Mar. 13, 2009
Mercy's Progress with Propranalol
Head over to www.petersonclan.com to see our battles with the plague and other things... but yesterday we had a moment to breathe and noticed that MERCY'S HEMANGIOMA LOOKS GREAT! This is amazing since she only had 9 doses (3 days) then we needed to stop them due to her getting rotovirus at the hospital. BUT THE HEMANGIOMA CONTINUES TO CHANGE FOR THE BETTER!!! Here are photos from March 3 - the day before we started the propranalol.  And this was last night:     Can you just imagine how excited we are?!?! This morning it even looks flatter than these photos... wow. I'll keep everyone posted. |
Feb. 27, 2009
Garden Notes 2/ 27/ 09
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Don't forget to head over to www.petersonclan.com for daily posting on the PetersonClan's happenings! I will also be creating a garden list where we can all post about our garden's progress! So head on over there! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We finished our seed starting little greenhouse this week. And by WE I am not including myself... I mean my wonderful husband. Here is as best a photo as I can get, since it is a relatively small laundry room. You can see that the lights for the bottom shelf hang from the underside of the top shelf.  You can sort of see that the bottom shelf holds my trays that were started two weeks ago.  On the top shelf I had to put the peas I started two weeks ago because that shelf is taller. And I put the trays I started today. The lights for this row are hanging off the ceiling.  Mental note for next year: You may be able to start peas inside, but if you do it too early it is hard to prop them up.  My seedlings are doing great. Most of the plants are getting their second set of leaves. Here is broccoli:  Cauliflower:  Cabbage:  Lettuce:  Mint:  Basil: (I think these are the most adorable leaves...)  Today I planted tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, oregano, parsley, more lettuce, and a few more peas. I may regret the pea ones, but I figured what the heck, live a little.  |
Feb. 19, 2009
Garden Notes: 2/ 19/ 09
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Don't forget to head over to www.petersonclan.com for daily postings... or at least almost daily postings... I only use this blog when I am putting in photos as it is easier to work with for pictures... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This has been a big week for my plants... Eric finished the two shelves above my washer and dryer. They both measure 5 ' x 3 ' , and are big enough for at least 6 seed starting trays. We put flourescent lights to help add growing light... three fixtures (4 ' each ) hung on the ceiling for the top shelf, and three on the bottom, hung from the shelf above them. We are excited about this because this is sustainable, and helps us to eventually be less dependent on others for our food. I am also excited to claim previously dead space above the washer and dryer. Since a bigger house is out of the question right now, we are looking to wisely use every corner possible. Eventually I may even put a plastic "door" over the front and hooks on the ceiling for holding it out of the way so it can be like a true greenhouse. Last Thursday night I planted broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, mint, basil, lettuce, and a few of the sugar snap peas. I had never heard of peas being started inside, but I read about it in the "New Victory Garden" book I got off Paperback Swap. I figured it would be worth a try.  (This is a picture of the bottom shelf. I am saving milk jugs to punch holes in the bottom and let them slow drip into my outside boxes.) Each tray in the back has 98 spaces, and I probably got a 95% germination rate. We have the lights plugged into a power strip so I can turn them on in the morning and off at night.  This is my lettuce... there is now no longer any reason I cannot grow my own lettuce all year long. I'll need to thin some of it out... those seeds are really small. Mostly I tried to use only one seed in each thing so I don't waste too many.  Basil- it just sprouted yesterday.  Cauliflower...  Broccoli  Peas in the front, and cabbage in the back. There is only one small area of trouble in paradise. Remember when I said that we are bringing the hay (pecked over first by the chickens so we are not planting weed seeds into my garden...) and manure and filling my garden boxes? Well, the compost process produces heat. The dogs have discovered this, and taken to sleeping INSIDE MY BOXES at night... this is eventually going to cause a problem. Just like that, Eric has another job... building a FENCE around the garden spot... hehe. As if the poor guy needed another project to do for me. It is getting warmer (and our heater is FINALLY working right...), so we are looking forward to spring. And after a couple months of eating anemic tomatoes bought at Wal*Mart... I cannot wait until my sink looks like this:  |
Feb. 14, 2009
Some Seriously Good Eating
