School lunch

I invested in a laptop lunchbox. I love this lunchbox. Of course so far my meals have been very boring. Then again my son is a very boring eater. We have been on a grilled cheese jag for close to 4 months. I am bored but I do know what I am going to make every day.

Eat a Rainbow!

This one is NOT gluten free


No not one of these









but one of these




I made this cake for Jeffrey and Kinseys birthday. The outside is very deceiving I left it plain white and just wrote their names on it. I got the oooooohhh when I cut into the cake. It was fun to see everyone eat the cake differently. Some ate it by layers. The littlest one picked the layers and stacked on his spoon then ate.
All in all what a fun cake. No this was not my idea. I was sent a link from my good friend Ann earlier this summer. I have been drooling to make this since then. Go to whisk girl for the recipe
http://whisk-kid.blogspot.com/2009/08/say-it-with-cake.html

This cake is definately not gluten free but I am going to try and adapt the recipe so stay tuned.

spectrum or not?

I received the best call a mother can have today. Jordan's OT called and she doesn't believe that he is on the spectrum anymore. Deb has been with us since Jordan was 2. She was the first one to tell me she believed he had autism. She was the one who suggested I try coromega(cod liver oil). She also was the one who would push my son the most. Sometimes he would hate to see her walk through the door and other times he would be thrilled. In her opinion my son at 2 had severe autism at 5 he had moderate and at 7 is off the spectrum. Her opinions were usually correct because he would be scientifically tested later and it was just how she guessed.

Now I am not saying my son is cured. He still is delayed and will always have extreme sensory issues but he is able to understand now. He understands language and what is real and what is a joke. He asks the "wh" questions and can answer most questions asked of him. His attention span is still very short but we are working on that.

Oh yeah he has finally learned to tie his own shoes!! It has been a big day for us today.

Now my next challenge is to wean him back onto dairy. I have a farmer friend where I can get raw milk and I will be making Kefir and cheese for him myself. I am going to keep him gluten free at least until this summer because I have seen so much progress on the diet. I don't believe we will ever go back to eating anything processed. There is just to many chemicals in the food NOBODY should be eating those chemicals.

New Year

Today is the first day of 2010!!! I intend to enjoy this year.
Goals for this year.
1. continue to heal my son (I am close)
2. garden as much as I can
3. blog more
4. can as much as I can ( I joined a can jam)

supplement update

Again this is really just for me
they are all gluten free, dye free, casein free, and filler free

2 capsules of super nu thera
carnitine fumarate
acetyl carnitine
zinc picolate
enzymes
vit D3
oil of oregano
co q 10
vit c
fish oil
pro bio gold (probiotic)

Time to Kombucha

I have learned how easy it is to make kombucha so here I go.
First you need a scoby or mushroom. I aquired mine at the westin price conference from an amish family.

step 1: make tea I used 3 qts of water 4 tea bags and 1c. sugar.
step 2: cool to room temp
step 3: add scoby (that is what is floating in the tea)
step 4: cover with a breathable cloth (beware fruit flies love this)
step 5: wait 2 to 3 weeks to stop fermenting



step 6: take scoby out and strain
all done

of course I wanted fruit flavors so I fermented a second time
this bottle is sweet cherries from the freezer


next I just added the plain kombucha back and let ferment for a couple days. I then strained and put in the fridge.

we did 2 flavor and one plain



left to right
plain, cherry, raspberry

I liked the cherry best. Jeffrey liked the raspberry. Jordan not so much.
Health note do not take more than 4 oz it is a very strong probiotic

It has been a year

I started this blog a year ago so I would have a place to keep my thoughts and maybe help someone else out who was just beginning their journey. Jordan went dairy free the day after Thanksgiving and gluten free 3 weeks later.

I have learned a ton the entire time. My life has changed dramatically over the course of a year. In the first month he lost 8 pounds but over the course of the year he gained 16 more. That is an amazing amount of weight for him. Of course he is still skinny but I can't count his rib bones anymore. I have to point out that he has never been ill if he catches a cold it is for a day at the most.

We all started reading labels and I was shocked at what I was feeding my kids. It is amazing to me how many new words they use now for MSG. I decided to cut out all food colorings and flavorings. So now we are gluten free, dairy free, color free, MSG free, and not free but seriously cut back on corn, nitrates, sugar, and yeast. I learned so much over the year that I decided to go back to school and I am working on my holistic nutrition degree.

We have changed our lives a lot over the year and my blog will be changing also. In my research of food I have become more local and sustainable. I tripled my garden, learned how to pressure can. I made some great farmer friend where I learned how to butcher a cabrito and harvested honey from a hive.