Lots of Stuff...

So I just have a lot of unrelated things to record...

I'll start with "The Bryan Brinies"

Last week Josh went on a field trip with his class to the Great Salt Lake.  They collected Brine Shrimp and brought them home.  Yeah! :)

Josh was pretty proud of his catch.

 

 Sorry for the poor quality pics.  I snapped so many but this was the best I could come up with.

They're such tiny little critters.

Fast forward a couple of days when I was just headed out the door to take Ben to his SEP conference.

I had given Josh instructions to practice the piano and do his homework while I was gone.

An outburst came from the front room.

"They're dead!  They're all floating on top of the water!"

Then, the sobbing began.

I went in and sure enough...they were all very dead.  I tried to comfort him and figure out what had happened but we came to no conclusion.

I had to leave but tried my best to calm him before we raced out the door.

Ben and I got home just in time to pick up the other kids for their conferences.

On the way to the school I asked Josh if he got the things done that I had asked him to do while I was gone.

He solemnly said no, that he had been mourning the whole time...that he didn't have any strength to do anything else.

Oh, I love you Josh!

This story ends happily.  

When we met with his teacher we told him the sad tale and at the end of the conference he offered Josh a whole new bottle with several adult shrimp and a whole slew of baby brinies.

Josh was thrilled!

  I check them constantly to make sure they're still wiggling around in their water...and so far so good :)

For General Conference Saturday breakfast I made Pumpkin Cinnamon rolls.

They were really good...especially when topped with a homemade caramel sauce.

YUM!!!

As we listened to conference Ben played happily with his Mickey Mouse collection.

Sunday evening, after five sessions of conference, Mom always puts together a quiz to see how much we remembered and learned from our church leaders.  She has prizes for everyone and it is a fun tradition.

 I love this picture!

 "Bapa" entertained Ben while the rest of us scribbled away.

 The quiz master herself.

I didn't realize when I took this picture how well it shows the shape of the home in which I grew up...

a geodesic dome.

Kind of fun :)

 

I love this picture too :)

Yesterday I had a life changing moment.

I gained access to the ketocalculator which now allows me to come up with my own meals for Ben.

I found out that instead of trying to persuade him to eat 50-60 grams of cream at each meal I can change the fat source to butter.  He ate his lunch in 8 minutes and he loved every bit of it.  That was a record.

My friend that I met at the Dravet Conference in Minnesota encouraged me to try this.  She mixes the butter with cinnamon and Stevia and hardens it in the refrigerator.  Ben thought it was pretty tasty.

 

I now have 8 brand new meals worked out (not without some problems though).

It's pretty tricky to make sure he gets enough protein and fat, without too many carbs and the calories have to be within a very specific range.

Anyway, not all of his meals have gone as well as the first one but my hopes are high that as I get better at preparing the butter he'll do better with it.

The fun thing that I found out with the calculator though is that he can have all kinds of food that I thought were strictly off limits...they're just in the tiniest amounts.  For instance, he had chicken nuggets for lunch...granted it was less than one nugget cut up into itty bitty pieces the size of cheerios....(he can have cheerios too, but I haven't been able to figure out a meal with those yet).  He was pretty excited about the chicken even though it was a miniscule amount.

I'm happy that we have discovered new options and I'm hoping I can make this diet more appealing to Ben with a little effort on my part.

Last thing...

I had a project today.

Let me show you...

My pantry has been in desperate need of an organizing hand and a broom.

There sit our 72 hour kits on the floor that I've been meaning to outfit for the last several months.  One of these days :)

I'm so happy I took the time to do this today.

I love walking in there now.  A couple of times I have opened the door and turned on the light just to look at it.  Putting groceries away has always been one of my least favorite tasks but this evening I looked forward to it.  I know, silly!

Well, that's it for tonight.  I'm bushed!