Make That All Medical Professionals...

My parents and brother came up to see us on Saturday! We had a great time with them and they enjoyed playing with Micah.

My brother gave Micah a ride.

They brought him a basketball, football, and soccer ball.

Dad read Micah his favorite book!

We had even more excitement Saturday night. Justin was reviewing his Sunday school lesson and I was making desserts for church when I picked Micah up. He needed a diaper change so I asked Justin to stir my blueberry filling while I took care of that. As soon as I laid Micah down I realized that his g-tube was on top of his diaper. That's not where it goes! So Justin came to help me and we attempted to insert a new g-tube. We've done it before so we weren't that worried about it. However, we didn't really know how long it had been out. It could have been up to an hour which was long enough that the tract had closed sufficiently for the g-tube to not fit.

Justin called Micah's metabolic doctor (have we mentioned how great he is?) and he told us to take him on to Corbin and have them call pediatric surgery if they had any problems. So off we went. Thankfully, a graduate nursing student came out when we arrived and realized that the g-tube tract could close (it only takes 3 hours) if they didn't fix it quickly so we were taken on back to a room.

I realized that I have a serious love/hate relationship with the ER in our local hospital. I hadn't been back since Micah was there when he was five days old and really sick. That hit hard when I walked in. I'm glad we weren't in the same room!

We heard the two comments that we always hear from people who have never seen Micah. 1. Wow, he's really big for his age! 2. He looks just like his dad! Then everybody said "Why does he have a g-tube?" Isovaleric Acidemia was not what anybody guessed. :)

The first doctor that came in said that he was not comfortable trying to stretch the g-tube tract back out. (We told them how they did it at CCHMC.) There were eight people that ended up in Micah's room to watch the other doctor. Thankfully, they were able to get it back in and we came on home!

I'm so thankful for medical professionals! Especially the ones who work night-shift in the ER!


I still managed to finish these awesome desserts for church today! Everybody loved them!

Coconut Pecan Cookies

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Friday Favorites: Great Doctors

We have been blessed with some awesome doctors for Micah both locally and in Cincinnati! I'm so glad that he gets to see professionals who really care for him and know what they are doing!

He went for his 15 month checkup today. He weighs 27 pounds and he's 34.75 inches tall. That's a big kid!

Menu Planning

We like to eat around here. We also like to eat other places. :) And since I love to cook we could easily spend an outrageous amount of money on food. That's not our goal so I use several strategies to spend less money on groceries.

1. I shop at Aldi for the bulk of our groceries. I do get a few things at Wal-Mart that they don't carry at Aldi.

2. I only shop twice a month, except for picking up perishables. We have to go about once a week for milk and fruit. (And occasionally something I forgot.)

3. I plan our menus. I use Microsoft Works Calendar because I don't use it for anything else. The nice thing about the Microsoft Works Calendar is that it has a "Notes" section where I can list the cookbook where the recipe is located. I only plan our suppers and we eat leftovers or something simple (like grilled cheese) for lunch. I plan a complete meal for every night and write the ingredients for that meal on my grocery list. This helps prevent me from having to run to the store for one or two items that I forgot.

How This Saves Money

A. This saves money because I can look at the menus and see that I've used a lot of chicken. If I put any more chicken dishes on the menu then I will need to buy another bag of chicken. Probably not what I want to do.

B. I can also look at the menu and see that I'm going to have leftovers of something, say rice. Then I can use rice for a side with other dishes so I don't have to buy something separate.

C. I can tell if I've planned too many expensive dinners and change some of them.

D. I can space out similar tasting meals (Mexican, for example.) That doesn't save money but it does keep the food from being boring!

The great thing about menu planning for me is knowing what I'm going to cook. If I didn't have a menu, every afternoon around 4:30 I would start staring at the refrigerator and the cabinets. And I wouldn't find one single thing to cook! Some people can work on the fly like that but I'm a planner. I would frustrate myself unnecessarily. Plus my hubby likes to know what we're eating; I think it gives him something to look forward to!

Berry Trifle

I adapted this recipe from one I found in a Taste of Home cookbook. I always stayed away from trifles because I was afraid they had cream cheese in them. (I HATE cream cheese.) I've been informed that very few of them contain cream cheese so I'm hoping to overcome that reticence to make/eat trifles. I love these trifles and you can use any type of berry that you would like.

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup cold water
1 tsp. almond extract
1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups heavy whipping cream,
1 angel food cake, cut into 1 in. cubes
2 cups fresh berries

In a large bowl, beat the milk, water, and extract until blended. Add the pudding mix; whisk for two minutes. Chill in refrigerator while you whip the whipping cream to soft peaks. Fold whipped cream into pudding mixture.

Place half of the cake cubes in a trifle bowl or large serving bowl. Top with half the cream mixture and half the berries. Repeat layer, positioning top layer of berries in a pretty pattern!

Friday Favorites: Road Trips

Road trips with my guys are so much fun! Today we are going to Cincinnati so that Micah can participate in a photo shoot for the Genetics Department at CCHMC. They are working on some new publicity :)

Micah's Meals

I'm trying to be more creative with Micah's meals so I thought I would showcase this week's suppers.

Chicken Mushroom Melts
Micah had the piece on regular bread. The french bread was from the deli and didn't have nutrition facts. I left off the chicken and used Cambrooke cheese.

Taco Salad
Micah had a carefully measured amount of beans with carrots, mushrooms, black olives, and cheese. (This would also be great with shredded zucchini.) He loved it. We did switch to a tortilla because the crunchy chips were a little much for him to manage in large quantities.

Alfredo Pizza
I measured the alfredo sauce, used mushrooms and spinach for the topping and used his Cambrooke cheese. Most of the protein is in the bread dough and I would make a low-protein crust to cut the protein count further.

Stir-Fry with Rice
I measured the amount of rice Micah ate and stir-fried carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli. I topped the veggies with our classic stir-fry sauce!

Pizza!
Micah has these pizzas a lot! It's a crescent roll with tomato sauce, mushrooms, olives, and Cambrooke cheese. He'll have this tomorrow night at my friend's birthday party. Everybody else will be eating pizza too!

Video Resources

We attend the best church! Now that I've said that I hope you feel the same way about yours! My husband and I have learned so much since we started attending six years ago and we love serving there. You too can benefit from the great practical preaching that we hear on a weekly basis by visiting the video archives of our church website. You can also view our services live by visiting the media stream page. Feel free to browse the sight and see the great things our church has to offer!