On the Verge...

Alright. I'm finally sitting down at the computer (whaaaaaat?!) and posting the recipe to this plantain dough I've developed. This might be similar to another recipe out there, but I haven't ever seen it, so I've been working on this for awhile and now, I think, it's ready to share! Since starting the Auto Immune Protocol diet last year, I've been searching for a good pizza dough recipe. That's where this recipe started.  With more or less coconut flour, this dough can be used for pizzas or sandwich bread (more) or muffins (less). So, here it is! Plantain Dough Preheat oven to 365. Ingredients: -1 just ripe plantain (yellow with just a little black). -2.5 tbsp coconut oil -1/4 cup coconut milk -1 tsp baking soda -1 tsp apple cider vinegar -1/4 cup coconut flour (for muffins), add 3 more tbsp coconut flour (for pizza or "bread" dough) Peel and cut plantains into large chunks. Blend with an immersion blender unti...

Up until literally today , I couldn't wait for my kids to grow up. "When he doesn't nap it''ll be so much easier!" "When she's in school, it'll be so much easier!" "When he can help with chores, it'll be so much easier!" Then today, all of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming desire to freeze time.  Today (a day I spent mostly laid up in bed) I realized: It's not ever going to get "easier". We've already discovered that there are intricacies to a five year old boy's personality that do not exist in a two year old's. e.g. lying.  So while he won't throw as many temper tantrums, he will sneak pieces of candy out of the Ikea "pick a mix" and hide it in his pocket taking little bites whenever my back is turned (Tuesday). Then a whole conversation about stealing and lying will ensue in the car with an eventual temper tantrum over the discipline I've decided to issue (not getting any of the...

When we came back to Austin from the UAE and Quinn started back at his old job and we went right back to the same church and are even a few months away from moving back into our old house, we struggled with feeling like the previous two and half years just didn't happen. Sure, we had another child, but it all felt the same as it had. Except that our hearts were completely different. God had pulled us out of our former comfort zone and opened our hearts and eyes to a people who desperately needed His love. So when we came back, we were like different people in the same life. Even though those two years were less than we had planned and the memory of them gets further and further away, He still used them to shape and transform us in ways we never could have imagined. It was like we had entered some kind of time warp where everything was the same and different all at once. Then, just a few weeks ago, when we discovered that our fourth baby, Joanna Lynn, had Down syndrome, everyth...

As we have resettled and felt a calmness and stability in Austin that we knew was from the Lord, we started praying about and considering adding another child to our family. We felt like we had room in our heart and our home and so, with a lot of peace and excitement from us and the kids, we found out in September that we were expecting a baby in June 2016! We have held off telling more than close friends and family until we made it through the 12 week ultrasound appointment when we would make sure everything was looking normal. That appointment was a few weeks ago. We saw our new little squirrel wiggling around and measuring right on schedule. But after the ultrasound, at my nurse's visit, they told me that the baby's nuchal translucency (a space at the back of the neck, used for indicating a possibly chromosomal abnormality) was a little big. Not too much, but enough to cause some concern. They suggested a non-invasive blood test that could detect an abnormality wit...

Quinn has been back at work for a month. The first week I started out "well". By that I mean that I did a lot with the kids and the kitchen was mostly clean, the laundry was mostly taken care of and I cooked most dinners. As the weeks have gone on, though, it has become glaringly apparent that, because I have been working from my own strength, I have been slowly depleted and brought to the bottom of my barrel. Today was hard. Yesterday was Chic-fil-A and mowing the lawn with a hand mower and going to bed with a sinus headache. This morning was a play date with a close friend, whom I love. But our boys also reeeeealllly love each other and when they get together we end up spending most of the morning yelling corrections at them in the other room or upstairs at the top of our lungs and then trying desperately to return to some encouraging and affirming conversation with each other about what God is teaching us. It's filling and draining at the same time - if that's ...

Just a week ago, we got some news that completely changed our life. It lead us to believe that God has closed the door to our home on the other side of the world.  The details are unimportant for the purposes of this blog. But I'll just say that we have been praying for clarity regarding this decision for four months now and planned as far as we could see and felt peace about. The Lord chose, in His sovereignty, to fill the last few weeks and even days with clear direction away from that home and back to our former one in Austin. We feel like we are on a roller coaster, but with the sure and trustworthy safety harness of the goodness of our heavenly Father holding us tight, we are able to enjoy the ride in some way.  But at the moment, we are mostly grieving. I think that most of our friends and family believe this is the right direction and feel confident that the Lord has been in all of it, but the appreciation for what we are leaving behind is something it feels like we ...

Wow. It's been a really long time since my last post! Like, maybe 4 months or something. I know that because I don't think I've posted the whole time we have been in America and we have been in America for 4 months. My deduction skills are amazing, are they not? In some ways I cannot believe   that we have been in the States for 4 months. That's 1/3 of a year! We've been in 3 different states, taken one family road trip, seen tons of friends and family, enjoyed a snow in Colorado, freeze in Texas, rain in Idaho, and now some warmer weather to get us ready to head back to the UAE (which I saw was the hottest place in the world the other day). I've also made some progress with my health and I can confidently say that I am more aware of what positively and negatively affects my body than I have ever been in my life. Ultimately, the Auto Immune Protocol has been great for me. I arrived in February in Colorado with a lot of pain in my hands and back and some bad...