A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I haven't blogged in nearly two weeks which is just about as long as Brent has been off work due to a surgery. I knew that he had a deviated septum and he was having surgery to repair it, but I thought he'd be back to work the next day (Friday) or Monday at the latest. Why did I think this? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE TOLD ME! (And what he really believed..) After his surgery I was called back to the recovery area because they said he kept trying to pull the stuff out of his nose and he wouldn't keep the oxygen on. They said they thought maybe I could convince him to stop. I couldn't convince him because he was high as a kite, but I did keep him from doing it with my stern "mom voice" and by spanking his hand.. hahaha. I felt a little ridiculous doing it, but it worked! I asked the nurse if he could go back to work the next day and she laughed hysterically and said, "You're kidding, right?" I said, "Actually, no.. Brent told me on the way here that he would be going to work tomorrow." She left the room, got the doctor and I could hear her telling him the "joke" in the hallway. He came in laughing and said, "Tomorrow? Try two weeks!" I thought HE was joking so I said, "Funny funny! But really, can he go back MONDAY? I need to call his work and let them know because he thought he would be going back tomorrow." The doctor said, "I'm serious, two weeks." Alrighty then! Two weeks! I was pretty excited because it was a totally unexpected two weeks together! Another thing I didn't expect was how difficult the recovery was going to be on him. Brent has been through several surgeries during our time together and I've never seen him in as much pain as he was in after this one. I couldn't kiss him without him yelling "OOOOOWWWW!" The kids were a bit of an issue because it seemed like when he felt well enough to play with them, his nose was a magnet for their heads. After a few days, he was fine and we actually got a lot accomplished around the house! Our landlords (who are absolutely wonderful by the way) have arranged for a sprinkler system and sod to be put down. I am so excited about this! We had some trees in the back yard that took up big chunk of space and really served no purpose. We had an orange tree, but the oranges were never very good. We later found out that in order to have a really good orange tree you need to have two orange trees side by side. So anyway, Brent chopped down the trees in the back yard. I knew they were decent sized trees, but once they were cut down and just laying in the yard.. holy cow there was a ton of it! We borrowed a trailer and hauled off the branches that couldn't be used for fire wood and then rented a stump grinder to get rid of the stumps. I wish the process would've been as easy as it sounds typing about it. Oh who am I kidding, it was really easy for me.. I just watched and offered my (unwanted) advice regularly. It took a few days to get everything done, but now we have a treeless stumpless back yard ready for some new sod! Woot woot! I'm always impressed when Brent does things like that!

We rented the stump grinder for half a day, but our back yard only took about half an hour so Brent took care of a stump in one neighbor's yard and then moved on to the next neighbor's yard. I walked outside and heard him yell, "HEY, DO YOU HAVE ANY STUMPS THAT YOU WANT TO GET RID OF?" She said yes so off he went. She had a stump, but she also wanted some new holes dug so she could move some bushes she dug up. Brent started digging the holes when another neighbor came over and said, "Those need to be deeper!" Brent made them deeper aaannnnddd busted a pipe in her sprinkler system. Whoops! So until bedtime last night, he was repairing a sprinkler system. That was impressive too because I didn't know he knew anything about them! 

Anyway.. when Brent's home, we're always doing something so I don't take the time to blog. He'll be going back to work tomorrow though so I'm sure you'll hear from me more often! 

Blake has some blood work coming up this week and I am SO GLAD! One thing we're testing for is Celiac Disease and in order to accurately test for it, I've had to take him off of Paleo and feed him crappy food for nearly a month. For the first week or so, I still cooked Paleo foods, but just added some bread or something with gluten to his plate, but then I realized that just doing that isn't a "gluten RICH" diet. So I started feeding him and Ava different foods than Brent and I were eating. It's not fair to Ava for Blake to get junk foods that kids love and her not get any. This lasted one shopping trip then I realized we couldn't afford it anymore so we've ALL been eating like crap and we all FEEL like crap most of the time! Blake is sick for the first time in months and he has a terrible rash that won't go away! Normally I use this amazing cream called Healing Butter on his rashes and by the next diaper change they're gone, but for the past two or so weeks, he's had diarrhea several times a day. Each time I change him, I make sure his bottom is really dry then I put a thick coat of healing butter on him then his diaper, but he's pooping so much that the healing butter doesn't have time to do its job. I'm so ready to get the testing out of the way so we can start eating better and feeling better! 

I've hated grocery shopping lately. It's hard when you've trained your brain to think one way then force it to do something different. I've bought a lot of processed foods, lots of junk food, etc. No matter what we are eating, I REFUSE to buy anything other than organic meats. I had a conversation with my sister the other day about chicken. She used to work in a chemical plant and they made a chemical that had one purpose and one purpose only and that was to be put in chicken feed to speed up a chicken's growth. She said that they had to wear protective gear anytime they were around this chemical, but one time she didn't have on a mask when she was exposed to a teeny tiny bit of it and she just about passed out. She said she got light headed and started seeing stars. I would never knowingly eat something that I knew had chemicals in it.. especially something so strong! It turns out that I've been unknowingly eating things with chemicals my entire life. Today I read something with a list of ingredients found in a McDonald's hamburger. I couldn't pronounce more of the words than I could BY FAR! You know what they say? If you can't pronounce it, it was probably made in a lab. It's no wonder they can sell those things for $1!! In the same video it had pictures of McDonald's hamburgers that this guy has been saving for 18 YEARS! The burgers looked very close to the same as when you buy them, but some were 18 years old!! So the point of the story is.. The Schneider family will not be eating McDonald's unless we're travelling, starving and there's no other option! 

