Courtney's Birthday

It's amazing how fast kids grow up.

I remember as a kid, life seemed to drag on forever.

Now as an adult, it flies by way too fast.

It seems like yesterday I was bringing my little 7 pounder home from the hospital.

And today, we are celebrating her 9th birthday.

Birthday Morning Ritual: Reading The Courtney & Chronicle

Her favorite color wrapped all around her presents.

Waiting for everyone to get up so she can open them.

Um . . . Yeah, she was excited to get this.

It's a Sonic DS game.

Magic tricks!  She and Daddy are gonna do this together.

I wish her hair wasn't blocking her expression here.  She LOVED this.

Her posed excited look.  She got a soccer goal.

The kids playing in the goal.

And what's a birthday without Donut Joes??

Hmmm...they all look so good.

She ended up with the red & white one.

I bet they're wishing we would just let them eat instead of posing with the donuts.

Yep, it was as good as it looked.

Another birthday tradition: licking the spatula.

She wanted to help decorate her cake.  She made the little soccer players.

She wanted a soccer cake so bad.  Every time we went to Publix, she'd take me to the cake book to show me the soccer cake.

"Happy birthday to you . . . "

Shoveling

The weather allowed us to go to the zoo today.  She was really excited.  She really wanted to go see the Rhinos.

And we saw them . . .

and saw them again.  In fact we had to go back an hour later and look at them some more.

Rhiney even saw them .  

 

 

And of course we had to get a picture with the picture of a Rhino.

We finally broke away from the Rhinos to see an elephant.

We released some pent up energy on the drums.

Yep, this is as gross as it looks . . . the boys were being dung beetles, while Court was being disgusted.

A train ride - Courtney informed us that it was Rhiney's first ride.

The post train ride-bell ringing tradition

Rhiney got tired of walking

Being silly

A two faced giraffe

Rhiney bored out of his mind waiting for the kids to get done playing.

Frog jump

The snake exhibit was the last one she wanted to see before we left.

On our way to . . .

This was her choice for her birthday lunch.

Yum!

Off to soccer practice

And back home for dinner.  She wanted pizza again.  This time homemade.

Wheat Free/Soy Free Homemade Brownie

I might need to make a separate blog for Wheat/Peanut/Soy and Everything Else - Free recipes that I find.

But anyway, I came across this homemade brownie mix on Pinterest.  I thought I'd make it using ingredients that I can eat.  It actually turned out well.  It's crumbly though, but hey! it's chocolate and I can eat it . . . so I call that a win!

My Ingredients:

1 c sugar

1/2 c brown rice flour*

1/3 c special dark chocolate cocoa - soy lecithin free*

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 c olive oil*

The first five ingredients mixed

The eggs, vanilla extract & oil added

Baked at 350 for 22 minutes

Yummy & crumbly

*The original recipe called for 1/2 c white flour, 1/3 c cocoa & 1/2 c vegetable oil.

Update on Health

Some of you all have been wondering why I'm taking wheat out of my diet and not eating much.

Well, this post will hopefully take care of those questions.

Starting in February, I started to get hives and they've progressively have gotten worse.  I finally made an appointment to go see an allergist after much prodding from friends and family.  They took a lot of my blood to find out the results of my condition.  The blood test also revealed another issue my body was having . . . I'll get to that later.

I found out I was allergic to (brace yourself, this is quite the list):

Sunflower Seeds (including artichokes, escarole, chicory, endive, dandelion, tarragon)

Cashew Family (Cashews, pistachios, Mangos)

Wheat (bran, bread crumbs, bulgur, couscous, cracker meal, durum, farina, flour (there's a huge list there), gluten, kamut, matzoh, pasta, seitan, semolina, pelt, vital gluten, germ, malt, sprouts, wheat grass, whole wheat berries, flavoring, hydrolyzed protein, soy sauce, starch, surimi)

Palm Family (Coconut & Date)

Pea Family (Peanuts, Peas, Pinto, String, Soy, etc)

