My miracle

You never expect something tragic to happen to your children. You hear about other people's kids who are sick or who have had some kind of accident but you never think it will happen to your kids, or at least I didn't.

It's been almost 2 months since Lucy fell off the back of our sofa and hit the back of her head on our hard wood floor. Honestly, that's kind of an every day occurrence when you have a house full of littles but this time was different. Her scream of pain was different, and of course the side affects that followed made us realize this was serious.

The week in the hospital with her is honestly kind of a blur. Jared and I were kind of in robot mode as we just did what we needed to do to get by. It wasn't until recently that all of the emotions from that haunting week in the hospital hit me. I've just been a ball of emotions lately thinking through every little detail from feeling overwhelmed with love by friends and family to having a break down and sobbing at the thought of almost losing my sweet baby girl.

Mostly, I am so eternally grateful to my heavenly father. We don't know yet that Lucy's brain is 100% healed but we know it's definitely better and I owe that to God. It truly is a miracle that she has made such progress without having ANY kind of treatment. Praise God! At one point in the hospital, we were told that she would need brain surgery and that it could be fatal but because God had his hand on the situation, He started healing her and the doctors could see that. So much so that the doctors felt it best to simply do nothing and continue to let God heal her. Days later we were sent home with a bubly, happy, pain free girl.

I can't tell you how overjoyed I am to be the mother of Lucy Isabelle. She brings so much joy to my life. With that said, through all that we went through, no matter the outcome, we were trusting God. There was a moment when we thought that God may have been calling her home to Him. That would have been the worst thing I can imagine but I can tell you, we would have trusted God. You never know what this life may bring but I do know that you'll have the best life available to you if you trust in Him.

I honestly feel guilty accepting this gift of saving Lucy. I know there are so many parents out there who have lost a child or have very sick children and my heart goes out to you. It really does. If nothing else, this has taught me so much about empathy. God has taken my heart and put it into the hands of those who are hurting. I heard this song on the radio today and the words really spoke to my heart.

You lift me up when I am weak
Your arms wrap around me
Your love catches me so I'm letting go
You lift me up when I can't see
Your heart is all that I need
Your love carries me so I'm letting go

Please pray for Lucy this morning as we go in for an MRI to check on her sweet brain. She has to go under anesthesia and doesn't do well with it. We'll keep you posted, my dear prayer warriors. 
Love, Melinda

Veggetti

Did you know you can use zucchini in place of spaghetti noodles to make your favorite pasta dish?! Well, you can!....and it's delicious!

It's so simple and SO healthy! You get a filling pasta dish without the high carb and calorie intake of pasta. Ive posted about spaghetti squash before, which is delicious as well, but it's a bit time consuming.

Making zucchini noodles takes no time at all.

I used the shredding attachment on my food processor to shred my zucchini but if you use a vegetable spiralizer like this one, it makes the zucchini more like noodles. I'm going to buy one of these awesome gadgets but just haven't done it yet.

The possibilities are endless with veggetti! You can use zucchini as the noodle for  any pasta dish!

Here's what I did.

Zucchini noodles with shrimp, red pepper, and pesto:

Ingredients:

2 medium/ large zucchini

1 red bell pepper

1lb shrimp

6oz jar of pesto (I used normal pesto this time but it's also really good with sun dried tomato pesto)

grated parmesan cheese 

Directions:

Make sure that your shrimp is defrosted, deveined, and tail is off.

Chop red pepper and sauté shrimp and red pepper in a large skillet with olive oil.

Meanwhile, wash your zucchini and cut off ends. If you have a cheese grater you can grate your zucchini, shred it, or use a fancy veggie spiralizer.

Once shrimp and red pepper are fully cooked, turn off the heat and top with pesto, then immediately toss the zucchini into the skillet and quickly mix everything together until the pesto has covered everything. You don't want the zucchini to sit on the hot stove too long or it will start cooking and will start getting mushy.

Dish some out into a bowl and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Yum!

A veggie filled meal!

Since you sacrificed all those carbs by not having pasta noodles, you don't have to feel guilty about having some delicious garlic bread as a side! Score! ;)

"clean" Berry and Cream Cheese Crumb Cake!

