We just tried the Gluten Free Tyson Chicken Nuggets and they were pretty good (for a chicken nugget). Not bland like other brands. I am not a big fan of Tyson but I thought what the heck lets try them. I like the very short ingredients list and I could pronounce all the ingredients which is good. The one down or two down sides are everything gluten free seems to contain corn as the filler. Next is of course any packaged product contains higher amounts of sodium. Anyway over all - when this busy mom needs to through an allergy friendly dinner on the table quickly - I give this option a B plus. We added some steamed brocolli and some rice pasta with marinara and WaaaLaa - dinnner served! :)
Normally for dessert I will cut up fruit and add a bit of lite whip topping for fun or I will bake a batch of gluten free cookies or brownies. I definately do not prepare a special dessert every night but if the dinner prep has been easy then I will go the extra mile to prepare something fun for dessert. Anyway, tonight I tried a new recipe - Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (Peanut Butter, Sugar -I used granule stevia instead to keep the glycemic index low, baking soda and egg) - This is the easiest cookie recipe ever. Pretty Yummy as well! :) They are a bit soft and more crumbly than a regular cookie but non the less easy and taste good. I am thinking of adding some small choco chips next time - or subbing with Sunflower butter or almond butter instead of peanut butter. Oh Fun!
All of this thinking about food has led me to start planning our fun summer meals. With the boys out of school soon and us being home all summer I envision lots of meals outside picnic style on a big blanket. The boys will be attending Mommy Camp - Yes - they are stuck with me all summer long. I plan to keep up with a summer curriculum of reading, writing, math and bible study. Physical Education is more my speciality so we will work on swimming skills, gymnastics, sports conditioning, golf, tennis, baseball, soccer, riding bikes, taking walks etc....(shhh and maybe even a little bit of dance) There will be plenty of time for Chillaxin as Brennan calls it.
We goto the library weekly to check out books, movies and now audio books. I love how the boys can not wait to get in the car to hear the next bit of the story we are listening to. I love that they listen so intently to all the details. I heard The Candymakers is very fun with lots of descriptive details about candy - I think every child's delight!
Oh, gardening will also be a part of our summer. The boys take after their Grandma Wallin's love of gardening. They collect all of the empty egg cartons to plant their starter seeds. Brennan gets so excited to water them after school everyday. I am not sure what they have planted, but I guess we will find out soon. The suprise will be fun!
I have big hopes for this summer, house projects (mostly organizing) and finishing up the details to get our girl home. We are preparing for the sweet Princess's arrival all of the time. We talk about her all the time, read books about having a sister and about adoption (Carson is not sure about becoming a big brother but after reading several books he seems much more confident). I would like for the boys to Journal about their thoughts about adding a sister to our family and what that might look like (pictures too!). Lots of mental preparation going on here.
Happy Summer Everyone - Enjoy!
Well, time to sign off for today!
Traci xoxo
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Tennis Event
Do you like to play tennis? Come join us in this fun event at Breakers West to Bring Home Our Girl.
Love Is An Action
Much of the paperwork is done (at least at this point). Just a lot of waiting for this and that. In the mean time we need to start gathering pictures to add to our dossier, begin parent training classes and begin our Homestudy.
In one of the first parent training classes it is discussed how love is an action not a feeling. There may not be warm fuzzy feelings initially and therefore love will be an action. This is not difficult for me. I can love the unloved. But I can see how this could be hard for many. Look at failed marriages - broken families if love is not an action and The warm fuzzy feeling is not there and regular contact is not worked on love is lost. Hence love is work and if we only choose to love those we have feelings for then we fail to love so many.
This is much like God's love and sacrifice for us. Love was an Action - he did not just tell us - he showed us.
As parents this is easy to understand as our children often misbehave or become defiant going through various stages of life but showing that child love through those times will help them to carry through and grow up to be loving compassionate people. Same will go true for the adopted child coming from a difficult place - love will become an action. Showing love will be helping the child overcome difficult times through understanding and teaching.
I look forward to loving. This is not a difficult task for me but i know for some can be. But when you make love an action and make an effort to show them love what a difference - but not easy.
