The Polkadot Rocket

Raising Awareness-Eosinophilic disorders

2013-05-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

This week, May 19th-25th, 2013 is National Eosinophil Awareness Week! If you have followed my blog for a while, then you already know something about eosinophils. If you are a new reader, you can learn a little about Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders (or EGID), specifically Eosinophilic Esophagitis (or EoE), by reading through some of my earlier posts about our journey with 2 of our daughters and their struggles with EoE, starting with this one.

Eosinophils (E-o-'si-n-o-"fils) are a specific type of white blood cell generally associated with allergies, parasites and cancer. Eosinophil Associated Disorders are a group of uncommon (rare) chronic illnesses. While they are still considered rare, these disorders are rapidly
emerging as a healthcare problem worldwide. Yet, many patients suffering from these disorders go
undiagnosed for years due to a lack of information or awareness of these diseases.

In eosinophilic disorders, a high numbers of eosinophils accumulate in body tissues causing inflammation and damage. These disorders are classified by body tissue where eosinophils accumulate. For example, in eosinophilic esophagitis the eosinophils attack the esophagus.
The only way currently that these disorders can be diagnosed and monitored is by tissue biopsies. What this means is that in order to be diagnosed, my daughters had to go into the operating room and have upper endoscopies and colonoscopies during which multiple biopsies were taken of the tissue throughout the digestive system. Cassidy, pictured here, has been scoped and biopsied at least 10 times (after a while you actually start to lose track) and Chloe, who was only diagnosed a little over a year ago, has been scoped 5 times and hospitalized twice already. In both cases, during the first set of scopes, large numbers of eosinophils were found in the esophagus tissue samples when the biopsies were sent to the lab. The only way to monitor the progress of the disease or the effectiveness of treatments is to repeatedly go back into the O.R. and have more biopsies taken. This will go on to some extent probably for the rest of their lives.

Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders render the patient unable to tolerate food proteins. Eating food causes damage to the GI tract, pain, and symptoms similar to those you would experience from a
stomach virus. Sometimes the pain is bad enough each and every time they swallow that they just stop eating all together. Yes, really. It gets that bad. Depending on the number of foods that trigger the eosinophilic reaction, some who live with EGID need to stop eating ALL foods just to control the damage and inflammation. In these cases, the patient is given a special amino acid formula through a feeding tube. Chloe was dependent on a feeding tube for 2 months last summer, and truthfully we felt lucky that she was able to stop using it after such a "short" time. Eosinophilic esophagitis can also be triggered by environmental allergens, causing flares that can only be controlled with the extended use of steroids.

All of these are chronic diseases requiring long term treatment, with no known cure. They are also not something that people who suffer from them will "outgrow".
Sometimes the symptoms can be well controlled with dietary changes, sometimes they require steroids, but the disorders are now believed to be relapsing and remitting, which means that you can have some success with treatment but could then have flares or relapses. During relapses and flares, these are debilitating diseases leading to missed work, school, social outings, etc.

Also, delays in diagnosis are common. Symptoms vary from person to person and can mimic other, less serious diseases. Even now with prevalence of the diseases on the rise, many doctors and nurses have not even heard of these diseases.

Symptoms of EGID can vary depending on the part of the GI
tract affected, and may include:

• Reflux that does not respond to usual therapy
• Dysphasia (difficulty swallowing)
• Food impactions (food gets stuck in the esophagus)
• Nausea and Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Failure to thrive (poor growth, malnutrition, or weight loss)
• Abdominal or chest pain
• Gastroparesis (delayed emptying of the stomach)
• Poor appetite
• Bloating
• Anemia

If you would like more information about eosinophilic disorders or would like to make a donation to help support research, please visit the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders at www.apfed.org or the C.U.R.E.D. Foundation at www.curedfoundation.org

If you think that you or someone you love may have an eosinophilic disorder, see a doctor!

If you have been recently diagnosed, please find a support group or seek out the online EOS community. Knowing that you are not in it alone can really make a huge difference, especially on the roughest days. You can learn about some of our own experiences with EoE in some older posts and in other blogs around the internet. Most all of us are willing to discuss our experiences.

I welcome comments and messages from anyone with anyone from the EOS community or anyone at all with questions.

Waste Free Wednesdays - Coffee Cups To Go

2013-05-08T12:18:00.000-04:00

Photo by Chandru Ramkumar

Never thought too much about stopping for coffee while running errands? I understand, I do the same thing. As far as reducing waste, the problem doesn't rest with the coffee, but with the paper cup that it comes in. Did you know that Americans alone use 16 BILLION paper coffee cups each year? Yes, seriously. That is more than 6.5 million trees each year. Not only does that create 253 million pounds of solid waste yearly, but before those cups become waste it takes 4 billion gallons of water - enough to fill 6000 olympic size swimming pools - just to make those cups in the first place. And because they are coated with a plastic resin called polyethylene to prevent leaks, the cups cannot be recycled. Before you calmly explain that you are responsible for just one or two cups a week, remember that no one person is using 16 billion cups a year. Like almost everything else with major impact, both positive and negative, it is a group effort.

How hard is it to just toss an empty travel mug into your car or bag? Trust me, I've done it. It's pretty darn easy. And some coffee shops and vendors will even knock a little off your tab for providing your own cup. Win-win situation if you ask me. I keep a clean plastic one in my car in case I forget my favorite one on the way out the door in the morning, but I rarely have to use it simply because now I have gotten into the habit of bringing a mug when I leave the house.

Well, it's my version of a mug anyway. I drink out of a simple mason jar. While this is quite a trend right now in party planning and even at rustic weddings, it is also another very basic and reasonable use for one of the most reliable and useful products on my house. I love mason jars. They are durable, free from weird chemicals, non porous, easy to clean and in the event that one breaks the pieces are recyclable. I use them for canning, of course, but also for dry food storage, with a soap pump added to the lid for dish detergent in the kitchen, for starting fresh sprouts on the kitchen counter, for making homemade yogurt and yes, even as a coffee (or bloody mary) cup.

I do prefer it when my cup has a lid. With 4 kids and a large dog it's only a matter of time until someone bumps my arm and sends hot coffee sloshing all over tender skin or a carefully mixed cocktail splashing into the keyboard of my new laptop (true story there, folks!) Pinterest is full of ways to craft your own straw top from the original 2 piece canning lid or punch a hole for the straw in a cute cupcake paper for color coordinated party ware. More power to you, crafty ladies out there! But for my daily cup of joe, I ordered myself a nifty reusable sip top made just for mason jars (wide mouth or regular, sip top or straw top) from Cuppow. It's BPA free and dishwasher safe.

Hot coffee in a glass jar does make it a bit tricky to grab, but I just crocheted a sleeve out of cotton for mine. If you aren't too keen on the yarn and hook idea, just grab a sock that has lost a mate and cut the foot off of it. The remaining cuff? Instant mason jar sleeve. Added bonus to the sleeve is that it not only protects your hands from hot beverages, but it also prevents a condensation mess when you are enjoying an iced drink.

Now look at how green you are! Saving the planet, one coffee cup at a time!

Peaks and Valleys

2013-03-04T11:02:00.001-05:00

Peaks and valleys. Ups and downs. For most of us, for better or worse, life has a series of peaks and valleys. A rhythm of struggles and triumphs that we learn to cope with or embrace. Moments that we learn to accept and others that we rejoice in and celebrate. It has been 4 months since my last post, and at that point I gave a basic recap of Chloe's situation from her diagnosis with EoE through some serious valleys and back to what seemed like a return to a little bit of a peak. I haven't sat down to continue the updates since then not because I haven't had news or projects or recipes to offer, but because as much as I have needed to write I haven't been able to squeeze a single spare second of time out to do so. I have 3 drafts started with patterns and tutorials and 2 with new recipes, but looming larger than any of those is Chloe. She is getting really sick. Again. And this time I really have no idea what we will find.

I know that many EOS kids have a tougher time fighting off routine illness and can require a little extra time to bounce back. And Chloe has had her share of that recently. But she has also had another extended episode of being generally unwell. This is at least the 3rd significant episode of this kind that we have seen with her, and each seems to be worse than the last. She was ill this way shortly before her hospitalization this summer, and it is likely a large part of what landed her in the hospital that time. People develop fungal infections all the time. They don't spend a week hospitalized and 2 months on a feeding tube as a result. It stands to reason that for her, that infection was the straw that broke the camel's back. She crashed so hard because she was so depleted before the infection started. We thought at the time that this was due to the struggle to control the eosinophilic disease, and that prior episodes of the same malaise were due to the same thing, which had not yet been diagnosed when we first saw her this way. This time around she is worse off than before and while she has had a small EoE setback, it cannot explain whatever is going on right now.

As of Thanksgiving, Chloe was still having pain with swallowing and she was starting to get generally cranky again. She had another set of biopsies done and an overnight test for reflux. The biopsies were clear which was good since she has been on an altered diet as well as the steroid. The reflux test, called an impedance probe, showed us clearly that she needs an adult dose of PPIs. So we made that change to her medication and took her off of the erythromycin (for the gastric delay) and antihistamine (also an appetite stimulant if you recall) since she is maintaining her weight, and one was causing tummy aches which she doesn't need any help with while the other wasn't really effecting her appetite. Fast forward a few weeks to January 1st, and she reported that she could swallow without pain! She was starting to look pale and her temper wasn't the best, but finally no throat, chest and stomach pain! 3 weeks later, we stopped the steroid to see if the diet changes were enough. They weren't. The throat and chest pain returned, so she is back on the steroid again for now. This I can live with. She also managed to have a the flu not once but twice AND strep throat twice, all in the last couple of months. This I can also live with. However, through all of these ups and down in November, December, January and February she has remained generally short tempered and very fatigued. Her headaches, both migraine and regular, have gradually increased to the point of being a daily problem. On good days, Chloe can stay awake until 5pm before she crashes for the night. On bad days, she takes as many as 3 naps and goes to bed at 6:30. Some days she gets up and plays, even runs around in the yard for a little while, and other days she never gets off the couch except to use the bathroom. The most recent symptom is a gradual development of and increase in joint pain. First her legs hurt. She came down with the flu which of course can make you achy, however she could barely walk some days and was asking to be carried to the bathroom. Perhaps the flu achiness combined with her other joint pain was too much together. Then the flu was gone and she still complained of pain in her knees and hips. Now she also has pain in her elbows and one shoulder. When the doctor asked how she was feeling she just said "Everything hurts." Usually she gets around fine, but if extended walking is necessary, across a parking lot for example, she can't make it without being carried part of the way. Every now and then she has a day when she seems a little clumsy because her knees are so sore. Those days are usually the ones that also require multiple naps. In addition she has been running a low grade temp, right around 100, off and on the entire 4 months, specifically at times when she had no other reason to be febrile.

Since all of this has been consistent before, during and after all of her routine viral illnesses, and since we can recognize it as something that we have seen before, we took a trip to the pediatricians office. Chloe cooperated by falling asleep in the exam room and looking excessively pale, as well as having a low grade fever and reporting the body and joint pain. He agreed that it is all cause for concern and got started by ordering blood work. Now the results are rolling in and I am hoping to hear from him today as far as what he thinks it all means, and if he has a simple explanation for it or if he needs more testing done or to refer her to a specialist of some kind.

Until then, we will all be keeping our fingers crossed that it is nothing too serious, and I will be working on ironing the kinks out of those tutorials, patterns and recipes. Family, friends, members of the EOS community and other readers alike, I always welcome your questions and comments!

Feeding Chloe

2012-10-26T22:21:00.000-04:00

School starting as well as ballet, jazz and karate have really kept us busy around here! A few things have changed for now with Chloe, so I wanted to write a post for my followers that are family, friends or EOS/food allergy readers. To briefly recap, Chloe was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis (also called EE or EoE) in late March 2012. She was started on medication, a proton pump inhibitor (or PPI, such as prevacid) and had repeat biopsies done 6 weeks later on June 13th 2012. At that point she had gotten much worse, with her eosinophil cell counts doubling and her esophagus covered in abscesses. She was barely eating any solid food at that point and was in significant pain. Between the first and second scopes, we had allergy testing done (scratch, blood and patch testing) and have a list of possible triggers that would need to be tested, but first we had to get the damage in her throat under control.

Once the second set of biopsies came back looking so bad, she was started on a regiment of swallowed steroids to help control the inflammation. About 2 weeks after she started that medication, on July 11th 2012, she vomited blood and I took her to the E.R. She only vomited once, and her hemoglobin was normal, but she was quite fragile and was admitted for overnight IV fluids. It was almost a week before she came home. The steroid, which she is still on, had caused a fungal infection on top of everything else and she could not eat at all. At the point of her hospital discharge, she needed an NG tube for nutrition and calories because she was still unable to eat enough. Following a round of anti-fungal meds, she was only marginally better and only eating only small amounts of yogurt and watered down apple juice so she had a third endoscopy with biopsies on August 15th 2012. That set of lab results showed that while her eosinophil counts were way down, she still had a fungal infection. The original infection was so severe that the first round of meds did not get rid of it, so she started on a 3 week course of stronger medication. By that point, she was taking the anti fungal, a barrier medication to protect her esophagus, the PPI and the steroid, and eating more but still not enough to remove her feeding tube. In addition school started, so we were glad that she was eating enough to at least skip her lunch bolus so she didn't have to be hooked up to her feeding pump for an hour at school.

One of the things that had come up before and seemed to be an issue again was that when Chloe eats, or has a tube feed in recent cases, that food stays in her stomach for hours, much longer than it should. This is called gastroparesis, or delayed gastric emptying. We have not yet had a scan to formally diagnose this condition, but I can say for certain that she will sometimes vomit undigested food 6 to 12 hours, or more, after eating it, and even the liquid diet pumped through her feeding tube will remain in her stomach for several hours which is easy to determine when doing pH checks before starting a new feed. Gastroparesis can cause stomach pain, vomiting and a constant feeling of fullness which decreases appetite and ability to eat. These are all symptoms that Chloe has struggled with pretty much her entire life and are in addition to the EoE. Because of this, she has also started taking a mini dose of erythromycin. Erythromycin is an antibiotic, however it has the side effect in some people of increasing gastric motility. Because of this, it is sometimes used to treat gastroparesis. She has also started taking a prescription antihistamine, and this medication is also being used in Chloe's case for the side effect, not for the antihistamine properties, but because it sometimes acts as an appetite stimulant.

On September 14th, which happened to be our 9th wedding anniversary, we removed Chloe's feeding tube. About a week later, we stopped the barrier medication, Carafate, since the tube is no longer in and because it can also interfere with the absorption of some other meds, including her PPI and steroid. At this point in time, Chloe takes the PPI, the steroid, the erythromycin and the antihistamine daily. She does seem to be eating more, and since the tube came out she has lost just under 3 pounds and is holding steady at 38.2 pounds, which we are happy with. So the good news is that she is maintaining her weight and while she does still have stomach aches, they are no longer constant.

