A Nice End to a Crappy Day

I've not been feeling well at all and I think I might have strep or or some weird throat virus. Who knows? I am surrounded by TONS of kids every day at school so I'm not really all that surprised. Also, we recently have been realizing that some of our daughter's behavior problems are a result of consuming red dye. I had heard that kids have weird reactions to it but when we started watching it and then actually removing it from her diet we were pretty amazed. She improved SO much and was able to calm down when she got upset about things and she seemed less anxious overall. Well, totally by accident she ate a Ring Pop yesterday and it was awful (not the RingPop, her behavior)...and it rolled into today. I'm hoping it's out of her system now. I never realized how much stuff actually has Red Dye. The Christmas candy aisle at Target was a little overwhelming. Isabel LOVES candy canes so we were really sad for her not to be able to eat those but thankfully we found some at Trader Joe's that are colored with Beet Juice and Watermelon Juice but still taste just like a candy cane! I mean honestly I'd rather my kid have beet juice than Red Dye anyway.

Okay so my crappy day improved when my husband said, "Let's just go to Panera and eat dinner." I LOVE Panera....much to his dismay. :) I got the Garden Vegetable Soup with Pesto and half of a salad. Yum! Also, he was so wonderful with Isabel this afternoon. He took her and let me have some alone time and then when we met up again she was ready to start all over and apologized. Then, someone on our agency's listserv shared the cutest doll I have EVER seen! She's from Ethiopia and part of the purchase price of the doll goes to World Vision to work in that country! You can also buy dolls from India, Belarus, Laos, Mexico, and the USA. So we ordered the Ethiopia doll for our sweet little girl. We can't buy clothes or anything like that because we don't know how old she'll be but we CAN buy this! I was so excited. I definitely want the Mexico one too! :) She's for sale at Target.com! They're called Heart 4 Hearts dolls. Seriously, is she not the cutest thing ever??

Check it out! I just found out about this! If you want to enter to win a pretty little Heart 4 Hearts doll you can go to this blog "The Bragging Mommy" to enter the giveaway. This is a great blog with TONS of giveaways and reviews for Mommies! If I win, I'm definitely getting the Mexico doll for Isa!

http://www.thebraggingmommy.com/2010/11/22/brag-worthy-christmas-hearts-4-hearts-dolls-review-and-giveaway/