Day 2 - failed already

I knew this was going to be hard, but I failed a couple times already.  I had turkey lunch meat thinking it was ok since the ingredients sounded safe.  I also made a chicken veggie soup with boxed broth.  Apparently that's also a no-no.  Only homemade broth is ok.  Sigh.  This truly sucks.  I miss cheese and oats.  Oh and I also apparently shouldn't be using my cast iron skillet or wooden spoons either.

Day 2-
Breakfast: cantaloupe, fried eggs, coffee with almond milk
Lunch: leftover soup in non gluten free broth
Snacks:  cashews, sunflower seeds, nut thins, raisins, banana with pb (which is also probably gluten contaminated)
Dinner: tacos - ground turkey and seasonings, black beans, lettuce, tomato, corn tortillas.  I nearly cried for want of cheese and sour cream

This is turning out to be very emotionally difficult for me.  It seems hopeless and I keep thinking about how I'll never be able to eat out with family and friends anymore.  It all just sucks.

Gluten and Dairy Free Trial

Hi.  I'm Beth.  I write this blog.  I figured I'd better introduce myself since I haven't been here since.....nevermind that....I'm here now!  :)
I have had little to no ambition to blog lately and I blame my health frustrations for most of it.  As I posted about before, I have been having digestion problems since late October when they appeared out of the blue after a 10 mile run.  Since then, I have had days when I feel pretty much normal and fine, and I've had days when I feel very blah, and I've had a few days when I am so exhausted, I can't get off the couch and just manage to keep the boys fed and Callum in a fresh diaper.  Last Friday was one of those days and I've had enough.  So starting yesterday, I plunged myself into a gluten and dairy free diet for two weeks.  Although I tested negative for celiac disease (thank goodness), it is still entirely possible for me to have developed an intolerance/sensitivity to gluten or lactose.  So I'm cutting them and seeing if I feel better.  If I do, I'll try reintroducing one and see how I feel.  It's a whole lot of trial and error but what else am I left with when there's nothing "medically" wrong?  To keep myself accountable, I decided I'd blog my meals for the two weeks (not necessarily a post every day, but I'll try to keep track of all the meals).
Day 1 -
Breakfast: Rice crispies with almond milk, grapes, coffee
Snack: Kind Bar
Lunch: leftover rice and peas, corn tortilla with chicken and fried bell peppers, grapes, almond milk
Snack: PB and banana, pecan thins, vanilla hazelnut tea
Dinner: Chicken and veggie soup (2 bowls full), water
Snack: Homemade dark PB cups
Felt less bloated at the end of the day.  Weight 99 lbs.  Woke up feeling my typical quasi-queasiness.

Sledding!

Everett wanted badly to play outside today, but after breakfast the temperature was somewhere between 4 and -4 so it had to wait until the afternoon. After Callum's nap, we headed over to the golf course with my mom and some siblings and went sledding!

Callum wasn't so sure about the whole idea and preferred sitting on daddy's lap.

Everett had a blast though.

I tried out my new layer from Eddie Bauer. I was awesome.

Happy 2012

I know I've totally slacked off on the whole blog thing this fall and winter, but I figured I'd better get one more post in before the year ends.
2012 has been a year of changes and same ol, same ol. Brian got a new job and started commuting to superior, but we are also in the same house since it hasn't sold yet. I quit doing daycare, but I'm still hanging out at home with my boys. We still have our same routine of playgroups, story times, and shopping.
My boys have grown leaps and bounds. I cannot believe that Everett is four years old. He is a little smarty pants who loves to help with everything, take care of us, and is beginning to tell jokes. It is awesome.
Callum is hitting the terrible twos and letting some new sides of his personality out. He's also the sweetest, snuggliest little guy ever.
I've had a sort of rough fall with this whole medical mystery thing that I can find no explanation for besides that it seems to be my body cannot handle any kind of stress without severely impacting my digestive system. It sucks and I can't figure out how to fix it but there are definitely worse things in life.
We're looking forward to a 2013 of happiness. Maybe we'll be able to sell our house, move closer to Brian's work. Maybe we'll be living in a new city, going to new playgroups. Who knows. :)
I hope you all a safe and happy 2013 and I will hopefully be a bit more consistent about my posting.

Pirate Party Invitation Tutorial

I know I said I would do this post a while ago, but.......oh well!  Here it is now!

E has been into pirates lately and I thought it would make a great birthday party theme, so I asked him and he agreed.  I looked up several ideas for making invitations, but ended up just doing my own thing.  Here are the steps I did.

First, print off half sheet sized invitations.  I made the invitations in microsoft publisher and created the little map on the bottom with a dotted line, clip art, and a letter X.  Simple!
Then we used a jolly roger stamp from walmart and some ink (couldn't find my black until we were completely done....so blue it is!)  You could also just print a jolly roger on the invitation, but isn't this more fun?

 Then, crumple up all the invitations.  Nearly four year olds think this is pretty awesome.  :)

Next you need to warm up a bowl of water and get out some regular tea bags.  E also had a lot of fun with this next step.  Take a tea bag, dip it in the water for a few seconds (maybe 10?), squeeze out a little bit of the water and then rub the tea bag (gently!!!) along the top of every invitation.

I liked crumpling the invitations first because then there were definitely areas that received darker tea stains than others.

Let them air dry and voila!

We also rolled up our invitations and tied them off with ribbon.  If you're really ambitious, you could put each invitation in a glass bottle or something, but really?  Four year olds and glass bottles?  No.