Valentine's day treat idea.

Holidays can be hard on a special diet. Especially when you have three kids that are not on a special diet and one that is. It's a fine balance. On the one hand I want the kids that are not on a special diet to just have fun on the holidays, splurge a little, maybe even go a little crazy. It's a holiday after all and we are so careful about what we eat for the most part. Healthy whole foods diet, very little junk food {and there is a lot of food that makes our junk list that others wouldn't consider junk} and my kids are great about it. Everyone likes to have special treats now and again though. So on holidays I like to let my kids have treats we normally don't eat. I'm fine with it. But now I have a kid that can't have anything sweetened with anything except stevia so that doesn't leave a lot of options come holiday time. I don't want him to feel left out. We've made lots of changes in the last two years, and once again my kids have been wonderful about it. No candy in bright shiny wrappers is our rule now. Because I just can't duplicate that one for Atty. So I buy bulk chocolates for the kids and dried fruit, things like that. Then Atty's freezer candy doesn't look so different and he doesn't really care about the dried fruits. It is fun to get treats in shiny wrappers though. That's why candy comes so colorfully wrapped after all, people like it. And my kids, like so many others, stare longingly at it in the store. So right before Valentine's day, while I was shopping, I saw red tin heart containers with chocolates in them and a light bulb went off for me. I quickly bought up four of them and went home and emptied one of them out. Then I made a batch of Atty's freezer candies and sprinkled some shredded coconut on top that I dyed red with food coloring. Once they had set in the freezer I put them in the heart container and stored it back in the freezer. Then on Valentine's day I was able to give all the kids a fun bright container of chocolates to celebrate. They were all very excited. So now I know to keep my eyes open for reusable holiday containers that I can empty out and put Atty's type of treats into. Helps to make him feel included.

I use a heart shaped ice cube tray for Atty's candies. I use a mixture of cashew butter, a little coconut oil, a small amount of unsweetened cocoa powder, and liquid stevia to taste. I sprinkled unsweetened shredded coconut on top that was dyed red for a little holiday fun. You can also add coconut to the mixture it's really yummy that way. I have also added finely chopped pecan to the mix as well, very yummy. Put them in the freezer until solid. They melt easy so you have to eat them up right away when you take them out of the freezer, but Atty never has a problem with that, he loves these!

Here they are all nestled into the heart shaped container. :)

Now Atty has treats just like his siblings. Such an important thing when you're a kid.

No one feels left out, made this mommy so happy!

And there you have it. Atty loved his treats {as always} although I think he was even more excited about having a tin just like everyone else. He carried it around for the rest of the day and told his dad about it when he got home. :) Some times it's the little things that matter most.

Beautiful miracle

Last Easter.This Easter.
What a beautiful miracle, I am one happy mommy. I could hardly get a picture of him as he raced around with his brothers looking for eggs and talking a mile a minute. We did a candy free Easter, although I did make him some really cool treats that were almost like peanut butter cups and he loved them. I got his brother some bulk treats like yogurt covered raisins and chocolate peanut clusters and Atty didn't seem to even notice. I knew if I stayed away from the shiny wrapped stuff he wouldn't care as long as he had a treat of his own. I mostly put toys and trinkets in the baskets and they were all happy. I loved celebrating Easter this way as I've never been big on the candy and junk... I'm sure at this point that even if Atty no longer needs the diet at some point in the future {it does happen} we will still celebrate holidays with a lot less junk. We did decorated boiled eggs and a few plastic eggs with money for the egg hunt. It worked out beautifully. I have now done every major holiday on Atty's diet, success!!! It feels wonderful. :)

Harvest party, fun for all!

We had an AWESOME Harvest party!Besides the fact that I almost had a complete melt down at the grocery store the morning of the party...Atty's almond flour didn't make it on time so I had to get that, among other things, at the store. The store I always shop at, the store that always has almond flour...except for when I {desperately can not live with out it, child with be crushed, and party ruined} need it. There is nothing else I can make his baked goodies with and he can't have any other goodies...I was FREAKING out. As in I started to lose it in the store, had to talk myself out of sobbing right there in the aisle. I know it sounds dramatic, but it's not like I can say "oh well, didn't have the ingredients to make his cookies, guess I'll just buy some". Last time I checked they don't make almond flour anything anywhere around here. I had no idea where else to get it from. Anyways to make a long story {read emotional meltdown} short I finished my shopping then sobbed my way to another store where thankfully...they had Almond flour. Relief. Of course one pound was 15 bucks!! ack!!! Oh well, that's what I get for poor planning. I then rushed home and whipped up a batch of muffins and a batch of cookies. First time trying this cookie recipe {that I'm adapting from a different recipe} and it actually turned out pretty good. I'm going to try it again with the good almond flour that finally showed up on my door step today.


Then four o'clock rolled around and the party was on a roll!


It was a dress up party to keep it fun and Halloweenie, and wow were these kids cute! Thanks to some really great friends who elected to skip trick-or-treating to hang out with us and have some fun...and we had all kinds of fun! They started out being wild and crazy like little kids are and so we sent them outside to get some wiggles out, then they came in and watched The Great Pumpkin, a classic. After the movie we moved on to games.