I know, I know, I haven't made a blog post since February!...I'm just a post when you have a good topic or an awesome recipe kinda gal right now, however, I would like to change that and someday become a super blogger like my dear friend Erin. I admire your bloginess. ;)

Anyways, lately I've been experimenting a lot with using "clean" ingredients to replace unhealthy ingredients when baking. Sometimes they're a flop (pumpkin bean bars...gag!) but sometimes they turn out SO good and you can't even tell that it's all clean, natural ingredients. I hope you enjoy my recipe for these delectable, healthy treats!

Clean Berry and Cream Cheese Crumb Cake:

Place rack in center of oven, and heat oven to 350°.
spray a 9x13 or a bit smaller baking pan with non stick spray.

Cake:
¼ cup melted coconut oil,
1 small banana mashed
2 TB 0% fat Greek yogurt
1 snack size cup unsweetened applesauce
½ cup + 2 TB unsweetened almond milk
2 ts pure vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/3 cup stevia powder
1 ts baking powder
½ ts coarse salt

Combine all wet ingredients then in a different bowl combine all dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients a little at a time until all mixed together.
spread the cake batter evenly out into the baking dish.

Next make the cream cheese filling.

cream cheese filling:
8oz light cream cheese or "better than cream cheese" if you want to go vegan.
1 egg yolk *To make it vegan, you can omit the yolk and use something called "agar agar" but I was fresh out of whatever that is so used a good ole yolk. You could probably just use neither and still be ok, but the cream cheese mix just might be a bit runny.
3 TB honey or agave

mix it all together and spread on top of cake batter.

Next, top with a berry of your choice. I used fresh blueberries and raspberries. I used a pint of raspberries and about a 1/2 pint of blueberries.

For the crumble on top:
1 cup coconut flour
1 cup coconut sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 TB cinnamon
8 TB coconut oil (solid not melted)

Mix it all together and try to crumble it over the top of the cake. It won't crumble in the same way that butter does but it's MUCH healthier to use the coconut oil than using butter.

Bake at 350 for 14 minutes then turn your baking pan around and bake an additional 10 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see it the first layer of cake batter is baked through. The cream cheese part will still be gooey and that's ok.

I let mine cool and then put it in the refrigerator over night. Getting cold helps the coconut oil in the crumble get hard again and gets the right consistency but it still tastes good when it's warm and gooey. I served mine to my Sunday school class for breakfast but you could also serve it as a dessert with a small scoop of fat free frozen yogurt on top! My friends loved it, or at least that's what they tell me. ;)

Here's what my kiddos thought.

Winter blues...

Wow. This winter season has been FULL of ups and downs...but it feels like mostly downs. I have missed so many days of work due to my sick kiddos that I think my co-teacher is just about ready to sack me! Love you Linds. ;)  All 4 of us girls have had strep, 2 of the 3 girls had a stomach bug, baby girl had a horrible ear infection which led to her ear drum rupturing and then had a horrible allergic reaction to her antibiotic, and now my oldest is going on day 5 of fever with a horrific barking cough. Taking her to the doctor, again, tomorrow. I'm starting to know everyone at the doctor's office pretty well now. ;)

Here's my poor LuLu when she had strep. LK had it just the week before her. We had to leave school early on this day due to her fever and she was so bummed because it was 'super hero day' and she had dressed up like bat-girl ballerina princess. Don't ask. I felt so bad for her but of course I did not mind her  falling asleep on my chest as we watched tinker bell. This little lady hadn't done that since she was about 4 months old!

The little trooper, feeling a bit better after a bubble bath. Love that face!

Then of course the red headed stinker decided it was her turn to be sick. I call her a stinker because she had a triple, well, almost quadruple sickness going on. She started with the stomach bug then continued to be so fussy for days after her bug was gone and woke up one morning with an ear full of puss! Gross, I know. Sorry. We took her to the Dr to find out she had a horrible ear infection, the eardrum had ruptured and had what appeared to be strep! Whew! No wonder the poor girl was so cranky!

Thankfully Lucy and Chloe were feeling better and our household was starting to brighten up. The girls LOVE to help me cook and especially love to bake so we made daddy some "skinny" chocolate chip cookies for an after work treat. Recipe here.

I just love their little chefs hats and aprons. They kept referring to themselves as "makers" rather than bakers. ;)

Oh, Luc. I could just kiss that face all over!

Well, just a couple days later, Lucy got "the throw ups", as we call them, and Chloe had a horrible allergic reaction to the antibiotic she was taking. This pic was taken the first day we noticed her rash but the 2nd day was even worse. Her face was puffy and the rash was raised and all over her body! She was so miserable and just cried all day.

