 |
| 1 egg (2PP), 3 egg whites (1PP), nonstick cooking spray, spinach, zucchini, sweet mini peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and less than 1/4 cup of fat free cheddar cheese (1PP). It was so delicious... a masterpiece, even! |
Monday, April 25, 2011
Vegetables and My Weight Watchers Weirdness
Being a lifetime member of Weight Watchers has done some weird things to me. Like getting so excited about a 4-PointsPlus breakfast filled to the brim with so many power foods that I had to take a picture of it!
Vegetables are a main part of my new outlook on life. Although I spent much of my childhood being careful that my vegetables didn't touch my other food, I often mix them in on purpose! One of my favorite ways to eat mashed potatoes these days is to mash over-cooked cauliflower instead and then add just a 1/4 cup of mashed potatoes and 1 or 2 Tbls. of instant potato flakes together. They're a little wet, but taste really yummy and I can get away with eating a whole lot more of that vitamin and fiber infused mash than the fluffy white stuff my family eats. I also stirred in a bunch of spinach with my spaghetti last week. It looked really gross, but I honestly felt that it improved the taste. I prefer zucchini, mushrooms and spinach to noodles in my lasagna, now. I often provide two vegetables with our dinners now, and eat a fruit and at least one vegetable with my lunches, but haven't figured out how to slip veggies into my kids breakfasts yet. I spend most of my time at the grocery store in the produce aisle and curse whoever is responsible for selling bell peppers at $1.39 each and tomatoes at $2.79 a pound. I think I've finally grown up and learned to appreciate the virtues of vegetables. I just need to figure out how to help my kids and husband love them, too!
Young Women Broadcast... Live!
As Sarah was approaching her last few months in Young Women's, I felt like I needed to seize the opportunity to take the girls to Salt Lake to the Young Women Broadcast and see it live. I've wanted to for the past few years, but as a stake leader, felt like we needed to stay here and support local viewing and dessert... looking back, I'm really not sure why, but just never did it. Well, not having that reason anymore, I decided it was something we just HAD to do, and since Steve agreed with me, we just did it!
I arranged with the Stake Presidency to get tickets and we took a Saturday trip to Salt Lake on March 26th. The girls had decided to take turns riding in the front and choosing the music. We sang along, laughed and talked non-stop the whole way. We stopped along the way at Kim's Fashions in Layton (to buy $3 earring/necklace sets) and then to the Olive Garden for lunch. Rachel and Sarah both had raviolis (Sarah had portabella and Rachel had cheese), and I had the Venetian apricot grilled chicken (only 6 WW PlusPoints and so delicious!) We went over to the Layton Hills Mall to shop, but after Rachel spent all her money at the first store, we just walked around to see what a real mall looked like.
When we got to Salt Lake, we spent a long time looking for a place to park, and then walked to Temple Square. We tried to visit the Relief Society Building, but it was closed. The girls (in anticipation of a beautiful "spring" day) weren't dressed warm enough for the cloudy, windy, cool weather, so we didn't wander as far as we had originally planned. We walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and saw the "hats" display they had in there. We rode the elevator to the top and took some great pictures. We also walked through the family history center. I think the girls were impressed.
We went over to the Conference center and got our tickets and decided to just change clothes and wait inside for the hour and a half until the meeting started. We ended up with amazing seats--being there so early, and enjoyed the time to sit and relax for a while. I loved the value-colored banners they had hung by the organ pipes with the three symbols (laurel wreath, rose, and beehive) on them. The touches like those and the beautiful spring flowers and grasses behind the podium created such a great atmosphere for such a special meeting.
The meeting was so great. It is so different being there, watching it live, and feeling the spirits of all those beautiful daughters of God surrounding you. The love emanating from those beautiful General Young Women leaders was almost tangible. I love the videos they show in the middle of the broadcast that depict the righteousness and virtue of beautiful young women living the gospel all over the world. I have such a soft spot in my heart for these sweet daughters of God and my eyes often swell with tears of gratitude when I hear of my girls and others keeping the commandments and living the gospel so steadfastly. When the meeting was over, and President Monson and his counselors left, he spent quite a while waving at all those sweet girls. Then I was overcome with gratitude, and with tears streaming down my face, I testified of his calling and told the girls that I hoped they understood how blessed they are to have this gospel...to have the direction and resources they need to navigate this crazy world. There are so many around them that don't even know who they are, let alone why they're here or where they're going. After that, I hugged them each for a long time and told them how much I appreciate their goodness and example and that they wanted to be there with me. Oh, how I love my sweet daughters. I am so honored and grateful to be their mother.
