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!

Autumn Decor and a Fast Halloween Craft

Hello everyone out there!

This is my 100th post.

Just a fun little tid bit :)

My house is all decked out in fall fashion.  I took these pictures because of a super idea I got from my aunt.  She suggests taking pictures of your holiday decor and storing the pictures with your stuff so you can remember how you like it set up.  This is such a great idea for me because I always forget and have to come up with a new arrangement each time.  So, I thought I'd just share the pictures on the blog too.

 In this picture you can see my candy corns sticky tacked to the cupboard doors.

A couple of years ago I had made some fun shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day.  The original idea was from Dana Willard on her blog here.

When Halloween came around that year I had the idea to use the same technique for candy corns.  They were a little more tricky...getting three different fillers in but they were quite fun!  My first batch I put grommets in the top and sent them to my sister to decorate her preschool classroom.

The second batch I made smaller and left out the grommets.

I used white rice, wheat (I think) died orange with food coloring, and yellow split peas.

 My mom made these cuties.  I love them!

 

 {This one's for you Mandie M.}

I think owls are so fun :)  This little guy was found at our local grocery store for only 5 bucks.  It's a good thing I snatched him up...I think they went pretty fast.

What's even funner is that he bobbles!

 I whipped these up a couple of years ago as well.

 

 It's hard to tell but the lights on the mantle are orange.

 So I kind of have a thing for candy corns too...but the fact is, I can't stand to eat them.  I just think they're fun to decorate with :)

Kind of like I love bees but don't care for their honey.

 I love my two, big, black pumpkins!

Here's a fun little thing I did last night.  Banners/buntings whatever you want to call them, are everywhere.  I think they're adorable.

I needed to do something to dress up this little bird cage I got at Swiss Days and so I came up with this.

I have a little paper punch in the shape of a ribbon...you know the kind...the ruffly circle with the two tails coming out the bottom.  It punches out the three separate pieces so I folded the circle in half over the baker's twine (love that stuff too) and sandwiched it between the two tail pieces.

It was quick and I love how it turned out :)

 

Thanks for letting me share my fun, festive, fall decor with you!

Happy Sixth!

My Matt turned 6 last week.

Following are some pictures of the celebrations...

Classroom Celebration

He got to bring in a few things that are important to him.  It seems that pillow pets are among the most important things to most of the kindergarteners.

 

 He brought his favorite book.  His teacher asked why it was his favorite and he said it was because owls are his favorite animal.  That was news to me :)  Then she asked him why owls are his favorite.  Without missing a beat he responded it was because they are nocturnal.  Ha!

Then I got to read the book to the class.

Before I left, Matt got to lead the class in "Baby Shark".  It's a fun little chant that he loves doing.

Evening Celebration

That evening Andy's parents were able to come and celebrate with us.  Matt chose to get food from 

Chick-fil-A.  (We don't go into restaurants lately because of the diet).  

Matt's favorite gifts were roller blades...

...and baseball equipment.

He put it to use right away.

Matt had asked for strawberry cake.  I remembered this that I had seen on Pinterest and he was a good sport to let me experiment with his cake.  I had altered the recipe a bit so I had to figure out some things.  After a few attempts I got it just about right.  They were yummy if I do say so myself.

My version of the brownie bottomed strawberry cupcakes:

 

Sunday Evening Celebration with the Olsens

What a handsome guy!

We've got a baseball lover on our hands.

Josh was a sweet brother and read all of Matt's cards to him.

Ben is "smiling" for the camera in the arms of his "Bapa".

I made another cake for Sunday evening and this time it really was a cake and not cupcakes.  Matt wanted the same kind.  It didn't turn out as well as the cupcakes...I ended up burning the brownie bottom.  That happened to be the third thing I had burnt that day :(

I love my Matt!  He is a precious guy.  So energetic and such a sense of humor.

He often wants to help with whatever Mom and Dad are doing.

He helped make his cupcakes and he wanted to help decorate for his birthday too.

This was his contribution...so cute :)

Matt's very coordinated and good at sports.  He also likes to draw like his sister and is often giving me cute little notes that he has made for me.

He's quite a kid and we all appreciate him so much!

Happy Birthday Matt!