Here's a pic of her poor little legs. ;(

Thank goodness for loving husband who appreciated my new title of nurse/ Dr Mom and brought me breakfast in bed. I <3 breakfast in bed and he knows that. Part of the reason as to why I adore him so much is because of how well he knows me. .....and yes, that's an elephant shaped waffle. ;)

Due to Chloe not feeling so hot, we stayed home from school/ work to take care of her. The big girls LOVE school and were so bummed to miss so while Chloe was napping, I turned our living room into a spa to give the girls a special day and we had SO much fun! We turned on relaxing music, lit candles, had them put on my robes and gave them pedicures using a roasting pan full of soapy water. I called them "ma'm" and "miss" and they just thought it was hilarious. Then, later that day, LK started feeling sick and sure enough she had a fever of 102 and has had a fever every day since. Oy!

We've all developed a yucky cough and cold but so far only LK has the fever. This is how we've been spending most of days lately. Staying in our jammies until noon and watching waaay too much tv.

Oh, and of course taking naps at the table is also a new thing we've started doing. Poor little thing.

So, anyways, we've had good days, then bad days, little sleep, doctor visits, school, no school, husband on business trip, dance, church...and the list goes on.

Luckily my sweet hubby let me have some time away from the sick cave yesterday and I got to have a nice lunch with my mom and sister and even saw a movie! It was a nice treat.

I must say, I'm not a fan of winter. My husband and I have tossed around the idea of moving to a warmer location before, only being half serious. I'm sure we'll stay put but for now, I'm dreaming of spring, baby! Give me warmth! We need that vitamin D! 

For now, we're just going to give the girls an extra dose of vitamin c as well as their normal daily vitamins, give them all a round of probiotics, and be even more picky about hand washing and drink sharing.

One quick confession before I end this novel. I. am. a. stress. eater. whew! There, I said it. Feels good to admit it. ;) With my recent situation and having my hubby gone on business for a bit, i have been FRAZZLED and I haven't been able to get to the gym much so this girl is packing on the pounds!!! Yes, I like to eat healthy but this queen of all things sweet doesn't say no to a cupcake, cookie, cakepop (Christina and Lindsay can attest to that one.) So, all that to say, I'm sorry I haven't had the time to post another meal plan but I haven't even planned my own meals. This lady is getting back on track THIS WEEK  so be watching for my week of meals and work outs that I'll be doing this week and we'll see where I'm at next Monday.=)

Love, 

Melinda

momentous occasion in the land of parenthood. recipe included.

What is the momentous occasion, you ask. Well tonight I prepared a healthy meal for my family and baby girl actually ate it AND loved it! She devoured it! She had recently followed in her sisters' footsteps and become a picky eater so this is a big deal! Now we'll just have to work on getting the older girls to jump on the band wagon.

I made chickpea burgers, a recipe that I posted last week, and they. were. delicious! Click here for the recipe.

I wrapped mine in lettuce to cut down on the calories but the rest of the fam used toasted whole wheat hamburger buns.

Yum!

We used normal burger condiments and fixins'. I sliced up some roma tomatoes, avocado, sliced low fat cheese and on mine I used low fat ranch dressing. We love our ranch around here.  

As you can see in the pick, we had a side of baked sweet potato fries. Click here for that recipe. They are also delicious but this particular recipe is a bit spicy which my kiddos weren't crazy about. Use less spice or no spice when cooking for little ones.

This recipe was just too good to not share! Enjoy!

A week of healthy dinners

First, let me start off by saying I'm SO sorry that my blog is not pretty. I don't have picks on this post or all the bells and whistles. I am technology challenged, y'all and am working on it. Bare with me. :) I'll get there, Just still new to this blog business.

It's a new year and it's the perfect time to start over! Those holiday cakes, cookies, and candy were amazing, and I mean AMAZING, but the holiday weight has got to go and we've got to get back on track with a healthy life style!