It was funny, walking quickly down the sidewalk back to our car, we noticed that all those girls, moms and leaders (including us) were waking arm in arm or hand in hand, like they felt a closeness that they didn't want to let go of. We hurried to the car (it started raining) and headed home. Sarah rationed the Cadbury Mini-eggs (simply protecting me and Rachel from ourselves) and then went to sleep, and Rachel sat in the front seat with me and played DJ as we talked. The snow storm on the way home was interesting. As we went over the Malad pass, we had horizontal snow clusters coming right at us. Visibility was almost zero, so I slowed to a mere 35mph and followed the tail lights of the car in front of us, hoping that driver could see better than I could. We made it safely home, and went to bed tired, happy, and grateful.
I arranged with the Stake Presidency to get tickets and we took a Saturday trip to Salt Lake on March 26th. The girls had decided to take turns riding in the front and choosing the music. We sang along, laughed and talked non-stop the whole way. We stopped along the way at Kim's Fashions in Layton (to buy $3 earring/necklace sets) and then to the Olive Garden for lunch. Rachel and Sarah both had raviolis (Sarah had portabella and Rachel had cheese), and I had the Venetian apricot grilled chicken (only 6 WW PlusPoints and so delicious!) We went over to the Layton Hills Mall to shop, but after Rachel spent all her money at the first store, we just walked around to see what a real mall looked like.
When we got to Salt Lake, we spent a long time looking for a place to park, and then walked to Temple Square. We tried to visit the Relief Society Building, but it was closed. The girls (in anticipation of a beautiful "spring" day) weren't dressed warm enough for the cloudy, windy, cool weather, so we didn't wander as far as we had originally planned. We walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and saw the "hats" display they had in there. We rode the elevator to the top and took some great pictures. We also walked through the family history center. I think the girls were impressed.
 | ||
| The Salt Lake Temple and the Conference Center from the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building |
 |
| My beautiful daughters and the temple |
We went over to the Conference center and got our tickets and decided to just change clothes and wait inside for the hour and a half until the meeting started. We ended up with amazing seats--being there so early, and enjoyed the time to sit and relax for a while. I loved the value-colored banners they had hung by the organ pipes with the three symbols (laurel wreath, rose, and beehive) on them. The touches like those and the beautiful spring flowers and grasses behind the podium created such a great atmosphere for such a special meeting.
 | |||
| The Conference Center. We loved the YW banners hanging above the doors. Such a nice touch that made the girls feel so special and important! |
 | |
| We were only about 14 rows back, on the side where the Prophet enters and exits. We were so excited to be sitting so close we could see actually see the wrinkles on his face when he smiled! |
The meeting was so great. It is so different being there, watching it live, and feeling the spirits of all those beautiful daughters of God surrounding you. The love emanating from those beautiful General Young Women leaders was almost tangible. I love the videos they show in the middle of the broadcast that depict the righteousness and virtue of beautiful young women living the gospel all over the world. I have such a soft spot in my heart for these sweet daughters of God and my eyes often swell with tears of gratitude when I hear of my girls and others keeping the commandments and living the gospel so steadfastly. When the meeting was over, and President Monson and his counselors left, he spent quite a while waving at all those sweet girls. Then I was overcome with gratitude, and with tears streaming down my face, I testified of his calling and told the girls that I hoped they understood how blessed they are to have this gospel...to have the direction and resources they need to navigate this crazy world. There are so many around them that don't even know who they are, let alone why they're here or where they're going. After that, I hugged them each for a long time and told them how much I appreciate their goodness and example and that they wanted to be there with me. Oh, how I love my sweet daughters. I am so honored and grateful to be their mother.
It was funny, walking quickly down the sidewalk back to our car, we noticed that all those girls, moms and leaders (including us) were waking arm in arm or hand in hand, like they felt a closeness that they didn't want to let go of. We hurried to the car (it started raining) and headed home. Sarah rationed the Cadbury Mini-eggs (simply protecting me and Rachel from ourselves) and then went to sleep, and Rachel sat in the front seat with me and played DJ as we talked. The snow storm on the way home was interesting. As we went over the Malad pass, we had horizontal snow clusters coming right at us. Visibility was almost zero, so I slowed to a mere 35mph and followed the tail lights of the car in front of us, hoping that driver could see better than I could. We made it safely home, and went to bed tired, happy, and grateful.