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[Don't forget to head over to our primary blog at www.petersonclan.com for daily postings!] Wow- folks.. have we been eating well on the Peterson Front. Those of you on a diet maybe should just keep on blog hopping. (Oh yeah- I'm on a diet. Well, it's on hold, I guess!) Yesterday was Eric's birthday. He loves cheesecake, so I purposed to make him a cheesecake from scratch. It was delicious! Here is a picture of the pie...  And here is what it looked like on our plates, after adding some home made blueberry jam on the top...  Phew was it incredible. Here's the recipe: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Owen's Cheesecake 4 egg whites - whipped 1 c. sugar, added slowly. Whip these two into a merangue. Soften 24 oz. cream cheese to room temperature. 1t. vanilla While wearing a rubber glove (Owen is a graduate of the New York Culinary Institute... he does things like this), mash with hands. Or use a mixer. (I used the mixer.) Add to the merangue and mix for 30 seconds. Bake in 300* oven for at least 30 minutes. Make sure the middle doesn't jiggle. If the middle cracks, it's done. Top with: 1 lb. sour cream 1/4 c. sugar Mix these and spread on top of the cheesecake. Put back in oven for 5 minutes to melt the topping. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I also have been reading a lot about a new book out called "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day". It seemed interesting, and I just love good fancy bread, if I don't have to take too much time to do it. This was so easy, and received rave reviews, so I just had to post about it. In a mixer put: 6 c. warm water (Hint: make the water just warmer than you would have a baby's bath...) 3 T. Yeast 3 T. Salt 13 c. flour. (I used white flour this time, although I will try it with my fresh ground wheat next.) Mix this just until wet. Divide into several containers... I used three ice cream containers... you can figure out what you need. Let rise for 2 hours. Put in fridge until you want to use it. Best if overnight or so. The dough is easier to work with when it is cold. When you want to make the bread, put cornmeal on a pizza peel. Pull off about a pound (cantaloupe size) ball of dough. Roll the edges under, and sprinkle with flour. Let sit for 40 minutes. 20 minutes into the sitting period, put a baking sheet (I use a stone) in the oven, and an empty broiler pan. Turn oven on to 450*. After it is hot, cut slices on the top of the bread (it won't have risen... that's OK). Slide onto hot pan in oven, and add a couple cups of water to the boiler pan. Bake for 30 minutes.  It is wonderful. This would make great rolls too. Try it! It's easy! If you don't have an industrial size mixer, you can half all the ingredients and make a smaller batch. My big batch made 7 loaves. Oh it's so yummy. Try it! |
Feb. 5, 2009
January's Highlights
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[Remember to visit my main blog for more regular posting: www.petersonclan.com ] Matt had a Birthday:  We got snow:     Mercy went Texas:  Who is that Masked Man?  This is NOT a photo of Mercy outside in her jammies, while it was freezing cold. Nope.  Matt and Beth are buddies:  Merchant Mercy:  Sara and Beth:  And Look who's getting so big? She's eating baby food and everything already!  |
Jan. 4, 2009
Christmas Photos
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Thought I would post some photos from the last few weeks... don't forget to bookmark (or subscribe to the feed... it's easier to keep track of updates.) my other site: www.petersonclan.com . I am only using this one when I need to do entries with photos... it's easier here than blogger. But all other entries are done there. For those of you reading who are not family or friends in real life, and don't care about photos of the kids... feel free to come back tomorrow. I'll return to the regularly scheduled blogging at that time. All 9 -  Bethany:  Mercy:   Nate:   The three littlest: (Mercy's telling Bethie to smile.)  Sara:  Youngest 4:  Emma: (With an ornery Nate looking in...)  Anna:  Josiah:  See the "Dangerous Book for Boys under the pillow?)  Matthew:  Angela (and Eric):  And just to prove I really exist... |
Dec. 30, 2008
The Real Way to Eat an Oreo Cookie
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Don't forget to head over and bookmark my new blog address: www.petersonclan.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Recently we had friends over who taught us the "Civilized" way to eat an Oreo Cookie. It was so absolutely sublime that I just HAD to share it with all my bloggity friends. 1)It must be a REAL Oreo Cookie. Anything else is inferior.  2) Using a thinner fork, or a knife, insert the prongs into the icing of the cookie.  (We had 19 kids in the house... we ran out of forks!) 3) Dunk Oreo into a mug of milk. THIS IS IMPORTANT!! You Must obtain enough milk to reach Depth of Dunkability... the oreo must be thoroughly submerged.  You cannot see them, but there will be bubbles coming up from the cookie. When the bubbles stop, there is the perfect amount of milk saturation. The cookie will be soft on the outside, but crunchy on the inside. Absolute perfection. 4) When pulling the oreo out of the milk, one must turn it on it's side. This allows the surface tension of the milk combined with the grooves in the cookie to keep the milk from dripping off. If you put it vertical, the milk just runs out and ruins the whole thing. See?  5) Eat. And enjoy. ;)  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You may be wondering exactly WHY I have wasted good time writing this? Well, I do have a point. The point is to SAVOR simple things. Enjoy them. Make the moments last. As I have said before, the days are long and the years are short. The children will all grow up, and someday it will just be me and my wonderful husband puttering around our house. And I want to remember how wonderful it was to eat an Oreo cookie. Or read around the Christmas Tree. Or play a loud silly game. Any of the fun things which sometimes get pushed aside for the mundane in life... laundry, diapers, and piles and piles of dishes. So go eat an Oreo Cookie, and ENJOY!!! |
Dec. 24, 2008
New Curtains Warming Our House
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I wanted to share one more thing before going off and getting ready for our company tomorrow. Remember the other night when it got down to 58* in our house?! Well, I decided to stop putting off one of my projects and get it done. I have been planning on making coverings for my windows in our living / dining room. We have 5 windows, and this room is by far the coldest in the house. So I decided to do something about it.