Motivator:
Have any of you heard of or watched the documentary called, "Forks over knives"? In a nutshell it is about how you can control and even reverse disease by eating a whole foods, plant based diet. Watch it and you"ll go vegan for at least 2 days. ;) My husband and I watched it and I think we were vegan for maybe 2 weeks...ha ha! Needless to say it REALLY  changes your outlook on what your putting into your body. If your a netflix user you can watch it for free using netflix instant watch or I think you can rent it on Amazon instant video.
http://www.forksoverknives.com/

So, since my husband and I didn't quite have what it takes to be true vegans, we decided to really try to cut down on our intake of animal products. I.e. eggs, milk, yogurt, meat, cheese, etc.
I no longer use meat as a main dish item and try to not have more than 2 dinners a week where we use meat. If vegan products and health food as a whole wasn't so expensive, I think I could be vegan but all those cheese, yogurt, and milk substitutes are SO expensive and with 3 little kiddos at home, we have to really watch the grocery budget.

Alright, so, eating healthy is not easy, right? What to eat? How many calories to consume? good/bad carbs, good/bad fats. So much to think about so don't think about it. Let me plan your meals. ;) I love to cook healthy food and I've done quite a bit of research on healthful living and weight loss. As you know, I've had 3 babies and gained a good amount of weight with each of them. I gained 55lbs with my first child and was able to get the weight off with diet and exercise alone. No I do not have fast metabolism and no I'm not just "lucky". I can gain 5lbs with the snap of my fingers. Soon and very soon I'll be posting the "skinny rules" that I follow and giving you some tips and tricks to help you meet your weight loss goals along with my own person meal plans with what I eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks but for now I'll just plan your dinners. ;)
Warning:
The meals are not for the picky eater. I've tried helping picky eaters plan healthy meals before and I just can't do it. ha! Branch out and try new things. You just might like it. After the list of meals I have a recipe for a healthy sweet treat to get you through the week.

Here are your dinners:

Monday: Quinoa salad (one of our faves)
http://www.eating-for-england.com/quinoa-salad-beans-avocado/
-For my kiddos, who aren't thrilled with the strong tastes of garlic and onions, I usually set aside a bit of quinoa for them along with some of the cubed avocado, diced tomato, and black beans. I squirt a bit of lime juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper over it, give it a stir and that's the kid version of this meal. I slice up some apples and maybe some carrot sticks and ranch dressing for their sides.

Tuesday: Turkey and spinach meatballs over spaghetti squash
http://thediva-dish.com/uncategorized/hubby-meals-simple-turkey-meatballs-over-spaghetti-squash/
-If you've never tried using spaghetti squash in place of normal spaghetti, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! It tastes wonderful and excludes all the many calories and carbs that pasta contains.

-I'm making these meatballs (link below) rather than the one's in the above link. These I've tried before and are really good, I've never tried the others before.
http://homecookingmemories.com/baked-turkey-meatballs-with-spinach-10-ideas-for-meatballs/

Wednesday: Roasted veggie tostadas with chipotle cream sauce (One of our favorite meals)
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/roasted-vegetable-tostadas-with-chipotle-cream-recipe/index.html
-We use whole wheat tortillas or if you're watching your carb intake you can use lettuce to make a lettuce wrap.

Thursday: Roasted tomato and cannellini bean pasta
http://www.forksoverknives.com/roasted-tomato-and-cannellini-bean-pasta/
I'll serve mine with a side of steamed veggies of choice. Our favorite is broccoli.
-This is a new recipe that I look forward to trying. I haven't cooked  much with beans before, besides black beans, and I look forward to cooking more often with beans rather than meat.

Friday: Chicken and lime soup
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/10/chicken-lime-soup/
-I add 1 can of black beans (drained and rinsed) and about 2 cups cooked quinoa or brown rice. (1 cup uncooked) My kiddos liked using tortilla chips to dip into the soup and we crumbled a few to top.

Saturday: Chickpea burgers with baked sweet potato fries
http://www.forksoverknives.com/sneaky-chickpea-burgers/
http://www.ariellelikestocook.com/home/2014/1/9/sweet-potato-fries-with-tahini-aioli
-I would use whole wheat hamburger buns or to limit the carbs you could wrap it in lettuce or sliced it up over spinach for a salad with dressing of choice. This is a vegan recipe so if you're not vegan and want to spice it up a bit, add a low fat slice of cheese.