With her fungal infection gone and her weight at a comfortable level, we got the OK from the doctor to start trying to eliminate foods to control her EoE without the use of steroids. She has had so many other issues that needed to be dealt with and stabilized first and now that we at least temporarily have some of those things under control, it seems like a better time to start removing foods. Over the last 3-4 weeks she has started complaining more that her throat hurts again. Irritation from the NG tube should no longer be an issue. At the time of her last scope her eosinophil counts were way down, and we have assumed this was because of the steroid. However at the time that those bioposies were taken, she had not only been on the steroid for 6 weeks, but she also had be fed a diet consisting almost exclusively of hypoallergenic elemental formula, so it is possible that the good results that we had were the result of a combination of the steroids and the restricted diet. If that is the case, it would explain the return of her pain once she began eating an unrestricted diet again despite still being on steroid medication. Either way, the hope is that she will start feeling better now that we have removed some foods from her diet. The first batch, based on the allergy testing in the spring, is all dairy, eggs, peanuts and wheat. Then hope is that if she sticks to this diet for 6-8 weeks, her symptoms will fade and the damage will heal, which will mean that we have properly identified all of the foods that trigger her eosinophilic reaction. It has been almost 2 weeks and so far she has shown no improvement, but it's still a little early to tell. In another 10 days if she is not starting to feel better, she will have to go back into the O.R. for another scope and set of biopsies. I'm hoping that things turn around before then, but if not this will be her 4th trip to the O.R. in 7 months. Though she is complaining that her chest and throat are feeling worse, she is still eating pretty well and as of Thursday was still 38.4 pounds, which is a relief even if she does need another procedure.

All in all, she has handled everything that she has been through in the last 6 months really well. After all, the kid is only 5 and she has been in and out of the operating room 3 times, hospitalized for a week, feeding tube dependent for 2 months and loaded with medications. She has now had to drastically change her diet and despite pushing through all of this with uncommon spunk, she has been in varying levels of pain the entire time, and probably for almost her entire life.

She decided to be Wonder Woman for Halloween this year, and when I asked how she chose that, she told me that she wanted to be a super hero, but if she went as herself, it wouldn't be dressing up. Good point, little one. She's one of my heroes, that's for sure.

August EOS updates

2012-08-12T19:17:00.002-04:00

As I have mentioned in some of my past posts related to the girls' EoE, the diagnosis was life altering for Cassidy, and for all of us. She requires daily medication and a drastically restricted diet. She also repeatedly heads into the O.R. for endoscopies and biopsies to monitor the progress of the disease or how well we are doing as far as keeping things under control. The chances of a sibling also having an eosiniphilic GI disorder are less than 10%, some sources say as little as 3%, but in March, Chloe was also diagnosed. So far things with Chloe have made our experience with Cassidy seem like a stroll down easy street. But I'll get to that shortly.

I gave a detailed update on Cassidy as far as the EoE and her chronic microscopic colitis is this post, so if you follow my blog to keep up with the girls and you missed that one, it's worth reading. As mentioned in that post, Cassidy had a CT scan and ultrasound coming up, both were normal which ruled out any structural problems or anything like gallstones as the cause of her colitis or her severe bouts of mid and upper abdominal pain, which were happening 2-4 times a week. We also strictly removed gluten from her diet which, given the other limitations in her diet, has been no small task. That started on July 6th and don't you know, she has not had a single episode of crippling pain since that day. She is also less achy, has more energy and just feels generally better. No matter how hard it is to be free of gluten in addition to eggs, milk, peanuts and a variety of fruits and veggies, it is TOTALLY WORTH IT! The last step is to try taking her off of the Asacol, which she takes for the inflammation in her colon. I'm hoping that gluten was the culprit of everything below the esophagus all along, but I'm not completely sure at this point. She ended up going without her Asacol for 5 days recently, and she did have some pretty severe muscle spasms and changes in her bathroom habits. It may have been a coincidence, we will know for sure once we officially take her off of the medication for a trial run without it. Until then, stay tuned, because as of now things are falling into place nicely for her.

Then of course we have Chloe. Her last update was on July 8th, and she we had gotten pretty bad results from her last scope and biopsy set in mid June. She had started on a steroid treatment in an attempt to heal the damage in her esophagus. On July 11th, three short days after I wrote that post, Chloe woke up complaining that she wasn't feeling well, and she was quite lethargic. She had been dragging a little the night before, but she had begrudgingly eaten dinner as best she could (she was hungry but her throat hurt) and then gone to bed fairly easily. I knew in the morning that she really didn't feel well, because it was the week of dance camp and she was supposed to be going home from camp with her good friend Elizabeth for a play date. But she laid on the couch when it was time to get dressed and asked me if she could do it all another day. So I agreed, let Elizabeth's mom know, asked my mom to come over in case I needed to take Chloe to the doctor later, got Cassidy ready for camp and loaded everyone up. Right after we dropped Cassidy off, Chloe threw up all over the car. I pulled into a parking lot to clean her up and realized that the vomit was bloody. So I stripped her down, moved her to Cassidy's seat and headed home to drop the other 2 kids off (thank goodness I asked my mom to come over!) and took her to the E.R. at AI DuPont children's hospital. Lab work showed that there were no signs of ongoing internal bleeding, but she needed IV fluids and her blood sugar was very low. Strange, since she ate dinner, had juice in the morning, and vomited undigested food from lunch the day before. They decided to keep her overnight with an IV to make sure she was well hydrated.

So began our almost week in the hospital. That's right, it wasn't until several days later that she was finally discharged. She complained of throat pain so severe that she wouldn't eat anything some days, or a few ounces of yogurt others. She was so depleted from not getting enough to eat for so long, and the doctors were concerned that without the IV and unwilling to eat, she would end up back in the E.R. very quickly. They also could not tell us why she was having such severe pain. It's likely that she had been in such pain for a while, but her survival instinct forced her to eat just enough to scrape by. Now that had an IV to keep her hydrated and help with her blood sugar, it just wasn't worth it. Also, maybe the steroid treatment had caused a fungal infection in her throat. No one knew for sure, so she kept the IV and started on an anti fungal medication in addition to the steroid, PPI and a type of coating or barrier medication called Carafate. The purpose of that last one is to protect the tissue while the other meds have a chance to work. A few days into the anti fungal and she still refused to swallow. So we began to discuss placing a feeding tube. It basically came down to this. She won't eat or drink, so she either has to stay in the hospital with IV support or go home with another form of hydration and nutrition, which would be the NG tube. By now the tube seemed more appealing. In addition, there was also a sense that she needed the nutritional help anyway. The poor kid had barely gained weight, if any at all, for over a year and a half if I'm not mistaken. That was part of what landed us in the O.R. looking for a diagnosis in March. So the tube was placed, I was trained on how to remove it and put it in as well as how to use her feeding pump and how to break down her feeding into calories and how much to give and when. The next day, she got to come home. At the time, the thought was that it would help her maintain her current weight and give her a couple of weeks of resting her throat while her meds worked. It would hopefully act as a bridge to get us across the difficult spot we were in. That was almost 4 weeks ago, and Chloe is still taking very little by mouth.

Next week she will head back into the O.R. for yet another endoscopy with biopsies. This time none of us know what we are hoping for or what to expect. Something is making Chloe not want to eat, and none of us, including her doctors at this point, know what it is. My biggest concern today is that the scope will not show much, and that we will have no answers which also means nothing to treat. Regardless, the bottom line is that no matter what we do or do not find, until Chloe will eat enough to sustain herself in terms of both calories and nutrition, she will need the support of the feeding tube. She does seem to have a problem with her stomach emptying very slowly, so I'm sure some additional testing will be scheduled to look into that. As with Cassidy, anything like that which is diagnosed will be in addition to her EoE. So at some point, which will be dependent on the condition of her esophagus, we will have to determine for sure which foods trigger the eosinophilic response. At times it can be difficult to decide which medical condition to tackle first, so we will check
with her doctor as far as that goes.

It has also become clear over the last month just how much she needs what she is getting through her NG tube. In the 3 and a half weeks that she has had it, she has gained a full 5 pounds. That's about a pound and a half a week! And she actually is visibly relieved to have the tube most days. If she tries to eat and finds it too painful, she doesn't have to choose between feeling weak and hungry (what Chloe calls "that wobbly feeling") or forcing herself so suffer through the pain. She does her best, then just asks for her feeding pump. She is also needing less sleep, having fewer headaches and has plenty of energy to run, laugh and play, which is exactly what a 5 year old should be doing during summer vacation.
She will be starting kindergarten with her feeding tube, although that is just fine with her. Rather than slowing her down, it has made her feel so much better, possibly than she has ever felt. It is very difficult to see your child with tubes coming out of them all day, and sleeping at night while connected to the feeding pump on an IV pole. It's hard to interrupt her playground games to give her medication or connect her for a feed or flush her NG tube. Keeping a change of clothes and a bucket in the car in case she vomits her formula up while we are out running errands. Having to double check that we have the formula, pump, backpack, Ph strips, syringe, bottled water and medications also in the car
before we leave the house. It is heartbreaking when the tube needs to be changed; pulling it out burns and pulling the medical tape off of her delicate skin hurts. And having her Daddy or Grammie hold her still while I feed tubing up her nose, down her throat and into her stomach while she gags and cries, then taping it to her face and pulling out the guide wire, withdrawing gastric fluid from the end to check placement of the tube, which makes an already crying child visibly more anxious because she is afraid that if it is not quite right she will have to go through the whole thing again. It's really hard. But she is also looking less painfully thin. Her cheeks are pink, she has the energy to play, and maybe best of all, she is smiling a lot more.

This is the short version of Chloe's situation, and so many details have been omitted. If you have any questions, I welcome them, even if they seem rather personal. Please feel free to leave them in the comments!

Once school starts and we are settled into a routine, and once things slow down a bit for Chloe, I hope to get back to blogging, probably weekly, and back to recipes and tutorials as well as continuing updates on our life with 2 children with EOS. In the mean time, thanks to everyone for your support!

Best Part of Summer...Jam!

2012-08-02T22:11:00.000-04:00

I thought this blog needed a sunnier, brighter, yummier post after the last couple. Now I know that those of you following me to keep up with the girls (or eosinophilic disease in general) are probably waiting for an update on Chloe's recent hospitalization, but it's time to throw my recipe followers a bone! It all ties in anyway. On days when everyone was feeling well several weeks back, we went cherry picking at local orchards, which I mentioned at the end of this post. We picked buckets full of red and yellow sweet cherries. Some we ate fresh, some became beautiful sweet cherry pies, some were transformed into bubbly warm cherry crisp. And some, perhaps my favorites, were put up as jar after jar of cherry jam. We made small 4 ounce jars as thank you gifts for Cassidy's teachers and other special school staff. We made basic cherry jam, some of which we shared with friends. Then, in an effort to use up some other fruit before it was past it's prime, I whipped up a batch of spiced cherry grapefruit jam. And it is nothing short of amazing.

I thought it would be nice to share my cherry jam recipes with you today. For those of you new to canning, I'll go through the process that I use step by step. The purpose of processing jam in a boiling water bath canner is to make it shelf stable, meaning that you can store it safely in the pantry rather than the refrigerator for at least a year. If you would rather just keep your jam in the fridge, skip the processing step, and once the jam is ready, just fill the jars with it and pop them in the refrigerator where they will keep for at least 3 months (if it lasts that long!)

If you do decide to process the jam and the whole thing is brand new to you, you do not need to invest in tons of fancy equipment. You can process the jars in any stock pot (with a lid) large enough to cover the jars with at least one inch of boiling water. A large stock pot is generally large enough to accommodate standard jelly jars. You will need something to keep the jars from resting directly on the bottom of the pot. You can simply fold up a dishtowel and place it in the bottom. Finally, you will need a way to get the hot jars out when they are finished processing. So to recap, stock pot, dishtowel, tongs, canning jars. You probably have everything except the jars, which you can buy in cases of 12 for around $12 at big box stores, kitchen supply stores and many grocery store, especially during the spring and summer.

Accessory Set

Canner with jar rack

If you decide you want to go ahead and jump in to canning, spend a little cash and just buy a canning starter kit. You can buy the canner with jar rack and accessory set (everything you need except the jars) for about $40. There are also a variety of options out there in a variety of price ranges, such as the accessory set only (this includes a jar lifter, a lid lifter, wide mouth funnel and a few other things, and is very helpful) for around $10-$15, and I believe the Ball company makes a home canning "Discovery Kit" made to use with a stock pot, which includes a silicone lift out jar rack. So there are a variety of options in a variety of price ranges depending on your comfort level and what you are willing to spend. I can a great deal, so I have a big canner and an accessory set. But the equipment that I have, while good quality, is basic and without bells and whistles so to speak. I prefer it that way, and it works just fine.

First, my disclaimer: I have attempted to share safe preserving methods. However, I make no promises. You alone are responsible for your health. Be aware of current safety recommendations. There is a wealth of information from licensed sources about current canning standards available for free on the internet. This is the way that I can for myself and my family. You alone are responsible for your health!

Let's get started!

1. Wash the jars and lids. I put my jars in the canner while the water is heating to boil, to make sure they are sterile. The lids are made up of a ring and a flat lid piece. Set the rings aside and put the flat lids in a small sauce pan with water. These you need to warm to just below a simmer, over really low heat. Do not boil them! This primes the sealing compound around the edges.

2. Fill the canner or stock pot with enough water to cover the tops of the jars by 1 inch once they are full, and put it on the stove to boil. This is when I stick my clean, empty jars in, but if you have washed the jars, I feel that this step is probably optional for jam.

Now for the jam! Because Cassidy is allergic to apples and most commercial pectin is from apple peels, this is a pectin free jam recipe.

You will need:

Sweet Cherry Jam

5 cups of washed, pitted sweet cherries
3 cups of sugar
2 lemons

1. Cut the cherries in half or quarters or both, whatever you prefer. Toss them into a non-aluminum pot with the juice and zest of the lemons.

2. Cook over medium low heat stirring frequently until they simmer and soften. Put a small plate in the freezer, you will use this to test for jelling shortly.

3. Turn up the heat to medium high and add 3 cups of sugar; stir until evenly mixed. Keep stirring frequently so that it doesn't burn on the bottom. Keep this up until the jam starts to thicken.

4. Once it looks like the jam is thickening up and starting to gel, you can do a plate test. Grab that frozen plate from the freezer and spoon a little jam onto it. Stick it back in the freezer for a few minutes. Make sure you keep stirring the jam while you wait, since it is cooking quickly and at a higher temperature at this point. You don't want to burn it!

5. When you take the plate out again, push your finger slowly through the cooling puddle of jam. If it wrinkles up across the surface when your finger pushes into it, turn off the burner! It's ready to go into the jars. If not, continue to cook and stir for a little longer, then test again. Be careful not to leave it unattended, or it can overcook quickly. If that happens it won't taste as good.

***If you are making refrigerator jam, you can just fill jars with the hot jam, put lids on them and pop them in the fridge, where they will stay good for 3 months, probably even longer if they last that long! If you want the jam to be shelf stable, go on to the next step.***

6. When the jam is ready, ladle it into the hot, empty jars (remove them from the boiling water and empty the jars, but leave the water in the pot, on the stove and boiling for processing!). Fill them to 1/4 inch from the top. The wide mouth funnel comes in handy here if you have it!

7. With a clean, damp cloth, carefully wipe the rim of the filled jars so there is no jam or residue on them.

8. Adjust the 2 piece canning lids, which have been prepping in hot water.

9. Put the jars on the canning rack and slowly lower them into the water. The water should cover the lids by an inch or two. Put the lid on the pot.

10.Once the water has come to a full boil again, set a timer and process the jars for 10 minutes.

11. After 10 minutes, turn off the burner and carefully lift the jar rack up. Transfer the jars to a spot where they won't be disturbed, I put them on a towel along the back of the kitchen counter. Let them cool completely, which may take overnight.

It's a good idea to label the jars with the date and contents. You can use cute labels, or just write on the top of the lid with sharpie. The lids are not reusable for canning anyway.

For more information on safety in food preservation, please go to The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

For Spiced Cherry Grapefruit jam, omit the lemon, but add the juice and pulp of 2 grapefruit, and the zest from just one of the grapefruit. Also stir in 2 teaspoons of cinnamon while the jam is simmering. The rest of the process is the same.