I had an old quilt from my mom which I cut up. I used the middle to make into two rectangles... I hung them up by putting safety pins on the back, and hanging them on small nails. See how cute they turned out? Two windows look like this:
 On the third window, I put a crib quilt my mom, grandma, and I quilted when I was pregnant with my first baby. All the quilts are up by safety pins. (See the gifts someone put on the window sill? The kids are so excited to give their gifts...)
 Over the door I put a quilt my mom had made for me a few years ago. I need to find the third "branch"... I have no idea how it came off.
 For the last window I had a quilt I had worked on, but never finished. It was not big enough, so I took the red sashing I had taken off the quilt from the first two windows, and added it as a border. I still have to cover the rough edges, but it works for right now. (Seeing the photo I realize I need to hang it straighter... that will get fixed!)
 When I proudly showed it to Eric he said, "It's great. Except that it has Snowmen on it!"
At my chagrined look he followed with, "Wait. That didn't come out right. It's just that it's a WINTER scene and won't be good all year round." (Well, we won't put it up in the summer!!!) He finally gave up trying to dig out of the hole he put himself into. There was no recovery.
So how about you? What do you think?!?! I love the snowmen. |
Nov. 25, 2008
Check it out!
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Go check out my new digs and tell me what you think! The Petersonclan |
Nov. 19, 2008
Photo of Bethany
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Just because we haven't posted one recently... here's Bethie!
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Nov. 19, 2008
Mercy's Appointment Updates - November.
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Hello Members of the Mercy Fan Club!!! We have GOOD news on the Mercy front this month. Ever feel like a pendulum? That's how I have felt the past few weeks.  - Mercy's blood pressure is back down this week. That is good as it means that the two months it was a little high was just because she had stressful appointments beforehand, NOT that she is having a tough time with the prednisone. That buys us some time to wait and see (Again) rather than have to jump into anything in order to get her off the prednisone. -Mercy's hemangioma does not appear to have grown the past couple months. Of course, I have not been trying to taper the prednisone either, but it still has not grown. It does appear to be slightly changing, enough to hope that perhaps it is getting ready to involute (go away). The best case senario would be for it to do this on it's own without chemo. - So we are going to wait until next month. On the 16th we have another echocardiogram. If her heart is worse, then we will do the chemo. If the heart is the same as the echo in September, we will wait again. Basically if the hemangioma is not growing, and the heart is not getting damaged, we will continue as is, since this is really the best thing for Mercy. It's hard to continue to wait, and wait, and wait... even though I know it is best. But for now that is what we will do. If all looks good, lets see what it will do without the intervention of doctors.  As a side note... to all moms of babies with PHACE - Dr. Adams did say that it has been decided that these babies are too complex for it to be safe to use Propanalol for them. They are going to be categorically out of the study for it... just wanted to pass that on to you. Also - to all the PHACE families who go to the Hemangioma and Vascular Anomolies Clinic at Cincinatti Children's for your care. We are trying to get a few days a year where the PHACE children are seen on the same Tuesday afternoon and we can go out to dinner together in the evening. If you are interested in this, please let me know and I will add you to the list. I think we should all band together. Our babies are worth it. |
Nov. 18, 2008
Training those characters
 Anyone who knows me in real life knows I have a house full of characters. Seriously... my kids are SO funny! And witty. They keep us laughing all day long. Usually. When they are not driving me crazy. But that's beyond the point! .We recently have done a new thing to try to train these characters in godliness and grace. Our point in parenting is NOT to train perfect children, but to train children who are ready to hear from the Lord and wholeheartedly follow Him when they are out of our house. Sometimes in parenting it is so easy to concentrate on perfection of behavior that we create hardness of heart. Recently we had a really rough time of it in our household. On different occasions, I had 4 of my 6 school aged children lie to me (boldfaced, straight to my face lying!) in a 12 hour period. Anyone know that's a cause for some serious dissension in the Peterson household? I called school to a standstill. For what good does it do to have the worldly success of multiplying fractions if you cannot have a life of integrity? We all got out our Bibles and started studying the topic of "Lies", "lying", etc. We made a list of them, and