4 and 0 isn't bad baby!!

Well, other than that, my daughter is broke out right now, I don't know what it's from. 

And this Friday is our 16th anniversary. My 9 yo told me I was old, I told her she was a baby;)

We are planning on staying in town, we had talked about going up to the cottage, but decided to just farm the kids out and hang out here. Dinner, a movie and the Apple Fest:) I can't wait!

I've been reminded recently of just how good I have it. I have a wonderful husband who takes care of us. A nice house, altho some people would look at my house and not say that. I am extremely thankful for it. I have more than one friend who are an inch away from being homeless, other friends who have no vehicle,  are drowning in medical debt, and have no money to pay for the medicine they need. Therefore, they just keep getting sicker, and sicker and racking up more debt. I wish I could do more to help. 

This afternoon, someone showed up on my doorstep, someone I used to know, ran into them in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago, we chatted for a few. And handed me a card. When she left, I opened it, there was $100 inside. I barely know this woman anymore. I seriously see her like once a year. She said they felt it was the Lords will. Scott was asked to preach at church last week, and they took up an offering for us. I just feel so grateful. And humbled.

Well, well fall is upon us. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago how I felt about it you may have heard me weeping ;) But now the 3rd week of school is here and..... I'm actually enjoying it. After MUCH prayer and a change in attitude on my part, and many changes in the way I manage it, we are doing quite well. Pics to follow:)

As anyone who knows me knows that my favorite part of fall is.... COLLEGE FOOTBALL!! Go Irish!! And 3 weeks into football season and we're are 3 and 0!! Oh coach Kelly how I love thee... Probably what I would call the funnest game is this Saturday night. Our Infamous rivalry with the U of M. We have a get together with some friends that I think we've done for a few years in a row now. I'm looking forward to it, even tho I may be the only Domer there. I can handle it, we ND fans have tough skin:) 

I'd say my biggest struggle this entire year is the discovery of my daughters milk allergy. It's consuming. Just when I think I get a handle on things she is broke out again, or someone (my mother!) is tempting her with things like the evils of nutella (let me just say the only thing "healthy" about nutella is the wheat bread you put it on. Sis is getting to the point where she won't even try things b/c she is scared it has milk in it. Even things like a cup cake. And then here I am last night making a meal that we all like and that is good even with out the cheese when it hit's me, the seasoning for the tacos has milk in it. ugh. It's things like that that really get to me and make me feel like I've failed. I try SO hard, but it sneaks in. Like, I spent 4 hours getting groceries the other night reading what I thought was EVERY label, but I didn't think about the taco seasoning, or the fish sticks. (the fish sticks that she loves and cried about of course) *sigh* So, I didn't even tell her about the taco seasoning. But with in a few days, she will have a rash somewhere in her body and I will play innocent b/c I can't handle the guilt. This will be me, "hm, wonder what you ate sis..." 

I did find this that I'm going to make from now on tho..
http://www.5dollardinners.com/homemade-taco-seasoning
AFTER I read the backs of all of those spices to make sure there isn't anything sneaking into them...

Great article HERE about vaginal exams in late pregnancy. Worth a read if you're expecting or in the birthy world:)

How was your Mothers Day? Mine wasn't bad, nothing to complain about. After reading that article about the actresses and models encouraging mothers to run away from their families I purposely did things FOR my family ON Mothers Day to spite their wretched spirit :0)


Thought I'd post this link to a new Birth Community I found on FB. It's real woman, that look like me:) And most of the women I know. Actually, the average woman in the US too. It's Plus Size Birth. 

Today we got the results from Zacs EEG. It came back abnormal. If I understand their language, it meant that he has the potential to have more seizures and there was activity in his frontal lobe. Our next step is to see a neurologist. I have still not done any research on this. I'd really like to sit down and have a good cry. My middle child is still traumatized and almost every night is fearful that his older brother will have a seizure during his sleep. This is scary. I told Zac, but I have not told Zai or Sis. I don't need any more fear in the house.


On another note, Scott and I are going away for the night. We're going to this:
 http://convention.homeschoolmichigan.org/


I'm excited and happy that Scott is going with me. I went with a group of women last year, and had a blast. But really wanted Scott to come this year. He looked and it was all about a day off of work too:)

If you know me at all, you know that I am pro-life. You'll have to put up with the fact that I have decided to start posting some articles on here and a few less on FB. I don't buy into "don't force your views on me" argument, b/c abortion obviously forces something on another whole person by aborting it. 


I find this article particularly interesting. I haven't looked into China, but I wonder if the same will be true with them soon.
The Asian Tiger-Japan-is in danger of extinction

And btw, there's always the argument, if you don't like what I'm posting, don't read it:)

So, much to say. Scott graduated on Saturday. He now has his Bachelors degree. I'm very proud of him:) And he graduated with honors, cum laude:) He starts again in the Fall on his Masters Degree. Should be fun. 

Last June one of my cousins that I rarely see was up from Texas, he has lost a bunch of weight also, and we were both running, I got the bright idea for both of us to run a race together. Knowing that he is over 6 foot and much faster than me, I just thought it would be fun to do something healthy together. I found a race, with an extremely easy, flat course. I had trained for months. I wanted this race to be my fastest yet. I started off and all of a sudden couldn't breath. I had old ladies passing me. I got flustered and all my training flew out the window. My cousin finished and came back for me thinking this was a nice thing to do. We did figure out that day that there was like 93% humidity. gimney, no wonder I couldn't I breath. I had chest pains and everything.