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about and planning for the kids' birthday parties. I always put a lot of thought into these things, but this year is a special year because Brent gets to attend! He was at Ava's 1st birthday party, but that was the only one and he missed Blake's last year. I'm so excited that he's finally going to be home! It should have worked out so that he would be working 24 hours on 24 hours off, but because of his surgery he's behind schedule and he'll start that a few days AFTER their parties! This makes me so happy!! I was going to have to plan the birthdays on a Sunday and a Tuesday, but now we can do them both during the weekend! 

It's so hard to believe that Ava is going to be FIVE! If it weren't for that little girl, I don't think I could've possibly survived a lot of things that we've had to go through. Since she was a baby, she's always been my little best friend. Though I can barely remember what life was like before she was here, it still doesn't seem real that she's going to be FIVE! That seems like such a big number! Blake will be two 8 days after Ava turns five! The other day I was talking to my sister and she asked, "Is Blake going to be two or three this year?" I told her two and she said, "It seems like he's been here forever! We thought he was going to be three!" It probably sounds horrible, but I feel like he's been here WAY longer than two years too! That first year felt like way more than a single year! He's my pride and joy, he makes me laugh all day long, he makes me proud, he melts my heart and I'm so glad that he's healthier than he was. I'm thankful that I didn't give up, I'm thankful that I didn't settle for what the doctors (all of 'em) were telling me. I'm thankful that I had the mindset and drive to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in my absolutely miserable baby because now I have this little boy who is incredibly funny, active, WILD and smart! People used to say that God healed Blake and it would kind of upset me. Do NOT get me wrong, I completely believe in the healing power of God, I've seen it with my own two eyes, but I didn't believe that God healed Blake. To me it felt like people saw that he was starting to get healthy and gave God all credit for it, totally disregarding everything I had endlessly worked so hard for for close to a year. I definitely didn't do it for any sort of recognition, but at the time, it really irritated me when people said it. Now, and looking back, I give God all the glory for putting the right people in my and my parents' paths to help us get to where we are now. I never in a million years thought that I'd EVER say this, but I'm thankful for the experience I had with Blake because it changed my way of thinking and made me way more proactive. I think the way I think based off of the research I do on my own, not based off of the way people tell me I should think. Take vaccines for example. It's no secret how I feel about vaccines. I've always been cautious of them, I delayed some of Ava's by a year, but having Blake made me dig deeper and find out what inside of them could possibly be hurting him. Even if I had known what was in vaccines before I had Blake, I probably could have easily been pressured into giving them to Ava because I didn't have a back bone. I was timid when it came to standing up for myself, my daughter and my beliefs. Now.... try me! I know my facts, I've educated myself and I am completely confident in the decisions I make. Thank you God for putting me through a year of pure hell because now I am confident and educated. I know a whole heck of a lot more than I did two years ago! I've learned to think for myself and not the way the government, drug companies and some doctors tell me to and that makes me proud of me. 

While I've been writing this blog, I've been looking at a big pile of laundry out of the corner of my eye. Apparently it's not going to put itself away so I guess I better get after it! If you survived this expire blog, I'm impressed!! Have a great week!

The BEST Sausage Soup!

Last winter I made a really awesome sausage soup, but the pasta made it far from Paleo so I decided it was time to recreate it to make it Paleo-friendly. I got the idea from Paleo Mama. I used most of her ingredients, just different amounts and I added a few things of my own/changed the cooking process up some. Before I share the recipe, let me just say that I normally don't eat more than one serving of anything, but I went back for seconds tonight! It's even better than my original sausage soup! It's extremely easy to make and SO tasty! Even if you don't follow Paleo, this is a perfect winter soup! It's so creamy and delicious!

two pounds of sweet italian sausage
one sweet onion finely diced
one large can of crushed tomatoes
lots of basil, parsley and oregano (and I mean LOTS!)
one can of coconut milk
chicken broth
several cloves of garlic chopped into small pieces (I put the cloves in my food processor to chop)
coconut oil (olive oil would work just fine)
salt and pepper to taste


Brown the italian sausage in coconut (or olive) oil in a medium sized soup pot.
While meat is browning, put crushed tomatoes, coconut milk and spices into your blender (or food processor) and blend until well combined.
Add onions and garlic to the sausage and cook until onions are tender.

Add tomato/coconut milk/spice mixture to your pot and stir, then add chicken broth. I really don't know how much I added, I just added until it was the soupy consistency that I wanted it to be. You don't want it to be TOO runny, the creaminess is what makes this soup!

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cook on low for 20-25 minutes, stirring often.

This soup is SO good! I know it's going to be a regular in our house this winter!

I have lots of other recipes to share, but I just haven't had time. I'll catch up one of these days! For now, I need to go make another key lime pie... YUM!!

First Doctor's Appointment In Florida!

It's such a gloomy rainy day today. I wish we could've stayed in our jammies all day long, but the kids had a doctor's appointment at 9 this morning followed by school for Ava at noon. I absolutely adore our new doctor. She's GREAT! She stayed in the room with us for nearly an hour just so she could make sure we were on the same page about everything. I always get really nervous when we see a new doctor because Blake isn't vaccinated and a lot of doctors refuse to see patients if they're not vaccinated. I explained the situation to the doctor, I told her that I felt strongly that vaccines had something to do with Blake's illness(es) in the past and I explained why I felt the way I do. Much to my surprise she told me that she thought I was "a very alert, educated and responsible parent" because of my thinking and my way of doing (or not doing) things. I was throughly impressed by that! I told her about Blake's stomach issues and she thought we definitely needed to test him for celiac disease. I've always suspected that he might have it, but since he gains weight fine now, I had almost ruled it out. She said that not every person with celiac disease has trouble gaining weight. I read that there are two different types, one type involves the body not being able to absorb fat properly. I've known for over a year that Blake's body doesn't absorb fat properly!! We did blood work when he was 6 or 7 months old and determined that so it upsets me a little bit that this is the first time we're testing for celiac disease. For the next month I have to feed him gluten rich foods so we have a better chance of accurate results. With all of the Paleo foods he's been eating for the past month or so, his body could very easily give a false negative to the test if we did it now. 