I have been shown this. Regardless, that I am a grown adult my mother still makes an effort to call all of her children on the phone to catch up to say "hello" or "how are you?". This is an act of showing love. It is easy to forget about loved ones and not have time - however when we make the effort - oh what a difference.
Make Love An Action .....
xoxox Traci
In one of the first parent training classes it is discussed how love is an action not a feeling. There may not be warm fuzzy feelings initially and therefore love will be an action. This is not difficult for me. I can love the unloved. But I can see how this could be hard for many. Look at failed marriages - broken families if love is not an action and The warm fuzzy feeling is not there and regular contact is not worked on love is lost. Hence love is work and if we only choose to love those we have feelings for then we fail to love so many.
This is much like God's love and sacrifice for us. Love was an Action - he did not just tell us - he showed us.
As parents this is easy to understand as our children often misbehave or become defiant going through various stages of life but showing that child love through those times will help them to carry through and grow up to be loving compassionate people. Same will go true for the adopted child coming from a difficult place - love will become an action. Showing love will be helping the child overcome difficult times through understanding and teaching.
I look forward to loving. This is not a difficult task for me but i know for some can be. But when you make love an action and make an effort to show them love what a difference - but not easy.
I have been shown this. Regardless, that I am a grown adult my mother still makes an effort to call all of her children on the phone to catch up to say "hello" or "how are you?". This is an act of showing love. It is easy to forget about loved ones and not have time - however when we make the effort - oh what a difference.
Make Love An Action .....
xoxox Traci
Monday, May 20, 2013
Stuck
See the free preview of the Stuck Documentary here....www.buy.stuckdocumentary.com/
Our most Precious are Stuck.
Our most Precious are Stuck.
Catch Up
Play catch up! It has been awhile since my last post................
The last few weeks have been a blur. Paperwork processing has slowed down only due to where we are at in the process. In between - is where we are at. Almost done completing homestudy. Almost done collecting papers/documents for the dossier. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of this phase. In the beginning, I was very busy collecting documents, typing and running here and there to gather items. Now - I am in between. So we started setting up Alivia Grace's room a bit amongst other things in this "in between" part of the process.
Here is a few pictures of what we have been up to:
The boys have been jumping on the trampoline. Thank you Easter Bunny!
Carson's Birthday Party - My sister from Indianapolis came to visit with her two boys for a week. We had a great time visiting with them. I think this picture captures the excitement well. Let's just say that Aunt Diane spoils them just a bit!:)
Let's just say we made a really big mess this birthday. The kids enjoyed water balloons, party poppers and confetti shooters! I am so glad that my sister Shawnda was in town with her two boys to celebrate with us.
Mother's Day! I had a great and very blessed Mother's Day. First, I attended a mother's day tea that the Kindergarten class put on. So cute! Carson made me a purse and book all in one! So handy! Brennan showered me with a love letter he had made at school with Free Car Wash and many other chores that he would help out with. We enjoyed lunch with my parents and my sister Diane to top it off. What a great day! I can only begin to imagine what next year will be like having our sweet girl with us to enjoy all of these things as well.
Brennan's end of the year trip to Animal Kingdom. I think they had a Great time! Brennan enjoyed his first Water Raft Ride! :)
Through this time I have been planning fundraising projects. Our first fundraiser will be a tennis clinic and round robin event (more info to come next post). I am so very grateful and thankful to my dear friend Gabby and my sister Diane who helped me to organize this. This whole process would not be possible without the help of others. I am so grateful for who God has placed in my life!
As you might recall from a previous post we were considering a second child as well. During this "in between time" I had identified a possible second child and as we worked further through the process researching her medical needs etc... it became very clear that we would not be able to meet her needs. This was somewhat of a loss as I knew we were in the beginning stages and did not know all of the details yet however i felt myself beginning to fall. I was so very hopeful that she would be ok.
