Anastacia Joy (Resurrection Joy)

Someone on SHS asked how my "precious little girl" is doing. I've been thinking of this as Easter approaches and decided to cross post a bit here.

We named her Anastacia Joy before she was born. Her name means Resurrection Joy - which is what I walked through and learned during that pregnancy. Because of the Resurrection I can choose joy, regardless of my circumstances. She was born without Downs. Her heart was fine (the last ultrasound showed it looked great). She did have a problem with her kidneys. We had tests and such and they said that it should be a problem that doesn't require further treatment or testing...unless she has trouble potty training.

LIGHT BULB moment here...God is GOOD and such a sense of humor. Stacia has begun removing her diaper and saying "poo"immediately that sort of thing. During service last night she decided to let everyone know "poo, poo, poo" I didn't think it was appropriate for a Good Friday Service and rushed her out. She was right, she had indeed done a job.

Anyway, we've been commenting that it looks like she is ready to train - she has woke up DRY all week and two of those nights were 12 hour nights. How funny that we were told to watch for the kidney malfunction if she potty trained late...I think God is trying to show us something with her diaper antics.

She blesses us daily, though she's not the passive "pink and lace" girl I dreamed of after my macho boys. God wants her to have spirit and spunk and I don't want to train that out of her. She'll need it some day.

Her name reminds me DAILY that because of the Resurrection I can choose joy...otherwise I'd be at the mercy of circumstances. It's been a blessing to have a daily reminder of the Resurrection.

Missing Links

This has been a banner week for us in learning best how to help our kidlets.

First, Jen, shared with me information that helps understand why FG is helping with our child on the spectrum. I will write more about that later. I suppose it didn't "matter" a whole lot - but it matters to ME to be able to say WHY this is working when folks are insinuating that this is "all in mom's mind". LOL

Second, I believe we've finally discovered the missing speech link for Nolan. I WISH we didn't have to move and change therapists so often because they DO seem to want to begin at the beginning and make their OWN observations, rather than build from the notes of the previous therapist. That is what it is, but we've finally progressed past the "if you faithfully practice these oral motor exercises it will all get better" stage. We've been working on oral exercises and such with Nolan. He CAN make all the sounds...and his speech CAN be clear...but it can be strange too. I knew there was something more but faithfully continued to work on the exercises at home. I've also been working on issues in math and life skills (get your shoes on and brush your teeth - overload two instructions at once...LOL).

Yesterday the therapist came to talk to me. She's young. She was obviously nervous to say what she wanted to say. She said that he can make all sounds but "r" so she doesn't think his problems are solely oral strength. In other words, we're progressing. Go NOLAN!!! However, he still messes things up when talking fast and he messes up multiple-syllable words consistently. For instance, "ther-mom-e- ter becomes ther-ter-e mom". We've been working on multiple-syllable words all year. She hemmed and hawed and finally said, "I think there is something in his little brain that makes it hard for him to process information. He says all the right syllables but they are in the wrong order."

I think she expected me to freak out at the mention of "brain" but after Zander's journey, this is easy. ::snort:: I mean Nolan interacts with us, isn't chewing himself, or hitting his head on walls...really it's speech and we all want improvement....brain connection/labels don't faze me any longer. I asked her if we were talking about sequencing, as I'm working on this in math, phonics, spelling, and life skills, and seeing problems. She said YES. She is going to start working more on that in class and we're going to focus on it here at home. She said that he seems to have trouble processing sequence. I'm not sure if this will improve or what...but I think it's the missing puzzle piece.

Mike said it sounded like a form of dyslexia - which we've dealt with in our family. My father, Dad, and 2nd daughter, all have dyslexia. I've never seen it affect speech like this, but I should do some more reading. I suspect that eventually, she's going to broach the subject of testing to see if there is some label for his trouble with processing. It does sound like the dyslexic symptoms we experienced with Krista (now 19) but it didn't affect her speech. I wonder....Whatever - we just want to help him get his marvelous thoughts out of his brain. We'd also like to reduce the amount of teasing he receives when other children can't understand him.