Both kids are growing and developing well. Ava is smaller than average for her age.. I think we all know who she gets that from! As a grown adult, my 10 year old nephew is taller than I am! Blake, on the other hand, is BIG! He's in the 75th percentile for height, weight and (big ole) noggin! The doctor said that she thought they were both really bright children and she said she's never had an almost two year old do so perfect with an exam. Blake is (USUALLY) fantastic at following directions so I wasn't surprised by how well he did, but it was nice to get that compliment! Ava had to get a shot and she was so excited about it. I'm totally serious! She asked me or the doctor every minute or so, "Am I going to get my shot soon?" When she got it, she took it like a champ and had a big smile on her face when she got her super sweet bandaid! I declined the flu vaccine for all of us just because I don't like it. It doesn't protect against all types of the flu and I specifically didn't like that at the beginning of last year they included H1N1 in the vaccine without telling people. I know this because a nurse in my family shared this lovely info with me. I know a lot of people couldn't care less, but I like to know what I'm putting in my body and more importantly in my kids' bodies! 

It's been raining since early this morning and Gracie (our dog) has major anxiety. I swear she's a lap dog in a lab's body! She's huge, but she always wants to sit in my lap! She's scared of the rain, she's scared of water (which will make the bath I'm about to give her a grrrreat experience, I'm sure), she's such a big baby! I totally love her though!

I don't have time to blog recipes because the smell of wet/dirty dog is really starting to disgust me, but I'll attach a link for one of my most recent favorites! Enjoy!

Easy Skillet Rosemary Chicken, Pecan Basil Parsley Pesto! - This chicken and pesto was so good! We had a lot of leftover pesto so we used it as a veggie dip until it was gone.

Wild toddler, family time, dance and meatballs!

I haven't blogged in a few days because Brent has actually been home! For the past three or so weeks he's been working a ton. He's had to be there at 6:00 in the morning and usually works until the middle of the night (3 a.m. or later) or the next afternoon. Of course he comes home completely exhausted, but only sleeps for a few hours so he can spend time with us on his "day" off. Since he started this schedule at the beginning of the month, the kids are in bed by their regular bed time and Brent's asleep half an hour (at most) later. The class he's been following is finished for the most part so we've seen him TWO DAYS IN A ROW and at a decent time both days! I think we should get to see him regularly until early next week then we'll start all over on this less than ideal schedule. 

The kids have been keeping me busy. I think that Blake is starting to enter the "terrible two's" which scares me because, with Ava, the three's were much harder than the two's and she wasn't nearly as rambunctious as Blake is! Yesterday morning after breakfast I started the shower, left the bathroom while the water was warming up and came back to find Blake sitting down with his clothes on and two blankets completely soaked. 

As always, he took half of my shower with me then got out, soaking wet, and started doing what he could to destroy my bathroom. Usually this includes pulling all of the dirty clothes and dirty towels out of their hampers and redecorating the bathroom with them, getting back in the shower just when he is about dry so he can get back out and make sure the floor is really slippery when I get out. Lately he's been climbing up on the counter and experimenting with my tooth paste, deodorant, lotion and the other day, MY TOOTHBRUSH! Don't worry, I got a new one... a two pack actually!

Blake has decided that he no longer likes milk. (Side note: He's allergic to cow's milk so he drinks almond milk, always has.) We'll put him down for a nap or down for the night with milk and before we even get out the door, he starts yelling, "WANT JUUUUUICE. DADDDY! MOMMMY! WANT JUUUUUICE!" I don't know what caused the change in preference, but I cannot get him to drink milk! We've been giving him a tad bit of juice and a lot of water and he seems happy with it. It's so funny to me that he's already starting to have preferences and can tell us about them. He's getting too big too fast!

Yesterday, Ava got dressed for school all by herself. This isn't anything new, but on most days I'll add some input and make a suggestion or two. Yesterday I wanted to, but she was SO proud of her outfit, I didn't have the heart to say anything. She wore a red dress with white polka dots, red boots (not exactly the same color red as the dress) and her sparkly "belt." She has a purse that HAD a sparkly belt on it until she cut it off so she could wear it!  We were walking out the door and she freaked out because she forgot it. "MOM! MY BELT! I FORGOT MY BELT! WE CAN'T GO YET!" We were almost late for school because of this belt! I tired to attach a picture, but it's in my yahoo account and for some reason, it's not loading. I'll add it later!

Since Brent was home yesterday, he took Ava to dance so Blake could finish up his nap and I could start dinner. It was so nice to have him around to help. Normally on Mondays I take Ava to school, immediately go to the grocery store where I get Blake a free cookie (not Paleo, I know, but it allows me to shop for a few minutes) then I stop and get him something to eat for lunch from the deli.. usually chicken. He'll eat his lunch while I grocery shop. It's PERFECT because I can do what I need to do and he just sits still and eats. Then we'll come home, I'll bring him in and put him down for a nap then unload the groceries. I'll make myself lunch then pick up the house a little bit and by that time it's usually 2:20 and I have to pick Ava up for dance. So I wake Blake up way before he's ready, go get Ava and head to dance. She slowly (the only way she operates lol) changes from her school clothes to her leotard and we go in. Usually Blake wants to be ON the dance floor so for an hour, I try to be creative and keep him entertained. It's amazing how much easier he is when he gets a FULL nap. On Thursday's, dance is an hour and a half later and Blake is GREAT! 

While Brent and Ava were at dance, I made some DELICIOUS cinnamon apple cookies.