Monday, April 18, 2011
A Visitor from Alaska
I haven't had much time to blog lately. Don't despair, I have kept a list of things to write about and will be updating much within the coming week. The reason for my slothfulness is because I've spent most of my computer time documenting The Adventures of Flat Stanley in Idaho! My sweet little niece in Alaska sent her "Flat Stanley" from school to my daughters to visit them and learn about Idaho. Although they thought it was so cute, I don't think they realized what an honor it was to have been "picked" by that sweet little 7 year-old who must love them dearly. They chuckled, but cringed, nearly every time I made them "pose" with their new paper friend. I was diligent, though, and made sure that every wonderful thing they did, they made him a part of it! We shipped him off today, along with a scrapbook, Idaho pencil, postcards, Sweet Treets Chocolate suckers, and a bag of "I love Idaho" hard candy to share with her friends at school. I decided since I worked so hard on his scrapbook (and had so much fun learning how to use my new digital scrapbook program in the process...yea!) that I'd like to share it. So, here are the newest Adventures of Flat Stanley... (Just click on the page if you want to see it full size.)
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Bryson's Progress
One of the reasons I started this blog was to share my thoughts and feelings about having special needs children, one with health needs and another with psychological needs. I hoped by putting these thoughts into words I might help someone else someday that is walking a similar road. Unfortunately, I don't do a very good job of keeping those updates coming when things are going so well.... Here is a long-overdue update about Bryson.
I heard a few weeks ago that the term, "Aspergers Syndrome" is no longer valid, and kids with those symptoms are now part of the umbrella of "High Functioning Autism". Doesn't really matter to me, the diagnosis a few years ago is what got him the help he needed, and getting him the help he needed made him higher functioning than I thought possible.
On October 13th, the day after his 11th birthday, he was officially released from his occupational therapy, having met all of the goals we created with his therapist, and no other new concerns or deficiencies presented themselves. We were excited and so proud of him for accomplishing so much in just over a year. He was sad about not going to therapy anymore, because he loved Tonja and loved learning and practicing his new skills. She gave him an hour of undivided attention and listened to him talk (greatly encouraged him, really) about his day, his worries, his successes, and his preferences as she worked on strengthening his muscles, balance and coordination. It was kind of hectic for me, going every other Wednesday for over a year, but Bryson and I really enjoyed our alone time in the car driving there and back for each appointment. Sharing that time together was pretty special for both of us and we loved to talk about and celebrate his successes (always with an Arctic Circle ice cream cone on the way home).
This TumbleForm "Swing" was one of Bryson's favorite things. He nicknamed it "Tumbleweed" because it reminded him of a horse and he tumbled from it often! He also loved throwing the medicine balls into the small trampolines to play "bounce back". He got pretty good at it and could catch the heavier one while standing on one foot. By the time he was released he had learned how to tie his shoes (again), throw and catch with one hand, and how to skip, hop, and climb. He climbed up a rope ladder and a rock wall, and loved being up so high. (He was so afraid to climb even 2 feet off the ground when he started his therapy.) It was absolutely amazing to see the confidence grow in our little boy in just a year. I think being successful and getting stronger, plus having something to do that was all about him, was so good for him. Tonja always talked with me, too, giving suggestions with his sensory issues, resolving the frustrations at home, and offering new ideas for school and homework. She said once that she loved having him for a patient because his parents were engaged in his development and his therapy continued with us at home. Why would we not follow her suggestions and reinforce her teaching? Oh, how we love Tonja, and will be forever grateful to her for teaching us what to do to help our sweet, special son. He's a different kid than he was a year ago...confident, comfortable, successful, and even happy!
We also love our special eduction teacher at his school, Mindy. Like Tonja, she does her job with such loving care and concern that it doesn't even seem like she's doing a "job". She called me a couple months ago because she was concerned about Bryson's math scores, and we met for over an hour to talk about that and some frustrations with homework we were experiencing at home. (Because of his diagnosis, he has an IEP and accommodations at school to give him the added support he needs to be more successful. He attends a charter school whose philosophy is that when children are in a safe environment with accelerated learning opportunities, they will rise to the challenge and excel. It's a philosophy that works, even for kids with learning challenges. He still struggles at school, but is getting the help he needs to understand concepts and actually catch up to where he should be.) He was struggling specifically with the tasks of completing his 12 or 13 math problems each day and putting his spelling words in ABC order. It just took FOREVER...(like until bedtime). Well, we went back our 3rd and 4th grade method of having his math problems transferred from the book to the paper for him, as it seems that he was getting lost between the book and his work several times for each problem. And I think she's brilliant with the alphabetical order thing.... Bryson is a tactile learner. If he can manipulate it, he gets it. So, deciding he could show his understanding of the concept with 10-12 words just as easily as with 20, she started making him 10 word cards for him to manipulate until they're in order and then just write them down in a list like he has them placed. Pretty smart, huh? I never would have come up with that! Anyway, he also goes to early morning study hall at 7:15 three days a week to have someone help him correct and fix his math assignments. These accommodations alone has reduced homework time from 4 hours (not kidding) to about 1, and he works independently at his desk in his room, is self-motivated, successful, and again...happy!