started writing them out into a subject of our Bible notebook. I figure that the Word of God is a two edged sword, and that His word will not come back void. Over the course of a couple days we wrote out every verse we could find on the topic of lying. That is a lot!!! After that I had each child pick their favorite three verses. We marked them, and I picked five of those for the children to memorize. I had them write each verse on one side of an index card (including the location of the verse). On the other side I had them write just the first letter of the words. So on one side it would say, "Psalm34:13 - Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies." And on the other side it would say, "Kytfeaylfsl." This helps them memorize and review the verses. We attached all the verses together with a metal ring. In order to watch a movie with us that weekend they had to be able to say all 5 verses with no more than two helps. Now we have a whole arsenal of verses to help us out. For some of my children, just memorizing these 5 are enough to keep them from lying. For others, **ahem**, it has not been enough. So, when God illuminates the fact that a little sinner is lying, I ask that child to go pick another verse to add to their cards, and memorize it before the next meal. (Yes, they are picking the shortest ones first... but they'll run out of those eventually if they continue, and it'll work out OK.) We have moved on to other topics... truthfulness, diligence, obedience, etc. It is not making things perfect around here, after all, there are 11 sinners in a small, confined area. But I am trusting that in the long run, we are going to reap the fruit of having these verses hidden in our hearts so that we might not sin against Him. Each topic gets a section of our Bible Notebooks (eventually we will effectively have a topical concordance in our notebooks...), and each section of the ring gets a colored index card on top of the memorized verses so we know where one topic ends and another begins. Hope that helps someone get ideas for training your own little characters. Remember that if we have outward perfection, but God doesn't have a soft, pliable heart to work with, all our parenting is wasted. some things are more important than academic subjects. Keep on Keepin' on, Mamas! Our role is big, but our God is bigger! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  |
Nov. 11, 2008
Get Real....
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I have found that I deal with a lot of post partum issues from about 3-5 months after a baby is born. At this point it is always so long since I have felt rested that I cannot remember what it's like. The baby is big enough to want to be entertained, but not big enough to do it on her own. Add that to the fact that life has resumed full throttle, and it's a recipe for disaster in my abilities to manage. That said, this time has been worse than ever before. The stress is even entering my sleep. My dreams are full of forgetting children in stores. The other night I dreamed we went on a three week vacation and I forgot to get someone to feed the animals. I didn't remember about them until 2.5 weeks into the trip. Last night I could not sleep for the stress, this morning I woke up with a tension headache, and could already feel the pressure starting in my shoulders and back. Can anyone else relate? So I laid there, waiting for the baby to fully wake up to be fed, and tried to give myself a pep talk so today goes better than yesterday. (Don't even ASK about how bad yesterday was...) I thought I would share it, in case some of you out in blogger land could use the pep talk also. 1) Many people say God will not give us more than we can handle. While it is true that He does not give us more temptation than we can handle without a way out, He very regularly DOES give us more than we can handle in our own strength. Just ask any mom of little ones. We CANNOT do it by ourselves. We so desperately need Him. If we can do something in our own strength we will not be begging Him for His strength on a day by day (or moment by moment!) basis. (I can do ALL THINGS through Christ who strengthens me...) 2) We need a mentor. A Titus 2 encourager. Someone who has been there, done that, and survived to tell about it. Sometimes I just need the reminder that I WILL survive this time. And maybe even miss it someday. That remains to be seen. I'll keep ya posted. This is hard to find. I really have not found it in real life often, but with the internet, have found many people out there who are a step ahead of me in life, and doing it much better than I am. They are an inspiration that I can do it too. 3) That said, we need to find someone we can be real with also. Most people don't really want to know how we are doing. They either want to keep the image of perfection (which is only an image, you know. It doesn't exist.), or they just really don't care. It is important to have some "Grump Therapy" - a friend to meet with for coffee (or tea), and just be real with her. I sometimes just need someone who is also swimming in babies... and living to tell about it! 4) Don't compare yourself to others. There are other mothers who really have things together. I remember one time when I was moaning to Eric about the cleanliness of one of my friend's houses. He reminded me that she only had two children and they went to school every day. Sounds ridiculous, but I was so busy comparing myself to her that I had missed that fact! I am in a unique situation... I have 9 children. That is a large family even by large family standards. I have adopted children who have brought along their baggage. I have 6 children I am schooling... 