A favorite game of ours for this holiday is the mummy game. It involves toilet paper and lots of giggles. Everyone took turns getting mummified. I think this is one of the cutest mummies ever!

My dear friend brought over a board game, Harvest time, and the kids really enjoyed playing that with her. It was hard to drag them away for dinner time! Not that they were all that hungry after all the good snacks we had set out. So far I've not had any problem with food that is set out for others to eat, he stays away from it and/or asks me if he wants anything. Plus his brothers sound the alarm if he is even standing to close to food he can't have. It has the potential to be adorable and annoying at the same time. I did end up keeping the food separated, Atty had his own special food and the rest of the guest had what we were serving. I was thinking about serving food that Atty could have too, like the home made chicken fingers with almond flour breading but since I didn't have hardly any almond flour to begin with I changed my mind. It would have been a lot of extra work anyways. I knew that none of the foods were going to bother him and made sure I had his favorites available. Thankfully he's not had a problem with this so far. He's really into cashew butter right now and likes eating it by the spoonful...so I let him eat spoonfuls of cashew butter to his hearts content. :) He didn't even bat an eye at what everyone else was eating.

After dinner it was time for our treasure hunt. My lovely sister made up all ten clues and hid them around the house. Then we turned off the lights and searched for the clues by flash light, fantastic! At the end of it all the kids each got a little gift bag full of toys and trinkets.

Then we read a spooky story by flashlight, "What Was I Afraid Of?" by Dr. Seuss. Followed up with pumpkin cookies for the kids with ice cream and whipped cream and special cookies for Atty with butter frosting. Yummy! The night ended up being a huge success thanks to my good friends and some really great kids. Not a single piece of candy was involved. We even passed out trinket to the trick-or-treaters that showed up at our house. We will definitely have to do this again next year, I enjoyed it so much {and the kids really seemed to also} that I think I might be done with trick-or-treating from here on out. Never liked it all that much anyway.

Drum roll please

...and now, one down...two to go.


Last day for the zonisamide, No More from here on out!!! He did not have a single reaction...no noticeable change for the worse what so ever...how awesome is that! I just knew that one was pointless. Now we are going to wait about a month and then start going down on the VPA. I'm a little more nervous about this one, but of the last two meds I want him off this one as soon as possible. Lots of nasty side effects with this one and it's making his hair fall out and loose it's beautiful dark red color. So sad. The doctor said that it isn't permanent though, that his hair will grow back again as soon as he gets off the VPA, she doesn't know about the color though. She's never heard of the hair getting lighter, but it's obvious that it has when you look at old pictures and then now. I was even finding white looking hair on his head before we shaved it. We shaved it because he was starting to look like he had a comb over, poor boy. I miss all his beautiful red hair. :(


I ordered The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam and I am waiting patiently for it to arrive. Super excited to see what recipes I can adapt from there to make new things for Atty using the almond flour. I tasted a cake that someone made from this cookbook and it was super delicious, if they hadn't used maple syrup for sweetener Atty would have been able to eat it {minus the frosting}! I'm pretty sure I will be able to just use stevia for a sweetener and hopefully have success with many of the recipes. I also found Almond flour online and although it is a big investment {pricey stuff} in the long run it saves money {price per pound goes down} so I contemplating ordering larger quantities. I go through the little bags from the store so fast!

We've decided not to go Trick or Treating this year. I know it's a little early to talk about this, but it is just around the corner already! I don't really like the whole thing anyways and the kids have only gone two or three times, so they are not really to upset about not going. Bubu {my oldest} questioned the idea a little bit, but I reassured him that we would have fun and talked to him a little bit about why it would be hard for Atty and he accepted that. We are going to have a Harvest Party instead. Some close friends are coming over and we've got all sorts of things brewing, idea wise. I've got to come up with some great games and snacks and treats that the whole group will love. I've got to decided if I will make separate things for the rest of the kids to enjoy and then special things for Atty or all the same stuff. It's really hard to make all the same stuff though...Food that Atty can have doesn't always mix well into the over all party food. If I make separate stuff I have to be careful so that Atty won't feel left out. I usually try to make something for Atty that looks close to what the other people are eating so it takes a lot of planning ahead of time. Maybe I should come up with a regular menu and then branch off from there. Apparently I'm brainstorming as I type. We are keeping it a dress up party so that all the kids can wear their costumes {gotta have my pictures!} and I think the kids will have fun passing treats out this year. I've always been the house that passes out items like stickers/crayons/bubbles instead of candy {Yes I am that house} so there won't be any stress for us there. Just having candy in the same room as Atty makes me break out in a cold sweat. It's just too tempting...

Atty has a big multiple appointments at Children's day coming up on the 28th. Hope all goes well. I think we have to do a blood draw again, dreading that. Also have to take at least the baby girl with me if not all of the kids so that will be fun {heavy on the sarcasm}. It sure is nice to walk through the doors with my little red head walking beside me, no helmet, no stroller, not stopping to wipe drool, no grabbing him by the shoulders to steady him...just walking, hand in hand. :)