 I was worried about how they'd turn out because there's no flour in them to form a dough, but everything worked together perfectly. Brent requested that I make a bunch for him when he starts working overnight again and Ava asked if she could take them as her snack for school today! That screams successful recipe to me!  I got the recipe here and followed it almost exactly, but I added about three times as much vanilla as it calls for and doubled the cinnamon. I know cookies aren't normally a breakfast food, but Ava and I had one for breakfast today. With these cookies, there's no reason why they can't be a breakfast food!

For dinner I made  Everyday Paleo's Curried Meatballs and "No Potato Salad." 

The "No Potato Salad" was time consuming and I made several adjustments, but it turned out so good! Even Ava, my biggest critic, said she loved them "besides the salt." Hahaha, I almost guarantee that she couldn't pick out the salt taste in this dish, I know I couldn't because there was very little. I can't remember all of the changes that I made, but I do remember that I added more onion and pickles after I had already mixed everything and I added curry powder to coordinate them with the meatballs. This is one of those things that you taste and make adjustments as you go. I think we all have our idea of what potato salad is supposed to taste like so change it up until you get it to the taste you want. The cauliflower was very tasty in it! I was pleasantly surprised!

Ava also loved the curried meatballs. When I was making them, I worried what she would think about them and in my mind I was trying to think of adjustments I could make next time to make them more sweet instead of spicy, but she absolutely loved them. She said they were her favorite part of the meal!  I asked if she wanted a cookie after dinner, but because she napped right through dinner and woke up to eat after the sun was already sleeping, she said that she would have to wait until tomorrow. I taught her when she was much younger that it's not okay to eat anything sweet or drink anything besides water after it gets dark and she refuses to break that rule. Makes me proud!

For the meatballs, I followed the recipe for the actual meatballs exactly, but I made a lot more sauce than it calls for. We ended up with 30-something meatballs and nowhere near enough sauce. If you use three pounds of ground beef like suggested, I recommend making triple the amount of sauce called for. 

For dinner tonight, I'm making something with chicken and pesto. I'll blog about it tomorrow!

All About Avie J.

My plan for this afternoon was to go get Ava's friend so they could occupy each other while I cleaned house. Five hours later, right before bedtime, we finally pulled back into the driveway. I just meant to stay long enough to visit for a few minutes, but a few minutes turned into an hour, then two hours and so on. Part of my original plan was to stop by the grocery store on our way home so I could get what I needed for dinner, but that didn't happen either. What did happen left me bloated and having galbladder pains! We ordered pizza and....... I ate it. Cheat day is normally Sunday, but this week I guess it turned into Friday! The good news is, I have no desire to eat pizza again anytime soon. I feel like junk!!! 

Moving on..

Today at school Ava made an "All About Me" book. I struggled not to laugh when I got to the page of her family. First of all, Blake wasn't included. When I asked why she said, "because I really don't like drawing and that was one extra person to draw. It doesn't MEAN he's not part of my family. I was just too tired to draw him." Alrighty then! The part that made me laugh most was how umm... alien-ish we all looked. Poor girl definitely got my artistic abilities... which are nonexistent!

She was soo proud of her book though. She absolutely loves school! The first week she wasn't sure about it and we had a bit of a struggle trying to get her there each day, but now she asks all morning long, "Is it time for school yet?" She loves her teachers, she talks about them a lot. One of her teachers has a deaf niece who will be visiting their school soon so all of the kids have been learning sign language. That totally warms my heart! 

I love Ava's heart. She has such a sweet and caring heart. She talks about God and Jesus multiple times throughout each and every day. She talks about how much she loves them and how great they are. Today she said, "I'm going to invite God and Jesus and all of the good angels to my birthday party. Even if we can't see them, they'll still be there!" She has two favorite angels that she talks about almost daily. One of them is her cousin Jared. She never met Jared because he went to heaven long before she was even born, but she talks about him like she knew him and he was one of her best friends. Sometimes she even cries and says she misses Jared. On Jared's birthday this year, she woke up and the first words out of her mouth were about him. I didn't realize it was his birthday until later in the day when my sister said something about it. Pretty cool that she was thinking about him on his birthday without even knowing it was his birthday. I wonder if God laid that on her heart.

The second angel that she talks a lot about is Brent's friend Bryan who was killed in Afghanistan this past March. I really don't think Ava ever meets someone new without telling them about Bryan and how he saved her daddy's life. It's incredible that a four (almost five) year old is so aware and thankful. The story usually goes something like this, starting out in an excited tone and ending in a sad one. "My daddy has a friend, Bryan, who is an ANGEL! He lives with Jesus and God and I love him! When the monsters were trying to kill my daddy in Afghanistan BRYAN SAVED HIS LIFE! Then after my daddy came home, the monsters killed Bryan. I think they killed him because my daddy already came home and he wasn't there to save him, but it's okay because Bryan is an angel now and he's happy!" 

She's such a good little person and she's not even five yet! She's so aware of things. She calls people out on their bad choices pretty often, but she also praises people when they do good things. If she thinks something is bad, like a song for example, she insists on us turning it off because "why would you want to listen to something that's so bad for kids?" By "so bad for kids" she refers to lyrics like, "I hate that stupid old pick up truck you never let me drive." Hate and stupid are both bad words so that songs a big no no around this kid! She's so funny! 

Blake absolutely adores her. You couldn't convince him that she didn't hang the moon even if you tried. First thing in the morning he always goes into Ava's room and starts loudly saying "SIIIIIISTER! SIIIIIISTER!" No matter how hard we try to get him to say Ava, he'll only call her sister. He watches her constantly and she knows it. She told me the other day that she wants Blake to grow up to be a really good person so she tries to only teach him really good people things. Sometimes I'll hear them in the play room and she'll be teaching him how to say a new word or how to put two new words together. The other day he got a beach towel, took it to her and said, "beach towel." Ava start SCREAMING her excited scream (she has a different scream for every emotion) so I went to see what was going on and she said, "Mommy, Blake said beach towel and I didn't even teach him! He just knew on his own! He's so smart!" I love watching them grow up together!

