What I Made For Dinner Tonight

I was reading Clean Eating magazine the other day (you know, the whole change of lifestyle, getting fit, working with a trainer, taking Advocare products (by the way, if you're at all interested in that, let me know...I can help you out...see side bar to the RIGHT for an Advocare link if you're interested...), losing weight thing) and came across this recipe for Jambalaya. I showed it to Spencer who immediately said, "I think that should go on the menu soon...like tonight." So I made it tonight. It was FAB - quite possibly my favorite meal lately. Well, except for some Sea Bass that Spencer cooked on a cedar plank on The Big Green Egg - seriously, it would make you cry. But it's a close 2nd place. And since a blog is really just the 21st century version of writing letters and sharing recipe cards, I decided to share it here with you. Or, if you'd like, you can pick up the July/Aug 2010 issue of Clean Eating, which I highly recommend, because there were several more yummy looking things in there that I haven't tried yet. But will.

This jambalaya is made in a foil pouch, which makes clean-up a BREEZE. Just FYI.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 lb raw shrimp (26/30 size), peeled & deveined, tail on (I used a little more than 1/2 lb.)
- 4 oz boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced into 1 inch pieces (I used 1 regular sized chicken breast - didn't weigh it)
- 1 all natural low sodium turkey sausage, sliced
- 1/2 medium white onion (I used a Vidalia onion) diced.
- 1 medium green bell pepper, diced.
- 1 rib celery, diced (I left this out altogether since Spencer is convinced that celery was invented by Satan, himself)
- 1 1/2 medium tomatoes, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 tsp salt free Cajun seasoning (I didn't have the salt-free kind, so I omitted the salt that comes later in the recipe)
- 1 C all natural instant brown rice (I used a little more)
- 1/2 C low-sodium chicken broth (I used a little more)
- Salt & fresh ground pepper to taste (I omitted the salt....I already told you that)
- Olive Oil cooking spray (I forgot to spray the foil pouches and it worked fine - oops)

Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 400*F.
- Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, except for the cooking spray. Duh.
- Prepare 2 foil pouches, spray each with cooking spray (unless you forget like I did), put half of the ingredients in each, and seal.
- Cook 25 min. Check after 25 min to make sure chicken, shrimp, & rice are all done. If necessary, re-seal and cook for another 5 min.

Nutrients per 1 1/2 C serving: (for those of you who keep with this sort of stuff...like me)
- Calories: 339
- Total Fat: 5g
- Sat fat: 1g
- Carbs: 24g
- Fiber: 3g
- Sugars: 3g
- Protien: 46g
- Sodium: 354mg
- Cholesterol: 171mg

Finished product....

The Story of Tait (part 2)

If you missed Part 1, go here.

Welcome back. ;)

When we left off, my sweet baby girl had come home from the NICU and was having some symptoms of something else being wrong - though none of us, including our pediatrician, could put our fingers on it. The 1st symptom was her size. She was born 5 weeks early, but weighed 7lbs 5oz. She was a giant compared to the other babies in the NICU. But her size didn't really raise a red flag. The symptom that really puzzled us was the size of her tongue. It was so big that she couldn't keep it in her mouth. It stuck out 100% of the time. She had a very difficult time eating because of it and we tried every single bottle nipple on the market before we found one that she could use. Her large tongue also meant that her airway was smaller, so she got sick easier. A common cold would land her in the PICU because it would turn into croup and other breathing problems. My father-in-law did a little research and found out that a large tongue could be because of a thyroid problem, so we had her thyroid checked. It was normal. Our pediatrician, Dr. Jim Ed Martin - seriously, who COULDN'T love someone named Jim Ed? - who was the pediatrician on call the weekend Tait was born and was a total and complete answer to prayer, didn't give up. He knew something was "off" and vowed to research and test until he figured it out.

