Our Newest Member, Favorite Product & Falling Off The Wagon

So when we decided to treat my disease with food a couple years back that had us of course researching everything from whole healthy foods to healthy cleaning products for the house etc. It was really easy to find laundry detergent, soaps, cleaners etc. Even switching everyone to toothpaste that didn't have any additives was a breeze but finding ant killer (a must when you live here) not so easy. Well, I was at Clark's the other day and they had this stuff......so great, smells like oranges and is safe for pets and kids. LOVE IT! So I think everyone remembers our beloved Tiger seen here right? Don't worry nothing happened to him. It's just that he is basically Morgan's cat. He loves her to the ends of the earth. Follows her everywhere like a dog. Sits with her during piano, sleeps on her chest at night, plays fetch with her and comes when she calls from anywhere in the house and I mean runs to her. So very sweet. Well, Tiger has never had a fondness for Ryanne (maybe it was the shoving in the dryer or cupboard thingy, that's another post) any-who, so we thought we would bless Ryanne with a sweetie all her own to grow with.
Meet Milo. He's the newest member of our family and seriously the sweetest thing ever. He lets Ryanne lay him on his back while she pets his stomach and he is so easy going. Probably a good thing since he will probably see the inside of the cupboard at some point. ;) We rescued him from going to the pound. Don't you think rescued pets are the best? I mean they just have this disposition that is so grateful and loving. Anyways, I just wanted you to meet Milo since I am sure there will be stories to follow.
OK last but not least I have to confess, I didn't just fall off the "no meat" wagon; I jumped,launched myself leaped for joy or at least boredom. It was fine I didn't miss meat really it was just that I got bored trying to come up with stuff to make. If someone were to say oh come be my live in chef and make me vegetarian meals every meal I could do it no problem. We are now taking application's although I must warn you the pay is REALLY low, mostly the reward of being around my sweet self. Ha! Ha! Oh man seriously I need to sign off.

Tidbits From Our 4th

Dan had to work the entire weekend which was kind of a bummer but what are you gonna' do right? So the girls and I made 4th of July sugar cookies.They turned out super cute and were super yummy! Yes, I cheated and ate one, OK two.....well maybe it was three but if it makes you feel any better I could barely walk by the end of the night. *sigh* I know better. But they were just so cute. ;)
Now please don't for a minute think I am leaving Morgan out by posting on Ryanne so much these next two weeks. I mean I would NEVER dream of leaving out my moody 8 1/2 year old who is so close to being on house arrest for the rest of her life it's not even funny. The 8 1/2 year old who rolls her eyes and sighs so much you would think the world was ending. Nope not me, I would never leave her out of my posts on purpose. Locked out of the house maybe.....kidding! It's just that Ryanne's birthday is in a couple weeks and she has been very entertaining lately.

We decided to go for a walk with our neighbors on the evening of the 4th and all the kids jumped on their Razor skooters. Ryanne being the dare devil she is went blazing down the hill behind all the other kids. We live at the top of a REALLY steep hill. My final words were,"oh man, this is not going to end well." And then......................

Ryanne hit a rock, got speed wobbles and slid on her stomach about 4 feet. She took all the skin off both arms, legs and bruised her little chest. My friends husband carried her home because the hill is so steep and she was bleeding everywhere. We weren't even all the way home and she stopped crying, stopped shaking and said,"You know, I think I will walk next time mom."

This kid is tough. The pictures don't do her body justice. Her wounds are still oozing and she has to have Tylenol to sleep at night because,"Mom, I just hurt everywhere." As if that wasn't enough she was running through the yard with a Lego spaceship thingy and didn't see the apple tree, slammed into it which in turn slammed the spaceship into her face and busted her lips open. Yup' you guessed it more blood. The she did a back flip off the swing and landed on the root of the tree bruising her back and last but not least and I'm not making this up; she came running around the corner in the kitchen where my friend had pulled out the cutting board and ran into the cutting board. Ahhhhhhhhhhh..........so glad very little freaks me out. I just bandage em' up and send em' back out. Someone is going to think I beat this kid and turn me in. The funniest thing is yesterday I get her hair all done cute, put her in this cute Hawaiian summer dress and send her into church and she looks so cute and calm and fragile. NOT!

