Seriously?! 6 months?

I guess posting a couple times a year is becoming a habit of mine... with good reason I suppose. Nevertheless, here I sit typing.

So what's up with the Hydes?? Well, the last time I wrote it was about Syler's diet changes and he's been gluten, pasteurized-dairy, corn, and soy free for about 6 months now. We allowed him a little freedom over Christmas but have really stuck to it since then and he's doing GREAT! It only took about 2-3 wks for the sores in his mouth to be completely gone and all the irritation he had in his gums has disappeared!! This is the first time in his life I've been able to see the normal flesh color of his gums instead of bright red. The night we came home from the natural health clinic he complained about his stomach for about 3 hrs. He had been complaining of abdominal pain pretty regularly before that too. He hasn't complained of stomach pain since!!!!!!!! Actually, he did complain when he got a stomach "bug" over Christmas- which interestingly happened at the same time we gave him more freedom in his diet. (Christmas was pretty rough on all of us. The kids all got scarlet fever... Ick...)

As of late we have confirmed that this new diet is the "real deal" for him b/c on a couple of occasions he has doubled over in pain from some foods he shouldn't have eaten. Thankfully this has only happened twice but both were my fault... ugh. I thought, surely there won't be enough harmful stuff in this piece of grilled chicken (from a restaurant, that i now know had milk and gluten injected in it). The latest one was 4 SIPS of daddy's slushy from Dairy Queen. Did you know those have gluten in them? Crazy. He starting moaning about his stomach about an hour later and finally threw up. Never underestimate the power of the gut.

Syler's eyes are still quite sensitive to light, but that was a part we weren't thinking would be affected by a diet change. However, it can take up to a year for the gut to completely heal so more time will truly tell. We went to Cincinnati to see a corneal specialist a couple wks ago and they put him on a new eye drop specifically for allergic eyes. They don't feel that his light sensitivity is due to dryness so we'll wait and see how he does on these eye drops.

Mel celebrated her 2nd birthday on January 30th.... some of her most distinguishing traits: super cuddly, super ornery, LOVES veggies and spicy food, talks like a 6 yr old, likes to "help" Mommy in the kitchen. She has turned the corner of terrible twos.... must say, I never really knew what that was until these last couple of months. Sy and Kenzie didn't have such a dramatic change when they were 2. I'm ready to move on from this stage, well, yesterday.

Here are some random pics:


Making Valentine's cookies!




And now my computer won't let me upload pictures so I guess that's all you'll get today :(

Kenzie is done with preschool and is already looking forward to the big KINDERGARTEN! :) Can't believe we're making decisions about that now! She's as big of a performer as ever too... always making us laugh and putting on a show. We are loving summer already and have the sunburns to prove it! Actually, just me. I'm a sunscreen nazi for the kids and then I barely put any on myself. Smart, I know.

Well, I'm going to go enjoy yet another gorgeous day w/ my kiddos... thank you, Lord, for this special time of life.

Syler update

Well, 4 months since I've even written.... to say it's been busy around here would be the understatement of the century so I'll spare you the details. I did want to give you all an update on Syler. Last week we loaded up the family and drove to Hoffman Estates, IL - about a 4-hr drive, a little bit past Chicago- to go to a natural health clinic for Syler. He had 2 half days of different therapies, nutritional counseling, and other miscellaneous things.

To make a long story short, we have begun a series of things to get Syler (and our whole family) back to optimal health. Most importantly, and most dramatically, of them all is the diet change we've undertaken. Syler is on a gluten-free, pasteurized dairy-free, soy-free, and corn-free (unless the corn is organic) nutrition plan. In addition, we did a nutritional typing test and are basically making sure he eats great sources of protein along with the right vegetables. It's pretty intense making the transition but so far, so good. The rest of us are on it for the most part... it's even more complicated though b/c he's supposed to eat things in a certain order as well. But he has been such a champ about the whole thing! And it actually has some similarities to the Maker's Diet I talked about a while back... but what a world of difference it's making working with a nutritionist!

Several people have asked if he was diagnosed with celiac b/c he's been put on this diet. He was not diagnosed with it b/c that is an actual ALLERGY to gluten and Sy is most likely just sensitive to it. That results in something called "leaky gut". I'm sure you can find info on the internet about it if you like. When we went to the clinic it was with the idea of getting to the source of his various issues and hopefully through this process we'll get to that point.

