Our family's journey through life

Early in the week when I went to my Moms Group cookie exchange. I fell in love with Fake Turtles! Thanks to my mommy friend Kari (I love you!!) for sharing this ridiculously easy kinda of addicting treat.

You only need three ingredients:
Rolo candies
Pecan Halves
Mini Preztels

Line a cookies sheet with aluminum foil.Place the Rolos on top of the pretzel.Put it in the oven for 4 minutes at 250 degrees,just enough to soften the Rolos. Remove from oven and press a pecan half into each Rolo, smushing the chocolate down. Refrigerate and enjoy.

or become completely addicted, that is what happened to me the moment  I tasted the goodness of the fake turtle.I might need to seek  help. Is their Fake Turtle Anonymous?Seriously?

I will let you in on a little secret I don't even really like pretzels or nuts but.....

I LOVE ME SOME FAKE TURTLES

Thanks again Kari for sharing your Fake Turtles with all of us!

My mother  (aka Grandma Outrageous) came to town. We celebrated a little bit of Christmas six days early. The night before our little bit of Christmas we made Fake Turtles with the intentions of us giving them away in cute little Christmas tins to all our friends and family. Well they are literally mouth watering goodness you can't just eat one. You can't just eat five.....They are ridiculously good. Needless to say I had to buy more of all three ingredients so we would have enough to share the goodness with all of our friends and family.

* I promise friends and family I will make more and share the goodness (thanks Kari for sharing your recipe)

While we were munching on our Fake Turtles in complete bliss we watched a Christmas movie Elf which is becoming a tradition in our family.

We laughed.we munched.we laughed.we munched. Well you get the idea. I think I will be avoiding the scale until the new year.or until I hit the gym for a good month straight. Then maybe I will have the courage to hop on the scale.For now it's the holidays and I am going to eat has many fake turtles until the new year.

The next morning we opened up gifts and I made sweet potato waffles (another favorite new recipe I discovered) We had a lovely little bit of Christmas six days early. Because of distance had having four sets of  families. It makes it difficult to be able to spend the Holidays with all four sets of families.I can't even remember the last time I had Christmas with my mom. Kinda sad.

I think my mom and my immediate family (my man and little man) will make this a family tradition. It may be six days early but we can still celebrate Christmas together.We were sad(sniff sniff) to have to say goodbye this afternoon.but thankful we  were able to have the last twenty four hours together.

It felt like Christmas...Six days early.

This morning I,Owain and my mini brownies with a twist ventured out in the rain to meet some of my lovely mommy friends and have a sinfully yummy cookie exchange. I have a weakness for sweets and boy was I in heaven. Everywhere I looked their were cookies galore!I happily traded my mini brownie's for toffee popcorn (snacking on some at the very moment...YUM!),chocolate covered pretzels,nutty cookie,chocolate cookies,sugar cookies and much much more! Sinfully yummy cookie exchanges are awesome! My husband (who doesn't have a sweet tooth like I do) agrees he has already had several nutty cookies within the first five minute of us being home.

I thought while I had a minute while my mini-brownie cup cakes with a twist are baking. I hop on real quick (I only have ten minutes) and share with all of you  one of our new family traditions. Every year we take our little man to Hallmark to pick out his very own Christmas ornament.

My almost two year old (I can hardly believe that one....geez where does the time go?) is obsessed with trains. Any time we drive by a rail road crossings he gets really excited and starts asking repeatedly "mooore  moooore chooo chooo"Sometimes we get lucky and a choo choo will come racing down the tracks. Owain's eyes widen his jaw drops and he is incomplete awe of the train. The second the train is no longer visible. He repeatedly asks "mooore mooore choo choo" This can go on the whole car ride to wherever we may be  going on any day of the week. Sometimes daddy will drive us the long way to our destination just so we can go by not one..not two but THREE rail road crossings.Increasing  our chances for seeing a choo choo.