A Day In The Life Of Ryanne....

It's the strangest thing; the other morning at 8:15 am we had a fairy swinging through the trees right outside my kitchen window.Now mind you this is "our" fairy but not our tree.
This particular little fairy had to get up, get dressed, climb the neighbors fence (I mean fly over the neighbors fence) ;) onto the table and launch off the swing all on her own.

Anyone that ever looks at this little fairy and thinks though she is small for an almost 5 year old fairy and is not perfectly capable of her own kind of mischief, does not REALLY know this fairy I speak of.

I think we could all take a lesson from this fairy who ALWAYS wakes up this early and this happy.

Besides what else is there to do in the summer at 8am? :)

Thinking Outloud

Is it just me, no don't answer that pleeeaassseee! I have been dying although hesitant to write on my blog about Jon & Kate plus 8 and now Michael Jackson.I hate to jump on the media band wagon cause that's so NOT me but my heart is seriously heavy here so bare with me.

When Jon & Kate plus 8 first started the girls and I would plop down and watch this crazy family of 10 do their daily thing. I watched cause it made my house seem calm, my kids watched because well, they want more brothers and sisters, (FYI, not gonna happen). The first season we were so excited to see them praying as a family at the table and going to church. I remember thinking to myself,"I would definitely HAVE to be a believer to have 8 kids!" Then one day Dan walked through as we were watching the show and he said,"honey, that wife is rude and unkind!" Or maybe it was more like,"Oh, I'd have to kill her!" Ya' that sounds more like my husbands personality. ;) I was like,"Oh honey its just her showing off for the camera." But the more I watched I realized she was tearing her husband down and not building him up to be the man God intended. We pretty much quit watching at that point. Then through news reports and articles in magazines at Dr.'s appointments I heard they were cheating, splitting up etc. I tuned in (along with a billion other viewers) last week to see if it was true and sure enough they have filed for divorce. A million dollar house, a hit T.V. show, new hair, nails, surgery's, vacations etc. and still heartbreak. I got to thinking about how in the show they quit going to church and praying together and how they were so disrespectful to each other. I don't even know these people and trust me I am not judging but instead I am heart broken that they are choosing to quit. Where are their REAL friends, their pastor from the church they went to, their family to say,"hey! you can get through this! God is bigger than all this hurt. Walk away from the fame and love your husband/wife." *big sigh* Dan said if I lived next door to them I could take them the Love Dare from Fireproof. ;)

OK, so last night I had Fox news on for a few minutes and they flashed a picture of Michael Jackson and Morgan said,"Mom, that is one weird looking woman." I explained who he was.
Me: "Morgan, he IS the king of pop!"
Morgan: "King of pop? Whats pop?"
Me:"Heeelllllooooo, pop music! Thriller, moon walk, one white glove, staying up and sneaking MTV in the 80's to watch his newest videos."
Morgan: "MTV? Moon walk? Ooookkkkkkk..............."
Me: "It's OK I understand let me show you some "Michael moves."
Morgan: *hysterical laughter*
The news then breaks in and shows his home that he rents for $100,000 a month and announces that it had 11 bathrooms and then in the same breath it talks about how he was going broke.
Morgan:"Mom, why did he need 11 bathrooms? Why is he dead? Why did he do that to his body? Do you think he loved the Lord?"
Me: *sigh* "I think he was very confused Morgan and that 11 bathrooms and all the money in the world can't buy you God's peace."
I was coming on here to check my email this morning and EVERYTHING is about people grieving and going hysterical over the loss of this singer. Very sad I think. I mean very sad that we don't get that upset whenever someone dies that is that lost and confused. Again, I obviously didn't know the man but my heart hurts for him and his family as they struggle to find meaning and truth in a world that idolizes the wrong things and wrong people.