1 with learning issues, and one learning to read. I have a 3 year old, an almost 2 year old with special medical needs, and an infant. Put all those things together and it makes it a bit silly to compare myself with someone else. [This said, I DO have one friend who also has most of these things, and is a much better mom and housewife than I am. She inspires me! I wish I was that good!] 5) My last tip for right now - Don't take on guilt which is not yours. I am so good at this. I feel guilty for so much. A lot of it is not mine to feel guilty about! This is a biggie for me. I am called to do things others are not called to do! Sounds obvious, but I really don't need to feel guilty about that! I need to do what GOD has called me to do and not feel I need to explain or defend myself to those not called to do it. And I don't have to feel guilty about the things others are called to do, but I am not!!! How often we put our unique calls onto others and expect that if they are walking a good Christian life, close to God, they will walk, eat, dress, etc. exactly like us. That is not the case, and I for one am thrilled. I love the individuality in the Body of Christ. OK- my pep talk is over. My children are up and I am off to try to have a better day than yesterday. If you are going through a rough time, feel free to e-mail me. I'd love to support you, and in doing so, support myself. Life is hard. Doing what God has called us to do with diligence and consistency is even harder. Keep on, Mama. You can do it. Just keep doing the next thing. |
Nov. 7, 2008
Bulk Cooking Day 4
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[If you have not read this whole week, this series started on Monday! Be sure to read the first three in the series and come back to this one!] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I had some interesting comments on yesterday's post, and wanted to be sure to address them where everyone (all ten of you who read...) would see. Anonymous asked, "I have to know, what method will you use to cook 30 pounds of beef at once? " There really isn't a trick... I had two pans going, each one large enough to brown 2 pounds of beef at a time. It took a couple hours. This would have been less if my meat were the normal quality (without a lot of fat), but we bought this from some friends and they had added a lot of fat into it. Normally I can just brown and dump, but I had to brown, strain, and dump. In retrospect I would have also rinsed it, but I didn't. I'll do it in the future if I ever have some that is not so lean. I got 2 quarts of fat out of the 30 pounds! I had heard that you can take your roaster pan (the one you cook your turkey in at Christmas), put your beef in it, and cook it overnight in the oven, then just crumble it in the morning, fully cooked. This sounds good, but I hadn't tried it and didn't want to risk this meat for an experiment. Rebecca said, "I grew up as #3 of 6, but my mother never did bulk cooking. I suppose once I get a few more I will have to do more at a time, but for now 30 lbs sounds pretty insane. Do you cook it all, or is some meatloaf?" Our beef comes from the butcher frozen, so these have to be thawed, cooked, and re-frozen. I had bought a 5 pound roll of raw hamburger on Monday, from which I made two meatloaves and 6 hamburger patties. Yes, I am sure 30 pounds DOES seem a bit insane. But really, it makes sense when you think about it. See - I get annoyed at spending time re-doing things over and over which could be done one time and not have to think about again. My children have chore lists because I just don't want to have to waste brain space remembering what they have to do every day. Cooking is a large example of the same frustration. If I were to cook all 30 pounds individually each time I needed them, I would probably spend 10 minutes browning each one, and 15 minutes pulling out and washing the skillets, cleaning up the stove, etc. That makes almost 13 hours of time taken to brown that meat over the course of 30 individual meals. Yesterday it took me 2 hours to brown the meat (this might have been saved if the oven method worked...), 20 minutes to bag up, and another 30 to wash the dishes and completely disinfect the whole kitchen. So instead of almost 13 hours, I spent almost 4. And we have the same meat. My method was this: I put 4 pounds into pans to brown. When they were done, I drained the fat and put it into my big roaster oven. I put another 4 pounds to brown. Then I cut an onion into the roaster, added a jar of tomatoes (canned this summer from my garden), 1 cup of water (the recipe called for 2, but