Now don't get me wrong, of course Ava can have the biggest attitude in the entire universe and there are most definitely days when I wish her grandparents lived closer so I could have a break from her for a day or two, but more times than not, she's such a fascinating kid. Since she was really little she's always been my little best friend. I don't think I would've made it through a lot of things if it wasn't for that cute little brown eyed girl! 

Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Rounds..

Since I posted my Paleo blog yesterday, I've had so many people call me, message me and write on my facebook wall asking questions. This is AWESOME! I'm excited that there are so many people interested in Paleo, not only because it's so much better for our health, but also because it means more great recipes for all of us to share! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to call, write, ask questions, give advice and just talk about Paleo. 

Last night for dinner I made meatloaf and sweet potato rounds. Just typing the words "sweet potato rounds" makes me want to leave my computer right this second and go make more. These things were out of this world good! 

I'll be the first to admit that meatloaf doesn't look very tasty, but it really was! Meatloaf just isn't a pretty food.  

I got both recipes from Everyday Paleo and, as always, made a few changes just because it's impossible for me to completely follow a recipe. I didn't have almond meal so I just left it out. I should've added an extra egg or two to help it stay together, but hindsight is 20/20, right? I added one zucchini that I had left over in the fridge and a few baby carrots, all chopped pretty small with my food processor. I also added a few extra spices, oregano, thyme, rosemary and about 6 cloves of fresh minced garlic. Besides that, I followed her recipe to a T. You can find the full recipe here. Let me know what you guys think of it!

 Since Brent has been working 24+ hour shifts, I've been trying to cook things that he can take to work in his thermal container and eat throughout the next day. Meatloaf doesn't very easily fit into something shaped like a cylinder. Even if we smooshed some in there, it would be hard to get out soo I took the remainder of the meatloaf and turned it into meatloaf soup! I added some beef broth, a few extra spices (probably not necessary, but I love spices) and he had soup! It looked and tasted GREAT!

Now to the sweet potato rounds. I can't even begin to explain to you how good these things are. The original recipe calls for 2-3 sweet potatoes, but I bought 4 big ones. If I would have only made enough to cover one cookie sheet like the recipe suggests, we wouldn't have been satisfied! I covered two cookie sheets with these delicious things and it still wasn't enough! We ALWAYS have leftovers, but the sweet potato rounds were consumed before the kids even got in the bathtub last night! 

Here's how I made them..

4 Sweet potatoes (or more if you have more cookie sheets than I do!)

4-5 egg whites

Oregon, Thyme, Rosemary, Basil, Italian Seasoning (which is just a mixture of almost everything I just listed, but I like spices), ground black pepper, sea salt and garlic powder

olive oil

Parchment paper

---------

Preheat the oven to 350.

Line cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper.

                Cut sweet potatoes into disks like the picture below.

In a medium bowl, separate eggs and add a lot of each spice (besides salt and pepper.) 

 Dip the potatoes, one by one, into the egg/spice mixture then lay flat on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  

Drizzle with olive oil and more spices, including a little bit of salt and pepper.
 Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.  

After they've finished baking, broil them for one minute. This will make them kind of crunchy, but still soft in the middle.
If you don't absolutely love these then it's safe to say our taste buds are totally different! Enjoy! 

I didn't take many pictures of the dinner process last night because I was busy hanging out with these cool people..

Oh Paleo!

Thanks to Skype, I totally lost track of time last night and didn't get a chance to blog recipes. As pretty much everyone knows, my family has been on the Paleo diet for almost a month now. A few years back, Brent was really hardcore Paleo. He would only eat meats, eggs, veggies, nuts, seeds and a little bit of fruit. I was in no way interested in trying that diet. Who wants to JUST eat meats, eggs, veggies, nuts, seeds and a little bit of fruit? I wanted all of those things plus sweets, pasta, bread and anything else that could be spiced up with some Chick fil A sauce! So basically, I was hard headed about it and never tried it.

A couple months ago, Brent started going to the local crossfit gym and I guess other people there were talking about eating Paleo so he came home and started looking up recipes. I thought, "Oh lord, here we go again.." I browsed a few of the recipes (after he kept leaving them open in MY browser) and they actually looked and sounded really awesome! There was a lot more to them than I could've imagined. They were recipes for (my definition of) REAL food that's actually good for you! I thought about it for a few days and decided I was going to make a shopping list made up entirely of Paleo foods. I figured, at minimum, it would show Brent that I was willing to do something out of my comfort zone just because he was interested in doing it. He does A LOT for me that I know he doesn't particularly love so it was the least I could do really. 

Since we started eating Paleo, I've learned a lot! I try to learn something new about it every day. If you're interested in learning the basics click here. It's a great source of basic information. 

Since starting Paleo, I go to the grocery store about every three days. I buy only organic meats and veggies when possible. I have a great grocery store down the street with a fantastic selection of organic meats and produce so that's easy! I only buy three days worth of food at a time because organic meats and produce don't have preservatives so they can go bad a lot faster than "regular."  One thing I've learned about Paleo is that you should avoid the inside aisles at the grocery store and stick to the outside aisles, the fresh stuff! Just buy fresh things that are easy for your body to digest. I do still buy canned things like tomatoes, but I make sure I buy organic. If there's an ingredient on the back of the can that you have a hard time pronouncing, chances are it was made in a lab. Our bodies weren't meant to digest things made in a lab. 

At first I struggled because I LOVED sweets, breads and dairy and my body was majorly craving those things. I didn't think I could possibly NOT eat those things, they were all staples in my diet before Paleo. After a few days of not having anything like that, I got a horrible headache that lasted for a couple of days. A friend of mine who is also new to Paleo told me that she had a headache a few days before so she researched it and found out that headaches are part of the detox process that your body goes through once you stop putting all of those processed foods into it. Yikes! I didn't realize my body needed to be detoxed from the foods I was eating. 