Since that failure, I became extremely discouraged. I had worked SO hard. Had BEEN working SO hard. Then in January I remember sitting in a room full of people who were talking about wanting to be more physically fit thinking I'm in better shape than every single person in this room, but I'm also the biggest person here. So, I gave up. I quit trying. I was so tired of working so hard and not getting anywhere. I hadn't lost weight in over a year. Just maintained. Our gym membership came up for renewal, I did all the paper work and haven't signed them yet. I haven't had the money for it, but in the past, I would have found it. 

So, now i've gained some of the weight back. That is extremely hard for me to say. All my life I've been over weight, and one reason I never tried before was b/c I never wanted to go up and down. I haven't even weighed myself lately. I don't want to know. I just know my body and what it looked like before and how my clothes fit. I even have some clothes that don't fit. 

This past week I started putting into motion some of the things I know I need to do to be healthy again. Drinking water, walking, controlling my eating. I walked I think 5 or 6 days last week. I'm hoping to start our membership up this week also. May not happen tho. I have an Open House to help pay for:) 

I just thought putting it out there, owning it would help me be accountable. I know that once I started talking about it before, it helped. 

So much, too much...

So, I have so much on my mind tonight. I'm sitting here filling out a form to see if my middle son will be diagnosed with ADD. If so, that would mean that all 3 of my children will have either have ADD or ADHD. I can honestly say that when I dreamt of having children, I never dreamt of this.

And then there is my oldest. Who had a seizure yesterday afternoon. It was terrifying. I've never seen anyone have a seizure before, much less my own child. We spent the afternoon in the ER. All the tests came back normal, they said that it's very common for strobe light toys to send people into seizures, but were surprised that he had never had one before, since there was so much family history. I have a lot of questions. Usually in things like this I dive into it and find answers. I haven't touched it. I'm too scared of what I'll find. We have an appt on Thursday with his primary care giver. I'm not sure what will happen then, the ER doc said they will probably order an EEG.

And then there's my mom. She had hip replacement surgery on March 19th. And it's been a whirlwind ever since. I had no idea it would be this hard. I love her so much and I'm so happy to help her, but it's really hard. My kids were really helpful in that first week when I had a birth in the middle of it. And one of her friends has taken her to a couple of appts, my aunt took her to one appt, but other than that it's been all on me. She has 2 or 3 appts a week. Add that to the appts that my own kids have and my calender is a nightmare. I wish she had more people to help run her places. I'm taking her food, cleaning her house, taking her to all these appts and then she wants to go to the store while we're out, which of course I would too. I'm just exhausted with all of it. And I know it will be over soon.

Sooo, good news?? I can always find good news:) My baby girl enjoyed her birthday:) Her and her bff made bunnies and Build a Bear. Terribly, terribly expensive. I mean ridiculous. Things at the PCC are going really well. I was privileged to be part of an adoption plan with a young girl earlier this year. It was an amazing, beautiful experience. I feel that the Lord is leading me down a new path of ministry that involves adoption. That said, it involves much prayer, heck, my whole life involves much prayer these days! I couldn't possibly get thru a day with out it.

It appears I'm blogging on a once a month basis, haha:) Ah well, I started this blog for my own sanity, not yours;)

I'm going to Grand Rapids today with a bunch of women from the nonprofit that I volunteer at. We are going to visit this awesome crisis pregnancy center that was once used as an abortion clinic, have dinner and then see a movie. This movie. I don't normally watch things like this. I was adopted. I know very little of my birth parents. I didn't have the best upbringing. I blame no one. It was what it was. But I have never been able to watch those Oprah shows where people find their birth parents. I have no plans to search for mine. I've always felt that if it was the right time, the Lord would show me. I'm not sure why I'm even going today. I really want to see this center, and I really enjoy these social events:)

Maybe I'll even post pictures, now that I know I can easily pop the little card in and out, lol!

So I thought I'd post a favorite recipe of mine now and then. This is one I discovered this past summer, who doesn't love a good oatmeal cookie? I'm a bit on the prejudice side when it comes to oatmeal cookies, I don't believe there should be chocolate chips in my oatmeal cookies. I'm deaply offended by that. I'm a raisins only type of girl!

One of my aunts gave me this cook book for Christmas one year:

The All American Cookie Book

I honestly hadn't used it much up till this past summer. I had found a good choc chip recipe in it and was interested b/c it gives history of the recipes in it which is kind of fun. But anyhoo, I wanted a good oatmeal raisin! And I found it! The best ever imho... and trust me, we made lot's of them! Took them to the beach all summer.

Dairy Hollow House Oatmeal Raisin Cookies 2/3 cup (1 stick + 2 2/3 TBL) unsalted butter soft

1 cup (5 oz) raisins 1/2 cup white shortening

3 cups old fashioned oats 1 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups flour 1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinn 2 large eggs

1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1/2 tsp salt

preheat oven to 375 grease several cookie sheets

in a small bowl combine raisins and enough hot water to cover them, set aside

In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, cinn, baking powder, soda and salt, set aside.

In another large bowl, with a mixer, beat butter and shortening till creamy, add sugars, mix, then eggs and vanilla till light and smooth. Stir or beat in all but 1 cup of oat mixture until even. Thoroughly drain the raisins. In a medium bowl, stir together the remaining oats and raisins, add to dough until evenly mixed.

Shape into balls about the size of golf balls. Place on greased sheets pat down slightly. Bake 8-10 minutes.

(I don't add nuts, and if I don't have shortening, I use butter)

If you try these, please let me know what you think:) They are brown sugary, buttery, chewy, and all around delish!!

btw, i added the nutrition tag, b/c i really do try to make as many of our snacks as possible instead of buying them.