FRIDAY

Speech - I'll post about that later.

Produce co-op - You've seen photos below.

Hair appointment - touched up my roots and got a hair cut. I know what style I'm aiming for now. Heather, my hairdresser, laughed and said that it is the same style I have now - just longer. LOL

Good Friday service - Always good, though I wish more would attend.

The girls are back in America. They spent yesterday at Magic Mountain and are driving last night and all today to make it back to Spokane for Easter services.

Movie Night - Space Jam, Hogan's Heroes....no pizza - turned into a YOYO night as we headed out to Chapel. We'll do pizza today.

7 Grain Bread

This is our FAVORITE bread!! The combination of grains makes it moist and it doesn't fall apart. Note that I have not been using the dough enhancer (non FG) and have recently been using 2 T of vital wheat gluten. This will make 5 loaves or 3 Pampered Chef loaves. I usually make 2 big loaves and a pan of hamburger buns (I often add italian seasonings to these and we use them for sandwiches). If you take your recipe liquid/flour ratio you should be able to convert this....basically you want 1/2 red wheat or a high gluten flour, then 1/4 7 grain and 1/4 soft white..... many bread stores and co-ops sell 7 grain.

7 Grain Bread (Makes 5 loaves or 3 big loaves)

Grind:
6 Cups hard red wheat (or hard white)
2 cups soft white
2 cups 7- grain blend(Or some combination of 10 cups of grain)

5 1/2 C warm water
2/3 C oil of choice (I use coconut or olive)
1 C honey
1/4 C yeast
2 T dough enhancer (I skip this but do use 2 T of wheat gluten if grain isn't rising well. I have Brenda's recipe for dough enhancer if anyone wants it. Brenda's bread is the best I've tasted LOL)

2 T salt

Mix 2/3 of the ground grain, water, oil, honey, yeast, and dough enchancer together.Allow to "sponge", rest and grow for 15 min.

Mix in remaining flour and salt.

Knead alot. I do 8 min in the Bosch.

Warm the oven to about 150 - 170*. (pre-heat for 5 min only; turn oven OFF before putting bread in oven to raise).When the kneading is done, form 5 loaves and raise them for 20 minutes in the warm oven.Leave them right in the oven, increase the temp to 350* and bake for 20-30 min. Bush tops with butter.

I cool them on their sides...makes a funny pattern, but they don't fall down in the middle.

**This dough is great for rolling out and making hamburger buns...I use the wide mouth canning jar lid for a cutter.

**Italian Spice bread: knead 2 T of garlic and 1/4 a cup of Italian seasoning (Oregano, basil, rosemary, marjoram, sage, thyme) into each loaf of bread. Yum!

**Cinnamon Breakfast Bread: knead 2 T of Rapadura and 1/8 a cup of Cinnamon.

**I have also used this dough to make Jodi's Garlic Pull Apart Rolls, with the added Italian spices.

There are a  lot more great variations here - to include breadsticks.

VEGGIE SALES CO-OP Today.....

Serving up Jr....

Hmm......wonder how much THAT goes for per pound...

....and several showed up early to help sort! What a surprising blessing....allowed us to split up a few things that I'd put in the extra basket because I was running out of time to bag up 1/3 lb of strawberries. LOL
...and Josiah ran a load of cardboard to the recycling center during the pick up time. YES. This is doable.

Hmmmm.... Snow???

Another thing that makes me go hmmm!!!! We are under a freeze watch...and 50% chance of SNOW.....in W TX in April ....

EWWWWWW......

Poor Zander. He was outside and a bird pooped on him. He was screaming...bloody murder. I wanted to grab the camera but thought I'd best help him out. He keeps coming to me and saying, "that bird should of not done that!"

I agree.