Week one of no meat and other randomness

Well I gotta' say not eating meat isn't nearly as hard as avoiding wheat and dairy. I mean meat is meat right? No secrets, it doesn't try to hide in things or disguise itself. Wheat though? It's in things you never realized; soy sauce for example. You have to buy expensive organic soy sauce to avoid wheat. And dairy? People think you can buy veggie burgers at the store and be safe; not so, they usually always have cheese mixed in them. To avoid wheat, gluten and dairy you have to be an investigator 24-7. I didn't really miss meat at all. I used tofu and beans as subs. Now last night I will say we were in a pinch for dinner so I ate fish. I probably will still do that every so often throughout the month but everything I am reading still says people with autoimmune diseases do better with NO animal protein in their systems. Tomorrow night I am making bean burgers and chocolate cupcakes (all healthy) If they are "two thumbs up" I will post the recipe.

I saw the Dr. yesterday because I have another infection in my bladder and they want to make sure it REALLY clears up this time. If it doesn't they are going to do an ultra sound of my kidneys and stomach to see whats going on. Back in August when I started the chemo that was one of the major side affects and it seems I still can't shake it. They are also going to do a test to make sure all my heart valves are open and functioning properly since I was on the Methotrexate for so many years. Thank you for all the emails, text messages etc. checking in on my. I am not 100% still (not sure I remember what that feels like) but I am glad the Dr.'s are running the tests to rule things out. Please continue to pray and I will keep you posted. Want to know the irony here? My arthritis is great! My blood work showed NO swelling at all in my body. In my joints I feel amazing. Now isn't that something? Go figure right? That's proof positive that the diet works when you do it all day everyday.

I've always said that throughout all the things Dan and I have gone through in our marriage whether it be infertility, miscarriage, all the crazy failed adoptions, family stuff, marriage struggles, my health, his work stress etc. that I would praise God and I got to wondering as I have been struggling these past 6 weeks if I am really doing that to my fullest potential.

I decided to read through the book of Job and really meditate on the words of someone who REALLY suffered. Do you know in chapter 1 after receiving all the bad news of loosing all 10 of his children the first words Job utters is, " Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

I have to constantly remind myself that Job was human and he had a choice in that moment on what his response would be. Amazing. I can't even imagine one of my kids being super sick with something let alone loosing both of them. Have a great day and decided today regardless of what it looks like on your end to give it to the Lord.

Great!

Great to be this comfortable...................Great deal on http://www.woot.com/ last week.............
Great vegetarian recipe made last night you can find it here http://www.thaifood.about.com/ Just type in Thai lettuce wraps. What? I'm to lazy to type in the whole recipe. It was good though and our friends LOVED it! For desert I;
Sliced up bananas
rolled them in brown sugar
placed in baking dish
sprinkled with chopped up pecans
Baked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes
Dished out some soy vanilla ice cream and then topped with yummy baked banana dessert. Oh and then sprinkled with dairy free chocolate chips. (I NEEDED the chocolate) ;)

Have a great weekend, we are laying low today and then off to a swim meet in the morning.

Day 1

As if my diet doesn't present enough challenges I have decided to do a 30 day meat fast starting today. I know, I know your thinking, "Are you crazy?" Well, yes I suppose taking wheat, gluten and dairy out not to mention corn, tomato's, bell peppers and to many other things to mention is extreme enough in and of itself but whats one more thing? Let me clear a few things up before I start getting really weird comments on this post. NO it has nothing to do with saving the planet or the animals although those are nice sentiments that's not my reason. It has actually something that has been on my heart for a few years now. We only eat fish, chicken or turkey about three times a week and we buy hormone free meat but it's been nagging at me the more I read up on all the different ways it affects our bodies and our digestive system. I had already been reading articles on the subject when my friend (thank you Eileen) mailed me a book called The Cancer Battle. I don't have cancer but this book was all about a women's journey with breast caner and how after nothing else worked she turned to food and started eating basically the same way I am and now she's cancer free all these years later. It was just one more confirmation for me to take that one last thing out of my diet for a few weeks and see if I can't feel that much better while stopping my drugs. I almost didn't post about the challenge cause I don't know if I can do it but I will keep you posted. I made my protein fruit smoothie this morning and am going to experiment with veggie wraps tonight for dinner. I am sure our friends coming over will LOVE that! Ugh. Oh well, you eat here your bound to get tofu at some point. ;) Wish me luck.

Oh and don't start posting a bunch of really yummy meat recipes to lure me back to the other side cause well, that's just mean! ;)