Sunday: Egg white sandwiches with avocado, turkey bacon, and tomato (simple meal)
No link to a recipe for this one. It's pretty self explanatory. I usually use 2 pieces of toast and scramble about 3-4 egg whites. I like to use "quick whites" because it's just easier than cracking eggs and trying not to get the yoke in the skillet. salt and pepper the eggs and top with sliced roma tomato, sliced avocado and a slice or two of turkey bacon. There will be plenty of flavor, you won't need to add cheese. Don't get me wrong, I love my cheese but if you're watching your fat and calorie intake, skipping the cheese is a good choice. You can get fat free shredded cheddar or a shredded vegan cheese at your local grocery store if you HAVE to have it. ;)

Sweet treat for the week: Peanut butter balls
http://thediva-dish.com/desserts/peanut-butter-pong-balls/
These are awesome! The husband, myself and the kids love this healthy sweet treat! They taste like peanut butter cookie dough. I made a few change's to the recipe. I did not use chocolate chips, instead I used cocoa almonds instead of the regular almonds so that the chocolatey taste got into the balls without the sugar and fat that's in chocolate chips. I couldn't find dates at the store so I used figs and they still taste great. I'm sure you could also use prunes. Also, the price of pure maple syrup is a bit steep for me so you can use honey instead. These are roughly 96 calories a ball. (depending on how big you roll your balls) I already had sweetened coconut on hand so I didn't buy any unsweetened but using the unsweetened will save you a lot of fat and calories.

Enjoy!
Love,
Melinda
P.S. If you try any of these recipes, let me know what you think. I'd like to know also if you changed anything or swapped out ingredients.

GRACE

Jared and I have been feeling quite sleep deprived lately...It feels like we have a newborn again. Over the past few weeks, the girls have been taking turns being sick, Chloe is teething, and Lucy is in a twin bed now which means she gets out of bed through the night as she pleases. Our new norm is to get up in the night at least once every night and it's starting to wear us thin. A lot of nights we get up 4 or 5 times with the girls and this recent time change hasn't helped! Our earliest riser is now getting up at 5:00! We have been consuming large amounts of coffee and taking big doses of patience and grace but it's not that easy. I don''t know about you but I need my coffee before I can truly function. When I'm up so early in the morning with Lucy after I hardly slept the night before, there is very little patience or grace, folks. Just being honest.

Chloe, my 14 month old is getting her 1 year molars in and therefore has spent the majority of the past few days screaming. Just walking around the house, aimlessly, screaming. It. Has. Been. a delight. :P

To get to the point; no, I'm not trying to vent online about how horrible my kids are, blah, blah, blah...
I want to share my outlook on getting through the tough times. We've all heard the phrase, "This too shall pass" and in my little world, that phrase offers me so much hope because it's true! Every tough phase that I've gone through in life has indeed either "passed" or God taught me how to live through it. For example; when each of our girls were newborns, we felt like we would never feel normal again! We were SO sleep deprived and I was on an emotional roller coaster with a touch of the baby blues. Eventually, our babies did learn how to sleep through the night though and we felt normal again, more rested, and ready to go through the next phases of parenthood. Right now I know, or at least I hope that our girls wont be getting up in the night forever. In the middle of the night and early in the morning, it's hard to have grace and to be patient and even loving but I just have to remember that wether they're sick, had a bad dream, teething, or just plain being ornery and not staying in their bed, I am called by God to treat them in the way that God treats us, His children.

I was up at around 5:30 this morning after a night of on and off sleeping and it would have been so easy to use my sleepiness as an excuse to be grouchy and let my kids sit in front of the tv all day but the show must go on. I've heard it said before that you have to be the person that you want your children to become. They are always watching us and mimicking our actions, good and bad. (scary!)

Even though I'm so tired and weary in this phase, I know that it too shall pass so until it does, I am going to make the choice to be a good mom. I will take my extra dose of patience in the morning. I will look to God's word for encouragement and strength. I will try my hardest to hold my tongue when I want to lash out because that only results in fear or resentment. I will be loving, caring, understanding, and fair. Most of all, I want my actions to reflect God's love. I want my children to see my love for Christ, not my anger and frustration toward them.

I know I will make mistakes. I've already made plenty, but while my children are still so little and impressionable, I want to give it my all to mold them into the women that Christ longs for them to be and to remember to apologize to them when I do mess up so that they know the difference between right and wrong. There are so many memories to be made in these years and I want those memories to be good ones.

I recommend reading, "Grace Based Parenting" by Dr. Tim Kimmel if you haven't already. I'm currently reading it and it was definitely the inspiration for this post. Here's a quote from the book to think about: "You've been handed a piece of history in advance--a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see.