You could probably substitute most fruits for the cherries in this recipe. Higher pectin fruits, like blueberries, will result in a thicker jam than low pectin fruits like strawberries.

Cassidy's Next Step

2012-07-12T10:19:00.000-04:00

Since my last post brought all of you up to date on Chloe, this one will do the same about Cassidy. In some areas, we have made, or at least maintained, our progress. In other areas, not so much. As I always say, in the process of sorting out the causes and treatments for the kids various health challenges, we also work hard at trying to maintain a normal childhood for them. It can be difficult to explain how hard this can sometimes be. I recently saw a short video created to promote awareness of eosinophilic diseases, in which a mother of 2 EGID kids tried to explain how painfully frustrating it is when well meaning people make comments like "But they don't look sick" or "She looks fine to me". The mother explained that it is more about what you don't see. You don't see our kids when they are vomiting or have headaches, the fatigue, body aches, abdominal, chest & throat pain. You don't see the lack of or loss of appetite or difficulty swallowing. We keep our kids home when they are feeling this way. So naturally, when most people do see our kids, they "don't look sick". You also can't see the frustration that goes along with the strict dietary restrictions. How would your child feel if they could never eat the cake at the birthday parties that they attended? They can smell the pizza but cannot taste it. They cannot have ice cream on the playdate or field trip to the creamery or amusement park when everyone else is trying to decide on one scoop or two. As parents we struggle not only to keep our children nourished, but also to compensate for the things that can make them feel angry, frustrated or left out while also helping them to accept these aspects of their lives and not be defined by them. So while these comments may be well intentioned, they can be irritating to us as parents, and can make our children feel as though no one else really believes there is anything wrong at all. To a child suffering with chronic pain, frequent tests and procedures, and extensive dietary restrictions, feeling as though someone does not believe that they have suffered is heartbreaking.

Now that I got that out of my system, on to the health update. At the time of her scopes and biopsies in November, Cassidy's esophagus was clear, her stomach was normal (and had been prior as well) and the microscopic inflammation in her colon had gone from patchy to uniformly covering the colon. Due to still having abdominal pain and the change in the inflammation, she started taking Asacol to treat her colon in February. By late April, her lower abdominal pain was better but not completely gone, and she had added bouts of severe, intense mid and upper abdominal pain. On June 20th, one week after Chloe's biopsies, Cassidy went back in to be scoped and have biopsies taken again. That evening after we came home and the next day she had abdominal pain so severe that we ended up back in the emergency room to rule out complications from the colonoscopy (there were none). The lab reports showed that her esophagus is still clear (hooray!) but her stomach now shows some chronic inflammation. It's microscopic, and a single finding of it at this point does not point to anything significant, so for now that information is just tucked away in case it changes down the road. Her colonoscopy still shows microscopic inflammation throughout, although there are some changes from last time. I don't think it is really accurate to say that it is worse, but it isn't better either, just different. As in the past colon biopsies, there were neutrophils present. These are the most common type of white blood cell, and it is my understanding that they are commonly present most of the time where there is inflammation or infection, so that was not a surprise. Also noted this time were eosinophils. While that sounds alarming at first, it is important to note that about the only place in the body that it is normal to find small amounts of eosinophils is in the intestinal tract, and the amounts found in Cassidy's biopsies, while not specifically noted before, are within the normal range. The last type noted were plasma cells. Plasma cells are also a type of white blood cell, and are usually present in cases of either a viral infection or an auto immune problem. Again, these cells were noted in the lab report, but in small numbers that, at this point, are not specific or indicative of anything. Maybe all of this will snowball into something worse, but maybe it won't. Right now we have to take it at face value. Wouldn't we expect to see less inflammation after months on the Asacol? Probably. But there is no way to know for sure if, had she not been on the meds, she would be much worse now. There are no definitive answers as to whether it is helping or not. Maybe without it she would have been in horrible shape. Maybe she would have been fine. No way to know for sure. Regardless, while these findings are different, none of them really explain the level of severe pain that she battles from time to time.

So we have a couple of things that fall under "the next step". First is ruling out any other possible causes of the newest pain. Coming next week are CT scans of the abdomen and ultrasounds of the liver, pancreas and gallbladder. Also on the agenda, which we actually started last Saturday, is removing gluten from her diet. Cassidy does not have Celiac disease, but she could still be sensitive to or unable to tolerate gluten, which could, possibly, be to blame for some or all of her lower GI problems. This does not change anything as far as her eosinophilic esophagitis, this is in addition to the EoE. So all of the previous dietary restrictions will remain in place as well. We will be strictly gluten free for 6 weeks. She will either feel better a few weeks into this, or she won't. Then we will have an answer to the gluten question either way. Once that is worked out, we will address the Asacol. She will stop taking it, and she will either stay the same (in which case it wasn't helping anyway, so we can safely wave goodbye to the side effects, such as headaches), or she will get worse, in which case we will have another piece to the puzzle and she will go back on the Asacol or maybe another similar medication that does not cause some of the same side effects for her. We will wait until after the gluten test for that, because if we make both changes at once and she improves, we will not know for sure which treatment was effective. Her siblings have been wonderfully supportive of the new restrictions, asking about the ingredients of everything that comes out of the grocery bag, and being careful, when spontaneously hugging their big sister, to not squeeze her "special tummy" too hard.

Maybe we will get some answers next week, maybe in a month, maybe later than that. At this point, I find myself sometimes just hoping to ever know what is causing my child this chronic pain. I believe that we are in excellent hands with our gastroenterologist. I couldn't ask for a more thorough or devoted physician, and he and his staff are always patient with my endless questions. Even when they are frustrated, the girls love Dr. A as well, which helps so much. I am also endlessly thankful for the outpouring of support from our friends and family, always offering to help out and always being so understanding when we have to cancel plans at the last minute or need to vent. Pretty much every ounce of our energy right now goes into helping all 4 kids cope with all of this, and that would be so much more difficult if we did not have the support system and medical team that we have.

Hopefully the rest of the summer will go smoothly. Beyond the immediate needs associated with all of this, we are also looking forward to this time next year. In July 2013, the American Partnership for Eosiniphilic Disorders (apfed.org) will be holding their annual conference in Philadelphia. Only 45 minutes from my house? Yes, please! It will be wonderful if things are under control for both girls by then, but either way at least one of us will be attending. Over the years, Cassidy and Chloe could improve greatly and require fewer, if any, medications and dietary restrictions. Or they could get worse. There is really no way to tell. For now we will focus on getting through the next 6 gluten-free weeks, then the next couple of months after that. Always moving towards the next step, one step at a time.

Chloe's Next Step

2012-07-08T11:18:00.001-04:00

I realize that this post is long overdue, and that many of my readers have been waiting for an update on Cassidy and Chloe. We have been busy with doctor's appointments, tests and procedures, new treatment attempts, and, just as important, trying to maintain some sense of just being a family and "regular" kids. I believe my last post that included a significant update was this one, when Chloe went in for her first set of scopes and biopsies. I mentioned shortly after that post that Chloe was, in fact, diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis. So here are the details on Chloe since then...

Chloe's first set of biopsies came back showing eosinophils totaling about 30 per high powered field, which exceeds the diagnostic criteria for eosinophilic esophagitis (greater that 15 eosinophils per field). Given the fact that she was also having episodes of difficulty swallowing and food getting stuck (dysphagia) and not gaining weight well, and the fact that she has a sibling with the same disease, the gastroenterologist, Dr. A, felt confident in this diagnosis. So he referred us back over to the allergy and immunology department to complete the 3 types of allergy testing that we went through with Cassidy, which you can read about here. So we went ahead with the testing, and found that between the scratch testing and blood testing she showed a likely sensitivity or allergy to milk and eggs. The patch testing was a little trickier, in my opinion. As I have explained before, patch testing involves placing pure food samples against the skin for 2 days, them removing them. Results are read 24 hours later. Having gone through this with Cassidy, I remembered a few of her reactions being quite pronounced the night before the reading, but more mild by the time the doctor saw them. In Cassidy's case, the mild reactions were still noted in her chart, and it turned out that there were 2 that she could tolerate (corn and bananas) but others that she reacted severely to when we tried to reintroduce them. With this in mind, I wrote down the numbers of the test areas which had clearly visible reactions at bedtime the day we removed the test strips. The next day, 5 of the 6 looked much better, showing only mild irritation, so I'm glad that I made note of them. Hopefully they will not actually be relevant triggers for Chloe, but if removing the 2 foods with clear positive reactions isn't enough, I'll be glad that I have these additional foods to try.

The bottom line for the testing on Chloe is that eggs and milk were positive, and the additional foods that I noted were soy, wheat, celery, beef and sesame. I learned later that during the test reading, while I thought that none of the mild irritants were noted, her chart does actually list wheat and soy as possibilities, in addition to the eggs and milk. For now, none of that is immediatly relevant, so bear with me while I explain.

Because Chloe's cell counts were around 30, which is twice the number required for diagnosis but still on the lower end for this disease (to compare, Cassidy's counts were around 50-60 the first time), there are 2 possible treatment options to start with. One is the method we used with Cassidy, allergy testing followed by removing all possible allergens turned up during that process for 6-8 weeks followed by repeat biopsies to monitor progress. The other option is not removing anything from the diet and just treating Chloe with PPIs (commonly a reflux medication, including brand names Prevacid and Prilosec). Apparently, in some patients with lower counts this alone is effective. We ended up trying the medication alone for 6 weeks, although I have to admit that shortly after this decision I just didn't have a good feeling about it. But we crossed our fingers and hung in there. 2 weeks before the repeat biopsies (which was about 4 weeks on the medication), Chloe started eating less again, waking up in the night and eventually refusing solid food shortly before the procedure. Mark and I went in the day of the biopsies and scopes, June 13th, with a bad feeling that things would not be much better in there.

We should have been wishing for things to be the same. After 6 weeks on medication, Chloe's entire esophagus is inflamed to the point that the tissue looks grainy and is friable (bleeds easily), the furrowing from the lower third of the esophagus is now extending up to include the middle third as well, and her entire esophagus is covered in little white patches, which lab reports confirm are eosinophilic abscesses. The lab listed the cell counts as high as 70, which is more than twice the number that was observed less that 2 months earlier. No wonder she can't swallow! Mark and I were horrified. The gastroenterologist explained his plan of attack to us. Chloe is now on a steroid treatment for a minimum of 3 months. After 4 weeks we will let the doctor know how she is feeling, and 4 weeks after that, she will have another scope with biopsies to confirm the effectiveness of the meds. The point here is to help heal the damage enough that she has some respite for what she has been going through, and also to confirm that the medication is effective for her. Once she is doing much better and has healed, we will address the issue of changing her diet, and hope that making such changes works well enough for her that she will not need to remain on steroid based medication.
Removing the food immediately may seem like a better idea, but the problem with that is that we would not know, once she gets better, which treatment is the one working for her.

So far she has been on the new meds for about a week and a half, and while she does not report any improvement in symptoms, it can take longer than this for enough healing to take place that she will feel noticeably better. She is eating a little better most days, thank goodness. I should mention that once the allergy testing was completed, I realized that Chloe had been pretty much already on an egg and dairy free diet, mainly because of Cassidy's restrictions and also in case dairy was triggering Chloe's migraines, for nearly 6 months leading up to her first scope (when the cell counts were around 30). We did reintroduce both in the couple of weeks before her scope, but she was no longer interested in consuming much of either. Since she is still eating both now, it is possible that this could explain the worsening of her condition. However, it should also be noted that while this may explain the increase in cell counts from 30 to 70, it also means that something else was causing a reaction that resulted in the initial 30 cell count biopsies. Maybe milk and eggs will be enough, but I'm not holding my breath just yet. I'm increasingly glad that I noted the other 5 possible allergens during her testing.

While we do our best to sort all of this out, we are also trying to make sure that Chloe and Cassidy (I'll get to Cass in my next post) are able to just be kids. True, they don't feel great much of the time, but they still have to be encouraged to enjoy their lives. Otherwise, it is easy to slip into a rut of feeling sorry for yourself. Once that happens, you tend to let the disease define you rather that just be an aspect of your life. So when they are feeling up to it, we encourage them to play, dance, create and goof off. While they have always been close, we have noticed them growing even closer as they bond over their shared physical discomfort and and the way the disease effects each of them. What makes them different from other kids is many ways is the same thing that makes them even more like each other, and that bond is proving to be as priceless as the sisterly bond that they have always had.

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

2012-06-30T00:13:00.003-04:00

I know that many of you are waiting for a health update on my 2 older girls, as they have had plenty of testing and procedures lately. I appreciate your support and concern, but I'll be getting to all of that in my next post. In my last post, I unloaded about the rough week or so that we had recently, and I promised to follow up with a post about how we made up for it once everyone was feeling better.

By the time Chloe's eye had healed, Quinn's concussion and sprained neck were better and Cassidy had completely gotten over strep throat (and the allergic reaction to the first antibiotic), I think we were all ready for some fresh air and sunshine, and probably a little comfort food. So we spent the next couple of weeks packing plenty of that stuff in.

First, we went hiking. A lot. I love hiking, and so do the kids. Sometimes people seem shocked by the fact that my small children will hike 2 or 3 miles with me in an afternoon, which I find puzzling. It's not as though I drag them out in shackles and force them down a rocky desert landscape! I think that, given the chance, most kids enjoy walking around in the woods, checking stuff out, which is really what a hike is. My kids are far more interested in the plants and landscape and animals that we see than they are in any movie or TV show! So we often, actually very often, pack a lunch and find a sprawling nature center, reserve or wooded park to hike through, and the kids love it!

We hiked through woods and fields. We saw wild raspberries, deer, toads, chipmunks and honeysuckle.

We walked on boardwalks through marshland, and found aquatic plants, tadpoles, frogs and fish.

We looked up at the trees and the sky and the birds.

We looked down at the trails and the creeks and all of the magic they held.

At the end of the day, every day that we hiked, I had a group of happy, healthy, tired kids. Kids that woke up the next day and turned off the TV,
begging to go hiking again. Fantastic!

In between our hiking adventures, we went cherry picking and stocked up on jam from the fruit. Stay tuned for the recipes in my next post!

Why I Grow Mint

2012-06-13T00:02:00.002-04:00

If you clicked on over here looking for an herb gardening post, I should tell you now that you are barking up the wrong tree. This post is more along the lines of this one, from about 4 months ago. It deals with the trials and mayhem of hands on parenting, but not so much in a typical day to day way. This is a glimpse into what it can be like when it just hits the fan, and all you can do is keep everyone's head above water until the storm blows over. Sound a bit dramatic? I wish it was! The bottom line is that we had a RIDICULOUS week or two, but it seems we all survived. In fact, we pretty well made up for it with a super couple of weeks after mayhem descended upon us for what seems to have become it's routine quarterly visit. But I'll get to that in my next post, which I'll probably start writing tomorrow afternoon while I wait for the results from Chloe's most recent set of biopsies.

At this point, as before, I'll tell you that if you just dropped by from Pinterest or a Google search to get the drink recipes, scroll down until you come to the pictures of drinks. If you are interested in why I'm making good use of my favorite cocktail shaker, read on!