Then one night, as I was up during the middle of the night feeding a newborn, I decided to do a little "home doctor research" - ie, Google research - on the computer. I Googled "infant large tongue" and the link to the Beckwith-Wiedemann Children's Foundation popped up. I clicked over and it was like I was reading Tait's biography. I, of course, freaked because I didn't know what this was, what the prognosis was, or what our lives were about to look like, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Tait had it.

In the middle of all of this happening, Spencer and I were really feeling the urge to move back to Alabama. We were living in Tallahassee, and loving it, but knew it wasn't home. However, WHERE in Alabama we would move to was a huge bone of contention between the two of us. We wanted 2 different things, and neither of us would budge on the issue. It was the first, and to date the only time that we haven't been able to come to a compromise on an issue that we were facing. We talked with our pastor about our conflict and he gave us some great advice that I will never forget. He told Spencer to use spiritual discernment when making the decision as to where we would move, not just decide based on what he wanted. He told me to shut up and hit my knees (not in so many words, but that's what I heard). Spencer was, and is, the head of the household. He is the leader, backbone, and breadwinner in this family. I knew that ultimately the decision was his, and that my job was to pray that he made a decision based on where God was leading us. It was a rocky time. I spent a lot of time in prayer. I begged God to send us to a city where there were more opportunities to grow and raise a family than where Spencer wanted to go.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jim Ed wanted us to go see a genetecist in Gainesville. Because Alabama is home, we chose to go to Birmingham, Children's Hospital, to see a genetecist there, instead of Gainsville, which has an amazing Children's hospital, but is completely foreign to us - with both of us being from Montgomery, Birmingham was much more familiar than Gainesville. Children's Hospital has an unbelievable reputation and we knew we would get world class care there. So we scheduled a trip to Birmingham to meet Dr. Maria Descartes, a spunky, brilliant, Hispanic doctor, who has become one of our favorite people in the world. Tait was 12 weeks old at the time. We were still living in Florida and still undecided as to where we were going to move. Spencer applied and interviewed for a couple of jobs in Alabama, and doors kept closing. Frustration was setting in. We had a 4-year-old, and a 3 month old who had a syndrome that no one had ever heard of, and scared the pants off of all of us. We were living 5 hours away from our families, and now we had a doctor that we loved in Birmingham - 6 1/2 hours away. I wanted to move to Birmingham. Spencer, to put it mildly, did NOT. To say times were tense is an understatement of epic proportions.

The test for BWS is very primitive, so Tait was clinically diagnosed with it. BWS is characterized as an "overgrowth syndrome." The main "issue" associated with BWS is that children with it have an increased risk of developing certain abdominal cancers within the 1st 8-9 years of life. BWS kids are tested every 6 weeks (until age 4) for hepatoblastoma (a tumor in the liver), and every 3 months (until age 8) for Wilms Tumor (kidney) and Neuroblastoma (affects the nerves, but mostly begins as a tumor on or near the adrenal gland). So Dr. Maria set up a schedule of tests for Tait, beginning immediately. The liver test requires a vial of blood to be drawn and the Wilms/Neuroblastoma test requires an abdominal ultrasound. Tests began and we had our new normal. BWS isn't usually fatal (praise HIM!) and Tait seemed to have a very mild case (many kids with BWS suffer from major eating problems because of their tongue size, and have to be tube fed until a tongue reduction is performed. They also have hemihypertrophy, which means that one side of the body grows at a different rate than the other side. Tait had none of those issues). We were rolling along quite well until one ultrasound threw a kink into our plans and completely knocked our feet out from under us.

To be continued....

The story of Tait. (part 1)

Last week, my middle baby turned 5. Because her birthday is on July 2, it gets smooshed into the festivities of the 4th of July holiday. However, it also lends itself to a lot of playing outside, swimming, and fireworks. What kid doesn't like that? But as we celebrate Tait's birthday, I also reflect back on my pregnancy with her, her birth, and infancy. It was a beautiful time. It was a hard time. It was a scary time. And it was a time where I grew closer to my Savior than I ever thought possible.

