2012 resolution

I never do resolutions because I never follow through, so what's the point.  However, having found out that C is allergic to wheat, I will actually be making one.  Right now I am sometimes making up two versions of meals - one normal one and one wheat (gluten)- free for C.  I really don't like doing this because it gets time consuming and uses a lot of dishes!!  I have been toying with the idea of going gluten free as a family, but was convinced this weekend after reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/gluten-what-you-dont-know_b_379089.html about the effects gluten has on everyone's body.  You remember always being told "pizza gives you acne"?  But it's not the grease.....

So my 2012 resolution is to be completely gluten free as a family.  No "normal" flour, no "normal" pasta, no "normal" nasty wheat anything!

1st or 20th

Losing a baby is never easy!!  Seeing how the world has responded to the loss of Jubilee Duggar reminds me that we are in this world, but not to be part of it.  We lost our first baby Sept 11, 2004, and although we were only 6 weeks into the pregnancy (and way too early to find out boy or girl), the loss of our precious Morgan is still difficult.  Yes, we have had four successful pregnancies since then, but that doesn't make the loss any easier. For some, a baby that age is just tissue, but for (most) mothers, a baby is more than that.  God knit us together in an amazing way, and to not see life as life is tragic.

When we lost Morgan, we had lost of comments from well-meaning family and friends.  "You can always try again" to "must've been something wrong" to "I'm sorry."  I work with special needs kiddos under 3 years old, and I would have traded anything for Morgan to be alive - even if there was something "wrong."

But, when you get downright malicious on purpose, that is unacceptable.  So many people dislike the Duggars for one reason or another - not being able to spend adequate time with each child (what about parents that have to work until 6 or 7 and kids go to bed at 8), to too big of a carbon footprint (so many people with smaller families do worse than they do), to whatever.  The Duggars are following God's will and that will always make people mad.  But to get upset about having so many well-cared for children?  (Oh, and if you look to our parents or grandparents generations....families of 12-15 weren't uncommon - so why is 2.1 kids the "perfect" number - we have been called "Duggars" with our four children....).  And then to be HAPPY that a child dies??  And now there's the outrage about the pictures from the funeral.  Get over it people!!  Would you not take photos of a dying family member, so you can have the last few photos?  So what that her photos were after she left this earth.  I would have loved to have had any pictures of my little Morgan!

Duggars - I am sorry from the bottom of my heart for your loss of little Jubilee!!  I pray God's comfort for you and encouragement to not be discouraged by comments of people.  It's God's opinion that matters, and you all are good role models for other believers.

Easy as PIE??

So, it's the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I am locked IN the house with all four kiddos.  We have a dense fog advisory, I woke up late, had a hard time getting things around this morning, and at 7:30 (when we normally are walking out the door), the younger two were still asleep!!  So twenty minutes later, we are all ready to leave and I look to the hook where I hang my keys.....and they weren't there.  Ugh.  Which meant they were out in the van in our bag with our bag for church.  This was further complicated by the fact that our garage is technically unattached to our house.  We have a breezeway between the house and garage, so there are two doors, both locked, between me and my keys.  Oh, and our locks are the ones where you have to have the key for both sides of the lock!

We have lived here a little over a year, and I haven't yet found a good place to put spare keys.  I searched and searched looking for the spare house keys, and couldn't find them!  During this time, my two older kids were wanting to get to school and the younger two were grumping!  So I gave up, called the school and put the younger two back in bed.  C was upset that he wasn't going to get to eat his special pumpkin pie at school today, so we had pie at 9 AM!

C is allergic to wheat and egg whites, so cooking can be difficult at times.  But, his ADHD symptoms have improved dramatically since we have removed the allergens from his diet.  I try to make snacks for school for him so he doesn't feel "left out."  But being 4 years old, he understands that he feels better eating special food and so he doesn't feel left out.  They were going to have pumpkin pie at school today, so I set out to find a recipe over the weekend.