Plum Family (Plum, Cherry, Peach, Apricot, Nectarine, Wild Cherry, Almond)

Walnut Family (English walnuts, Black walnuts, Pecan, Hickory Nut, Butternut)

Sesame Seeds

Soy (edamame, hydrolyzed soy protein, miso, natto, shoyu sauce, soya, soybean, soy protein, soy sauce, Tamari, Tempeh, textured vegetable protein, tofu - including Asian cuisine, natural flavoring, vegetable broth, vegetable gum and vegetable starch)

Tree nuts (almonds, artificial nuts, Brazil, caponata, cashews, chestnuts, filberts/hazelnuts, gianduja, hickory nuts, macadamia nuts, mazipan, almond paste, nan-gai nuts, natural nut extract, nougat, nut butters, nut meal, nutmeat, nut oil, nut paste, nut pieces, pecans, pesto, pine nuts, pistachios, praline, walnuts)

Peanuts (artificial, beer nuts, cold pressed expelled or extruded peanut oil,  goobers, ground nuts, mixed nuts, monkey nuts, nutmeat, nut pieces, peanut, peanut butter, peanut flour - Including African, Asian & Mexican dishes, baked goods, candy, chili, egg rolls & enchilada sauce)

Shellfish (abalone, clams, cockle, crab, crawfish, lobster, mollusks, mussels, octopus, oysters, prawns, scallops, shrimp, snails, squid, bouillabaisse, cuttlefish ink, fish stock, flavoring, seafood flavoring, surimi)

Latex (What?!?! you say.  That's not a food!  Well as I have discovered it is in many foods like: Banana, Avocado, Chestnut, Apple, Carrot, Celery, Papaya, Kiwi, Potato - I can actually eat that one, Tomato, Melon, Pear, Peach, Cherry, Pineapple, Strawberry, Fig, Apricot, Passion Fruit, Rye, Wheat, Grass, Ragweed, Mugwort, Hazlenut, Walnut, Soybean, Peanut, Buckwheat, Dill, Figs, Grapes - I can eat that one too), Oranges)

So all those foods, unless I specified otherwise, I absolutely cannot eat.

If you read an ingredient label on any food product, you are most likely to find at least one of those ingredients if not more on that label.  It has been very difficult finding foods to eat, but I have found a handful, and my sweet husband is trying to mix it up and create new and interesting recipes for me to try.

At the same time I was given this list of foods to avoid, I was also informed that I have Hashimoto's Disease.  It's a thryoid disorder.  I'm at the point where medicine will be of no benefit to me.  Not because it's too far along, but because the part of my thyroid that isn't working, they don't have a medication for.  They reassured me, that in time the part that they do have meds for will also go and at that point I'll start a med.

Okay, so there it is.

Thanks to all of you who have asked about me.   I truly do appreciate your concern.

Fish-Sitting

While some good friends were on vacation at the Gulf,

We had the sincere privilege of baby fish-sitting their pet

Bob.

We wanted to make sure that his stay-cation with us was the absolute best it could be 

while his family was at the beach.

Bob had a great night at a sleep-over with the kids.

Much like us, Bob is not a morning person fish.

But after a couple cups of Joe, he was ready to tackle his day.

We asked him what he wanted to do . . .

but since we don't speak fishese,

We just had to take a stab in the dark at what an ectothermic gill-bearing aquatic craniate might enjoy.

(Yeah, I Wikipedia-ed that!)

We got a morning bike ride in . . .

A quick game of soccer 

(he made an excellent goalie) . . .

Got his wiggles out on the trampoline . . .

Was cherry bombed on the Teeter-Totter . . .

Swung on the swings with friends . . .

Took a couple trips down the slide . . .

And rode with the skateboard punks of the neighborhood . . .

After playing hard in 90 degree weather, we thought it best he chillax - poolside.

What better way to end his stay-cay than cruising around the neighborhood with the windows down,

the wind blowing through his fins.

He missed his family so much.  So we had him make a picture of them.

Thank you Barlows for entrusting your fish in our care.

Bob is welcome to come back anytime!!