This is the story of Tait.

When Mary Emma was 2, Spencer and I decided that it was time to try to get pregnant again. I am very fortunate in that I get pregnant EASILY. So when we decided that it was time, I was pregnant in no time flat. After a trip to NYC, a torn arch in my foot, a cast, a DVT (MAJOR blood clot), and a hospital stay, I lost that baby at about 9 weeks. I was heartbroken. But I was determined to have another baby. So about a year later, I got pregnant again. I lost that baby at about 11 weeks. The doctors started running tests on my blood and realized that I have a situation with my blood that causes it to thicken when my estrogen levels increase (ie. pregnancy), and I was most likely losing the babies because of mini blood clots that were trying to pass through the teeny umbilical cord. So the doctors had me begin taking Heparin shots to thin my blood and fix the problem. And I got pregnant again. And lost that baby, too.

DEVASTATED.

I was hesitant to get pregnant again. I was heartbroken. I was tired. I was having to give myself 2 shots a day in the stomach. I had a beautiful 3 year old daughter. I was trying to be content with 1 child. But I wanted another child. Desperately. So I turned it over to God and trusted that He would take care of me and the baby that I longed for.

And I got pregnant again. And this time, I didn't lose the baby. But I was disconnected. I was hesitant. I was terrified.

I refused to get close to this baby. Spencer and I wouldn't name her. We didn't decorate a nursery until the last possible minute. We went about life as usual. At 34 weeks I didn't feel her move for an entire day. I. Freaked. I called my doctor who sent me straight to the hospital. I was having contractions every 2 minutes. I spent a weekend in the hospital and went home 3 days later on bed rest. I needed to keep this baby in for at least 4 more weeks. But 6 days later, she was coming and there was no stopping her. Because I was 35 weeks, they wouldn't stop my labor anymore. 6 hours, 1 failed epidural (read: natural childbirth), an entire host of on-call doctors because of the holiday weekend, and 3 pushes later, a beautiful 7lb 5oz baby girl was born. We named her Virginia Tait. Virginia was after my mother and grandmother. Tait was a name I just liked. It's different. It's sweet. And it fits her to a T. I remember crying and begging her to breathe. I didn't get to hold her. She breathed ok for a minute, and then started struggling. She was whisked out of my room and to the nursery before I really knew what was happening. The hospital where she was born didn't have a NICU. It was at a hospital across town. She was taken by ambulance to that hospital. I stayed at the 1st hospital. It was a holiday weekend. I was in a new town and state. I had very few friends and all of them were out of town. I had a beautiful baby girl who I couldn't see or hold. It was a horrible day and one of the best days of my life all combined into one.

The next morning, I was released from the hospital and went directly to the other hospital to be with her. I sat and held her almost around the clock. I was so swollen from the massive amounts of IV fluids that I had received (my blood pressure kept crashing) that I didn't have any shoes that would fit on my feet. And as I sat in the NICU, I realized how disconnected I had kept myself from her. I didn't think she knew that I loved her. So I sat. And I held her or kept a hand on her (she was on a ventilator for 2 days). And I told her over and over and over again that I loved her. Because I did. I loved her more than I knew was possible. I loved her like I loved her big sister. But I sobbed because this beautiful baby, who was fighting for her life, didn't know that her mama loved her. And she deserved the world.

I felt like I had already failed her.

And I started praying. I have been a Christian since I was a small child. But I was going through one of those super stubborn times where I was too self sufficient to NEED anyone and was completely content to do it all on my own. I certainly didn't need a God to take over. Because there was a chance that He wouldn't do what I wanted. And I wasn't gonna have any of that. In other words, I was STUPID. But my desire for God to take care of this baby clearly was overriding my need to be in control and I hit my knees. And you know what? He was there. He is always there. He never left, even though I pushed and pushed Him away. He was faithful just as it says in Psalm 145:13 (NIV) "The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made." Praise His Name.