So it all started the weekend before Memorial Day weekend. The weather has been great so far this spring, and the garden is thriving. The kids love to be outside, so we have been spending most of our time in the fresh air and sunshine. You may be wondering how a post can start out "mayhem descended upon us", then move on to gardening with kids. Seems bizarre, right? This is where we get to the string of stuff I couldn't make up if I tried. Let me set the stage. It's Thursday afternoon. Mark has been at work all day, and River, the twins and I made the most of the beautiful weather, and after school Cassidy joined us in the yard. I was weeding the butterfly garden, and the kids were sitting around a patch of dirt, digging a garden of their own. The dog was stretched out enjoying the shade. Birds were singing, the breeze was gentle. Ah, zen. Suddenly the peaceful atmosphere was pierced by crying. Frankly, with 4 kids, ages of 3, 5, 5 and 7, that's not unusual, but you still have to investigate. Quinn's shovel got caught on a tree root, and accidentally flipped some dirt up and out when it popped free. That would normally be no biggie, except that the dirt flew up into Chloe's face, and her eyes. Also not really unusual, her eyes were watering and she wasn't especially happy, but she really just seemed to want a popsicle and a hug, so we moved on with the day.

An hour later, here left eye was still watering and she complained of blurred vision. Yikes! In the tub, I rinsed it well with water, but it didn't help. I'll skip ahead a bit.
The point is that this particular dirt-in-the-face incident resulted in this ------------>

That's what your kid looks like at the emergency room with a corneal abrasion. Usually a little dirt in the eye just gets washed out by the eye watering or a clear water eye wash. But sometimes that dirt actually scratches the cornea. In Chloe's case, she also had a tiny piece of dirt stuck to her eye, which had to be swabbed out (very fast, but still a cotton swab across the eyeball. Not fun!) The debris was causing the blurred vision, so she came home seeing clearly and is fine now. Late night, but what can you do other than shrug it off and offer the kid a nap the next day.

Friday, Cassidy went to school and the twins headed off to preschool happily, Chloe's eyes was still feeling irritated, but she begged to go and it's only a couple of hours. Smooth sailing. River and I picked up some ferns for the fairy garden we created for the munchkins while the twins were at preschool, then we all had lunch and eventually picked Cassidy up after school. Chloe fell asleep in the car on the way home from getting Cassidy, no big surprise since we were at the E.R. until 11:30 the night before. While she slept on the couch, the rest of the kids (and the dog) joined me out back to finish gardening. Seems we would have learned our lesson the day before, but apparently not. I was getting the new fern planted, easy peasy. 3 or 4 yards away, Cassidy, Quinn and River grabbed shovels and headed back to their own little garden patch that they had started digging in the day before. River and Quinn sat on the ground with trowels, and Cassidy grabbed her kid sized metal ditch digging shovel from the shed. River and Quinn were discussing what seeds they needed, and Cassidy alternated between digging a hole and tossing a ball for the dog. Again with the birds and the breeze. I should have known from the peaceful feeling that trouble was looming. With Cassidy and Quinn sitting on either side of her, Cassidy turned and threw the ball for Billie Dog. Shovel still in hand, she spun back around to rejoin the conversation and smacked Quinn, hard, in the head with the metal shovel.

It was completely an accident, but it knocked him back none the less, and after a stunned pause, he cried with a specific pitch that I haven't heard since he broke his arm when he was 3. Cassidy was horrified, but she called me over (I was already on the way) and ran inside to grab an ice pack and a towel. Despite the accident, I have to say I was proud of her 7 year old crisis management skills.

After 10-15 minutes, Quinn was wobbly on his feet, nauseous, and his head looked like this
<---------

Nasty, huh?

A big ol' goose egg doesn't ruffle my feathers, but nausea and dizziness do, so we went to the ER. Again. Little Hippie had a concussion, but after 4 hours of being observed by the doctors and nurses, he was finally able to keep graham crackers down so we got to come home.

Fast forward to the next morning. Cassidy was sort of moping around, I thought she felt guilty about the shovel incident. Quinn woke up a little later than usual, no big surprise. He headed into the kitchen for his milk cup (in the fridge), and (yikes!) couldn't open the refrigerator door because it hurt his little neck too much! Crap. The discharge papers from the night before specifically listed, among the list of symptoms that should send you back to the E.R., pronounced neck pain or stiffness. Upon further inspection, Quinn has limited range of motion and can't turn his head certain ways. I call, and the triage nurse told me to bring him back in (it's Saturday, so the doctor's office was closed). That's when this --------->
picture was taken. Major suckage. The neck brace was on for a few hours while xrays were taken and read to confirm no fracture or anything serious. Bottom line at the end of the day was that he also had a sprained neck from the shovel incident. He was stiff and sore for several days, but is fine now.

By the time we got home from the Emergency Room Saturday afternoon, Cassidy was running a 102 degree fever, and complaining of a very sore throat. Deep breath, continue through the day. 3 Emergency Room visits in 3 days plus a kid with a high fever, Mommy is tired. Motrin for Cassidy's fever, Quinn's neck/headache and Mommy's headache. Popsicles for everyone. No more gardening this weekend, that's for sure! Everyone, including me, went to bed early Saturday night. Which was good since, as many parents know, fevers seem to go up at night. 2am brought Cassidy 104 degrees, Motrin brought her down to about 101. For her, this went on through the day Sunday, and her sore throat worsened. Sometimes it can be tricky to consider that as a symptom for her given the disease process in her esophagus, but with the high fever, I kept her on the motrin and on Monday took her to the doctor. She had a raging case of strep throat, so after an xray to rule out pneumonia (she had decreased air flow in one lung, but the xrays were clear and by the next day it was fine), we went home with 10 days worth of amoxacillin.

By Wednesday she was starting to feel better, so I thought I'd give her one more day so we were a full 24 hours fever free, and then let her go back to school on Friday. I mean, at this point, things actually seemed to be on the verge of slowing down. Chloe's eye felt much better and Quinn could turn his head. The bruise on his forehead was by now a greenish blue, ghoulish, but healing nicely. Thursday, Cassidy started to complain that her mouth felt itchy, but between the EoE and strep, i just made a casual mental note of it and moved on. With her evening dose of amoxacillin, the itching got worse. In fact, within 30 minutes of taking the medication, her mouth and tongue were not the only itchy spots, her feet started to itch next, and then she was scratching all over. She also complained that she felt like she had been holding her breath. Thankfully she did not have visible trouble breathing, but she had tightness in her chest and was clammy and dizzy. It's not uncommon to have an amoxacillin or penicillin allergy pop up a few days into the treatment, which was exactly what had happened to Cassidy. Quinn is also allergic to amoxacillin and penicillin, and it popped up on day 4 with him the 2nd time he had it for an ear infection. He had head to toe hives as well. So Cassidy can now add this to her list of allergies. Fortunately there are plenty of other antibiotics available, so she was switched to a different one and headed back to school the following Tuesday (Monday school was closed for Memorial Day.

During the holiday weekend, Billie Dog started limping slightly, especially after resting, but it was mild enough that at first we couldn't even figure out which leg she was favoring. She seemed to walk it off pretty fast once she was up and moving around for a few minutes and still ran in the yard easily, so we just kept and eye on it. Then a lump developed on the top of one of her front paws. As the week prgressed, it got worse, not better. After a good romp in the yard on Thursday, she napped and then got up and hobbled around on 3 legs, and the lump on her paw was bigger.

Friday at the vet ended like this
<-----------------------

Xrays showed some old, fractures, in various states of healing, to her seisamoid bones that we never even knew about, but according to the radiology reports that followed the swelling had to be a soft tissue injury, such as a sprain, because it was not at the same location as the old fractures. Maybe because she has some rottweiler in her, but we don't really know why for sure, the sweet girl just doesn't react much to pain. She tends to just keep going. Which on one hand I suppose is good if it means it doesn't bother her too much. On the other hand, she must have something pretty nasty going on in there to leave her limping like that.

What does all of this have to do with growing mint? Oh, that's easy! You can't make a mojito without it. And in the sunny weather, few things float my boat at the end of the day (or at the end of a few weeks like these) like the combination of mint, lime and rum. I prefer mine without the pesky addition of lemon lime soda or sparkling water. Here is my recipe for a Mojito Martini, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Please try to do so in moderation, these suckers can really sneak up on you!

Mojito Martini

In a cocktail shaker half full of ice, combine the following:

2 ounces lime rum (I use Parrot Bay key lime rum)
2 ounces fresh lime juice (don't bother with bottled, trust me on this)
a slight dash of dry vermouth
a half dozen or so fresh mint leaves
1 tsp. sugar (super fine if you have it)

Shake hard, to make sure you dissolve the sugar and bruise those mint leaves. Strain into a glass, over ice if desired.

Mmmmm...delicious. Now isn't that a great reason to grow mint? Too bad I don't have my own lime tree! As always, I'd love to hear your comments if you try this one out!

Enjoy!

How does your garden grow?

2012-06-05T22:29:00.000-04:00

So far this year we have so many delicious fruits and veggies off to a great start. We are already through the first batch of jam from the strawberries, and the blueberries are ripening every day. I just picked the first batch this afternoon!

The plum tree is loaded with tiny green plums, and the cherry, pear, peach and fig trees, although still small, young trees, are filling in with fresh green leaves and, in the case of the apple tree, flowers. The garden beds are also loaded with seedlings and sprouts.

It is worth mentioning that we grow most of our own produce in the summer for several reasons, one of which is that we have control over the growing practices. What that means for us both in terms of health as well as environmentally is that we do not use any chemical fertilizers or pesticides, at all. We use natural and non chemical forms of pest control when necessary and we fertilize and enrich the soil only with our own compost. We have a traditional compost pile outside, and we also have a worm composter. So far, we have had great success, and peace of mind, with these methods, and don't really find them to be difficult at all.

The garden peas are almost finished for the season already, and the peas we had from them were delicious. We will plant another batch late in the summer for fall harvest. The asparagus is growing like wildfire, and the long list of plants that will be ready to harvest over the next few months includes yellow squash, butternut squash, watermelon, pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, green beans, jalapenos, bell peppers, red beans, black beans, radishes, turnips, parsnips, carrots, cucumbers (both slicing and pickling varieties), broccoli, cabbage, spinach, romaine, potatoes, beets and lufas, which we grow because I like to make exfoliating soap with them!

We have switched over most of our garden to raised beds, and are using a square foot gardening method. It has allowed us to fit a lot more in the space, and so far everything is growing extremely well. The strawberries have grown enough to now take up 2 beds, along the same side of the house as the 3 largest blueberry bushes. In this picture, you can see one of the covers that Mark built for the raised beds to keep the neighbor's cats out! Further down are some of the blueberry bushes. If you look closely off to the right, you can see sweet Billie Dog keeping an eye on things for us!

This is one of the beds of corn, about 2 weeks ago. The plants are about twice that size now. These beds are 4 feet by 4 feet, and as you can see they are divided up into single square foot sections with simple string. Each square foot contains 4 corn plants, and there are 16 square feet in the bed. That means that we have 64 corn plants in each of these beds, and there are 2 beds of corn. 128 corn plants with at least one ear on each plant! I can't wait!

This is another 4 foot by 4 foot bed, also divided into individual square foot sections. This one has 6 cabbage plants, 6 broccoli plants and 4 squares of green beans, each of which holds 9 bean plants for a total of 36 pole bean plants. Shortly after I took this picture, Mark built a trellis for the beans to climb. Last year we grew a bush variety, and while they produced well, since the pole beans can grow vertically more than bush beans do, this layout has allowed us to put more plants in less space. If I'm lucky, I'll have enough beans this year to stock the pantry with tangy Dilly Beans (look for that recipe when the harvest starts to ripen!) and still put my green bean frencher to good use (I prefer fresh green beans french cut!)

I didn't get any good pictures yet of the root vegetable beds, but Mark built them 12 inches deep, which is twice the depth of the rest of the raised beds. We haven't had great luck with carrots in the past because of our soil, but I'm hoping to have plenty of well formed ones this year. So far they are growing like crazy, and since all 6 of us love them, I can't wait to have fresh organic ones fill the fridge without breaking the bank! I suppose I could go on and on about why I am excited about each and every fruit and veggie that is growing, and that satisfaction and excitement grows every time I can go out in the yard to literally pick something for dinner (or breakfast or lunch). If you haven't had a garden before, it may be worth giving it a try this year, I promise you won't be sorry! The next thing you know, you will be learning how to can fresh produce to preserve the harvest because you won't be able to eat it fast enough.

If you are interested in more information about how we garden, or the square foot gardening method in general, please leave a comment letting me know!

Enchiladas and Margaritas, please!

2012-05-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

Spring is in full swing in this unusually warm year, and we have had plenty of days of what we refer to as great deck weather. Afternoons and evenings when you just want to hang out on the deck and relax! The kids and the dog wear themselves out playing in the yard, and we like to keep an eye on them while we work in the garden. After we bring them in and stick them in the tub to clean off after all of the good old fashioned fun, we are all ready for a relaxing dinner, after which the hubby and I like to get them all tucked into bed and then go enjoy a cocktail on...you guessed it...the deck.

Days like this, a simple and delicious dinner really hits the spot, and since it is beautiful outside but not yet super hot, we don't have to worry making the whole house sweat by turning on the oven. Once the days and evenings really heat up, it's grill season, but in the spring (or really any time, to be honest), my favorite dinner is enchiladas. They have to be made from scratch, I'm not really a fan of canned enchilada sauce. Also, they have to be paired with one of 2 perfect drinks. Mexican beer or margaritas.

I've been promising my enchilada recipe to my friend Tricia, or more specifically to her husband Amos, and (as usual) they have been very patient as life with 4 active small children and the unknown perils of gardening with the kids (yes, I said perils of gardening, but I'll save THAT set of stories for my next post, which will definitely contain another strong drink recipe) have delayed things time and again. I hope that now that I have found the time to sit down and finish this post, which I started almost 2 weeks ago, they will find the time to enjoy it soon!

Enchilada sauce is easy to make, and while there are lengthy, multi-step recipes, mine is pretty fast and easy and I love it. If I didn't, I wouldn't be sharing it here! Once you get the sauce made (it's only a 10 minute recipe), throwing together the rest of the enchiladas is a snap as well. I do add cheese to mine, but when I assemble Cassidy's I just leave the cheese out, which makes it a filling and satisfying allergy friendly recipe. Here's what you need:

Enchilada Sauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp. flour
1/4 cup chili powder
8 oz tomato sauce
1 1/2 cups water
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp onion powder
1-2 tsp salt, or to taste

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, then stir in the flour and chili powder. Stirring constantly, cook until lightly brown.
Stir in tomato sauce.
Gradually stir in water, cumin, garlic, onion powder and salt into the flour and chili powder until smooth, and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes, or until thickened slightly.

I usually pour this into a glass measuring cup and set it aside so that I can use the skillet for the next step, no need to wash it first! Of course, you could always just use a second skillet.

Enchilada Filling

1 pound of ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
about 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce that you just made
black pepper to taste

You will also need enchilada shells (Traditionally enchiladas are made using soft corn tortillas for the shells, but you could also use taco size soft flour tortillas) and green onions.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brown the ground beef in a skillet, along with the onion and pepper. Stir in the enchilada sauce and black pepper. Turn off the heat.

In a 9 x 13 glass pan, spread about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan. If you are using cheese (shredded sharp cheddar is best!) add some to an enchilada shell. If dairy is a concern for you, rest assured that these are very satisfying and filling with or without cheese. Scoop some filling into the shell. Wrap closed and place seam side down in the pan. Repeat until you have run out of shells or space in the pan. If you are lucky, you run out of both at the same time!
Pour the remaining enchilada sauce evenly over the top and top with more cheese (if you are using cheese, of course!)
Finally, top with sliced green onions.
Pop into the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, and you are all set!

Something to drink with that?

Strawberry Margaritas (or slushies, for kids and non-drinkers!)