I don't like it as runny as the recipe called for), 2 T. chili powder, 1 t. cumin, 1 t. oregano, 1 t. of salt, and 1/2 t. garlic. This makes a great all around flavored meat. I simmered this for a couple hours, then turned it off to let it cool some. I took a nap, had a cup of coffee and hung out with my little ones. Late afternoon I put two cups of meat mix into each quart freezer bag. This gives lots of room to freeze it flat so it does not take much room, and it will thaw really quickly when I forget to pull it out ahead of time. I put the bags in the fridge, so they are nice and cool this morning. I will put them flat into the freezer today. I was afraid to put them warm into the freezer for I did not want other things to thaw, or have the meat take too long to freeze. This meat is so versatile! Add ketchup and mustard and you have Sloppy Joes. Add refried beans, and it's ready for tacos. Throw in some kidney beans and some more chili powder and you have chili. It is also ready to add to the spagetti we froze over the summer from our tomatoes. You can really use it for any casserole you would add a tomato base to. For us that is most of them! We got 22 bags of seasoned meat. I saved 4 pounds unseasoned for Beef Stroganoff (just add cream of mushroom soup and corn! Serve over egg noodles). I also used the extra liquid and a bit of meat for chili tonight... we'll be having company. [Maria and Melissa - you all should be here!] So the meat for 27 meals cost us less than $45. And for the rest of the time of these meals all we have to do is open cans and add to them. It not only saves money, but saves time. If you don't have your own canned tomatoes you would need to add that cost. Yes, a bit of insanity, but it really will bring peace over the next few months. This week I was able to mostly prepare over 40 meals. Today and tomorrow we are going to try to put up a bunch of breakfast things, but with company coming tonight I will not have as much time. After this, if the chemo doesn't happen I will spend one day a week working on putting up something to the freezer so there will be an eternally revolving series of meals. We just regularly go to Save a Lot and buy flats of the things we use a lot: beans, refried beans, etc. That way I always have what I need to throw together a meal. Yes, I know that I can make and freeze these things too. I'll work on that in the weeks to come. ;) And these are all the type of meals that I can add extra cans of stuff to and serve the company which invariably shows up. Or I could have a meal easily ready to send to a new mother. This aids us in our abilities to serve those around us as well as help ourselves have calmer evenings. So that is how to do a "once a month cooking" series without killing yourself. I feel pretty good about what I accomplished! And the best part is, that I can do other things over the next bit instead of thinking about what I am going to cook for dinner.  |
Nov. 6, 2008
Chemo Praise and Bulk Cooking Day 3
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Hello all prayer warriors!!! For once I have GOOD news! I got a call from Dr. Adam's nurse, and the doctors have decided that waiting a couple weeks is not a problem and that hopefully by then they can have things in place for her to use Propanalol rather than chemo! Propanalol is experimental, and the Doctor doesn't want to use it if it cannot be followed in a way that the information would be able to be used to help future children. You know in those commercials where they say, "In rare cases has been known to cause...." and that stupid long list of random things? Anyway - please pray this is the answer for Mercy. It is more risky since we don't know side effects of Beta Blockers on children, but the chemo with a PICC line is risky too. If Dr. Adams is comfortable with this, so are we. AND - now I have so many meals in the freezer!!! That will be a blessing whether in chemo or not. Because there is always a TON of things I need to do more than cooking. So now - what did I get done yesterday? Big Fat Nothing. Seriously. I still am not used to daylight savings, so when the baby woke me up at 4:15 I couldn't get back to sleep. I also have been fighting a flu like bug, so was pretty achy and tired. So I didn't do much. But Angela made a batch of pancakes for the freezer, and pizza for dinner. But TODAY will be different! I have 30 pounds of ground beef ready to cook up. Sit tight! I'll let you know how it goes! I'm feeling better, so if the children cooperate (and the 3 and under crowd cooperating is critical...) I should get a lot done! |
Nov. 5, 2008
Bulk Cooking Day 2 (Once a Month Cooking)