So 6 days later, we were able to bring Tait home. Our sweet little family of 3 was now a busy, sleepless family of 4.

And then we started to realize that something else was wrong. Tait had some symptoms that were pointing to something being wrong, but no one knew what that was.

I started to think that we were going to lose yet another child. But this one had been born. She was alive. She had stolen our hearts. And again, we were scared to death.

To be continued.....

Ok, So I've Been Busy

Dear Bloggy Peeps,

I promise I haven't forgotten about you. I've just been busy. June is notorious for kicking my tail and it didn't disappoint this year, either.

We've been doing a WHOLE LOT of this:




And some of this:


And some of this:



And a lot of this:


And we got this precious ball of fluffiness - I'd like to introduce you to Piper, our 9 week old ShihTzu. She is EXACTLY like a toddler except she sleeps in the bathroom. She is into EVERYTHING!


Hope you're having a fantastic, restful, not-too-hot (HA!) summer. I'll be back soon. I promise.

Hugs,

Summertime in the South? I Got it Covered.

It's softball season. All-Star season to be exact. Which means I'm spending more time outside than inside. Unless you've never had the privilege of visiting the deep south, you understand that it's HOT outside. And humid. And did I mention hot?

Besides various forms of fans and cool clothing and tents to sit under and an insane amount of bottled water, I am always ALWAYS looking for a good sunscreen. Since my high school days of slathering myself in baby oil and laying out on aluminum foil have (thankfully) come to an end, I have turned into my grandmother and rarely leave the house without some sort of sunscreen on my face, at the very least. A couple of years ago, I accidentally discovered Neutrogena's line of sunscreen (and by accidentally, I mean that it was on sale, and since we go through sunscreen at a breakneck pace, I'm always looking for a sale) and fell in love with it. Mainly because it smells divine. And it WORKS. So when the lovely Neutrogena people asked me to review their new UltraSheer® Liquid Daily Sunblock, I happily agreed. It came in the mail last week, just in time for our 2nd tournament. So Saturday, as I was planning to spend a scorching day at the ballpark, I applied it under my makeup before I left the house. It's so light that you can't feel it at all. It has SPF 70 (SEVENTY! Take THAT, sun!). It, like their other products, smells great (unlike a certain me who sat in the 100 degree heat all day). It worked great. I re-applied it twice (I mean, hello, I sweated all my makeup off within the first 30 seconds of being outside) because I was constantly wiping my face. I wore another brand of sunscreen on my legs and arms - both of which got a little pink. But my face didn't get sunburned. It also didn't break out, which I was totally expecting to happen. Because every mid-30 aged woman loves to have the acne issues of a 14 year old boy, right? Um, no.

So, after one use, I'm a fan. We have another tournament this weekend AND next weekend (merciful heavens), and unless Alabama's climate suddenly turns to Montana's climate, it'll be hot and humid again. I'll be using Neutrogena UltraSheer® Liquid Daily Sunblock again. Because if it can survive an Alabama summer at the ballpark, I'll be a customer for a LOOOONNNG time.




Would you like to review UltraSheer®, too? Then go to http://www.giantwavepool.com/ultrasheer

Or get $2 off your UltraSheer® purchase at http://www.neutrogena.com/suncoupon.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free for review purposes from Tidal Labs. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Pray for Ella

This is Ella. She is 2 years old. She is the daughter of Sheli, who was in my sorority pledge class at Auburn, and Robert. She is Cole's little sister.

And she has cancer.

Ella was diagnosed yesterday with Stage 3 Adrenal Carcinoma after a orange-sized tumor was taken out of her abdomen. Along with the tumor, one of her adrenal glands was also taken. Sheli and Robert will meet with the docs Thursday, which is also their 10th wedding anniversary, to discuss the next steps. Chemo will begin immediately.