3 cups of strawberries, washed and stems removed
2 cups of ice
1/2 cup tequila
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup triple sec
lime wedges and/or strawberries for garnish

Toss it all in the blender and whirl away. Some people prefer sugar also added to these, but that makes it too sweet for me.

If you would rather have a non-alcoholic slushy, leave out the tequila and triple sec and add 1/2 cup of orange juice.

Hope you enjoy!

Light Sabers and Fairy Wings

2012-05-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

A full week and a half after the twins' birthday party and I am just now getting back to the blog. Of course, I put off customer orders for 2 weeks leading up to the party, so I've been trying to dig my way out of that mountain of work, but no complaints! In addition last weekend we were dealing with Chloe's patch testing (you can read about Cassidy going through this process here and Chloe's recent diagnosis that necessitated the testing here). I'll be talking about Chloe's allergy screening experience in an upcoming post. For now, I wanted to share with all of you the little day of happiness that we squeezed in among the doctor's appointments and testing.

If you are a regular reader, you know that Chloe and her twin brother Quinn just celebrated their 5th birthday! He picked a Star Wars theme and she chose woodland fairies. We had the party at a local orchard, and I really think that a wonderful time was had by everyone. It was chillier that it has been this spring, but it didn't rain, and since the kids were running around with wings and light sabers, they didn't seem to mind at all. I posted earlier about making the food all allergy safe, including my favorite baker for ordering allergy safe food when I can't make it all myself. I'll give an overview of what we served, as well as details of the goodie bags and the party itself.

For starters, we purchased print-at-home invitations packs on Etsy.

Quinn's were these, which you can find here,

This party package included tons of stuff, so much that we didn't even use it all! It was great, and I highly recommend checking out the Etsy shop.

Chloe's were these. Chloe just loved these, and the pack included favor tags and signage.

Fairy and Jedi Food

The fairy side of the table held "Fairy Fruit" (pre-cut fruit tray), "Pixie Love Cookies" (allergy safe sugar cookies with pink and purple frosting) and "Twigs and Branches" (pretzel sticks and rods).

The Star Wars side had "Vader Veggies" (pre-cut veggie tray), "Wookie Cookies" (allergy safe star wars shaped sugar cookies) and "Death Star Doughnuts" (Allergy safe mini doughnuts with fun sprinkles)

For drinks, we had juice boxes as well as chocolate soy milk boxes (Cassidy is allergic to apples and therefore most juice boxes) and bottled water.

Each table also had cupcakes. I bake them using my favorite allergy friendly chocolate cupcake recipe from the Food Allergy Mama cookbook; the fairy cupcakes were frosted grass green with little fairy pics on top, and the Star Wars cupcakes were frosted with vanilla, sprinkled with red or blue sugar and topped with light saber flags included in the party pack with the invitations. Easy as it gets, as far as I am concerned. With the exception of the cupcakes, all of the allergy safe baked goods were ordered from HippieCakes. As I have mentioned before, her baked goods (pictured to the left) are fantastic, and her prices are very reasonable. We are ALWAYS working on a budget (a normal budget, not a wedding budget. My thoughts on that in this post!)

We ended up having enough cupcakes left over for the snack at the preschool the following Monday, which was great since I didn't have to bake another batch on Sunday.

Since everything was basically finger foods, the kids (and parents) were welcome to graze when they wanted to, which was casual and in my opinion, just right for a children's birthday party.

Goodie Bags

The goodie bags were so much fun to put together, and they were probably a bit much. But each twin had specific ideas, and just as I don't agree with making them share a theme just because they happen to be twins, and because their ideas were so heartfelt and generous for their guests, we decided to let them both contribute. So we ended up with what were basically double goodie bags for the guests. Each bag contained the following:

From Quinn, Han Solo in carbonite or R2D2 shaped soap with a washcloth (the soap was simple melt and pour stuff from the craft store, the washcloths I made from star print cotton and flannel) We packaged these in little light saber goodie boxes from the party pack! Also, Star Wars stickers and a push pop decorated to look like a light saber. The boys also got a chinese yo yo, and everyone got a personalized jedi training pass (also part of the party pack!)

From Chloe, a crayon roll and sketch pad. Wish I had a picture of these, they were so cute! If I track down a picture, I'll post it. Also, a ring pop and a jar of bubbles. The girls also got a little fairy wand and a personalized hair clip.

The washcloths, crayon rolls and hair clips would have been budget breakers to purchase, but since I sew and machine embroider for a living, they only cost me supplies (I don't charge for time when it comes to my kids' party budgets). My advice in party planning is to capitalize on whatever craft or talent you have to help keep costs down.

Other Fun Stuff

As I mentioned in a prior post, the orchard lets the party guests feed the farm animals (the kids especially loved the baby goats!) and takes them all on a hayride. We also made fairy wings and tiny crowns for all of the girls, and everyone (boys, girls and some grown ups!) had foam light sabers made from pool noodles and duct tape. Many thanks to my friend Becky, for her amazing photography!

Chloe, in her extra special birthday wings, enjoys the hay ride with friends.

Mark (aka Daddy) handing out light sabers before one of many big battles. Not sure which age group had more fun...the kids or the adults!

Chloe, the birthday girl, enjoying herself.

Fairy wings and a light saber!

Helping my little man, Quinn, (in the red jacket) open his gifts.

Big sister Cassidy, little sister River and a fairy friend.

River and her buddy charging into a Jedi battle!

Fairy size crowns for the girls. We made these from empty toilet paper tubes. It was super easy. Look for that tutorial next week!

Jedi Quinn fending off a rebel attack!

A group of fairies heading over to feed the farm animals.

Quinn, Daddy and crew on the hayride.

Birthday boy Quinn, running and playing.

The day was wonderful, and for my kids as well as some of their food allergic friends, being able to enjoy the party and all of the food and treats without worry was priceless. It is really something that you tend to take for granted until you are forced to worry about it first hand! In addition, we stayed within a low budget and the party was proof that the kids were thrilled to just be kids, and that the over-done bells and whistles are not necessary. Everyone wins! Now that's my kind of (kid's birthday) party!

Allergy friendly party food for kids

2012-04-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

My regular readers know from my last post that we are very excited for Chloe and Quinn's birthday party this weekend! My regular readers also know that we have many dietary restrictions due to Cassidy's EoE (more on that here) and will likely have even more in the future since Chloe has also been diagnosed. I don't expect the world to accommodate my children's food allergies, but this is a party for them and I feel strongly that they should safely be able to eat pretty much whatever they see under such circumstances. As I have mentioned before, our current list of allergens for Cassidy includes dairy, eggs, cauliflower, cucumbers, cantaloupe, peanuts, apples and zucchini. In addition, there will be several other party guests with allergies, in some cases life threatening ones, to shellfish, peanuts, eggs, milk and tree nuts.

When we have a birthday party for the kids, either for family or for friends, we usually have basic finger foods for grazing, but we try to name the snacks things that fit in with the theme. Makes it easy, it keeps it fun. For this years Star Wars/Woodland Fairy party, Quinn's side of the table will have Vader Veggies, Wookie Cookies, Death Star Donuts and maybe some Jedi Juice. Chloe's side will have Fairy Berries, sticks and branches (pretzel sticks and rods) and Pixie Heart Cookies. Both sides of the table will have cupcakes, too. All of the food will be allergy safe for Cassidy as well as all of the party guests.

To start with, because allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and shellfish are often life threateningly severe, I choose to just avoid these completely when we are hosting a party for children. I'll make the cupcakes (I have yet to find delicious cupcakes that meet our allergy needs without making them myself). I use the chocolate cake recipe from the Food Allergy Mama blog, which you can find here. If you are a new or seasoned food allergy baker and are not familiar with this blog, you should really check it out! Her recipes use regular ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen or are readily available at grocery stores. Love that!

The fruit and veggies are easy to pick up; I order the veggie tray without cauliflower since it is Cassidy's favorite and she can't have it. She is old enough to know that she should just avoid the cucumbers, and they are always a favorite with everyone else, so we keep those on the menu. The fruit tray we just order without cantaloupe, easy peasy. We will have juice boxes, which pretty much all contain apple juice, so I also get a couple of packs of chocolate soy milk boxes. That way Cassidy has something to drink, and of course any other kids with (or without) milk allergies are welcome to them as well. Pretzels are safe for everyone and another option is plain potato chips. Just make sure they aren't cooked in peanut oil!

Other than that, since I have been busy making fairy wings, light sabers and goody bags, the donuts and all of the cookies (chocolate chip, star wars and hearts) I ordered from my FAVORITE allergy friendly baker, Jenny. She keeps a vegan kitchen (certainly no shellfish, eggs or dairy there!) and has designated bowls and utensils for baking without peanuts and tree nuts. Her baked goods and candy are fantastic and very reasonably priced. She also has always been able to accommodate our extensive allergy needs. She saved the day for our Christmas celebration, and has saved me endless stress by providing the cookies, donuts and candy for Chloe and Quinn's party. Aren't the heart cookies pretty? Those are also her sparkle mini donuts pictured at the top of the page. To check out her other selections, place an order or contact her, you can visit her Etsy shop, HippieCakes, here.

Once we introduced food allergies into our already busy life with 4 kids, a dog and 2 self employed parents, I had to officially accept that I cannot do everything myself. While this has always been true, (for me and for everyone else on the planet if we want to be honest) in order to give my kids the care, attention and emotional support that they need as well as still allowing them to be kids all while maintaining at least a little bit of my own sanity, I have had to formally accept that I am not superwoman.

This week my laundry is piling up and the house is messier than usual, but it's a small price to pay for the look on my kids' faces during their birthday party. Besides, I'd rather make fairy wings and light sabers with my kids or snuggle on the couch and read to them. This week we have streamlined the process of creating a birthday party that is worry free for food allergy kids (kids shouldn't have to worry at birthday parties anyway!) and sure to be fun for all. That's like conquering our own little corner of the world! Everyone is safe, well fed and very well loved at the end of the day, which is certainly a priority as far as I am concerned. I guess the laundry will just have to wait until next week.

Fairies, Jedis and eosinophils...

2012-04-23T23:16:00.000-04:00

So I'm at least a week or so late in posting this, but those of you who also follow me on Facebook have had some minor updates. The official biopsy numbers are in for Chloe, and have confirmed her diagnosis of EoE, just like Cassidy, which you can read about here. We were not surprised, in fact, after the concerns we went through with Cassidy prior to her diagnosis, it was actually almost a relief to know that Chloe has the same disease and not something more devastating. We have started the 3 part allergy testing process with her, and will move forward one step at a time once we have the answers provided by that process.

In the mean time, Miss Chloe and her partner in crime (and twin brother) Quinn will be 5 years old in just a couple of weeks! This year they are having their first big birthday party which includes inviting friends. We usually celebrate birthdays with a small family gathering in our house, so the kids only have a "friend party" once every few years. We actually try to rotate it so one kid gets to have a big party each year. The shindigs start the year they turn 5. While we will never force the twins to share a party if they don't want to (not their fault that both buns were bakin' in the oven at the same time!) this year they were wild about the idea of doing it together. Probably because since they are in the same preschool class, they pretty much have just one peer group and they are only 5 so they basically love everyone. Works for me. They still each picked a theme, though.

Quinn wanted a Star Wars party, and Chloe's dreams will play out as a Woodland Fairy party (she was very specific about that, not fairy princesses or Disney fairies which she also loves, but "real" fairies, which she calls woodland fairies). So we are setting up at a local orchard with a large play area, and they also provide hay rides for the kids and let them feed the farm animals. What I call the "play area" is actually a slightly hilly field with wooden play structures scattered about, a huge sandbox and some picnic tables under large shady trees. Perfect for a bunch of little kids running around with light sabers and fairy wings.

All of the girls will have fairy wings and crowns that I made, and all of the kids will have light sabers made from pool noodles and duct tape (I love duct tape!) Chloe wanted all of the girls to have complete fairy outfits, but that was really just too much. Chloe will be in her fairy finery, but for the guests I think that they can dress in whatever they like, and providing them all with wings and crowns is plenty, don't you? I actually really enjoy party planning, but if you have to take out a second mortgage on your house to finance a party for your 5 year old, you have issues. I have been to more than one party that was clearly thrown in an attempt to out-do the other moms and parties, and I find it to be creepy and excessive. Get your head out of your ass. It's your KID'S party, not yours. If you have hyped it up until they are overwhelmed or disappointed in a too-sophisticated version of a theme, you have completely missed the point. The idea is to celebrate the CHILD, not impress the town with the party of the year. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with taking one or two of your offspring's youth driven "big ideas" and running with them (I did, after all, make 10 sets of fairy wings from scratch), but some of what I have seen, both in person and online, is horrendous.

As I said, we don't do big parties every year, and this past year has been significantly stressful, exhausting and draining both physically and emotionally for all of us but especially for the birthday girls herself, Chloe. And it should not be overlooked that this has directly effected her twin brother as well, as they are especially close. So while staying within what I see as rational bounds for a child's birthday party, we have tried to really do it right and let the kids express their dreams. Important distinction here, what qualifies as a self described dream party for a 5 year old is probably MUCH less than we would come up with as our version of a dream party. They request things like a fruit platter, juice boxes, cake and friends. Really, the basics. For some reason they especially love to help with planning the goodie bags, though, and they had some really good ideas! I don't want to spoil the surprise for any readers who may be attending, so I'll cover those in my next post. But I will say that it is very touching to me when my little ones say that they want extra special goodie bags for their friends, and I don't think they even realized that the friends would be bringing gifts until we talked about good manners and thank you notes. For them, it is about the heart, not the hype, and that is how it should be.

As for the extras that we let them add, the light sabers and fairy wings, the kids envisioned Jedi battles and frolicking fairies in the grassy hill at their favorite orchard. Total cost of the light sabers? $0.50 each. Total cost of the fairy wings? $1.60 a pair, plus 20 minutes of my time. Given the rough year and the infrequency of the big parties, a small price to pay. Plus I really enjoyed it, and it is bringing my kids genuine joy without nauseating excess and poor example.

It has been enough fun for all of us, in fact, that there will be tutorials to follow. Maybe they can help someone out there throw a fun and inexpensive party for their kids that everyone can enjoy since really, that is what it should be all about.

Here we go again...

2012-04-02T21:08:00.001-04:00

I was amazed at how many people read my post on Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) and our journey through the diagnosis and treatment of the disease with our oldest daughter, Cassidy. The post, which you can read here, gave a very abbreviated version of the story, but I think the basics were covered as clearly as possible. It was a hard road, and still is, and it certainly altered our lives. Shortly after Cassidy was diagnosed in June 2011, we started to see some concerning signs in Cassidy's little sister, Chloe.

I should first explain that Chloe has always had a rough time in some ways. She is by far the most easy going of the 4 kids, and like all 4 kids, she has always met or exceeded her developmental milestones and that sort of thing. We are thankful for that. But Chloe has been through plenty. She had severe newborn jaundice, and was admitted to the children's hospital when she was 5 days old for a couple of days when it reached a dangerous point, but she recovered quickly, well and fully. By the time she was 5 months old, she had eczema so severe and spreading so quickly that the pediatrician had already sent us to a dermatologist, who had in turn already sent us to a pediatric specialist because he ran out of options that he felt comfortable with for an infant that young. For 2 years, she saw the head of the Allergy and Immunology department at AI DuPont Children's Hospital every 2 to 3 months. For the first year of that process, it was a struggle just to keep things from getting worse. We tried everything. I went on a 5 food elimination diet while nursing twins (not eliminating 5 foods, I could only EAT 5 foods), we bathed her in distilled water, she had a rotation schedule for her medications for the eczema, which at times was open or scabbed skin that covered almost 2/3 of her body. That meant that she was prone to bacterial infections, which had to be treated with topical or oral antibiotics (usually topical) which then caused fungal infections. It was no joy ride, that's for sure. By the time she was 2 and a half, we had her skin pretty well controlled. It was just before that when she started complaining of "owies in her head". So, at 2 and a half, she was diagnosed with classic migraine headaches. They run in the family, with juvenile onset even, but not at 2 and a half. She still has migraines and eczema, and has had an increasing record of poor weight gain and low grade fevers. She also went through an extended period of frequent vomiting. As we learned more about eosinophilic disease with Cassidy and struggled to get her health under control, we saw Chloe start to go down hill rapidly as well.