I am so grateful for the people in my sweet boy's life that have helped us help him. I can't imagine how frustrating life would be to have a brain that processes things differently from the rest of the world (or so it seems) and not be able to understand why things are so hard and uncomfortable all the time. Oh, how I love my sweet little angel boy, with his happy, forgiving, loving disposition. And how grateful I am to have found help through the suggestions of loving teachers, doctors, therapists, friends and family.
I heard a few weeks ago that the term, "Aspergers Syndrome" is no longer valid, and kids with those symptoms are now part of the umbrella of "High Functioning Autism". Doesn't really matter to me, the diagnosis a few years ago is what got him the help he needed, and getting him the help he needed made him higher functioning than I thought possible.
On October 13th, the day after his 11th birthday, he was officially released from his occupational therapy, having met all of the goals we created with his therapist, and no other new concerns or deficiencies presented themselves. We were excited and so proud of him for accomplishing so much in just over a year. He was sad about not going to therapy anymore, because he loved Tonja and loved learning and practicing his new skills. She gave him an hour of undivided attention and listened to him talk (greatly encouraged him, really) about his day, his worries, his successes, and his preferences as she worked on strengthening his muscles, balance and coordination. It was kind of hectic for me, going every other Wednesday for over a year, but Bryson and I really enjoyed our alone time in the car driving there and back for each appointment. Sharing that time together was pretty special for both of us and we loved to talk about and celebrate his successes (always with an Arctic Circle ice cream cone on the way home).
This TumbleForm "Swing" was one of Bryson's favorite things. He nicknamed it "Tumbleweed" because it reminded him of a horse and he tumbled from it often! He also loved throwing the medicine balls into the small trampolines to play "bounce back". He got pretty good at it and could catch the heavier one while standing on one foot. By the time he was released he had learned how to tie his shoes (again), throw and catch with one hand, and how to skip, hop, and climb. He climbed up a rope ladder and a rock wall, and loved being up so high. (He was so afraid to climb even 2 feet off the ground when he started his therapy.) It was absolutely amazing to see the confidence grow in our little boy in just a year. I think being successful and getting stronger, plus having something to do that was all about him, was so good for him. Tonja always talked with me, too, giving suggestions with his sensory issues, resolving the frustrations at home, and offering new ideas for school and homework. She said once that she loved having him for a patient because his parents were engaged in his development and his therapy continued with us at home. Why would we not follow her suggestions and reinforce her teaching? Oh, how we love Tonja, and will be forever grateful to her for teaching us what to do to help our sweet, special son. He's a different kid than he was a year ago...confident, comfortable, successful, and even happy!
We also love our special eduction teacher at his school, Mindy. Like Tonja, she does her job with such loving care and concern that it doesn't even seem like she's doing a "job". She called me a couple months ago because she was concerned about Bryson's math scores, and we met for over an hour to talk about that and some frustrations with homework we were experiencing at home. (Because of his diagnosis, he has an IEP and accommodations at school to give him the added support he needs to be more successful. He attends a charter school whose philosophy is that when children are in a safe environment with accelerated learning opportunities, they will rise to the challenge and excel. It's a philosophy that works, even for kids with learning challenges. He still struggles at school, but is getting the help he needs to understand concepts and actually catch up to where he should be.) He was struggling specifically with the tasks of completing his 12 or 13 math problems each day and putting his spelling words in ABC order. It just took FOREVER...(like until bedtime). Well, we went back our 3rd and 4th grade method of having his math problems transferred from the book to the paper for him, as it seems that he was getting lost between the book and his work several times for each problem. And I think she's brilliant with the alphabetical order thing.... Bryson is a tactile learner. If he can manipulate it, he gets it. So, deciding he could show his understanding of the concept with 10-12 words just as easily as with 20, she started making him 10 word cards for him to manipulate until they're in order and then just write them down in a list like he has them placed. Pretty smart, huh? I never would have come up with that! Anyway, he also goes to early morning study hall at 7:15 three days a week to have someone help him correct and fix his math assignments. These accommodations alone has reduced homework time from 4 hours (not kidding) to about 1, and he works independently at his desk in his room, is self-motivated, successful, and again...happy!
I am so grateful for the people in my sweet boy's life that have helped us help him. I can't imagine how frustrating life would be to have a brain that processes things differently from the rest of the world (or so it seems) and not be able to understand why things are so hard and uncomfortable all the time. Oh, how I love my sweet little angel boy, with his happy, forgiving, loving disposition. And how grateful I am to have found help through the suggestions of loving teachers, doctors, therapists, friends and family.
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