Since I got past that not so fun part of the transition, I haven't even WANTED chocolate, dairy or bread. We have a cheat day once a week where we can eat ANYTHING we want. The first two cheat days I ordered a sweet tea. Before Paleo, I would drink sweet tea in place of water. I lived off of sweet tea! I had about half of the glass and I started feeling like crap so I took over Brent's water. We ate Mexican food on our first cheat day.. dessert included. The dessert was something that our family normally loves, but I took one bite and I couldn't eat anymore, it was way too sweet.  The meal was soo good, but it made me feel soo bad! Food isn't supposed to make you feel bad. It's not supposed to make your stomach so bloated that you have to unbutton your pants, it's not supposed to make you sleepy. Food is our fuel. You wouldn't knowingly put bad gas in your car, would you? Most of our lives, we've been putting bad fuel in our bodies! Who knew? Not me!

My two favorite parts of Paleo are NO PORTION CONTROL and NO CALORIE COUNTING! I'm being totally serious! Yesterday I had three pieces of bacon, two eggs fried in bacon grease, a big portion of left over crock pot chicken then three slider chicken patties that I added some extra seasoning to (Brent wasn't home so I was being lazy) and almost an entire bag of baby carrots roasted in olive oil and agave. Guess how much weight I lost from yesterday morning to this morning... exactly one pound! Besides on cheat days, I usually lose half a pound to a pound a day! I never go to bed hungry because when I'm hungry, I EAT.. even if it's right before I go to sleep! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I can eat foods like BACON and eat as much as I want and still lose weight. I always thought bacon was horrible for us.

For now I'll leave you with a picture and recipe of one of my family's current favorite Paleo dishes. My sister made this last night and her family (including a picky 7 year old) all loved it.

Delicious Stuffed Peppers 

(modified from a recipe found on Everyday Paleo, one of my favorite Paleo sites)

 1 diced yellow onion, 5-6 diced carrots, and 6-8 diced celery stalks

1 lb of  garlic and basil, gluten free chicken sausage removed from casing

(The original recipe calls for Italian chicken sausage, but we really love garlic so I tried it out and it worked perfectly!)

2 pounds of grass fed ground beef

1 can of organic diced tomatoes

6 bell peppers

dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder, sea salt, and black pepper to taste 

Lots of Olive Oil

(The following cooking directions came, word for word, from Everyday Paleo)

Preheat oven to 350. Place one big soup pot filled with water and turn on high to bring to a boil.  While you are waiting for the water to boil, cover the bottom of another big soup pot with a lot of olive oil and over medium heat toss in the the onion, celery, and carrots.  Crumble in the sausage and ground beef and add the dried seasonings to the meat BEFORE it’s entirely cooked.  Mix well and let the meat and veggies cook over medium low heat stirring occasionally.  In the meantime, remove just the tops of the bell peppers, and rinse well to remove all the seeds.  By now your water should be boiling.  Place the bell peppers gently in the boiling water and submerge them for 5-6 minutes or until the bell peppers are just a little soft but NOT falling apart.  While the bell peppers are boiling, add the can of tomatoes to the meat mixture and bring to a simmer.  Pull the bell peppers out of the water with tongs and arrange in a large baking dish.  Fill each bell pepper with the meat mixture (don’t be shy, stuff em’ good!) and bake in your pre-heated oven for 20 minutes. 

After you stuff the peppers, you'll have lots of "stuffing" left over. The extra olive oil makes it kind of soupy so we had soup for lunch the next day! It was just as good the second time around! You will not be disappointed in this dish! We just had it last week, but after writing this blog, I think I'm going to add it to my grocery list for this week! It's soo good!! 

A Schneider History Lesson..

Why did I decide to start blogging again? For my kids! I want them to have a place to come when they're older to read about our family and know our history. There are so many important things that I wanted to remember so I could tell them later on that I've already forgot! I want them to be able to come here for a recipe of their favorite food if I'm not around to give it to them. I want them to be able to see pictures of themselves along the way. I want them to remember all of the fun things they got to do and the lessons they learned. I want them to ask the question, "Did my mom really write that in a blog?" I plan to share portions of our every day life and the yummy food we make along the way! 


For now, here's what has happened in the past several years...

Several years ago I blogged almost every day on xanga. I blogged about my dating relationship with my now husband, I blogged about our engagement, I blogged about my marriage.... until it got rocky. That's when I stopped. It was fun to blog when everything felt like a fairytale, but I didn't like the idea of letting my fellow bloggers know that my marriage wasn't as strong or happy as I hoped it would be so I stopped blogging. I wish I would've at least kept the blog so I could go back and read it now. I wonder what the new me would think about the old me.

What I didn't realize then was pretty much every other newlywed couple goes through what we were going through. Marriage is a huge adjustment... especially when you move away from your family for the first time all the way from Texas to North Carolina and live in the complete ghetto! Thankfully we didn't live there for very long! Over the next four or five months we moved from one ghetto to the slightly nicer ghetto to a gated community with several lakes and a golf course. We were most definitely "the poor kids" in the neighborhood, but we didn't care, we were just happy to be IN the neighborhood! After renting that house for a year we decided to buy it. It was the perfect little house. It was definitely little, but we didn't need anything huge, it was just the two of us. We moved in in March and Ava was born in November. We had some not-so-great things happen during those nine months, but looking back we're both thankful things turned out the way they did. I'd share the details of that, but they're not my details to share. I'll just say our world was turned upside down, our plan was shattered and we had no clue what was next. As a couple we came out of the situation much stronger than going in. That's one reason I wouldn't change it. 