I have watched the blog community rally around parents of sick kids. I have been in on the rally so many times. I have watched the power of prayer change lives. And now I'm begging you to do the same for Sheli, Robert, & Cole - and especially sweet little Ella. I can't imagine their heartbreak and outright fear right now. I do know a God who is bigger than their heartbreak. He is bigger than their fear. And He is bigger than this cancer. Sheli and Robert are clinging to their Savior right now. Please join them in praying for complete healing for this precious child.

Please, please, lift up this family. I will keep you updated.

Baby Steps.

It has been exactly 11 weeks and 3 days since I first mentioned the weight loss journey that I have started.

Eleven weeks and three days. Wow. I had no idea how much time had passed. It's a little surreal to take note of the time that has passed since I made a decision to change everything I knew about living a healthy lifestyle. Everything.

So, quickly, here's an update. I have lost 22 lbs. I ran (for the most part) 2 miles a few days ago. I feel great. I can see noticeable changes in my body. I'm strong and love ab workouts (I'm sorry, who is this person?). I'm doing the Shred Level 3 and am kicking it. And I'm very pleased with the progress that I've made.

I'm having success in some areas. My trainer, Beth, who I adore. ADORE. - She is the real deal and has become such a dear friend and mentor - stepped up my workouts yesterday. There was NO WAY I could've done 1/4 of what she had me do the first day I worked out with her. I'm wearing clothes that I haven't worn in a while. I wore a sleeveless dress today. Whattheheck? (Still not quite sure I'm ready for the sleeveless, but it was HOT outside and I was at the ballpark and a pool party blah blah blah...). I'm sleeping well and have more energy now. I'm eating fish (I hated fish). I still refuse to eat cottage cheese (wink, Beth). I guess some things never change. :)

But.

I'm struggling in some areas. Mostly food related. As I said in my previous post, I prayed for a while for the Lord to take away some certain cravings that have hindered any sort of weight loss or living healthy for years. And He did. They are gone. I'm still amazed by the grace that He pours out on little ole me every single day. The craziest part of my struggles with food lately have been the fact that I'm not eating enough. I can't seem to get my calories up. And, according to Beth, my body will soon begin to think it's starving and I'll quit losing weight. HELLO, that's SO not what I want.

So here are my thoughts on this... (FYI, this is some personal stuff, people. This is HARD to write in a public arena. But I honestly feel that transparency is my best ally right now. I'm sick of hiding. I'm sick of pretending that I'm ok when I'm living in a not-quite-as-jacked-up 7Eleven. I'm straight up sick of it. I will never ever get better if I bury my head in the sand and pretend that none of this exists - like I have done for waaayyy too many years.) I believe with all my heart that I'm finally getting a grasp on this food "addiction" that I had/have. However, there's some MAJOR FEAR associated with conquering something that has been such a stronghold on my life for so long. I'm scared of eating too much, so I eat too little. My fear of going back to who I was (in reality, in some ways still am), is causing me to overcompensate and not eat enough. I want this lifestyle that I have adopted to last forever. And I know that if I don't figure it all out, I'll go back to old me. This is where the baby step aspect of this whole thing makes me want to pull my hair out. I want major results NOW. I want to lose an insane amount of weight just like The Biggest Loser. I want it all to move so much quicker! This is the area that makes Beth want to take one of those dumbbells that she constantly puts in my hands and hit me over the head with it. She can see the end result so much clearer than I can. She has more faith in me than I do.

The years of self doubt and self sabotage are staring me in the face and are challenging me to a duel. Who will win?

Good thing I'm competitive. Good thing I have a God who WILL NOT fail me. Good thing His word says that He will complete a work in me. Good thing that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. Praise Him.

I will win this battle. Then I will win the war - 7 jillion baby steps from now (grrr.). I will go through struggles and frustrations (like now) but I will see this thing to the end. I. Will.

Thank you for journeying with me. You have NO IDEA what you mean to me.

Love you all -