Locks of Love

EB has been growing her hair out for quite some time now and last year decided she was growing it for locks of love.....today we got her hair cut for locks of love. She had a great time and was so proud of what she did. I am proud of her too.

Zoo Trip

The kids have been begging me to take them to the zoo. Our zoo pass ran out last summer and then we moved, I was pregnant, then this summer the new baby. This fall I ran out of excuses. I caved and we renewed our zoo pass. The kids had a blast! We got to see the new kangaroos. Here are some pics from our trip.

UAB Game

These pictures were taken at the UAB game 2 weeks ago. .

Gluten free blog

I have decided to start another blog. It is http://www.jenny-glutenfreefamily.blogspot.com/ I did this because EB has Celiac's Disease and our family is heading towards being completely gluten free. I have been researching the internet for recipes, websites, and gluten free foods for almost 3 months now. I thought this would be a good way to keep it all together. Maybe it will be helpful to someone out there. If not, it is at least a good way for me to organize all my gluten free information I have been collecting.

Such a compassionate spirit

The other day Tammy sent me a link to someones blog that needed prayer. I went to it, read the story and cried....a lot. You hear a lot of terrible things going on in people's lives and you are very sad for them, but there is something about when you can really put yourself in their shoes. This is a girl that is about to have her first baby and there is a medical problem and they have received news that the baby is not expected to live. I have been reading her blog daily since I got her link and today EB came up while I was reading it...and crying and wanted to know what I was reading about, so I told her. Before long she had huge tears that had swelled up in her eyes, then it was a full blown cry. She too, could imagine if she were going through this because she has a baby sister. She told me she was so sad for the girl that she may not be able to bring home her baby boy and experience the joy that we have experienced with LG. I was so amazed by her compassionate spirit. She had many questions, why is this happening and how does she know he is going to die, etc... it was a wonderful moment for us to talk about how we don't understand sometimes why things happen the way they happen. God has a perfect plan through it all. The girl I am talking about her name is Stacy and her baby's name is Issac. He is to be born tomorrow. Please pray for this family. Her blog site is http://sgirl79.blogspot.com/ He will carry me. Please pray for them. I cannot even imagine the pain she must be feeling now.

Our new way of life

This summer EB was diagnosed with Celiac's disease. She had been having stomach aches for 2 years, really since after her surgery to remove the tumor on her head. The GI MD was treating her for reflux which never quite made too much sense to me, only because the area of stomach pain was right at her belly button. When you have reflux, you typically have pain in the chest area as it burns when food comes back up the esophagus. Anyways, she was on 3 different meds for reflux and this spring was still complaining of stomach aches. I made another GI appointment and told the MD we needed to find out what the problem was. I was tired of her being on 3 different meds and still complaining of stomach pain. We did a blood test that day and it came back positive for Celiacs. We then scheduled an endoscopy for Aug. 1 which confirmed that she had Celiacs. Since then I have been researching the internet for all I can find on Celiacs. What foods are safe and which are not. It has been a challenging thing to do. We are pasta and bread people!! She cannot have anything with wheat, barley, or rye and should stay away from oats as well. So....no waffles, pancakes, muffins, cookies, cakes, pasta, bread, pizza, etc.....much to my surprise, there still is a lot of foods she can eat without problems. She can have all fruits, vegetables, and meats. Nothing breaded. The most difficult thing I have found so far is eating out. It has really cut down on our eating out, that is for sure! We probably had fast food at least 2x a week and ate at a restaurant probably an average of 1x a week. We can still eat out, it just takes careful planning. I am so proud of EB through all this. She understands what she can and cannot have and why. It still, as a mother, breaks my heart that she can't have some of the really tasty things she likes. Like last night we were at some friends house and for dessert all there was were brownies, cake and cookies. All the other kids got to eat all the yummy stuff and she couldn't have any. It will give her a bad stomach ache if she had some. She asked if she could have a brownie and said she didn't care if she got a stomach ache that it was worth it. I just couldn't do it. As her mother, I have to do what is right for her. I told her no. That we have been working too hard on this new way of eating to go and ruin it. I told her we would stop and get her a frosty from Wendys on the way home, just for her. That made her ok with it. It makes me so happy that she has not been having stomach aches, and that her skin is so baby soft instead of rough and itchy. This new way of life is worth it if it means her health is better. I have decided that this house will be gluten free. We will all eat this way the best we can. I am learning that we can still eat the yummy stuff, it is just finding the right yummy things to eat. I have found a muffin mix that is really good. I have made it about 3 times now, each time changing some of the recipe to make it better. Chris had some for breakfast this morning and really enjoyed them. I have made homemade chocolate chip cookies from a toll house recipe just using a gluten free flour. They turned out pretty good too. I have yet to find a good bread recipe, so we eat lunchmeat with no bread, or on a corn tortilla. You have to become pretty creative with the food you can eat and you have to develop a taste for new things. When EB was diagnosed, Chris decided that he, too, wanted to go gluten free. If EB had to do it, he would do it too. CAB, also, only wants gluten free foods. In my research, I found that when you use flour in your kitchen, that the flour may linger in the air for hours. Also, that we needed separate toasters and utinsils for cooking. Already being gluten free is challenging enough in itself, let alone making sure that I am not cross contaminating any of her foods. So, gluten free will be our new way of life.

Back to work

Well, it is official, I have started back to work. Although I work from home, it is a big deal now that Chris has the 4 kids to take care of by himself. We had a great night last night. Work was rather slow, so I was able to come upstairs some to check on everyone and hold the baby some. LG did great. She did not cry at all, I don't think. She took a catnap and waited for me to come feed her at 8:30. Then Chris was able to put her in the bed and she went right to sleep. What a blessing! Also, there is a girl that I work with that has asked if we could share weekends. I work everyother and she is opposite of me. We both have 10 hour shifts on Sat. and Sun. and we are going to try and split them so I will work every Sat. and Sun. but only for 5 hours at a time. This is going to be great with the baby. 10 hours is a long day for Chris with an infant by himself. I was so proud of him last night. I had dinner all cooked and ready for them, but they emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it. So the kitchen was fairly clean when I was done working. That makes it so much easier on me to not have to wake up in the morning to a nasty kitchen and cook breakfast and homeschool! Thanks Honey!! I love you!