Ava was born at the Army hospital on Ft. Bragg. Brent had worked with my midwife in the weeks leading up to her birth so my midwife actually let Brent deliver Ava. That was a really cool experience for both of us. We were in love with being her parents from the first moment we saw her. 

  We lived in North Carolina until the following June when we moved to Fort Campbell, KY. I never cared much for Ft. Bragg (besides a few good friends I had made) so the move to Ft. Campbell was really exciting for me. I loved my time there. I love the city of Clarksville and I LOVE (most of) the people I met there. We moved into an apartment close to the river when we first moved to Tennessee. We lived there until Brent deployed the following January. The day he deployed we got to take him to the hangar and spend some time with him before they bussed him away. My heart and my body hurt so bad I don't even know how I was functioning. By that point, Brent was my best friend in the entire universe and I depended on him for everything. Now we had this baby who was barely over a year old and he was leaving with the possibility of never coming back. My dad came the day Brent deployed and we started driving back to Texas almost as soon as he left. I remember crying for hours. My poor dad, he tried to comfort me, but I couldn't be comforted. I hate change and my life was changing in a way I didn't want it to for an ENTIRE YEAR! 

Once Ava and I adjusted, the year wasn't too terribly bad. It's that initial adjustment period that hurts the most.

 That year, we lived in Texas with my parents. I really never worried about Brent much. I had a peace about the deployment. It helped that he was stationed at a pretty big FOB and we got to talk regularly. Even though we spent a year apart, the deployment brought us together like never before. We learned a new kind of respect for each other. One big lesson we learned was that we couldn't compare our situations... it was like comparing apples and house shoes. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows there is NO WAY I could ever survive a day in the military and (though I disagree a little bit) Brent thinks he'd go crazy if he had to stay home with the kids every day. 

He got home from Afghanistan the following January and we settled into a crappy little apartment in Clarksville, TN. I chose the place and rented it before I actually saw it. 

The worst part had to be the paper thin walls. We heard EVERYTHING that our neighbors below and besides us did. I mean EVERYTHING! I got pregnant in February, found out in March and spent the next few weeks really sick. We decided to break our lease for the apartment because there was no way we could possibly stay there and have another baby. So we bought another house. I loved my house in Tennessee! Of course there were a few things I would've changed about it, but for the most part, I loved that house. It was big, it was new, it was in a good neighborhood, I had great neighbors. We bought the house in March or April. Brent had lots of out of state schools that year so he spent a lot of time away. Ava and I spent quite a bit of time in Texas. During one visit curiosity got the best of me so my mom, sister and I went to find out if I was pregnant with a boy or a girl. I wanted to wait for Brent, but he wanted to know just as much as I did so he encouraged me to find out. We found out that I was carrying A BOY! We were so excited to have a little boy. I was a little nervous because I knew when this baby was only a few months old, Brent would be deploying again. Brent got home from one school on my birthday, July 2nd, and left for the next school at the beginning (or maybe it was the middle) of August. Ava and I stayed in TN for a little while, but after a month or so we ended up in Texas again. While I was in Texas I was seeing an OB doctor, that was the only way my doctor in Tennessee would agree to me going in the first place. I went in for an appointment one day after having what I thought were Braxton Hicks contractions. The doctor felt my belly and said, "You're having REAL contractions!" He checked me and I was dilated to a three at 33 weeks. He sent me up to Labor and Delivery to start the most horrible thing I've ever experienced in my life... MAGNESIUM! I stayed in the hospital off and on for several days then went home to be on bedrest. Thank GOD I decided to go to Texas. I had the help of my family to take care of Ava so that was one less thing to stress about. Brent was in the final phase of Ranger School at the time. I got a hold of one of his friends who was an instructor there and asked him to tell Brent what was going on. Before that message made it to him, someone from his old company had already called and told one of the other instructors that I had delivered Blake.  Brent was able to call (usually during Ranger School they only get to call at the end of each phase for a few minutes at time.) As soon as he talked to me he started trying to get to Texas to be with me, but I was trying to convince him that he should stay. He was in the final phase, two weeks away from being FINISHED with one of the Army's hardest schools that he'd been at since August, it was now mid October, he couldn't quit! It wasn't that I didn't WANT him to be there with me, I wanted him to be there more than anything, but I knew if Blake was born he was only estimated to weigh 3 pounds so he'd spend more time in the NICU than it would take Brent to finish Ranger School. Eventually my labor was stopped and Brent was close to graduating! Against my doctor's recommendations, my parents and I drove from Texas to Georgia to see Brent graduate! Two weeks later, Blake Allen Schneider was born!
 

He was born at 37 weeks, one month after I went into premature labor. He weighed 6 pounds 2 oz and was absolutely beautiful! When he was born he had a knot in his cord and the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. My doctor said that he had an angel on his shoulder for sure and that most likely solved the mystery of why he was so eager to get out of my belly! What I didn't realize was, that knot (which the doctor said was caused by him being crazy in the womb) was just a small indicator of what my future with this boy would be like! 

After Blake was born, he was completely attached to me. The only time he wasn't touching me in some way was when I was in the shower. He slept with me, I held him all day every day. If I put him down, he would scream. My mom would say, "You're going to reget this later," but I just thought of it as, he's probably my last baby, he NEEDS me and I'm going to soak it up. It wasn't too long before we discovered something wasn't right with him. He ate constantly, but he wasn't growing. He cried all the time. He didn't sleep. We took him to his pediatrician so many times and she just seemed uninterested in helping. I left her office in tears and headed straight to the ER more than once. At the ER they'd tell me all sorts of things. One time they told me I was overfeeding him and that made him fussy. One doctor asked me if I just WANTED something to be wrong with him because they didn't see anything wrong. As much as those things hurt me to hear, I KNEW something was wrong. 

Brent deployed in late April of 2010.

