonsense that Jake reminds me I need to be more tolerant of. Here the girls are acting like gorillas- a common occurrence in our house. We are diligently working on Lila listening to Jake and I the first time we say something to her and she is getting better and better at it everyday.
This is a very typical moment of Lila's life. Her 2 current obsessions include dressing up and anything artistic. She most frequently combines the 2. When Lila is in the zone, her art zone, she can stay busy for many consecutive hours. She painted for probably 4 hours straight today and as soon as I cleaned it up for dinner she asked if she could make valentines. Don't judge me, but today I actually heard this come out of my mouth, "Lila, are you sure you want to keep painting, don't you want to come watch some cartoons?" That's horrible I know, don't worry she refused.
Lila loves to be outside rain or shine, it's her wussy mom that won't go outside with her because it is way too cold.


Lila also loves to run and if she found someone to chase her all day long I'm not sure she would ever want to take a break.
Lila the fairy, this is not her usual attire. Grandma Coco sent her a sleeping beauty dress for Christmas and it is rare that she is not wearing it. We make her take it off to eat but other than that she is ALWAYS in it.
A couple of weeks ago I let Lila pick out whatever she wanted at the grocery store, thinking of course that she would pick out a cookie or a doughnut, I was wrong. She chose a bag of small plastic shot glasses. These have entertained her for hours on end. She uses something from her tea set and pours water into the cups and then pours them from one cup to another occasionally drinking from them. The things this kid does to entertain herself.
Launi shocks us everyday with how big she is and how old she acts. She is quite the actress and drama queen but it is such a strange combination because she is just as sweet and compassionate as anyone you have ever met. Lila will take something back from her and Launi will throw herself on the ground with hysterical tears but if you try and discipline Lila, Launi will stop crying and tell you not to get mad at Lila and that she thinks it was an accident. Then she'll give Lila a hug and give her whatever she was crying over in the beginning.
Launi reads books constantly and has picked up the habit of licking her finger each time she turns the page- I love it-especially because she uses her other hand to turn the page.

Launi got a new baby for Christmas and she is pretty much in love. This is her playing ring around the rosies with her baby.
Launi, just like her big sister, is obsessed with dressing up. This is the result of telling the girls to go get ready for bed.
I know this is a wierd picture of Launi, but she pretty much lives in this cinderella dress. Ever since Lila got her new sleeping beauty dress Launi has inherited this one and wakes up asking for it in the morning and wants to sleep by it at night.



There is an update on each of us for now, hopefully I will get back to blogging actual events pretty soon here, but I'm not making any promises.