Sy also had a test called a thermography scan done to check for inflammation in his abdomen. He had been complaining about stomach pain on a regular basis and hasn't had any stomach pain since we changed to this diet. I'll find out the results of the scan in the coming week. Once we feel like we have his diet 100% in check he will be solely eating this way for 60 days and then we are supposed to reintroduce some things. That should narrow down some of the sources of problems.

There are so many other details I could tell you but those are the main things. It will definitely be a process but we have accepted that we need to be patient. I already feel great myself after starting to eat this way. The proof is in the (dairy-free) pudding, right?! :) Ha ha....

Well, hope you all have a wonderful holiday season... fill me in on what's new in YOUR lives!!!

What's new...

Let's see, what's happened in the last 2 months... plenty I suppose but I won't bore you w/ too many details. We've really been enjoying the beautiful weather and my garden has too! We're enjoying lots of delicious lettuces, cilantro, and onions so far- can't wait for peppers and tomatoes. Yummy. Although I now understand why they call plant places "nurseries" now. They demand quite a bit of TLC!

I am currently training for a half-marathon to be held here in Ft Wayne in September... running much more than I ever believed my body could handle. And the crazy part is, I'm actually really loving it!

In a couple of wks I will start watching my niece Jayda (2 1/2) and her brother Trey (~3 mos) three days a wk. I'm really looking forward to it and my kids are too. It will be fun to watch them interact and also to make a little extra money. I'm a bit nervous about having 5 kids under 5 but it'll be great.

This past wk everyone has been fighting some sort of respiratory bug but I think we're on the upswing.Syler is doing great- growing up so quickly it seems. His mouth sores have gone away completely it appears- thank GOD! And he is in the throws of potty-training.... just sort of clicked finally! Kenzie will start preschool this fall so that's kinda the big thing for her right now. There are renters in my in-laws' house right now accross the street and she LOVES playing w/ their daughter who is 6. Melody seems to be changing the most though.... stubborn as ever and communicating better than either of the other 2 did at this age. She acts like she's 3 already!

Jonathan preached at our church today and he did a GREAT job! Thank you Lord that I married such an honorable man... He's been on vacation all this past wk so we've been getting all sorts of fun things done- changing banks, painting things, working outside, going to parks. I've sooooo appreciated the extra hands around here to help me w/ the kids! Hopefully I remember how to do this all by myself when he's back to work :)

Well, hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July! I'm going to take a nap while everyone else is!

Aaaaaaahhhhh, SPRING....

What else would one do on such a beautiful day but spring cleaning? Ha ha.... Out with the old and in with the new. Well, maybe not "new", but FRESH and CLEAN at least! Several rooms down and feeling good.

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I've posted- then again I can. It's been crazy around here. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that we had a trip back to Riley on Thursday last wk and it went really well. We met w/ the eye doctor first and this was the first time they were able to do any type of eye exam on Syler without him being under anesthesia. Yippee! They weren't able to do full exam but we'll take what we can get at this point. They could see enough to know that things aren't any worse and were also able to check his actual vision to some degree. They had him match pictures on a screen across the room and then gradually had the pictures get smaller. It was actually really interesting b/c you could tell right where his eyes started to have trouble seeing. At any rate, they said he is on the low end of normal for a 3-yr-old so that's great considering his history. They also encouraged us to have the GI doctor do a full vitamin/mineral panel drawn on him to check his levels.

Then we headed to the GI doctor and she didn't have much new to say about Sy and she felt bad about that. But she did the full vitamin panel to make sure we weren't missing anything and also to make sure he was absorbing the vitamins we've been giving him. She also did a full metabolic panel to check for celiac and other things, and suggested we see a dietician to make sure he wasn't missing anything in his day-to-day diet. He had several other things checked but thankfully everything came back normal except for his sed rate which is how it has been all along. So in one way the sed rate is discouraging, but these are excellent results b/c it means he is absorbing the vitamin therapy he's been getting for the last 4-6 months. No doubt this is why he was so healthy this winter!!!! Praise God for that!

So no changes in his treatment at this point- continue his eye drops and other medicines until there is some sort of change. Hopefully he will just continue to improve and stay healthy overall.

That's the scoop on Syler! Can't believe he will be 3 this week.... wow. What a trooper :)

***Thank you, Lord, for our sweet baby boy and for how You have held his hand and ours through these last 3 years. Thank you for the gift of his life and the smile on his face. Thank you for Your faithfulness and Your healing touch on his body. Thank you for the great plans You have in store for him in his life. May he always know how much we love him and how much You love him as well. In Jesus' powerful name, AMEN.****

Truly Stunned...