When Chloe started complaining of chest pain (Cassidy's biggest symptom), I took her to the pediatrician to get a referral to the same specialist that Cassidy sees, Dr. A. At that visit, we learned that while she has gotten taller, she has not gained any weight for a year and a half. The regular doctor referred her over immediately, and before we even reached the first appointment with Dr. A, she started to have episodes of dysphagia, which means trouble swallowing or, in her case, food getting stuck in the esophagus. Dr. A moved her into an urgent slot and saw her immediately. Within a few weeks, he had her in the O.R. for scopes and biopsies. I started this post in the surgical waiting room at AI DuPont, while Chloe was having her upper endoscopy, colonoscopy and biopsies. She did pretty well with the procedures, and now we are waiting for the lab results so we know exactly what we are dealing with. I have seen a huge show of support from friends and family, which we all deeply appreciate.

Assuming that Chloe's diagnosis of an eosinophilic disease is confirmed with the biopsies, which is highly likely, we can only hope that it is no more severe than Cassidy's, that it is confined to the esophagus which is much easier and safer to treat, and that her list of forbidden foods is at least partially the same as Cassidy's. In order to have a diagnosis of EoE, biopsy results must show at least 15 eosinophils in at least 2 high power fields in biopsies of the esophagus. Cassidy's biopsies showed 50-60 eosinophils per high power field in each of 11 different biopsies taken of her esophagus. How Chloe's numbers compare to those remains to be seen, but we should have at least some answers from the lab by the end of this week.

I will be sure to post updates here on the blog for friends and family members, or concerned readers. Please leave me a comment or send me a message if you have any thoughts, questions, or words of support.

For more information about eosinophilic diseases, please visit www.apfed.org.

Bagels Every Sunday

2012-03-25T20:49:00.000-04:00

In our family, Sunday is the ONLY day that NONE of us have work, school, activities or anything else. It is our official family day, and we are pretty stingy with it. Most Sundays we spend at home just enjoying not having to go anywhere. Depending on the weather and season, sometimes we garden (while the kids play outside or help, their choice), sometimes we spend the afternoon canning stuff from the garden, sometimes we do crafty stuff, sometimes we sit around all day and don't do a darn thing.

Regardless of what we spend the bulk of the day doing, I almost always make fresh bagels. While it is a 2 step process, they are not difficult, and they are easy to make without any of Cassidy's allergens. Since they also freeze well I've started making 2 batches so we have a couple of different flavors, although by Tuesday we have yet to have any left over to freeze! As far as Mark and I, our current favorite is jalapeno cheddar, but we like them pretty spicy, so the only kid that will eat them is River. I'm on the last jar of jalapenos that we canned last summer, though, so in another week or two I'll have to try something new. As for the minions, they really like fruit bagels. Sometimes we make cinnamon raisin, and 2 weeks ago we had fresh blueberries so we used those which they loved. But the current favorite is cherry vanilla. Someone told me that Panera has a cherry vanilla bagel, but I have never had one so I don't know how my recipe compares. Regardless, I'd love to know what you think if you try any of my bagel recipes!

Please note that while I really don't care for instant yeast for making bread, I do use it in my bagel recipes. ALWAYS make sure you are using the kind of yeast that a recipe calls for, or things will usually not turn out as planned :)

Let's start with one for the kiddos, just scroll down for the jalapeno cheddar variation.

Cherry Vanilla Bagels (dairy, egg and nut free!)
yield: 8 bagels

Ingredients:

4 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tsps instant yeast
about 1/2 cup of dried cherries, coarsely chopped
1-1/4 cups of warm water

Dump everything into a mixing bowl and combine until it all comes together to form a stiff dough. If it is too sticky, add a little flour, or if it is so stiff that you cannot get all of the flour mixed in, add a little more water.
Turn the dough out onto a clean counter and knead for 10 minutes or so until it is smooth and uniform in texture.
Divide dough into 8 even dough balls, and set them aside for about 20 minutes.
Once the dough has rested, put a large pot of water on to boil. I use a stock pot because I can fit more bagels in it at once, but you could use a saucepan and just do fewer at a time. Some people even use a deep frying pan with just a few inches of water in it.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and grease a large cookie sheet generously with vegetable oil.
Take each dough ball and use your thumbs to make a hole in the center, stretching it gently to be about an inch in diameter. Some people prefer to hand roll bagels, but this method works just fine for me.
Set the bagels aside on the counter for another 15-20 minutes. By the end of this time, they should look a little puffier, and the water should be boiling.
Carefully drop the bagels into the water one at a time, you'll have to do this in batches. Don't over crowd them! The bagels should float.
Boil them for 2 minutes,then flip them over with tongs and boil for another minute or two.
Take them out and set them on a plate to dry a little.
Go ahead and add the next batch to the water, and after you turn them, move the first batch over to the prepared cookie sheet and dry the plate so the ones boiling have a place to dry.
Continue this until all of the bagels are on the cookie sheet, then pop it in the oven for 22 minutes. Since ovens vary, you might want to peek at the bottom of one after 20 minutes to make sure they aren't getting too dark.
Take them out and let them cool for another 20 minutes.
We love these with plain cream cheese, but I bet if you mixed some cherry preserves into plain cream cheese it would also be good. For Cassidy, since she is allergic to dairy, we use Tofutti dairy free cream cheese substitute.

Jalapeno Cheddar Bagels **Please note that these DO contain DAIRY!!**
yield: 8 bagels

Ingredients:

4 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tsps instant yeast
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
about 1/8 cup chopped jalapeno slices, more or less to taste (use the kind that you buy in a jar, we use the ones we can from our garden)
1-1/2 cups of warm water

Combine everything in a mixing bowl until it forms a stiff dough. Add a little more flour if it is too sticky, a little more water if you can't get all the flour worked in.
Turn the dough out onto the counter and knead it until it is smooth and a uniform texture. Take care not to touch your face until after you have washed your hands, the hot peppers can burn your eyes. Divide the dough into 8 equal balls and set aside for 20 minutes.
Once the dough has rested, put a large pot of water on to boil.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and grease a large cookie sheet generously with vegetable oil.
Take each dough ball and use your thumbs to make a hole in the center, stretching it gently to be about an inch in diameter.
Set the bagels aside on the counter for another 15-20 minutes. By the end of this time, they should look a little puffier, and the water should be boiling.
Carefully drop the bagels into the water one at a time, you'll have to do this in batches. Don't over crowd them! The bagels should float.
Boil them for 2 minutes,then flip them over with tongs and boil for another minute or two. Take them out and set them on a plate to dry a little.
Go ahead and add the next batch to the water, and after you turn them, move the first batch over to the prepared cookie sheet and dry the plate so the ones boiling have a place to dry. Continue this until all of the bagels are on the cookie sheet, then bake for 22 minutes.
Since ovens vary, you might want to peek at the bottom of one after 20 minutes to make sure they aren't getting too dark.
Take them out and let them cool for another 20 minutes.

We also like these with plain cream cheese, or jalapeno cream cheese. They also make excellent pizza bagels! Just slice them in half and top with pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzerella and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or so, until the cheese is melted and slightly brown on top. Yum!

Now that I think of it, maybe my next creation will be a pizza flavored bagel, with the sauce, mozz and pepperoni baked right in...stay tuned, if it works out I'll be sure to share!

What the heck is EoE?

2012-03-17T23:50:00.004-04:00

I have mentioned before that I realize that we have not had much of a winter this year. The weather was unbelievably mild. That doesn't mean I am any less appreciative of the spring! Spring and summer are by far my favorite times of the year. i don't even mind the extra rainy days during the early spring. During the worst part of the winter, we (and by "we" I mean my awesome husband) are busy planning our gardens for the year. We double check our supply of canning jars and organize our planting charts for the season. By late February, we have seedlings started inside and are counting the days until we can start hardening them off. Once St. Patrick's day rolls around, the cool weather veggies, like the peas, are in the ground and already sprouting and the apple tree is pruned. The blueberry hedges, plum tree and fig tree have new buds growing and the forsythia is starting to bloom. As much as it sounds like a cliche, it is a time for new growth and possibilities.

This time last year, Cassidy, at the age of 6, had just been referred to a specialist at AI DuPont Children's Hospital. Friends and family would ask how Cassidy was doing, and we would say "Well, honestly, Cassidy isn't doing too well..." but we had no concrete answer as to why. She had been complaining of chest pain as well as a bad sore throat for almost 3 years without anyone being able to determine the reason. She always had circles under her eyes and she grew overly tired easily. She had a persistent dry cough, and frequently ran low grade fevers. By low grade, I mean right around 100 degrees, and by often I mean 3-5 times a week. Almost every week. She had already had her huge adenoids and enormous tonsils removed. It was a group of nondescript and fairly minor symptoms, but they never went away. She had never been a picky eater, but we noticed her eating less. While she has always been tall and thin (so are Mark and I), we noticed that she seemed even thinner than usual, so we took her back to the doctor, yet again. We discovered that she had been losing weight. Around the same time, she started having severe lower abdominal pain several times a week. Our regular pediatrician, despite the fact that all of the tests he had run for her came back normal, agreed that something must be wrong. He told me bluntly that no matter how long the list of normal test results was and no matter how minor and nondescript the symptoms were, that Cassidy was MY child, and if my gut instinct said that this was something bigger, then that was more than enough for him. All pediatric physicians should be as AWESOME as our guy.

And so, because the pain was in the chest (along with fatigue, coughing and weight loss) and in the tummy (along with sore throat, fevers and again, weight loss) he referred us on to the cardiology team and the gastroenterology team at the children's hospital. We saw cardiology first, and they quickly cleared Cassidy, which was a relief. Then we saw the gastroenterologist. At first, he was also stumped. He tried a few things, but nothing offered relief. Eventually, as symptoms escalated and we had no answers, he felt that he had no choice but to look inside. Cassidy was scheduled for an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy with tissue biopsies in June 2011. Even the doctor was not sure what he was looking for, but in his own words, a child living with daily pain and no known cause and therefore relief was, in his practice, unacceptable. Things looked fairly normal during the scope, so we initially felt relieved but also frustrated. If everything looked normal, what was the problem? Still, loved ones were asking, and we still answered "Well, honestly, Cassidy isn't doing too well..."

Then the labs came back.

That phone call, with the lab results, was the first time I had ever heard the term Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Quite a mouthful, although at this point even my 3 year old can pronounce it. While still considered a rare disease, as are all eosinophilic diseases, it is being diagnosed more often. This is what it means, in a nutshell. Eosionophilic Esophagitis, or EoE for short, is one of a group of diseases called Eosinophilic Gastro Intestinal Diseases (EGIDs), and is, in some ways, an auto-immune disease because it causes the body to attack itself. One distinct characteristic is that is triggered, usually, by food allergies, so in that sense it is an allergic disease. It is not characterized by traditional food allergies or allergic responses. When my daughter eats foods that she is allergic to, rather that a rash or wheezing, her digestive system, specifically her esophagus, attacks itself. The reaction can develop and intensify over weeks after a single or several days worth of exposure to a food. Her body releases a specific type of white blood cell (eosinophils) which then build up and infiltrate the tissues of her esophagus, causing damage. This causes inflammation, pain, scarring and in some people difficulty swallowing or episodes of dysphagia and impaction, or food getting stuck in the esophagus. It causes chest, throat and abdominal pain and can make food taste different and make swallowing very painful. In addition, sometimes the child feels full too early which, along the pain of swallowing, causes them to not eat enough. This can lead to weight loss, malnutrition, fatigue and stunted growth. Some children vomit frequently. These problems then lead to classic symptoms of lack of nourishment, including joint pain, headaches and bloating. All of this combined usually means trouble sleeping and mood changes (you'd be pissed all the time too, if you were exhausted, hungry and in pain).

To quote, APFED, a patient advocacy and awareness group for eosinophilic diseases,

"Since none of these symptoms are specific for EGID, and many occur at times in healthy children or adults, the diagnosis is generally sought only after the symptoms have failed to resolve. Eosinophilic disorders can mimic the symptoms of other diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, food allergies, irritable bowel syndrome and reflux, among others."

While not generally a life threatening disease on it's own, it is certainly life altering. Once we had a diagnosis, we had to determine the allergens. We kept a food diary for 2 weeks to help determine which foods we should test for, then we went though 3 different kinds of allergy testing. Scratch testing, which is histamine based, turned up peanuts and cauliflower. Blood testing, which looks for antibodies in the blood, also showed peanuts and added dairy and eggs. then we went for patch testing. This looks for a different type of reaction, one that is delayed and happens on a cellular level. Samples of actual foods are placed in small cups and taped to the child's back for 2 full days. Then they are removed and rinsed off. 24 hours later, the results are read. Sounds like nothing much would turn up with that type of waiting, but we were stunned. When we removed the samples, her back looked like this:

The next afternoon, when we went to see the allergist, one small area looked like the picture to the left. That big angry blister that would break open later and leave a scar for months? That was zucchini. To the left of it, with smaller but still distinct and painful reactions, were apples and bananas. The full list from the patch testing? Apples, bananas, cucumbers, cantaloupe, zucchini and corn. This is in addition to the dairy, eggs, peanuts and cauliflower. We have since determined that she can tolerate corn after all, but so far that is the only addition. Some foods, like zucchini and dairy, we can't even test for tolerance.
We had spent the summer growing our own organic vegetables, which she loves, and feeding them to Cassidy. Cauliflower soup, zucchini bread, cucumbers, you name it. Now we know that it was making her sick. Very sick.

By August, we had the full list of foods that she had to avoid, and we were very strict about it. She is not a picky eater, but in addition to the difficult symptoms associated with the disease, we had to remove dairy. Soy and rice substitutes were fine with Cassidy, but lack the fat content of dairy. By September, the nutritionist told us that if she lost any more weight, literally one more pound, we would have to seriously discuss placing a feeding tube. We barely avoided that, but while she reported an improvement in the chest and throat pain, her bouts of lower abdominal pain were becoming more frequent and severe. I'll cut to the chase. Her repeat upper endoscopy in November showed normal biopsies of her esophagus. The dietary restrictions and medications worked, and as long as she sticks to it she should be OK. She could develop new allergies later, but that can be dealt with when the time comes. Her colonoscopy, however, showed mild to moderate microscopic inflammation throughout her entire colon. In the first set of scopes, there was inflammation but it was patchy. The fact that it is now covering the entire colon means that it has gotten worse. By now she was already on anti-spasmodic medication (to control painful muscle spasms) as needed for pain, and she was needing it 3-5 days a week. As a result of the test results, she has since been diagnosed with microscopic colitis, and is now on additional medication, commonly used to treat more pronounced Inflamatory Bowel Diseaeses like Crohn's Disease, for that. It seems to be working, and she is needing the anti-spasmodic meds less often. She also reports to us that while she still always has lower abdominal pain, it is less severe than it was. She has gained 7 lbs since September and is feeling better in general.

