This and That

I've been trying a few new things around here lately. Most of them are food related. Here they are.

I found a gluten free website I like called "The Gluten-Free Homemaker. I made her meatlaof and meatball recipes and both turned out good. I like her use of instant potato flakes instead of gluten free breadcrumbs. I keep the heels of my gluten free loaves of bread in my freezer for the purpose of grinding them into bread crumbs. I also keep them with the thought of making a gluten free french toast casserole someday when I have accumulated enough pieces of bread. However, it is nice to eliminate the step of thawing the GF bread and grinding it in my mini food processor when I'm throwing together a meatloaf or meatballs. N has recently decided he no longer cares for sandwiches in his school lunch, so I'm hoping to get a "main dish" such as these meatballs into his lunch. I

I bought my first jar of Sunbutter last week. The boys and I eat quite a bit of peanut butter. And while we like peanut butter, I thought it would be fun to mix things up a bit. I really, really like the Sunbutter! It tastes good scooped with apples, carrots or bananas. I haven't tried cooking or baking with it yet, but I bet you can.

I have replaced cashews in my trail mix with Pepitas. I really like them. They give a nice salty flavor to a trail mix of raisins, Craisins and chocolate chips. Mmmm. Good, easy afternoon snack.

My MIL gave me a big bag of GF products for Christmas and I've been having fun trying everything in the bag. (Thanks again, K). So far I'm really impressed with the quinoa. I made it for dinner one night as a savory side. I wasn't sure what D would think of it, but he liked it! Yay! I also made quinoa for breakfast one morning with brown sugar, raisins and ground flax seed. The batch I cooked turned out to make more than I thought it would, so it lasted me a few mornings. It kept really well and tasted good reheated. I saw quinoa flakes at the store that I'd like to try in place of my cream of rice some day.

I'm in love with Almond milk! I hate to admit it, but I think I'm sensitive not only to gluten, but also to dairy and soy. Eek! This observation has led me to almond milk and I'm glad I tried it 'cause it is really good! I'd like to try coconut milk sometime. I hear chocolate coconut milk is quite delicious.

Now that winter has officially settled in and we can't play outside as much, I have gotten back into finding indoor activities for the boys to do. I returned to making what I was calling activity boxes for the boys. Turns out, after some research, they are called Sensory boxes/tubs. I found several really fun ideas online for using various materials to make Sensory boxes. The boys are currently playing with boxes that have oats, rice and corn flour in them. The corn flour is quite messy and I don't think I will do it again in the future, but the boys love it because it is a great material for scooping, dumping and piling. My next Sensory Box is going to be Valentine themed. I purchased some plastic heart shaped gems, a few artificial red roses, red ice cube trays, a magnifying glass and red cotton balls to put in there. I have rounded up some other random red toys to put in their boxes. I'm excited for the boys to try it!

D and I recently started watching the Big Bang Theory. The show has been on for a few years, but we'd never seen it. We stumbled across it one night and just loved it. We are currently playing catch up on the last couple years worth of episodes, so we have enough shows DVR-ed to watch one (or more) every night. We were joking last night that the episodes are like potato chips (chocolate chips for me). Once you watch one, you want to watch a hundred of them. It's super funny. Check it out!

Bumpy Start to the New Year

We had a little bit of a bumpy start to 2012. N started out the year a little cranky and tired. He finally spiked a fever of 103 one night and told me his neck hurt. I thought he may have slept on his pillow wrong and it caused him to have neck pain, so I gave him an ice pack and some Tylenol. He felt better and his fever went down to 99. He temp stayed at 99 all day then spiked again at night to 103. Hmm. This pattern lasted for a few days. It took me a few days (and some advice from a friend) to put it together that N had a soar throat (not a neck ache) and had symptoms of Strep. I took him to the Dr and that's what it was. She didn't actually do a Strep test (thank goodness!), but N had all the signs of Strep so she gave him meds for it and they worked.

At the same time that N was sick, I was sick myself. I've had three cases of significant pain on my right side in the last year. I drove myself to the ER on two occasions. On both occasions I was put through several blood tests, x-rays and sonograms. On my first visit to the ER the doctor was able to figure out the problem(s) and treated me for them and they went away. On the second visit to the ER I was put through another round of tests and nothing appeared to be wrong. The doctor went as far as to x-ray me for a collapsed lung and that looked fine! But, clearly there was something wrong due to the pain I was in. The best the doctor could do was give me pain meds and send me home. Well, I had another episode of this mysterious illness earlier this month and it lasted ten days! Ugh!! This time I didn't go to the ER 'cause I knew they couldn't do anything for me! I went to my doctor, she ran more tests and I went through a fancy x-ray study. The fancy X-ray allowed us to rule out several possible illnesses, but led us to no real answer...Hmmm.. So, my next step is to get tested for food allergies. I start that next week and I hope to get some answers!

Other than these two things, we've been just fine! Despite being a little under the weather, we are still doing fun things to stay occupied. Although, after being stuck at home with N (because he was contagious with Strep) for five days, we were glad to get out of the house!!! Being sick every once in a while sure makes you appreciate being healthy when you are healthy!

Laaaassie..... Wha-at?

I've been a Mommy (don't call me Mom, I'm too young) for several years now. There have been numerous (countless, really) times when I've been in a situation that made me appreciate my Mom (and Dad) soo much more! Those moments have made me appreciate how hard my parents worked to get us everything we needed (and most of what we wanted). Those moments help me appreciate how much time they spent with us (extra curricular) and on us (cleaning uniforms, making lunches, planning trips,etc). And now, I realize that the planning and preparation for normal daily activity takes time too. It takes a lot of thought to keep things together.Personally, I do a lot of that thinking when I've doing mindless chores such as dishes and laundry. Sometimes I get so deep into what I'm thinking about that I tune out what's going on around me. Specific example? Last night. I was doing dishes and my train of thought went something like this.."Okay, so N missed school today because he had fever less than 24 hours before the start of the school day...If I take his temp tonight and he has a fever I'll have to keep him home from school again. Should I take him to the doctor tomorrow or wait it out? Oh, but tomorrow's Friday and if I let this go over the weekend we might have to go to ped's after hours...We haven't had much luck with ped's after hours on this type of illness...But if I take N to the Dr tomorrow, L will have to go with us and he could get exposed to germs at the Dr's office... I wonder if D could come home early and watch L while I take N...." Etc, etc. Then I hear a sound from the living that sounds like, "Mo-om." I say, "Wha-at?" And I quickly realize I just responded to the high pitch ramblings of Curious George on the TV, not that of my child. I stop, laugh and am immediately thrown back to a moment in high school when my Mom did the same thing!

We watched Lassie most mornings before school while we ate breakfast. Mom would bring our comforters from our rooms, drape them on our chairs and wrap us up in them. Then she would open the cereal cabinet, ask us what we wanted and make us a bowl of cereal..Gosh we were spoiled!!....Anyway! On this particular morning, my sisters and I were snuggled in our comforters cozily (is that a word?) eating our breakfast watching the kitchen television. When the opening for Lassie came on, and the memorable "Laaaassiie" came on (click here for video), Mom responded in the same sing songy voice with a "Wha-at." My sisters and laughed so hard we nearly spit out our cereal. It's one of those moments where you probably had the be there to know how funny it was, but it makes me laugh every time I think about it. I can also relate to it! Mom must have been in a deep train of thought trying to keep all the days' activities organized...Or she just wasn't caffeinated yet. Whatever it was. It's a funny memory and it makes me appreciate my parents.