First Day of School

Ricky started preschool on Monday and Rachel on Tuesday this week.  I was a little teary but mostly I was excited for them.  I know they are ready for this and it’s going to be a great year.  Here’s a couple pictures from Monday.

Good morning sleepy head

Eggo's for breakfast

Rachel's ready for her day tomorrow

Running away from the camera

Stop taking pictures and drive, Mom

Waiting in the lobby, he obviously wasn't interested in this part

The only picture I have of him in his classroom, he ran right in and never looked back.

About 5 minutes after I picked him up

What a great day, and Rachel was great too-she ran into her classroom just like Ricky.  No tears, at least for the kids.

Glad to be back

To say it’s been rough is an enormous understatement.  2 weeks ago we started with Rachel getting pneumonia and a free ride to the emergency room, courtesy the ambulance and our insurance company.  3 nights, IVs in my baby girl, breathing treatments and trying to wean off oxygen, they let us home after the 4th day.  Few days later-I’m at the urgent care with fevers.  The doc says hire a sitter and take a nap.  The next night it’s me in the ER with the IV and a chest x-ray saying pneumonia too.  I’ve never been so sick, 5 days in bed!  Not good for a momma.

Things are finally looking up.  We all got to go to church in the morning, a big accomplishment for us. I’m ready for a new week, back to normal.

Better Late Than Never, The Monster Truck Show

This was back in January!!! But I just downloaded the pictures off my camera.  Daddy, Poppy, Ricky and Mommy went to the Monster Truck show at the Georgia Dome.  Of course Ricky lost his mind seeing all the trucks.  He had his “airplane ears” (ear muffs) and his Grave digger with him.  Of course Gravedigger won.

The one and only time I got him to look at the camera.

We’ll be back next year!

Heartbroken

What a wretched broken world we live in.

There are two stories that I’ve heard today that are just breaking my heart, in fact they are haunting me through the day.  I don’t want to share the stories with you  because I don’t want to spread the burden of knowing a child’s pain.  And there are so many, many stories of suffering and wretched pain and evil.  Just pray.

It’s so hard to believe that there is so much evil in our world.  For many I know that it’s this evil that turns people away from God-why does he allow so much suffering.  But in my faith I know, Christ cries and suffers with us.  He know this world is not as it should be

He has not forsaken us.

So this is a little thing I can do.  With so much wrong in the world, at least I can try to help one person with something good.

Sesame Beef and Green Beans

• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
• 1 lb beef, I used bottom round cut into 1 inch chunks (next time I’ll use a nicer cut)
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 lb fresh green beans, trimmed
• sesame oil
• salt and pepper

Cook green beans in a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes or just tender and drain.  Season beef with salt and pepper.  Heat oil in a wok or skillet, add beef and sesame seeds.  Cook to desired doneness then add green beans and toss.

In a small shallow bowl put 1/4 teaspoon salt, a few grinds of pepper and 1-2 tablespoons of sesame oil.  Use as a dipping oil for the beef.

Serve with brown rice.

Almond Butter

Since Adam is also peanut free for his detox diet we tried making some almond butter.  We passed on the whole foods grinder and tried out a homemade recipe.

1 cup toasted almonds (you can toast raw almonds at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, shake around a few times and don’t let them burn)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 tablespoon honey

Put it all through the food processer and let it run.  If the texture is crumbly keep processing and it will start to smooth out.  Adjust the salt and honey to taste.  You can add some more oil to make it smoother.

It’s best served fresh.  Store it in the fridge, it will be a little crumbly when you take it out.  You can let it sit at room temperature for a little while or you can put it through the food processer again for a few pulses.

It’s good with gluten free Blue Diamond Nut Crackers.

Frittata

This was pretty easy to make gluten/dairy free.  The only changes were I left out some milk that would have been mixed in with the eggs and used goat cheese instead of regular cheddar.  Here goes-

Ingredients

• 2 white potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 tablespoons Canola oil
• 8 eggs (I used a pint of egg beaters)
• 2 small tomatoes, diced
• 2 links chicken sausage (organic and no wheat fillers), diced
• 1/2 cup spinach
• 1/2 teaspoon dried dill
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded goat cheddar

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Slice potatoes with a mandolin slicer or just slice thin. Boil in salted water until slightly tender, about 5 minutes.  Heat oil in a cast iron skillet (or oven safe skillet), add potatoes and onion.  Cook until onions are soft and potatoes are browned. Spread potatoes and onions evenly over the bottom of the pan.

Add tomatoes, sausage and spinach to the skillet.  In a separate bowl whisk eggs, dill and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour in eggs and gently shake skillet to distribute.  Sprinkle grated cheese over the top.

Bake at 400 degrees until eggs are set and puffed, about 10-15 minutes.

Makes 6 servings.

This is so easy to change up and use just about any combo of veggies and herbs.  It’s good for breakfast, lunch or dinner and even good cold.

Detox diet

We’re on a new adventure in our house.  The next 4 weeks Adam is gluten free, dairy free, peanut free, alcohol free, no artificial sweetners, no diet cokes, and probably something else I’m forgetting.  He’s telling more about it on his blog here.  So my job is to start cooking and stocking our pantry.  It’s tough after months of super-coupon-deal shopping, to just buy stuff that we need.  So I’m trying not to break the bank but still have plenty of good options for Adam to eat.  I’ll be putting up some recipes here as I make them.

Better late than never

Oh my goodness I just have to share these.  These are pictures from Valentine’s Day.  We went to visit Honey at school and on the way we stopped to pick up some daisies.  Ricky looked so sweet and handsome carrying flowers into the room.

How sad this picture is blurry 😦 Rachel loved the classroom and all the attention she got from the other girls.  She made herself right at home, sitting in their chairs and pulling out their pencil boxes.  So sweet.

Happy Easter

This was supposed to post last night… I obviously didn’t hit publish 🙂

Well it’s still Easter for about an hour so here’s a Happy Easter to everyone.  It’s been a great weekend, lots of family time and church.  We painted eggs with Honey, had our church egg hunt on Saturday and Sunday was awesome at church.  We even had a visit from the easter bunny, who brought a play kitchen!  The kids love it (here are some bad phone pics it’s all I’ve got and I feel like a guilty mom for not having my camera.)  And the great news for Saturday night was it got Ricky to clean up his toys (can’t let the easter bunny trip or hurt his foot) and he had to go to bed (because he would scare the easter bunny away).

I have to share-the past two weeks I’ve been a little emotional and edgy about easter.  Everytime I saw a sign about an egg hunt or good friday I started to choke up a little.  One of these days I’m going to have to tell my kids about easter.  Not the easter bunny stuff.  That part about God coming here and dying and coming back to life.  That crazy story that I believe every word of. If I think about it too much it makes me a wreck.  I love my kids beyond words and yet there is a God who loves them even more.

I am thankful for my faith and my salvation.  But I am completely humbled (and a little afraid) of the task that I need to raise my children to know Jesus.  I know they will look at me and watch me in how I live and carry out my faith. Wow-I’ve got some work to do.  And yet the message of Jesus is so far beyond what I can try to show or teach.  So all I can really do is pray.