Compared to many children with EoE, Cassidy's presentation was not terrible. Some children are allergic to almost all foods, and get all of their nutrition through feeding tubes. Some get sick at a much younger age and some do not respond as well to the treatments. As far as the colitis, it is also considered by some doctors to be an auto-immune disease, meaning that the body's own immune system attacks itself. Earlier in this post, I quoted APFED as saying that eosinophilic disorders can mimic the symptoms of other diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, food allergies, irritable bowel syndrome and reflux, among others. They can also happen IN ADDITION TO these other diseases, which is important to remember since the treatments for the different diseases vary. The dietary restrictions and medication for Cassidy's EoE carry no side effects, however her Crohn's meds do, and Cassidy does experience some of these including headaches, dizziness and mild nausea. She says, however, that the relief that she gains from the medications is worth the side effects. Neither disease is one that will be outgrown. Microscopic colitis, like Crohn's disease, has remissions and flares, but is commonly life long. EoE is not typically outgrown, although allergens and triggers can change over time.

This year, we planned the garden without zucchini and cauliflower, at least for now. We don't all avoid all of her allergens, but we do try to avoid flaunting her absolute favorites right in front of her. She has done a great job as far as adapting to her situation, and is very responsible about following her dietary restrictions. She reads labels herself and if she is unsure of ingredients she just eats something else. She has told us that at one point before she was diagnosed with EoE, she felt so sick and was in enough pain that she thought that first scope would end up diagnosing her with cancer, so when she does get frustrated, she remembers that and her the current situation is actually a relief. This is her own perspective, and she is now 7 years old. It reminds me to be to be thankful that while her diseases are life altering, they are not generally life threatening, and that as many times as we have gone to the hospital and O.R. for tests and procedures, we have all come home together.

Many times, people have asked me exactly what the situation is with Cassidy and her illness(es) and food allergies, so I thought the simplest way to explain to many would be to lay it out here. This is definitely an abbreviated version of our story, so I absolutely welcome any questions or comments that any readers or friends may have. In the mean time, putting all of this into writing, especially Cassidy's own perspective, reminds me of one thing that I believe strongly in, which is that gratitude makes what we have enough. Also, perhaps it will help my readers to understand why I'm only posting once every week to 10 days. You see, In addition to Cassidy, I have 3 other children. The twins, Quinn and Chloe, will be 5 in several weeks. How are they, you ask? Well, honestly, just like Cassidy at this age, now it's Chloe that isn't doing too well.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, allergy safe!

2012-03-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

My, oh my it has been a busy couple of weeks! We have had so much going on, and after this week the rest of March is already pretty tightly booked. My Etsy shop needs serious attention as does my laundry and house, but so have my kids and they always come first. After a rough weekend (Friday night trip to the emergency room with River when she bit through the sides of her tongue, which was every bit as awful as it sounds, followed by a 24 hour stomach virus for me), I started the week 2 days behind in my projects with deadlines. Despite this, on Monday I made a "executive decision" to have coffee with a friend instead if catching up on my projects during the hours that I normally work while the youngest kids are in preschool . After the weekend we had, I deserved it, and it was well worth it. I left feeling refreshed and reconnected with the world just from the simple act of casual conversation. Thanks Cristin! I also have a new sewing tutorial in the works, inspired by that conversation and my attempts to scribble a sewing lesson on a paper napkin. It's really for Cristin, but maybe some of you will enjoy it as well. Stay tuned for that, hopefully this weekend! So Monday afternoon, I did get white bread baked for the week as well as banana bread, but between ballet lessons, homework and bedtime, not much else.

I planned on getting caught up on Tuesday, since Mark was home all day too, but we ended up having company most of the day. First my mom and a fantastic friend recently home from a military deployment. Nothing that I had to do held priority over that visit. Then my in-laws, who always understand when I need to work while they are visiting, but I ended up hanging out instead. By evening, Chloe was running a fever. Never a dull moment.

As for me, I think the down time was a wise choice, because today not only did I get almost completely caught up (and by now I was 4 days behind!), but also played outside with the kids a bit, straightened the bedrooms, helped with homework, made dinner, cleaned the kitchen and did 4 loads of laundry. I never would have gotten caught up on work if Mark had not entertained the little ones today (and he got the garden tilled to boot!), and if work had been hanging over my head I never would have had the (semi) focus and drive to get everything else done. Especially since, other than the laundry which I had running while I was downstairs working, I did everything else that I listed after he went to work for the night. The kids were all completely not whiny or argumentative, either, which is always a bonus.

I decided that we all deserved a treat, and since It was an hour too early for a martini for me (vodka, dirty and slightly dry, 2 olives, please!) and Chloe, who has been eating next to nothing for weeks, has been asking for chocolate chip cookies, that seemed like a great idea. The only problem was that my old standby recipe that used to be allergy safe for Cassidy contains applesauce (important since it is egg and dairy free) and she now clearly has a pronounced reaction to apples. So I poked around in the kitchen for a bit and tried out a new allergy safe version. Lucky for us, they turned out really well, and made plenty. Luck for you, I'm going to share the recipe with you all now!

Allergy Safe Chocolate Chip Cookies
yield: about 30 cookies

3/4 cup non-dairy margarine (I use Earth Balance), softened
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
3 Tbsp. soy milk (if avoiding soy, use coconut milk)
1 1/2 Tbsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp non-dairy cream cheese (or vegetable shortening, in a pinch)
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup allergy safe mini chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life brand)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together the first 5 ingredients (margarine, brown sugar, soy or coconut milk, vanilla and cream cheese/shortening) until smooth.
Mix everything else except the chocolate chips (flour, baking soda, baking flour and salt) with a whisk and gradually add to the sugar mixture, beating well.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 13 minutes.
Let cool slightly on the sheet, then move to a wire cooling rack.

I'd love to know what you think of this recipe, so feel free to leave me a comment!

Now, since the kids are in bed, I must get back to my martini...

Real Chocolate Syrup, dairy and corn syrup free!

2012-02-28T11:40:00.000-05:00

Before I get started, if you look to the right, you will see that you can now subscribe to my blog via email. I know some of you noticed this already, because the number of email subscriptions that I can see on my end is growing! You can also follow the blog using your existing Google, Yahoo or Twitter account, just scroll down a bit to the bottom of the right hand column for that option.

By now most people reading this know that we make a lot of our daily food from scratch. We both enjoy cooking, but there are other reasons. Sometimes due to family food allergies, usually because it tastes better, almost always because it is healthier. There is a 4th reason that only applies to some of the recipes, and that is because even if a healthy, allergy friendly version is readily available and affordable, dumping a few ingredients in a pot and stirring is ten thousand times easier than taking 4 small kids to the grocery store to buy, for example, chocolate syrup.

So that's how this recipe happened for the first time. Added bonuses for us are that it is non dairy (some dairy free versions are at most grocery stores) and high fructose corn syrup free (not so readily available at the store) and while it does contain plenty of sugar, it's a bit more chocolatey and a touch less sweet. But those last 3 are just the reasons that I keep making it, batch after batch. It all started with me not wanting to drag the 4 minions out to the store on a cold, rainy evening.

It's so easy that I bet you'll start making your own, too.

Allergy Friendly Chocolate Syrup

1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
dash of salt
2 tsp. vanilla

Combine everything except the vanilla in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir constantly with a whisk until the mixture starts to simmer and thicken. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Let it cool a little, but you can enjoy it warm over ice cream or brownies or cold in chocolate milk (or rice milk, or soy milk). Make sure you store it in the fridge. We put ours in an empty ketchup bottle that we washed out and saved because it is easy to squirt onto or into things, but a mason jar or tupperware work too.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dessert and Drink for the winter blahs, part 2

2012-02-21T21:39:00.000-05:00

I guess technically the last post, with the Cranberry Currant Pie recipe, was the dessert, and this one is the drinks. Oh well. As you may have read about here, I pretty much had my ass handed to me by daily life last week. So I took an extra day to get around to posting my favorite holiday drink recipes. It'll be worth it, I promise. You may even find something here that becomes a holiday favorite of your own. Help yourself, share with your friends, and if you do find something that you love, leave me a comment, follow my blog by email or whatever your preferred method is, share my post on Facebook or pin me on Pinterest. It will inspire me to keep the recipes coming while I finish putting together a couple of free sewing and craft tutorials that I'm working on!

On to the important stuff. My current favorite, which I'm sipping happily while I put this post together, is Holiday Cranberry Mulled Wine. I love red wine, and I don't generally like especially sweet drinks (although if sweet is your thing, there is a decadent, rich Peppermint Kiss recipe later in this post). So this drink is toasty warm and tangy. The other thing about this recipe is that it is fast to make as far as mulled wines go. The recipe calls for unsweetened cranberry juice. Look for it in the natural foods section of the store if you can't find it in the juice aisle, or at a health food store. It will have a completely different flavor (one that is too sweet for me) if you use a cranberry blend or cranberry juice cocktail.

Holiday Cranberry Mulled Wine

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cranberry juice (I use R.W. Knudsen brand)
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
4 whole cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1 cinnamon stick
2 cups dry red wine

Mix everything except the wine in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 to 7 minutes, uncovered.
Remove from the heat and stir in the wine. Serve warm. If you like, you can garnish with a cinnamon stick.

If you prefer something sweeter, actually quite a bit sweeter, the Peppermint Kiss may be the drink for you. I don't care for drinks this rich very often but once in a while, usually on Christmas day, I have a serious craving for one. It's almost like a dessert by itself.

The Peppermint Kiss

1/4 cup half & half
1 1/2 oz Godiva chocolate liqueur
1 1/2 oz creme de cocoa (dark)
splash of peppermint schnapps

Toss it in a shaker and give it it hell. I recommend putting it in a martini glass rimmed with peppermint schnapps and crushed peppermint candy. 'Cause you deserve it that way, that's why!

My last offering for this post is the Spiced Pear on the Rocks. This is a favorite of mine in the fall as well as the spring. Splurge on the vanilla vodka and really good unsweetened pear juice!

Spiced Pear on the Rocks

Using a lemon wedge to wet the edge, rim a glass with cinnamon sugar.
Pour equal parts vanilla vodka and pear juice (again, I use R.W. Knudsen brand) in a shaker with ice and a generous pinch of powdered sugar.
Shake away.
Pour, over ice, into prepared glass.

A variation that I also enjoy is to use a chilled martini glass instead and add a splash of dry vermouth, for a Spiced Pear Martini. Be careful, they go down really easily!

Dessert and Drinks for the winter blahs

2012-02-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not a big fan of the winter months, and that's putting it mildly. I don't like to be cold, I don't like slushing through snow with kids, trying to be on time for preschool when I'd rather be at home with a hot cup of coffee on a warm couch. I can admit that right after a fresh snowfall, it is beautiful. But then the cars drive through it and just leave ugly, slippery grey slush all over and eventually I also have to venture out in the mess, and the magic of the pristine scenery is lost. Winter holidays are great, I'll admit that. I'm working on enjoying Valentine's Day more, which you can read about here, and I love Christmas. It's a favorite holiday of mine for several reasons, including the snacks and spirits! There are a few staple dessert and drink recipes that I don't make throughout the year, but, as a general rule, save for the several weeks encompassing Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once in a while, when the glow of December has faded but the first glimmer of spring hasn't arrived, I treat myself to one of my favorite winter holiday desserts or cocktails (or both) to temporarily warm me up. We haven't had much in the way of winter this year, but it's been pretty cold off and on which is enough to inspire me to have some dessert and booze.

This is one that is requested by other family members at gatherings during the fall and early winter, Cranberry Currant Pie. It is made with tangy fresh cranberries, and the tiny dried Zante currants (also simply called currants) add interest and a bit of sweetness. For some reason, I always use the pie crust trimmings to cut out little stars for the top and sprinkle it with coarse sugar, so it has sort of become the signature look for this pie in our family. As an added bonus, this recipe is allergy friendly for my oldest daughter. In addition to the various fruits and vegetables that she cannot eat, this pie is also dairy, egg and nut free and is suitable for vegan baking.

Start with your favorite pie crust. Make sure you have enough for 2 crusts, one for the bottom crust and one to put on top. Usually, I just use Pillsbury pie crust. They are readily available, easy and also free of dairy, eggs and nuts. Plus, I have not yet perfected from-scratch pie crust like my grandmother's!

You will also need:

3 cups of fresh cranberries
3/4 to 1 cup of dried currants
1 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
5 tbsp. cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp orange extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees. Prepare the bottom crust by rolling it out and placing it in a 9 inch pie plate.

Rinse the cranberries and currants in cold water, then chop them coarsely by putting them in a food processor and pulsing a few times. You don't want to crush or puree them, just roughly chop them up a little bit. Pour them into the pie crust and set aside for now.

Using a whisk, mix the sugar, salt, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg together in a mixing bowl. Add the water, lemon juice and vanilla & orange extracts. This mixture will probably be pretty thick, and that's fine.

Pour this over the cranberries in the pie plate, as evenly as you can. Since the mixture is thick, it may seem to sit on top, but it's ok, it will settle in and distribute itself while the pie bakes.

Top with the second crust and trim off the excess from the edges. Crimp or pinch around the edges to seal. I use the scraps of crust to roll out again and cut out little stars (or whatever shape you prefer). Brush the backs of the stars with water and lay them out across the top of the pie. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown. Check on it after about 35 minutes, and if the edges are starting to brown too early, cover them with strips of aluminum foil to keep them from burning during the rest of the baking time.

Once the pie is finished, cool completely on a wire baking rack before slicing.

Check back tomorrow for my favorite cranberry drink recipes, and I'd love to know what you think of the pie!

I Need a Drink...Seriously...

2012-02-17T22:46:00.000-05:00

Where to begin. The end of last week Cassidy missed 2 days of school to have some testing done, which was quite a process. We ended the weekend a bit drained, but this week started well enough. As you may know from my Valentine's Day post, last year's "V-Day is as much fun as VD" nightmare, which you can read about here, did not repeat itself, plus I got to make some cute clothes for the kids. On Monday, the 3 younger kids delivered their valentines to preschool, and I didn't even forget the cupcakes I signed up to bring for River's class. The afternoon went well despite Mark and I having stomach aches, I got my V-Day blog posted and when I took Cassidy and Chloe to ballet I got to chat with my friends at the dance studio. Their daughter is in Chloe's ballet class, and they share my sarcasm and lack of subtlety, so that is always a treat. Probably more so for us than for those sitting around us, but whatever. Chloe is having some significant health issues and has some appointments coming up, so it was nice to unload some of that stress on someone as well...thanks, Tricia!

At this point, I should add that if you are really only here for the martini recipe ,more power to you, just scroll down to the bottom of this post. If you want to know why I needed it in particular this evening, read on.

Then it started. Exactly 30 minutes after I packed up the girls and left the dance studio, River and Chloe stood on opposite corners of the living room rug (the only area rug in our hardwood floored house with the exception of a little heart shaped throw rug in the girls' room) and literally took turns puking towards each other for a full minute. That might not sound like long, but for 2 vomiting kids, it's plenty long enough. They were like a matched pair of fountains. Fountains of nastiness. So we dealt with that and got their hair washed and everyone into pajamas. Both of them wanted something to drink, so we filled up their cups and put all 4 kids to bed. Chloe was in our bed, and Quinn was snuggled up in there with her. River and Cassidy were in their room, and since River wasn't feeling well, Cassidy offered to stay down (she sleeps in the top bunk of the bunk bed, Chloe is usually in the bottom, River has the trundle bed) and read to her. As soon as Mark and I finished steam cleaning the rug, putting the nastiness from the clean-up effort in the washing machine and sat down on the couch, River threw up again. This time all over the only other (tiny) rug in the house and all over Cassidy, poor kid. I helped Cass get cleaned up, Mark put River in the tub (again) and as he was dressing her in clean pjs and I was cleaning up the rest of the mess and getting ready to set up the Stomach Virus System (seriously, we have it down to a science. It's a post in and of itself, but one for another day..."How to Survive a Stomach Bug with Small Children"...), Chloe hurls all over our bed. Luckily, Quinn dashed out of the way in time and into the dry safety of his own room. This time, Mark cleaned the room while I bathed the kid. Then he dressed her and cuddled with her while I tucked River back in and set up our room to survive the night. None of the 4 of us got much sleep, as it continued through the night, but at least Cass and Quinn did, and they never got sick.