The day he left could've easily been classified as the worst day of my life. Ava was devastated which made my heart hurt so much worse. She didn't understand what was going on. I didn't know how I was going to survive. I had a baby who cried nonstop, all day every day and a 3 year old to take care of. Brent would come home from work every day and save me. He would take over with Blake and let me shower or let me take a nap. He'd be there to just take over if I needed him to so I wouldn't lose the small amount of sanity I had left. When I dropped him off at his company, I was okay. I really was. I think I was okay because there were so many people there, lots going on, I wasn't focused completely on him leaving. As only three members of my family of four drove away, I cried a little bit, but I was still okay. It wasn't until that evening, about the time Brent would come home to save me, that I lost it. I was a wreck. I realized that for the next year I would be on my own and I had serious doubts that I could do it.

I decided to move to Texas (surprise surprise) but this time because of Blake. I had a great pediatrician when we lived there when Ava was a baby and she agreed to see both of my kids this time around. I needed answers and I knew she'd work to get me some. During our first visit, she agreed that something wasn't right with him. THANK YOU GOD! Finally, someone agreed with me! Over the next few months we went through a lot. Lots of blood work, lots of tests, lots of traveling for tests. She quickly labelled him as "failure to thrive." This broke my heart. The sweet baby that I brought into this world was "failure to thrive." Did I do something wrong? Would he ever be okay?

The first thing we did was change his formula. We put him on Nutramigen. That was costing us $20 every other day. I didn't see a ton of change in him, but he seemed a little less fussy so that made it worth the money. He was tested for Cystic Fibrosis, the pediatrician and his pulmonologist thought that was the answer. He had so many of the symptoms, failure to thrive, breathing issues, salty tasting skin, etc. We tested for it and it came back negative. They were so convinced he had it that they sent us for a different test in a city 3 hours away. It came back negative too. We were back at step one. There were days when I honestly wondered if my baby would live to see his 1st birthday. When Brent would call from Afghanistan, I would just cry. I cried every time he called me for months. He did what he could to comfort me from so far away. I knew he was hurting too. He was hurting because he wanted to be there to help me, but he couldn't be. I know he was having some of the same fears as I was.

This picture was taken when Blake was 6 months old. He weighed 13 pounds. 

At one point, my tiny baby was taking two different inhalers multiple times a day, a steroid and breathing treatments every 3-4 hours. I felt like I was neglecting Ava because Blake required so much of me. 

In June of 2010, my parents ran into my teacher from kindergarten. They told her about Blake and everything that was going on. She told them that her son, a chiropractor, had a new type of treatment that might be able to help him. By this point I had tried EVERYTHING that anyone had recommended to me so I thought, "Why not? What do I have to lose?" We visit Dr. Reimer at Reimer Family  Chiropractic twice before I noticed a difference in Blake. I decided to take him off of his inhalers for a day and see if he'd be okay. That day in July of 2010 was the last time Blake consistently took an inhaler! Sometimes he still gets sick and he'll need one for a day or two, but he can LIVE without them most days!  Dr. Reimer uses a laser treatment called Bioveda and to our family, it was a Godsend! I took Blake to the doctor about a week after our first Bioveda treatment and he had gained THREE POUNDS! My failure to thrive baby who just couldn't get over 13 pounds now weighed 16 pounds! 

Over the next few months, Blake became a happier and healthier baby. He's now almost two and happy and active as can be. He's a healthy weight and his development is where it should be. He keeps me on my toes!

During Brent's deployment, things weren't easy. I was so busy trying to be a decent mother to Ava while having to focus most of my attention on Blake. The deployment was ROUGH. We started losing soldiers pretty early on. That set the tone and reminded me that I wasn't guaranteed to get my husband back. There was one point in June, I believe, when I got information about injured soldiers before I was supposed to. I got the information because I was the point of contact for their families and these families called me to tell me about what was going on. I was so thankful that they called me and I could help them through this really difficult time as much as I could, but I was a wreck myself. I tried to make them think that I was rock solid, but the truth was I've never been so broken in my life. I knew that something huge was going on, I hadn't talked to Brent in days and now I'm hearing of all of these injuries. I paced the entry hall of my parents' house for two days. I was TERRIFIED that I was going to get a knock on my door letting me know that my other half, my best friend, wasn't coming home. I looked out the door or the window probably once every minute just to make sure a government vehicle hadn't pulled up.

 A couple days later I decided I had to get out of the house so I took the kids to the pool. That's when I finally talked to Brent. He sounded exhausted, but in decent spirits considering what had happened. Out of respect for the families of fallen soldiers, families of unaffected soldiers are notified of deaths before we're allowed to talk to our soldiers about them. They do that so a husband doesn't call his wife or other family member and tell them about a death before the affected family is properly notified. Brent told me that one of his friends had been killed. I can't imagine how hard it has to be for the guys over there when they lose someone they're close to. I'm sure that's why they say the bonds made during war are bonds that can never be broken. 

Brent returned from his deployment at the end of March 2011.

The kids readjusted to him being home flawlessly!

  We've had our struggles since he's been home. He was used to living in a warzone with a bunch of guys, not in a house with two active and VERY LOUD children. I could tell he was overwhelmed by them at times, but shoot, so am I! It took a little extra time to adjust, but now I think we feel a lot closer to "normal" again.

In June we made our way to Florida where Brent is working as a Ranger Instructor. We should have (I think) three years, deployment-free here! He's had to work a lot lately, but it's comforting knowing that, even though he doesn't always get to eat dinner with us or sleep at home, he's safe. I don't have to worry about him if I don't get to talk to him at all during the day.

Florida is FUN! We love living here! We don't go to the beach nearly as much as I thought we would, but when we do, we have a blast! The kids made friends quickly, Ava's in a good preschool. I've met some great people. I have a fantastic grocery store close by and like Ava says, "it's so cool to smell the ocean even when you're not AT the ocean!"