With Owain's love obsession for trains. When I saw a ginger bread train kit at the store. I just had to buy it.Originally I planned on buying a ginger bread house kit but the train was flipp'in cool and I new my little man would think so too.

  We attempted to put it together this  morning.It was a little bit of a challenge the darn train would not stay up. Each time the train fell Owain would say "fall fall" while doing this.....

I am thankful for my strong witty husband Eric. He is so incredibly patient with me. I know  I am not the easiest person to live with. I can be a bit moody. Thanks babe for being so patient with me. I love you!
I am thankful for our little man Owain. He brings me so much joy in every day. Even on my most moody days. I am thankful for his health. Other than a little runny nose. He has been healthy. Knock on wood.I am thankful that he has made it one full year with out any surgeries HOLLAR!!!!! No recurrence,Notta. I am so thankful! I am blessed to be his momma! Love ya little man! I am thankful we were able to keep Owain on the same insurance plan. No need to change Doctors now.Thank you! I am thankful for Owain's surgeon Dr.Z. Owain wouldn't be the little boy he is today with out him. Thank you Dr.Z. You rock!
I am thankful that we were able to spend thanksgiving with my family in Sweethome.I am thankful to have such an amazing family. I love each and everyone of you.(((hugs)))
I am thankful for Lindsay at Suburban Turmoil for sharing her stuffing recipe. Once again it was a huge hit!

I am thankful for my husband's  uneployment. We wouldn't survive without.

I am thankful for my part time job.

I am thankful for this life I have!

While we were out Saturday night celebrating my thirty something birthday with good friends,amazing authentic Asian food,a non stop laughter comedy show. I had an amazing time but my heart was heavy. (and still is)

While we were celebrating another family is grieving over the lost of their sweet baby boy.Yes,CDH (Congital Diaphragmatic Hernia) is guilty for yet another innocent baby's life. I could only imagine the heart ache and pain his family is going through.

I feel very fortunate that our baby boy is now a healthy toddler. He beat the odds and is a CDH survivor.It just seems so unfair. Why can't this family bring home their baby boy too? 

Morning,noon and night I pray for every family that has,is or about to ride the turbulent CDH roller coaster.

Ever since I found out that we were expecting, I have been dreaming of the day that I can play with advance construction/building toys with our son.  So far he is a genius with his mega blocks.  He can build a wall 1 foot tall all by himself.  (These are are the 3+ block set)  At or after his 3rd birthday is what I am waiting for, because I will purchase a building set that is oh so awesome.  It is called the Space Warp which is made by BanDai, the makers of the ever popular PowerRangers.  In the late 80's, BanDai stopped production of this toy, and later revived it in 2005.  It is available over e-bay, and one of my favorite geek sites, ThinkGeek which sells it as an import.  If you are wondering what SpaceWarp is all about,  Check out this awesome video of the SpaceWarp 5000(i'm going to buy 2):

You may look at this picture and think "wow! this is a boy who loves to eat!"
If that is what you thought,well you've just been fooled.
The only thing he consumed is a whole lot of ketchup.
He loves his condiments honey-mustard,ranch,sweet n sour,syrup ect.
The tricky thing is trying to get him to eat some food with his condiment.We struggle with this every single day. Breakfast,lunch,dinner and all of the snacks in between.Their are some days I wish we could skip meals. I get so frustrated making a meal just so my little man can through it all over the floor and wall.He use to eat. What happened? Back when we first introduced solids he would happily eat most of what I fed him. Now we are having a good day if he takes a couple of bites of his peanut noodles or waffle.It seems like we are having more days were he rarely eats at all. Which is so frustrating!Some days I just want to SCREAM!!

On the up side he is some how managing to put on a few ounces here and there. Which is surprising since he rarely eats.I am pretty sure it is the work of  Pedi sure to thank for those last few ounces.Thank goodness for pedi sure! Don't know what our little man would do with out it.