The next day, Tuesday, Cass went to school and by 10am, the sick girls were perking up some. Then Quinn was standing on River's bed (which is not allowed) and he fell, landing with his chest right on the corner of the trundle drawer. We seriously thought he may have cracked a rib, but after examining him and keeping an eye on him for a couple of hours decided it was just badly bruised. An hour later, when he finally started moving around again and came running down the hall, he slammed into the corner of a table with his hip, laying himself out flat on the floor. Another ice pack and rest, and we moved on. Before Cassidy even got home from school, he had tripped in the living room and busted the whole side of his lip open. More blood, note to self-get RED washcloths for these accidents, like my mom always told me to, so he doesn't see the blood on it, more ice in the form of a popsicle, then Cassidy got home. Mark had to work late, so I was solo for dinner and bedtime again. Chloe fell asleep on the couch, so I just moved her into bed. By the time I was getting the other kids' teeth brushed, she had woken up with a nightmare about medical testing that she will be having in the next month or so. She ended up waiting for Daddy to come home from a late job before she could sleep again, and even then it had to be in our room with me. At least this time there was no vomit involved.

She woke up 4 more times that night crying and shaking. It sucked for her the most, and both of us started Wednesday off with very little sleep. Despite this, all 4 kids went to school/preschool, and I managed to get my oil changed, ship out some packages to customers of mine from my Etsy shop, stop at the grocery store and finalize the details of the donations that I have planned for the preschool fundraiser next month, all in the 2 hours that the little ones are at preschool. Things seemed to be looking up. When I picked the kids up from preschool, the twins' teacher noted that they had a special treat, cupcakes, at snack time, and Chloe had refused to eat. She was withdrawn all the way home, and didn't start to come around until she got to snuggle in her Daddy's lap for almost an hour. What it boiled down to was that the pain in her throat, chest and stomach (part of the reason for the doctor's appointments coming up) is now so bad that she didn't want to swallow. I coaxed her into a snack, and Mark dropped Cassidy off from school then went to work for the night.

In the 4 hours between Mark leaving and bedtime, Quinn took a header off the couch while playing tug of war with the dog and landed squarely on the back of his head on the hardwood floor, Cassidy threw an uncharacteristic and huge tantrum which included screaming at her currently emotionally fragile sister for trying to comfort her (seriously, what the hell?) River fell off the kitchen stool and limped for almost an hour, Quinn stood on one of River's new birthday gifts, breaking it and hurting his leg (not the one he slammed into the table on Tuesday, the other leg), I tripped and fell on the basement stairs (I freaking HATE those stairs), and Chloe, poor, sweet Chloe, calmly and sadly explained to me that until her nightmares stop, she just isn't going to sleep anymore. I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up. It was like a parody of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. But when you have kids, shit happens and you have days like this, hopefully not often, and sometimes you just have to suck it up. Everyone goes to bed. Tomorrow is another day, plus I'm working, so Grammie (that's my mom) is taking the 3 little minions while Cassidy is at school. Thanks, Mom! Again with Chloe's nightmares all night, but the world doesn't stop for this stuff. On to Thursday.

The day starts with another freak out from Cassidy. It turns out a kid at school is giving her a hard time. We offer coping strategies, but she still has to go to school. She has already missed so much this year, including last week, with her own health issues, procedures and trips to the O.R. for scopes. Mark manages to have her laughing by the time he drops her off, scoring major daddy (and husband) points. Mom picks up the other kids, early even, and the rest of the day starts. It goes pretty well, I got some work done despite a migraine creeping in (is it any wonder at this point in the week?), and Cassidy had a great day after all. Then I talk to my mom when I pick the kids up. She is aware of Chloe's physical concerns, which include pain, fatigue and not having gained any weight for 17 months (she's 4 1/2, so that is a major concern. It even won us an expedited appointment with the gastroenterology specialist at AI DuPont). Mom was ready today with some of Chloe's favorite foods. The problem, however, is that Chloe is now experiencing distinct episodes of dysphagia, or food getting stuck in her esophagus. She had complained of the sensation recently, but now it is happening to the point that she is gagging and coughing and the food isn't moving. It hasn't blocked her airway yet, and it has eventually moved down on it's own, but it still isn't good. My mom is a nurse practitioner and has worked in women's health as well as pediatrics (the 2 sort of go together), and she is alarmed and concerned by this development, as am I. The 3rd time it happened with bacon, she took it away and gave Chloe macaroni and cheese. That got stuck for a while, too, the only thing that Chloe swallowed easily all day was applesauce. The experience was understandably frightening to Chloe. Remember that she is afraid to sleep right now because of nightmares about testing procedures that are related to her pain and physical issues. Now, she is also afraid to eat. She refused all food until 9pm, at which point she ate a little applesauce. I made some chocolate pudding, but after a few bites she was afraid that it was too thick, and she said that she was too tired anyway and went to bed. But since she was afraid to sleep, she just laid there, exhausted and hungry, until Mark came home at 10:30. He brought more applesauce, yogurt and pudding for the next few days, and she finally felt secure enough to fall asleep in my arms. A few nightmares later, and it was morning again.

I woke up to the Billie Dog limping badly on one hind leg, but it seemed to get better as she moved around and has resolved now, thank goodness. Mark worked all day again, from 9am-10:30pm, only coming home for lunch. Chloe ate no solid food all day, only yogurt and applesauce in small amounts. Quinn managed to avoid hurting himself, but River somehow slid face first off the couch and had a whopping bloody nose. Cassidy didn't have much appetite and by bedtime needed her medication to control the muscle spams in her lower abdomen. Now everyone, including the dog, is asleep, and Mama needs a drink in a serious way. I've earned it today, and the whole week. I'm not sure when we will have some concrete answers for Chloe, or when Cassidy's pain will be better controlled, or when Quinn and River will learn a little more caution. But I am sure that I will enjoy a couple of my delicious Blueberry-Pomegranate Martinis. I also feel better having dumped all of that out in the open, so if you read through all of it, you deserve a martini, too! Even if you just scrolled down, I hope you enjoy the drink :)

Blueberry-Pomegranate Martini

In a cocktail shaker with ice, combine:

1/2 cup vodka
1/2 cup blueberry-pom juice (I use Pom brand, usually in the produce section)
the juice of 1 lime
a splash of vermouth

Shake it up and pour into a chilled glass. Feeling fancy? Rim the glass with pomegranate sugar and add some fresh blueberries for garnish. You deserve it. As for me, tonight, I'm considering drinking it straight out of the shaker...

Country White Bread

2012-02-17T16:12:00.000-05:00

I love making yeast bread. I know that some people feel that it's a pain, don't like waiting for it to rise, etc. Not me. Aside from the fact that I prefer fresh bread made from basic ingredients about a million to one over store bought mystery loaves, I actually enjoy the process of kneading the dough and punching it down after the first rise. In fact, lately I've found the idea of punching in general to be very therapeutic. Perhaps I'm a little extra cranky and sleep deprived. Since I don't walk around punching everyone that inspires me with such thoughts, the bread dough will do nicely. I have a couple of favorite white bread recipes. I bake most of the bread that we eat, and of the 2 recipes that I use the most, my current favorite is a dense, slightly sweet old fashioned country white bread with a soft crust. Since the whole family eats this stuff, it is egg, dairy and nut free. This recipe makes 2 loaves, so when I'm using it I bake bread twice a week for our family.

If you haven't baked yeast bread before, don't be scared off. This is an easy recipe, I promise. You do need to stick around while the dough rises, but I never understood why that was such a big deal for other people. You stick around the house, you don't have to stand there for an hour and stare at the dough. It's not like I don't have anything else to do. Vacuum the house, clean the bathroom, do some laundry. Even better, fill up a sippy cup and a coffee mug and snuggle up with your kid and a favorite book. Take a nap, have a beer, whatever. Just set a timer so you don't forget to check on the dough!

Country White Bread
yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients

2 cups warm water (make sure it's warm, for the yeast!)
1 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast (if you don't buy in bulk, this is 2 packets of yeast)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
about 6 cups of flour

Stir the sugar into the water until dissolved. Add the yeast and set aside for about 10 minutes until it looks creamy.
In the mean time, generously grease a mixing bowl (I use vegetable oil) and set it aside, too.
Once the yeast mixture looks creamy, stir in the salt and oil, then add the flour a cup or so at a time.
Once the dough is well formed, sprinkle a little flour on the counter and knead the dough until it is smooth.
Now put it in the greased mixing bowl, and flip it over once. This lightly greases the top to help keep it from drying out during the first rise. Cover the bowl with a clean, damp kitchen towel and leave it somewhere warm (most house temperatures are fine, as long as it is above 65 degrees) for about an hour, or longer if needed. The dough should rise enough to roughly double in size.
Next, punch the dough down (Just give it a good punch right in the middle, and watch it deflate a bit. For extra fun, pretend it is someone annoying that you thought about punching this week!), then flour the counter again and knead the dough for a few minutes.
Divide in half and shape each piece into a loaf, and place each in a greased loaf pan.
Cover again with the clean towel and leave again to rise. Usually this takes half an hour to an hour. The bread is ready when it is nicely mounded and probably about an inch above the edge of the pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

That's all there is to it. You can remove it from the pans as soon as you can touch it, and let it cool on a wire rack. This bread freezes well, although we rarely need to freeze any because it gets eaten so fast!

Valentine's Day, Part 2

2012-02-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that posting about the torturous process of last year's Valentine preparations was somewhat cleansing. Rehashing it made me really thankful that I started early and had the Big Kick machine to help cut out all of the shapes for most of them. The twins, in addition to helping with the assembly process, signed all of their own valentines this year. Once I got the supplies ready, Cassidy did hers all by herself, I made River's for her, which was fine with her as long as they had a gnome theme. Everything in River's world has a gnome theme. In fact, she is planning on being a gnome when she grows up.

Since the Valentine's themselves were finished with a few days to spare this year, I had a little extra time to let the kids come up with Valentine themed clothing ideas and do some sewing for them. It was nice because the kids got to come up with the ideas themselves, and then I got to sketch them and disappear into my sewing studio for a few hours to actually make the ideas into clothing. Plus, since all of my kids are tall and thin, we always have pants and leggings that are a couple of inches too short by the time they actually fit in the waist. Projects like these are perfect for adding embellishments to the hem of a pair of pants to make them longer and get a little extra wear out of them.

Quinn wanted a Yoda shirt with a heart. Lucky for him, I had a plain grey shirt that he had landed a big stain right in the middle of the first time he wore it. I had saved a picture on my phone of one that he liked, but I can't remember where I originally found it. I just drew out the basic applique shapes by hand and stitched them on, covering the stain. He loves it, and I'm pretty fond of it myself.

Chloe wanted to wear her favorite ladybug pillowcase dress, but to go with it she asked for black leggings with "BIG ruffles" and a headband with a "BIG heart". I did my best. The ruffles are a bit too big for my taste, but the little ladybug is happy, and she does look pretty darn cute. It's exactly what she wanted. Sometimes, you have give up grown up taste in exchange for an extra BIG smile from your kid. Totally worth it.

River, I suppose because of her obsession with gnomes, loves red and white polkadot fabric. She calls it "toadstool fabric". She asked for a "toadstool fabric comfy shirt" with hearts on it, and "valentine pants". The shirt was easy enough. I just made a basic peasant top with cute elastic detail on the sleeves. The sleeves aren't really 2 different lengths, by the way. The picture was just taken at a funky angle. I don't know what "valentine pants" are, but I dug out a pair of Cassidy's old white jeans with heart shaped pockets. They were too short for River, so I just added a polkadot band around the cuff that matched her shirt while adding the needed length. This is what it looked like in the end. I tried to get a picture of it on her, but she is too fast for the camera! You can see a close up of the appliques at the top of this post.

Cassidy just wanted a headband with heart antennae on it, and she also declined having her picture taken. Given what the kid has been through lately, including this past week, I didn't push the issue.

As I mentioned, before I could get down to the fun of creating these clothes for the minions, we had to complete their valentines for all of their classmates. Chloe thought up her own, Quinn and Cassidy adapted theirs from pictures they found online, and River just asked for a gnome theme. This is what the final products looked like:

Chloe's were little pink handbags made of card stock (cut out on the Big Kick, thank goodness). We stamped a message on the inside, "Friends are flowers that never fade", and attached a small packet of wildflower seeds in each one. For projects like these with the kids, those scrapbooking glue dots are awesome! Then she signed them and folded them closed, sealing each one with a heart sticker. Enjoyable and painless for everyone involved, just like it should be.

Quinn's were little plastic sandbox shovels with a scoop of mini Swedish fish attached with a bag. The tags (you guessed it, I cut them out with the machine!) said "I Dig You" with each child's name. He signed them on the back of the tags. I gathered the supplies while he signed his name, then he got to help me scoop the candy and I bagged them. Again, a smooth and pleasant process for both of us. We finished all of those the weekend before last, which meant fewer to get done the day before everyone needed them for classroom parties.

Cassidy was even easier. I busted out about 20 paper hearts on the now famous Big Kick, and punched the holes to attach the pipe cleaner arms and legs on 3 hearts at a time. I used a heart shaped paper punch to cut the smaller hearts for the hands and feet. then I gave all of it to Cassidy along with a pack of big googly eyes, a pen and some glue. She did the rest herself, including stapling a pack of heart shaped fruit snacks to the back of each one. She is very proud of them, had fun and they are super cute. Oh, and all of the teachers got little bags with the ingredients to make one s'more. For the bag toppers, I just printed them out on postcard sheets, folded them in half and stapled them on after we filled the bags assembly line style.

For River's, I got to disappear into my studio with a giant bag of Hershey's kisses, never a bad thing in my opinion. For each valentine, I put together 3 gnome kisses. You can find the project instructions including an easy way to make a template for the hats here. River did get to pick the felt colors for the hats. She chose pale pink, bright pink and red. We also got a large Hershey's kiss for each of her 3 teachers and made big gnome kisses out of those. I cut out the felt hats one night while I was watching a movie with the kids, and on Friday I assembled the kisses. For a while I had a cute but creepy little gnome army marching across my craft table. See the big kisses in the back? Then on Saturday, I bagged them all. For the bag toppers, I cranked out more shapes on my machine and stamped them with little girl gnomes and the words "To gnome you is to love you". I wasn't wild about stapling them together for 2 and 3 year old kids, so I just used the hole puncher to make 2 holes in each and tied a ribbon in them to hold everything together. Then I printed stickers out on the computer that read "Gnome kisses for Valentine's Day, From River". Little Bean got to help stick those on the backs, so I guess she did help a little.

So that was it. And I even had time to throw together the cupcakes that I signed up to bring to River's class party. We survived the preparations without any kid broken hearts, and without me needing a martini last night. I mean, I had one anyway, but not because of V-day crafting hell. It was Blueberry-pomegranate, if you must know, and it was delicious. Maybe, just maybe, I'll share that recipe with you later this week!