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It looks like Mercy's chemo will start early next week, so I am in high gear preparing all this food! I am so glad God gave me warning enough to do this, and it HAPPENED to occur the day before chicken butchering day. Think He has it all in His plan?!?! Actually as I look back over the past 6 months or so, He has been preparing me and my family for this by leading us to make decisions which will make this next season in our lives much easier. So what did I do yesterday? (If you didn't read Day 1, please read that first so you know where I was at the beginning of the morning!) Also, you may want to subscribe to my RSS so you get updated on the rest of the week's cooking! - 2 Quart Bags of Teriyaki Chicken. This base will be added to some stir fried veges and put over rice. - 3 Casseroles of Chicken Enchiladas. (Plus another for dinner last night). - 2 Gallon Bags Chicken Divan (Also called Broccoli Chicken). This can be served over rice or noodles. - 3 Gallon Bags "Crunchy Chicken" . This has uncooked rice in the mix, so it is a full meal. - 2 Gallon Bags Ranch Chicken. These can be served over rice or noodles too. So out of 14 chickens (two were tough roosters, so really it was mostly 12 chickens), I got 13 dinners. I also used 5 pounds of ground beef to make: - 2 meatloaves. - 6 Hamburger patties. (We'll add hot dogs for the younger children.) I had bought the ground beef straight from the store because we have our own cow butchered and the meat comes to us frozen. So I can thaw it, but it has to be cooked before I can freeze it again. The stuff from the store is thawed, so I will sometimes buy it and make up the meatloaves. Today I am hoping to make a bunch of muffins, some pancakes and waffles, and a big batch of homemade bisquick, some instant oatmeal mix, some granola, and can the chicken broth. Maybe also make some sweet breads. The more we can have made ahead for breakfast, the easier the day goes. Of course these children always seem to need to be fed three times a day even though I am busy, so we'll have to figure something out for that too. |
Nov. 5, 2008
Toys that Work For Me!
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This Wednesday is a Backwards Works for Me! We have the assignment to share the great toys which make all the Goodwill Cuts and remain in the house! I look forward to reading all the recommendations! I have 9 children and a relatively small house. That is a recipe for disaster. We can get so cluttered so quickly it's not even funny. And I HATE finding pieces of games on the other side of the house from where it is played. Battleship and Risk are the WORST for that! I finally broke down and bought Risk on the computer, but just threw away Battleship. But for what DOES work? These are my favorite family toys: -The Trampoline and outside swingset. Gets the noise and energy outside instead of under my feet. - Leap Pad Videos... these effortlessly teach letter sounds (My 2 year old learned them without a hitch!), how to put them together into short vowel words, long vowel words, and punctuation. They are GREAT!!! - Papo Knights. If you have to have toys underfoot, these are GREAT! Here's a link, but if you google Papo Knights you can find them. Add them to some lincoln logs and you have hours of entertainment! -Webkins - My girls were introduced to these last summer by their cousins. They now have 2 and just love to go online and decorate their rooms and stuff. This has given them incentive to get their school and chores done quickly. Gotta love that! They also only have one account, so they all play together and it has really fostered a lot of bonding between the three girls. I cannot wait to read of other's recommendations! Although we do not do Christmas really big (one gift per person from us), we have 6 of our 11 birthdays between Christmas and Saint Patrick's Days! Yikes!  |
Nov. 4, 2008
Grande Cooking Day 1
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Many people ask how I "do it." I think they are wondering about the practical day to day living and how we get things done. People have a morbid fascination with large families and how we run. It is a wonderfully fun thing to have so many neat people to interact with on a daily basis, but it is also just plain HARD! Well, since I am anticipating having extra time spent with Mercy over the next few months (probably starting next week), I am deep in the middle of a large cooking spree. I have done these off and on throughout the years (more when all the children were little than now when my older girls like to cook dinners). This sort of cooking matches my personality. I'd love to be the type to make a schedule and stick to having a set time every day where we can do certain things... like 30 minutes sewing every day. But I really just work better if I take three days every once in a while to obsess about a project. Am I unusual in that? I make great schedules, but just find that life gets in the way of my perfect plan. Sunday I had picked some recipes (both chicken and beef) which I thought I could assemble and freeze. Then I made a grocery list. So yesterday - I had 14 chickens to cook up. (Turned out 2 were older roosters and I couldn't get much meat off them.) I put them all in pots and roasters and cooked them up while I ran to Wal-Mart for the monthly groceries and to get what I needed for the meals to freeze. We had a new Wal-Mart open up in the next town... it is only 30 minutes away! Wow did that feel like luxury. When I got home, I shredded the chickens into two big bowls, made soup with about 2 gallons of broth for dinner, and still had another three gallons which I will can today. I also will make the casseroles, and get the ground beef thawing for tomorrow's beef recipes. I am hoping to have over 35 dinners in our freezers by the weekend. I'll keep you posted with recipes as I go! Be sure you check back, OR feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and it'll update you quicker!  |
