Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Nasty

Tonight we were playing with Alanna and at one point we'd finally reached the parental maximum allotment of "why questions" from her.  

We told her that there were enough "Whys" for one night (trust me there were ALOT!).  She naturally responded with, "Why?"

Daddy replied, "Because the last child we had that continued to ask why, we ate."

Alanna yelled at the top of her lungs, "BUT I TASTE NASTY!!!"

Guess we won't be eating her after all.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Surgery Schedule

Alanna's surgery is scheduled for Thursday, January 29th. We had the option of scheduling it for this Thursday but that's Alanna's first Kindergarten field trip, so we'll wait a week.

Honestly, I was surprised they're getting her in so soon, but I'm thankful. It makes the waiting a little easier.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Wishes

Tonight is a Mommy/Daughter night.  About once a month Jeb goes to game with his friends for a night.  

Earlier I asked Alanna what she wanted for supper.  She said, "Anything?"  I replied, "Well, what did you have in mind?"  She answered, "Shells and Cheese....and ice cream".  I said that would be fine.

She was so surprised and her eyes lit up. She exclaimed, "That's exactly what I was wishing for!!"

I need to remind myself to sometimes wish for just little things and be ecstatic when the wishes come true.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Surgery

Alanna had her appointment with Dr. Wood this morning. Over the years he's never been a proponent of surgery for her as long as the venous malformation stays about the same and doesn't change. This morning, he stated that he doesn't feel that way any longer. The malformation has changed and gotten larger as well as formed a more solid mass. He suggested that surgery rather than sclero treatments would be his suggested course of treatment.

We're waiting for the scheduling nurse to call and the surgery will likely be in the next month or two whenever they have availability.

It's not like we didn't know this would eventually be coming, but it's hard to hear. I think it makes it harder to know that we had just started to get comfortable with the watch and wait strategy and now have to switch our thinking over to being ok with surgery.

I do trust Dr. Wood and I know that she's in good hands, just wish I could trade places with her.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Corn Chowder

Today's menu item was corn chowder.  After we were finished Alanna declared, "It looks just like the picture in the book!!"  Whew!  We seem to be on the right track now for matching the pictures LOL.  Actually, this soup was really good and definitely hearty.  We made a double recipe which serves 16 so we'd have plenty of leftovers and be able to share with Aunt Lori.  We tweaked the recipe just slightly and here's what we came up with:

3 Cups Water
4 cups Frozen loose-pack shredded hash brown potatoes (we used Simply Potatoes)
4 medium carrots - peeled and diced
2 stalks celery - diced
2  10 3/4oz cans Condensed Cheese soup
1 15oz can cream style corn
1 small can corn
2 1/2 Cups Skim Milk
3 Cups diced cooked ham
Salt and Pepper to taste

Start by adding the water and vegetables (including hash browns) to a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to Low, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add in remaining ingredients and heat until warm--do not bring to boil.  Approximately 246 calories per serving.








Saturday, January 10, 2009

Lasagna

Alanna decided that her New Year's resolution would be to help cook dinner.  She's always been quite the little helper in the kitchen, but in the past year has wanted to do more and more.  She even used some of her birthday money to buy the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cook Book.  

In light of the resolution, Mommy made a point to pick up the ingredients for several recipes in the cookbook.  Tonight she chose to make lasagna.

Ingredients:
12 ounces ground beef
2 1/2 Cups Spaghetti Sauce
6-8 Lasagna Noodles
1 1/2 Cups Cottage Cheese
1 1/2 Cups Shredded Mozzarella
2 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

Brown the hamburger.  Spoon 1 cup spaghetti sauce into the bottom of an 8x8 pan.  Then mix the remainder of the sauce with the hamburger.  Layer noodles, hamburger mixture, cottage cheese and mozzarella, then repeat three times.  Bake covered at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

We modified this slightly to include more mozzarella and used lean beef and fat free cottage cheese.  We also used a bit more parmesan.

Upsides:  Easy recipe and no boiling of the noodles required.  Also pretty filling for the 273 calories per serving (8 servings).