We will move forward with our one sweet little princess Miss Alivia Grace and we will consider a second at another time. I really want her to have a sister and from her same country - But first we must meet the needs of Alivia and really define her needs. We will need to recreate the attachment process for her as many babies/toddlers who are in group settings do not get those needs met. This means even though she will almost be 3 (technically she is much younger as for every 3 months in group setting a child would fall behind one month) at the time that we get her we will intitially need to treat her like an infant continue holding, rocking, cuddling, bottle feeding and not worrying about potty training. She most likely could be resistent to this and will take time. Why? might you ask well every child needs to go through this process to build trust - trust that their needs will be met and that they will be cared for. This also instills bonding and closeness. I look forward to gently shaping this and spending the quality time with her bonding. I am fully aware that this could take a long time to develop but I look forward to the journey.
I completed the parent training courses - which I find very interesting. This informs us as adoptive parents how are parenting might look different from our biological children as well as the cultural background that our child will come from. This is great preparation for this process. Between the social workers information and the parenting classes we feel that we have "a guide" for this child that we did not have with our biological children.
Well, I must sign off for now!
xoxox Traci
The last few weeks have been a blur. Paperwork processing has slowed down only due to where we are at in the process. In between - is where we are at. Almost done completing homestudy. Almost done collecting papers/documents for the dossier. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of this phase. In the beginning, I was very busy collecting documents, typing and running here and there to gather items. Now - I am in between. So we started setting up Alivia Grace's room a bit amongst other things in this "in between" part of the process.
Here is a few pictures of what we have been up to:
The boys have been jumping on the trampoline. Thank you Easter Bunny!
Carson's Birthday Party - My sister from Indianapolis came to visit with her two boys for a week. We had a great time visiting with them. I think this picture captures the excitement well. Let's just say that Aunt Diane spoils them just a bit!:)
Let's just say we made a really big mess this birthday. The kids enjoyed water balloons, party poppers and confetti shooters! I am so glad that my sister Shawnda was in town with her two boys to celebrate with us.
Mother's Day! I had a great and very blessed Mother's Day. First, I attended a mother's day tea that the Kindergarten class put on. So cute! Carson made me a purse and book all in one! So handy! Brennan showered me with a love letter he had made at school with Free Car Wash and many other chores that he would help out with. We enjoyed lunch with my parents and my sister Diane to top it off. What a great day! I can only begin to imagine what next year will be like having our sweet girl with us to enjoy all of these things as well.
Brennan's end of the year trip to Animal Kingdom. I think they had a Great time! Brennan enjoyed his first Water Raft Ride! :)
Through this time I have been planning fundraising projects. Our first fundraiser will be a tennis clinic and round robin event (more info to come next post). I am so very grateful and thankful to my dear friend Gabby and my sister Diane who helped me to organize this. This whole process would not be possible without the help of others. I am so grateful for who God has placed in my life!
As you might recall from a previous post we were considering a second child as well. During this "in between time" I had identified a possible second child and as we worked further through the process researching her medical needs etc... it became very clear that we would not be able to meet her needs. This was somewhat of a loss as I knew we were in the beginning stages and did not know all of the details yet however i felt myself beginning to fall. I was so very hopeful that she would be ok.
We will move forward with our one sweet little princess Miss Alivia Grace and we will consider a second at another time. I really want her to have a sister and from her same country - But first we must meet the needs of Alivia and really define her needs. We will need to recreate the attachment process for her as many babies/toddlers who are in group settings do not get those needs met. This means even though she will almost be 3 (technically she is much younger as for every 3 months in group setting a child would fall behind one month) at the time that we get her we will intitially need to treat her like an infant continue holding, rocking, cuddling, bottle feeding and not worrying about potty training. She most likely could be resistent to this and will take time. Why? might you ask well every child needs to go through this process to build trust - trust that their needs will be met and that they will be cared for. This also instills bonding and closeness. I look forward to gently shaping this and spending the quality time with her bonding. I am fully aware that this could take a long time to develop but I look forward to the journey.
I completed the parent training courses - which I find very interesting. This informs us as adoptive parents how are parenting might look different from our biological children as well as the cultural background that our child will come from. This is great preparation for this process. Between the social workers information and the parenting classes we feel that we have "a guide" for this child that we did not have with our biological children.
Well, I must sign off for now!
xoxox Traci
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