Music

Our home will be filled with music! I love playing and listening and i know that my children as well have a keen curiosity with music. I took piano lessons as a youth, as well as flute and piccolo lessons for many years, so I'm excited to introduce the making of a beautiful noise into my boys life.
Thanks to Matt's parents we now have a very nice keyboard... and when i say nice... i mean like expensive, makes you almost feel like you are playing a real piano nice. The boys are almost excited as I am... hopefully they will feel that way when we start lessons :)

It's churches like this one, who give Christians a bad reputation....
I'm not sure what else to say, but that fact that this grieves my heart of the hate that they hold.

as promised... hashbrown waffels...



How has your day been?
The sun has been shining here, the children have endless energy and i'm tired. Looking forward to Matt getting home from work, the roast beef dinner that is in the oven, and maybe the kids going to bed early tonight since no one decided to nap... A girl can dream right?

Must read books...

Here is my list of books that i HIGHLY recommend specifically for parents who have children who struggle with autism. The last two are not focused on special needs, but i recommend them for ANY mom :)

-Children with Starving Brains: A Medical Treatment Guide for Autism Spectrum Disorder - Jaquelyn McCandless

-Finding God in Autism: A Forty Day Devotional for Parents of Autistic Children -Kathy Medina

-Playing, Laughing and Learning with Children on the Autism Spectrum: A Practical Resource of Play Ideas for Parents and Carers -Julia Moor

-God's Whisper in a Mother's Chaos: Bringing Peace Home -Keri Wyatt Kent (not necessarily a book about autism, but a great book for encouragement and ideas on keeping the peace)

- Real Moms...Real Jesus: Meet the Friend Who Understands -Jill Savage (also not about special needs, but a great book for moms)

I can't stop cooking!

Today for lunch I tried making hash browns in the waffle maker. They turned out rather tasty and now i have found a new way to make hash browns!
So what you do is Take 1 1/2 pound of hash browns (if you do frozen hash browns then leave them out to thaw and squeeze out the excess water, and if you use fresh squeeze out excess water) 1 tablespoon oil, and 1 teaspoon salt mix together and scoop into 4 equal parts on a preheated on high waffle iron (about 1/2 cup per section). Cook for about 15 minutes and walla... hash brown waffles. If your waffle iron does not have a function to do different temps, i would say just cook the hash browns a little longer. I think it just really depends on every ones waffle iron on time and you might have to experiment for a bit to get it just right, but it's worth it because it's super tasty. Next time i make it I'll take a picture.
So what else did i make today? well I tried a gluten free soft pretzel recipe. It was OK.. not good enough for me to say YOU HAVE TO TRY IT.. and i think it may need some tweaking and it could taste and turn out well... here is the result that i got for the first try.


And the last thing that i tried today was chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips...



Basically use the chocolate chip recipe that i posted earlier (I'll learn how to link up soon... i really will) and replace 3 tablespoons of the flour blend with unsweetened cocoa powder, also replace the chocolate chips with white chocolate chips. Did i mention, GLUTEN FREE?!?! Seriously... if i gain weight it's going to be off of these cookies. Good thing I'm training for a 10K right now.

Okay enough with the food. Today was a great day despite Matt being sick, but he's such a great Daddy and hard working husband, he played with the kids all day and also got to tilling up my garden and mixing in some manure so we can have big juicy veggies this summer/fall! Thanks to Ferdinand (our steer) for providing the manure. :)

(You've gotta love the 40 degree winters in the pacific northwest, though i hear we are supose to get a some heavy snow this week, i guess we'll see)

what do you do with little boys who have lots of energy?

You stick them on the treadmill, and i promise you, he likes it very much!

Oh and i had to share this picture. Matt made the boys a toy box. The boys like to sit in it and play pretend, like it's a train or a cave. Daniel is actually just hiding out from Elijah in this picture because he needed a break from him.

Hope for today

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These things I will do; I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16

May you trust the Lord to lead you in ways you have not known, make the rough places smooth, and trust that He will NOT forsake you in whatever season of life you are in today.

a note on vaccinations

First off, I just want to say thank you friends for the support and encouragement from my last couple of posts!

Now, I just wanted to clarify on something that i said about vaccinations. I said that we stopped vaccinating shortly after Joshua's diagnosis. I just want to make it clear that i do not think that Joshua and Daniel struggle with autism because of their vaccinations. Though Joshua did regress after he received his MMR vaccination (and he actually got the measles from the shot) I do not wholly contribute his struggle with the vaccine. He had certain issues that we did not realize (like leaky gut syndrome) that contributed to his developmental delay. I do believe that the vaccinations played a part in my children's diagnosis... but i do not believe that they are the leading cause to it. In fact I think it's a number of factors and you can't just say this one thing is the cause... like saying the MMR shot is the soul cause of autism. Daniel hasn't had his MMR shot and he struggles with autism. Anyway... in the ways of vaccination i just believe that the united states vaccine schedule is ridiculous and we are putting to many things into out little kids bodies before they can handle it. The schedule needs to be reevaluated. I think that vaccinations have their place and in many instances has in fact saved lives. I've done much reading on both sides before we concluded on holding off on vaccinating for a while and even got the support from our doctor, who is for vaccinating. My recommendation if you have children is to do research, talk to parents who are on both sides of the fence, talk to your doctor, and don't be scared into vaccinating or not vaccinating.