Oct. 31, 2008
Mercy Update for October and the Goings On
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Hello all friends! Thanks so much for being patient with me during my quietness of the past few weeks. I think that I am finally catching up from everything! As far as our going's on for the past week, I don't have need to write of much... just go to Amy's Humble Musings and read about their chicken butchering on Wednesday... that's us only we did 15 birds. And I wasn't inside on the computer, but inside with the three babies... So it is not a collective "We". I prefer to have my meat show up like it's from the grocery store. We had a helper butchering... he was paid with one chicken and all the hearts and livers. He wanted to make a patte...  ... glad I'm not going to have dinner at their house this week. We had hot dogs instead. Oh wait... what's in those hot dogs anyway?!?!Mercy and I went to Cincinnati Thursday. It was a LONG day! We left at 5 a.m., and drove the four hours there. Then we met with the: - Contacts guy. He fitted her contact in, and showed me how to take it in and out. I know it won't be pleasant, but I think I can do it. I was so impressed that it hardly seemed to bother her all day. Upon arrival home (at 8:30 p.m.), we discovered that it had already fallen out (or gotten up into the upper cavity of the eye - there is a lot of space for it to disappear into.). So 24 hours after being fitted for it, we already were ordering a replacement lense. The doctor informed me that on average, children need their lenses replaced between 8 and 16 times a year! I have thought a few unchristian remarks towards the thought of putting contacts into a 21 month old child. I won't repeat them. - Then we went to the cardiologist. Unfortunately, she has an enlarged heart on the left side in order to support the extra blood flow. This is causing some strain on the heart, and she has developed a murmur in the heart, and a "thrill" in the vein. That, I believe, is a murmur in a vein. Her blood pressure is rising, and it just generally looks like her heart is not doing well with the extra pressure it has to get the extra blood flow to the left side of her face. This pushes us to do something before her heart deteriorates to the point of being a danger. Heart damage is permanent, the hemangioma is not. -Dr. Adams is not quite ready with the propanalol study to feel comfortable prescribing it yet. She won't be ready for a few months, so we are not sure we even want to wait until then. It is experimental, and if it doesn't work, we are that much farther down the road with Mercy's heart strain, rather than being done. -That leaves the other option being Vincristine (chemotherapy). I was pretty panicky over the weekend at the thought of giving it to her, but God has really given me a measure of peace that we are to do this and get it over with. On average the course will be between 2 and 6 months. There are many, many practical issues to resolve before we give the official go ahead, but as for now it seems the thing we should do in the best long term interests of our daughter. So I have been busy mentally planning the next week or two... there are a lot of things to pull together before I become consumed with Mercy's practical care. First off I will go shopping today and start cooking up those chickens. I planned out about 15 meals to make (plus broth for soup) out of the chickens, and about 25 beef meals. If I can get them made, the family can maybe eat well during this time, without all the pressure being on Eric and the kids to cook all the meals. I have been wanting to get back into bulk cooking, so this is a good push to do something I should have been doing anyway. We are also setting up our garden boxes for next year!! We are using some cedar trees cut down by the electric company for the "walls" of the boxes. I laid them out where we want the garden, then we are filling them with a layer of compost from our pile (manure from the horses, cow, and chickens, pine pellets from the chicken house bedding, and hay), a layer of leaves from the trees outside, and finally another layer of old hay. Hopefully this will decompose even furthur and we will have around 80 feet of garden boxes without spending a penny. You'll be kept posted! (Just when you thought it would be same to read the blog without hearing about my garden!)I am off to start a day or three of cooking... I sure am glad I have my vitamins! I'll keep you posted on how it's going, and maybe include some photos and recipes. |
Oct. 29, 2008
Egg Update
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I think they heard of their potential demise on Friday bright and early... we got 3 (yes - 3) eggs today!!! And 2 yesterday. One of which was green. (Not gold.) Just had to share. |