Well, my "little" bathroom project took a bit of a nose dive last night. (Note to self: Do not leave cans of paint under a sink where your children wash their hands. They will use them as step-stools.) You guessed it--- Syler dumped an ENTIRE gallon of blue paint on the floor of the bathroom I've been working on. I was in the kitchen finishing getting dinner ready and of course we needed to leave our house by 5:30. It's 5:00, Syler is in the bathroom washing his hands, and I get a phone call from a doctor's office. While talking to the nurse I hear Syler start screaming and I was sure he was hurt from the sound of his cry. I ran to the bathroom and was completely stunned. Sy is standing crying in the middle of a huge puddle of paint!! Melody is screaming in her high chair b/c I had to exit the kitchen so quickly and I'm still on the phone. I explain to the nurse what happened and she feels horrible, so obviously we end our conversation.

I think I must have stood there for about 5 minutes just trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get the paint off the floor and not have Melody walking around in it. I wasn't quite sure where to start! Do I clean up Sy first? Do I get Mel out or let her stay in her chair crying so I can clean it up? We still needed to get ready to go to church too. AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!Finally I called Jonathan and made sure he was on his way home, then I put Melody to bed for a short nap b/c she was a wreck by this point.

Thankfully it was an old linoleum floor but I did have rather new rugs down already and of course all my painting supplies were on the floor. Pretty much anything that was on the floor had to be thrown away... literally the whole gallon was dumped. I ended up using all the receiving blankets I had ready for a garage sale to clean it up. What a sticky mess!

I think I stayed pretty calm through the whole thing thankfully... I was in more shock that anything. I came to find out that there is just no good way to go about cleaning up a pile of paint. We got everywhere we needed to go and it all worked out in the end. I actually started laughing a few times just b/c it was so ridiculous.

Parenthood is not for the faint of heart :) Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures- I was trying to work too quickly to stop and think of it! Hope this makes you smile today... just another exciting time at the Hyde Household!

Long time no blog...

So it's been a while and much has been happening in Hyde World. One major event was that our littlest lady turned ONE! Miss Melody had quite the little shindig at our house and loved every minute of it-- including the cake! She wore the same dress that Kenzie wore for her first bday and I couldn't believe how much they looked alike!











Check out the crossed feet... love it!



Syler had his colonoscopy back in January and all is well in that department. They couldn't find whatever they saw in the barium test so that's definitely a good thing. For now we are just keeping things as they are as far as his vitamin supplements/medicines and diet. He hasn't had any complaints of mouth sores except for when he got an ear infection a few wks ago. Other than that he is doing great and we're just keeping an eye on him, like usual, since he appears to be doing so well.

As for myself, I've gotten a couple house projects started... again. I got stuck in my house for 4 days w/ the kids and apparently got a little bored! We have one full bath and a 1/2 bath that we haven't used much for one reason or another- probably b/c they haven't been given much TLC. Until now! Last night we finished using a product I didn't know existed until a few days ago-- tub and tile paint. Who knew? You can actually use this epoxy paint on ceramic tile, which we did in a single standing shower that had mustard yellow tile in it. It's now white! The walls were gray, like the rest of the entire house when we originally moved in. But now they are being painted a grayish blue. I'll post pics when project is complete. It has been quite a process for such a small bathroom!

Then the 1/2 bath just needed the plumbing hooked back up in a vanity we got when we moved in... we hadn't used the bathroom much b/c it's in Kenz and Sy's room and I just didn't like the idea of them going in there w/out me knowing it. So anyway, Jonathan is working on finishing the plumbing and I've put up some of the hardware we had purchased for in there too. I find it extremely invigorating to use a drill! Ha ha...

On top of all this fun stuff, God is doing some AWESOME things in our lives and at our church. PHC is the place to be!! :) Hardly have time to express all that He has been doing but it is so cool that we can serve a God that is living and active and wants to live out each day with us.... through the help of the Holy Spirit. Whoever said being a Christian is boring never experienced a Spirit-filled life! Check out Galatians 5:16-26

Well, suppose that's all for now... Sy fell asleep on the couch and needs woke up so he will sleep tonight! Funny boy...

More of our pictures...

I had some requests for more of our pictures so here they are! :) Our photographer's name was Vilma Deckena and her business is called GEM Photography- she was awesome!