In the next week or two we will be meeting with a dietitian and we have a  referral for the feeding clinic.Hoping and praying that we can get to the bottom of Owain's eating issues.I want him to love food and have the desire to EAT EAT EAT!

This is Owain last year when we made hand print ghost.As you can plainly see it was pure paint torture.
It's amazing how much a year can change a boy and his desire to paint his hand,head,ear,belly ect.

This was Owain last year at  Halloween....
I thought he was the cutest little bear to crawl(he wasn't walking yet) the planet.
I think Owain would disagree.
Wondering what costume of torture I will be making Owain where this year.Any guesses?

Like any other Thursday Owain and I headed off to story time at our neighborhood library. It was raining but that didn't stop us. We rarely miss story time. Owain loves to pop the bubbles and play with all of his friends. Before our lovely story teller Natalie got started she made  announcement "I don't know how many of you were here on Monday but Peter is sick with the swine flu." Peter is our Monday story teller. and yes Owain and I were their on Monday. We rarely miss a story time. I thought to myself well I feel great!

A couple of hours later my body started to ache. Now my body and my head aches. I am not scared of the swine flu but I am praying to god that I am not getting sick.I really don't want to miss out on all the Halloween parties we were planning on attending.I was going to make mummy Pizza's. I don't want to miss out on all the fun.I am not getting sick! Not not me!

The good news is I have no fever,no cough just an ache body but most likely if I am still feeling ache  tomorrow morning I will have to miss out on the Halloween party Owain and I were planning on attending.Just in case I am getting sick I don't want to risk exposing anyone else.Especially all of Owain's little friends.

I am not getting sick!
I am not getting sick!
I am not getting sick!

Happy First Birthday Stellan! 
Most of you in the blog world know who Mckmama is and her youngest Stellan. They really need our prayers right now as Stellan is spending his birthday in the hospital.

                                                                                                             
I realize it has been awhile since I posted about all of our CDH warriors.Sorry for being a blog slacker. Even though you may not see a post on this blog. Everyday morning,noon and night I am praying for all of our CDH warriors.

Jaime has had quite the  CDH roller coaster ride. Anyone that has reluctantly  been on the CDH roller coaster ride knows there are many bumps before you get to a slow steady track.Jaime just had a recurrence. He had another repair surgery this past Monday and is having a very tough recovery.Please pray for sweet little warrior Jaime,his parents Sheryl,Tom and big brother Jared.You can read more about Jaime and his recovery here. Stop by say "hello" give them a virtual (((hug))). I know first hand when you have a child sick in the hospital reading comments on your blog of encouragement really can lift your spirits up.

Andrew is having a really tough time coming off of ECMO (lung/heart by pass machine) Please pray that Andrew's little body is getting plenty of rest while on ECMO so when the time comes to being weaned his body will be strong enough that he will no longer need ECMO.Keep his parents Gene and Becky in your prayers during this difficult time.You can visit Andrew's blog here.Thank you.


Chase is in a similar situation as Andrew.Tomorrow the Doctors are going to try and wean him off of ECMO again. Please pray that they will be successful this time. Keep his parent Brian and Arah in your prayers.Thank you.


Thank You for taking the time and reading about all of our CDH warriors.
Thank You for leaving a comment of encouragement on their blog. It mean more than you could ever imagine. Unless you have been in similar shoes then you understand how much it touches your heart to know people all over the world are praying for your baby. It truly is amazing what the power of prayer can do. 

While your praying say a little big prayer for all the CDH babies that are preparing for battle against CDH.Pray for their families as they are  about to board the reluctant  CDH roller coaster ride.
 Thank you thank you thank you

If you have a prayer request or would like me to add your blog on the side bar please let me know.

                                                                                         
Some one brought to my attention that they were unable to leave a comment.Makes perfect sense I was wondering why nobody left comment anymore. My strong witty husband is working on that right now. He is pretty computer savvy I am not.Hopefully the problem will be fixed soon because we like to hear what you have to say!

