Our Photoshoot Around Town

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This Jar is Making Me Fat!

Last weekend I found this jar at a garage sale for a quarter.  I thought it was cute, and I can't help but keep filling it up with really good, sweet things.  Here's the recipe to the spiced muffins they serve at Mimi's Cafe.  Red Shoes and I made them this week, they were awesome!

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
2 t. baking soda
1 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cinnamon
3/4 cups + 1 T. buttermilk (we used yogurt instead)

Nut Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and the butter together with an electric mixer.  When they are thoroughly mixed, add eggs and beat one more minute

Sift the flour into a different bowl, together with the baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon

Add the flour and buttermilk to the first mixture, mix at low speed until smooth.  To avoid lumps in the batter, add the wet and dry ingredients alternately, in small amounts.

Make the nut topping; Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl.

Grease muffin tins or line with paper.  Fill each cup 3/4 full of batter  Add a full, rounded tablespoon of nut topping on top of each muffin cup of batter.  Bake immediately or the topping will sink to the bottom of the muffin.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. 

Recipe makes 12 standard size muffins. 

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Spring in Pictures

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They Grow Up So Fast!

Seems like just yesterday I was snuggling my new baby girl...

Soon she was a chunky little baby who was learning to sit up in her crib.  

So busy jabbering that she just fell asleep that way.

Almost two years and a head of hair later...she still keeps her blankie close.
 Yet, she's becoming so independent, and growing up so quickly!
  I feel like if I blink it will be time to pick out her prom dress. 
I love you Happy Feet!

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Bird Nests

1 stick of margarine

1 cup white sugar

1 cup flour

1/2 cup milk

Mix ingredients together and boil for 5 minutes.  Stir frequently.

1 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 oz. chowmein noodles

After first four ingredients have boiled for 5 minutes remove from heat and add chocolate chips, vanilla and salt.  Stir in chowmein noodles.  Form into bird nests.  After nests have cooled fill them with Peeps and jelly beans. 

Enjoy!

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Red Shoes' Sleep Study

Last night we had to go to our local Children's Hospital for Red Shoes to have a sleep study done.  He struggles a lot with his speech and we found out some months ago that his palate moves very little.  He loses a lot of air through his nose.  The surgeon feels that he would benefit from Pharyngeal Flap Surgery.  I'll write another post on that another time. 

Anyway, we needed to get this done to make sure that Red Shoes doesn't have any kind of underlying potential problem such as Sleep Apneia.  The flap along with Sleep Apneia could be a deadly combination. 

We checked into the hospital around 7 and for an hour to an hour and a half they wired him up.  He was a really good sport as always.  A Child Life Specialist came up to play with him and help keep his mind off of what was going on.  He really enjoyed that.  After all the wiring was completed here's what he looked like:

Can you imagine getting a good nights sleep with all of this garb on?  I can't.  I slept horribly and I wasn't wired to the max.  He did pretty good.  He went to sleep within 10 minutes.  He was beat!  I didn't have a clock nearby, so it seemed like the night took 20 hours!  He fell out of bed once and tried to come over to my bed once. Other than that the biggest deal was just wires getting loose.  And it seemed like they got loose a lot!  Everytime the nurse (who was awesome by the way) would have to come in and get him re-wired.  Pretty sure we saw her at least 12 times during the night.  I'm not exaggerating.

Finally the morning came!  I've never been so happy to start my day other than the time Red Shoes got his tonsils out.  It was traumatic for him when the nurse had to get all of the "stickers" off.  There were so many and they stuck so bad.  His skin is really irritated and sticky even after a bath and lots of olive oil. 

The worst part of the entire thing?  I had to take him to the lab so that they could draw his blood. I always hate that!  I'm not a wimp when it comes to these things.  But I always HATE seeing my Red Shoes poked.

The reason for the blood draw? They said because he moved around so much durint the night they wanted to make sure that his iron levels were okay.  Glad they're checking, but I can assure you that my blood would be checked as well! 

Finally, after all of that we got to go get some "num num" as Red Shoes calls it. We ordered lots!

Doesn't he look exhausted?  He was!

We came home and have taken it easy the entire day.  I made him lay down...he didn't want to.  He didn't get a choice today.  He played for a little bit then went to sleep.  He woke up a few hours later.  He checked to see what I was doing and then went back into his room.  This is how I found him:

We are so glad the sleep study is over.  Here's to a new tomorrow!

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"Held" by Natalie Grant...What it Means to Me

Yesterday I heard the song "Held" by Natalie Grant. I've heard the song many times before, but for some reason yesterday it just really resonated with me. I think it might be because it is March and every March I think about the anniversary of bringing our little Red Shoes home after he had lived in the NICU of our local Children's Hospital for two months.  I never forget how lucky we are to have him.  Those months were very scary and sad for us.  Red Shoes was our first baby and in all of the parenting magazines not once did I read an article that could have ever readied me for what we were experiencing. 

Never in my life did I need a God who would wrap his arms around me and just hold me as I did then.  And hold me He did.   I don't know how we could have survived that time in our lives without Him and without the people He so divinely put in our path.  From the NICU nurse that taught me how I to touch Red Shoes, to the Nurse Practitioner that ended up being a sister of my college roommate.  The list goes on and on of people who I KNOW God placed there in that moment for us and our little Red Shoes. 

Daily we were sifting through information that tests revealed or didn't reveal.  Our heads were spinning.  When everything fell we were held closely by God our Father.  In this Natalie Grant song these parents didn't get to hang onto their child.  But, they too were held and loved by our Father. 

Don't you think that the lilies of the valley represent Heaven and eternity with Him?  Even as a believer, I would be lying if I said that if things had turned out differently for us and Red Shoes was in Heaven I could understand it.  I think it would take me a long time.  But I do hope that I would get there.  I do know that God has the perfect plan and in time it will be revealed. 

Life gives us different situations and different heartaches, but I believe it is all to draw us closer to Him.

 Thank you God!


Natalie's Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOufqWodFNo

Natalie Grant's "Held"

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair

[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held
[Bridge]
If hope is born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior
[Chorus]
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held
We'd be held

This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This is what it means to be held..... Pin It