Downside:  Turned out a bit runny.  Next time I think we'll go a little easier on the spaghetti sauce.  Also seemed a little greasy.  I may actually have to rinse the hamburger next time too.  I normally don't like doing that because you lose some of the flavor and typically favor just draining off the grease instead, but it seems like we ended up with a greasy layer left or more baked out of it.

Alanna was so proud of herself after she'd done all of the layering and she declared it would be the best lasagna "in all of Minnesota!"  When it came out of the oven though she looked a little confused and remarked that it didn't look like the picture.  I think that's because it wasn't holding it's nice layered shape that traditionally defines lasagna and reducing some of the liquid next time should help.








Friday, January 09, 2009

My Special Bump

I've mentioned in the past that Alanna has a vascular malformation, specifically a venous malformation, on her right cheek. We've been under the care of Dr. Robert Wood since shortly after she was born and for now we've taken the observation route of care. She has another appointment with Dr. Wood next week and we'll discuss where we go from here.

We were very blessed in that Alanna's venous malformation is relatively small (about the size of a 50 cent piece) and is located on the side of her cheek so it is normally pretty unnoticeable. From her MRI a few years back, it is also very contained which makes her potentially a good candidate for surgery at some point.

The venous malformation does have a tendency during the cold snaps to turn a bright bruise-colored blue. This is the time that in the past years we run into questions like, "Oh, honey did you fall?" or "What's that bump on your cheek?" or occasionally the raised eyebrow like one of us smacked her across her face.

We've tried very hard to simply explain to Alanna that it's a bump she was born with and that we have a wonderful doctor who makes sure she's taken care of. We've also gotten a second opinion from the Boston Children's Hospital where there is a vascular anomalies conference. We keep an eye on it and check in with her to make sure it's not causing any pain.

Now that she's started school and it's currently bright blue, I've spoken with her teacher but knew the inevitable questions would start. So we talked about it earlier this week when it started turning color. She asked why it was blue sometimes and I told her it was a good question for us to ask Dr. Wood next week, but that the blue was the blood vessels showing through the skin and compared it to the veins in the back of my hand which are also blue.

Today she came home and told me that another teacher had asked about her "special bump". She told the teacher she was born with it and the teacher had responded, "but you didn't have it last week". My wonderful mature little girl informed her that "it changes color".

She and I talked about it tonight and I told her she'd done everything just right and that if people had additional questions she could tell them to talk to her teacher or to her mommy.

I know that teachers and other adults who inquire are simply concerned about her well-being and on some level I would certainly want them to ask if something were happening, but it still kills me just a little inside to know that others would not trust her answer or believe that Jeb or I hit her.


Some pictures from this week. It's hard to capture on film with good detail:



Thursday, January 01, 2009

Christmas Cocoa

We decided on homemade gifts for the grandparents this year.  Alanna made Christmas Cocoa "all by herself".  Here are the photos of our efforts.

Alanna started by putting her handprint on each jar.  We used green acrylic paint (available from Michaels--Apple Barrel brand is normally what we get).  Acrylics are great for using on glass because once the paint is dry it won't wash off the glass, but it washes off skin well with some soap and water.

Then we gathered our ingredients multiplied by enough to make 24!! jars (12 large and 12 small--they ended up being great teacher gifts as well)
2 Cups Dry Milk
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 Cup Baking Cocoa
1/2 Cup Flavored Non-Dairy Creamer (the CoffeeMate creamers come in a lot of different flavors and worked great.  We ended up with Hazelnut, Vanilla Caramel, and our favorite Vanilla Cinnamon)
Dash of Salt
Mini Chocolate Chips
Mini Marshmallows
and LOTS of Love!

Alanna did all of the whisking herself once I measured in the ingredients.  We found a whisk actually worked better than a spoon to distribute the powders more evenly.


Once the ingredients were mixed the next step was layering the jars.  We used a cup to scoop with and a funnel to pour the powder into the jar.  

We added in a layer of mini chocolate chips followed by a layer of mini marshmallows about a third of the way up the jar, and then again near the top.  For the larger jars we had three layers, the smaller had two.

Of course we had to taste each flavor after we made a batch just for quality control purposes ;)


The finished product included a ribbon around the lid, a label on the top and was accompanied by a recipe sheet which included mini photos of the process so everyone could see how Alanna had made it just for them.