I found several recipes, but many included ingredients I don't have yet, or included egg, and I don't think egg replacer would have worked.  Then, eureka!!  I found a dairy-free, egg-free coconut-pumpkin pie at http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/11/gluten-free-tuesday-dairy-free-egg-free-cocon.html !  And it's NO BAKE!!  Wow!!  And I had all of the ingredients, some just needed a little help.

I had bought a coconut last week just to try.  I found an awesome tutorial at http://thenaughtyvegan.com/how-to-open-a-coconut.htm on opening the coconut and http://thenaughtyvegan.com/how-to-shred-coconut.htm for shredding the coconut.  Super easy and yummy!  I did this last Thursday and wasn't sure how I was going to use it, so I put the shredded coconut and the coconut water back in the fridge.  And the coconut halves are by my craft area for something in the future.

So fast forward to last night and this pie recipe...  It calls for coconut MILK.  Hmmm, didn't have any, but I had remembered seeing how to make it.  I couldn't use the recipe on thenaughtyvegan.com because I didn't have a young coconut, but figured I could find another recipe, and I did.  http://nourishedkitchen.com/how-to-make-coconut-milk/  Again, super easy, and that's great.  Now I still have the pulverized coconut for later use...

Now I had all my ingredients.....almost.  Ugh, no pumpkin pie spice.  http://www.food.com/recipe/substitution-for-pumpkin-pie-spice-107059 came to the rescue.  So I scaled the amount for what the pie needed and realized I had no ginger.  Hmmm.  Well, no ginger then.  So I just added a little extra of the allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg and made the pie.  And the pie was done quickly.  I poured a little into several small bowls with lids and tossed them into the fridge.

So, how did the pie taste?  Fabulous!!  It tasted just like normal pumpkin pie without the crust (which I don't really like anyway...)  It was a hit!!  And now we have several mini pumpkin pies for all of our Thanksgiving get-togethers later this week!

Been almost five months.....

It's been almost 5 months since the tornado ripped through Joplin, less than 10 miles from our house.  Almost every day we drive through part of the devastation on our way to church, Wal-Mart, or the kids' school.  Things are progressing, but there's still a long way to go.  Our usual Wal-Mart will be open soon, as will Aldi.  Walgreens and Chik-fil-a have both been open for over a month.  Some commercial properties look as if they still haven't been touched.  It is still very eerie to drive down Rangeline at night, what was once lit so well people could drive without lights and not realize the lights weren't on.  It is so heart wrenching to look where thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses once stood.  And to see St. John's hospital from Rangeline, something I never thought would be possible.  My youngest was born at St. Johns's two weeks before the tornado, and to hear the stories from St. John's is incredible.  Many people lost their lives and went to meet their maker, but I am in awe of how things could have been so much worse!!  Our tornado warnings are usually after dark, often 10 pm or later, so for this one to happen at 5:41 is unusual.  Graduation for Joplin High School happened that day, but the ceremony was held at Missouri Southern instead of the high school, which was destroyed.  The tornado hit on a Sunday evening, as graduation parties started and churches were preparing for evening services.  Had this tornado hit at the "normal" time for warnings, many people would have been in bed and not watching the weather.  Many schools and daycares were in the path.  Had this been a Monday, parents would have been driving from work to get pick up their children, and that is hard to think about what could have been...

All that being said, we were "unaffected."  Well, that's not entirely true.  We physically still had our home, vehicles, etc, and had no repairs to make.  We didn't have any funerals to attend of family or friends.

But, it has taken a toll on our kids (and us too.)  My 4 year old son came home from preschool with a dot-to-dot and it said "I used to be a square, now I am a __________."  C's said "a tornado on a house.  Driving through Joplin, the kids always point out the damage and are sad every time.  Today on our way to school, we saw some pretty amazing cloud to cloud and cloud to ground lightening, and K's first words were "I hope there's no tornado today!"  She is six.

A friend of mine had posted on facebook a devotional scripture from that day.  Jeremiah 17:17  "Do not be a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster."  Wow!!