I just got word the comments are working again! 
Hip hip hooray!
So leave a comment I want to see if it is really  working.and I would love to here from you!


                                                                                           
In Owain news he finally hit the 20lb. mark. This is HUGE! We have been trying to fatten this kid up since day one. For ten months now our goal was to get him to  20lbs and that day has finally arrived. We celebrated. I baked him a cake with sprinkles. We ate the cake he ate the sprinkles. We still have a long way to go with our picky little eater. More on that later.but I am tickled pink that our almost two year old finally weighs 20lb.


Thanks for stopping by!

First off, I want to thank the media for creating the largest feeding frenzy in a decade with it's aggressive hype of the H1N1 strain.  Not only is there an extreme lack of world news coverage, but people are going NUTS!  H1N1, yes is extremely contagious, just like the regular flu which is shown by how wide spread it currently is.  But does it deserve the hype of being more deadly?  Are the vaccinations safe?  And are the technicians poking your children with needles telling you everything about the vaccination they are poking them with?  These are questions I will attempt to answer in this post.

There are many different strains of influenza that have come an gone over the millennia.  The worst in recorded history had to be the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic which killed 20-40 million people (http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ .) "Each year in the United States on average, 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu; on average, more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications, and; about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes." (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/) Taking this into consideration, H1N1 is on par with the "normal" flu, its just that the "normal" flu changed quickly enough to where our immune system can not recognize it, which is called 'antigenic shift'.  For this reason we have to get the "normal" flu shot every year, except the "normal" flu changes much more gradual which is called 'antigenic drift'.  So in essence, H1N1 seems to be just as, but not more dangerous as the "normal" flu unless there is another 'antigenic shift' in the close future which could be devastating.(plausibly)

Vaccinations on the other hand are safe, to a point.  The CDC states that all vaccinations are non-infections, even the nasal mist which contains a live(weakend) culture.  What many don't know is that for the H1N1 vaccine and others, there are usually multiple types of vaccines.  There is the mist which we just talked about, available for children over 2.  Just picture it, a room full of 2,3,4,5 year old children all getting their "shots" and not crying for fear of being poked!  Sounds like a dream from my childhood!  Heck!  I would even opt for the mist if I could.  The second is your standard shot which comes in a vial, the doctor draws it, and shoots it in, pretty easy and safe right?  This is where I get a little concerned. In that vial is a chemical called THIMEROSAL (http://www.cdc.gov/Flu/about/qa/thimerosal.htm) which is also known as ethylmercury.  Everyone should be aware that mercury metabolization can be harmful or even life threatening. It truly depends on the weight/quantity ratio of an individual that is exposed.  Since the 30's Thimerosal has been used in vaccinations as a preservative to combat potentially deadly contamination which is very important, however there have been documented cases where children vaccinated have developed autism from vaccines with Thimerosal (http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/thimerosal.php). Generally these cases are considered allergic reactions to the preservative.  Steps are being made to eliminate ethylmercury from early childhood vaccination schedules states the FDA (http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228), who has approved the amounts used in vaccines.  Still the influenza vaccine is the heaviest user of the preservative.

I am sure there are a few of you that have heard of this, but the majority probably has not.  Next time you go to the flu clinic, H1N1 clinic or have your routine vaccinations, it my be well worth your time, child's safety and your safety to ask for the THIMEROSAL free vaccine.  This is what we did today, and when they said "We are out" (then tried to SELL us on safety of the other) we walked out to find someone with the "Safer" version.  Its not that we are scared that there could be an adverse or unsuspected allergic reaction to this or any vaccine, it's just the fact we are unsure, so better to err on the side of caution.

The FDA site is the best at providing adequate information on which preservitives are used in specific vaccines.

And to the MEDIA,  you guys don't know when to stop beating a dead cow!  GIVE US SOME GOOD NEWS!

Please make an educated decision.