Gearing up for some indoor shop class

It's been a busy couple of months.  We moved amidst a huge amount of snow, thanks to some very dedicated friends. :)  This old house we are temporarily living in is quite drafty and with record lows we have been wearing a LOT of layers.

We got our new school room up and running (Such a big room. I am loving the large, albeit drafty, windows.) and then Todd brought in something I never expected.  A lathe!  This is a current picture of our school table:

Why a lathe?  Well, the kids are participating in their annual pinewood derby race for Awana and thought it would be fun to make the cars into shapes. My husband rocks!

Each of the kids chose a theme (okay Sadie didn't really choose hers.) and Todd helped them pencil the shape onto the wooden block.  Then they each got to be helper while he worked on their car. ie., They ran the shop vac. ;-)

Here's a pic of the cars so far.  Left to right we have:

Ellie:  Hello Kitty

Silas:  Race car

Avrie: Boat

Evelyn: Minion

Sadie: Baby bottle

They will get to sand on them and paint them up at Awana.  I'll post finished pictures.  Evelyn was so excited when I told her we had a googly eye that would be perfect for her one-eyed minion!  Sadie has been carrying her bottle around all over the house.  Avrie has already painted a bit on her boat and Ellie and Silas are ready to begin painting next Awana. I can't wait to see what each of them do to create their vision!


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Bittersweet Announcement

With each of our five children we have announced very soon after finding out we were expecting. It is always such a joyous time for us and we want to celebrate each new life with all of our friends and family.  Sadly, we have not always been met with positive comments.  We have gotten a lot of these:

-You know what causes that?
-You need cable.
-How can you afford all those kids?
-You aint got that “fixed” yet? (If you'd like our take on that you can read here.)
-You are being irresponsible.
-Glad it’s you and not me.

Six weeks ago we found out we were expecting and couldn’t have been happier. We were already about 5 weeks along, but this time we decided to hold off on announcing.  While it didn’t feel right, we decided it was for the best. I told a few people (because I honestly can’t keep my mouth shut) and Todd also told a few. We didn’t tell our children because we didn’t think they could keep it quiet. 

So for the last six weeks we have hidden this small soul from the rest of the world. We have not made phone calls giddy with excitement. I haven’t told old friends I might see in the grocery store and shared a big hug. We did not make a fun family picture announcement to post on facebook.  We didn’t discuss whether it was a boy or girl or talk about name possibilities for fear the kids would overhear. We didn’t enjoy this little life to the fullest while we had it. 

Yesterday I went through the most painful thing I have ever gone through, both emotionally and physically.

I lost our baby.

This precious life that we kept secret is gone.   Even though this is not the fun and exciting announcement I had hoped for, I refuse to hide it any longer. I want everyone to know that there is a beautiful soul that we will meet in Heaven one day and it is our child. 

I have definitely learned a lesson.  Live for today and be thankful. Don’t worry what others may say or think. This is my life to live and it is between me, my husband and God how many children we may be blessed to have. I am thankful for grace and second chances and I pray the Lord will bless us again. When and if He does, I will most certainly shout it from the rooftops.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Food, glorious food! Part 3

But sometimes we need doctors and I realize that. We did the skin prick test. He would only test for things that I suspected.  Sadie's came back positive for eggs and peanuts. Silas' came back positive for all the inhalant allergens like mold, pollen, dust and cat dander. Ellieand Avrie also tested positive for the inhalants. Evelyn wasn't tested for those.

The allergist said that the blood test they originally got was bogus and that the IgG (sensitivity) test wasn't accurate. I have done more research and I don't entirely agree with him. I don't have a degree in medicine but I am entitled to my opinion. ;-)

I think that when someone has a lot of allergies, be it food or environmental, their whole system is thrown out of whack. I have read that if they are in a reaction at the time of a blood draw it can make several items come back as false positives. I have also read that gluten intolerance can cause leaky gut and make people sensitive/intolerant/allergic to foods that they normally would be fine with. So.....

we are preparing to embark on the  GAPS Diet.


It is very similar to what we were doing before. Grain free, sugar free with a slightly different bent. One key element that I am excited about it the focus on healthy fats and oils. I think this is what we were missing before. This should alleviate the constant feelings of needing to eat. The GAPS diet is focused on healing the gut. I don't know if we (I say we because I truly believe that I am sensitive to gluten although I haven't been formally tested. The kids have to get it from somewhere and a lot of my life long ailments were gone when I was grain free.) will ever be able to eat gluten but I do think we will be able to add in some grains later on.

I have put it off trying to get through Easter, Todd's birthday and Avrie's birthday.  I have one more special event happening soon that food plays an important role and then we will be ready to make the switch! In the mean time I am reading, reading, reading and gearing up the kitchen.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.

Food, glorious food! Part 2

I researched allergy testing and won't bore you with all those details. Basically no one can agree on which type of test is best. I was also thinking it might be more GI related so we wanted to get the kids tested for gluten intolerance/celiac as well.  To do this test they needed to be eating grains.

It was a done deal. Of course, me being the all-or-nothing personality type that I am, I didn't play it smart and add in one food at a time. Noooo not me!  If we were off diet then we were OFF DIET.  The kids ate at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Little Ceasar's Pizza, Long John Silver's and several other places they had never been to before.

Something I learned from this experience is that we are definitely doing the right thing by steering clear of these offending foods. Our house was crazy!  Behavioral problems were sky high. Reading abilities were dramatically affected. Sleep problems were becoming a nightly issue when they had been almost non-existent before. After quite a while of eating this way we finally reigned it in and went back to the basic Feingold protocol which eliminates the artificial colors/flavors and preservatives. Things weren't great but they were tolerable.

The kids' appointments were staggered so I took Silas and Sadie in first. We had already eliminated eggs and peanuts from Sadie's diet since we suspected allergies to those two items. Their blood was drawn and sent to the lab.

When I got the results I was devastated.  Thankfully they weren't with me and didn't witness their sobbing mother the entire drive home. Then Ellie, Avrie and Evelyn had theirs done as well. The results weren't much better. I was so confused. It said that they were allergic to several foods they had been eating with no problems. Or were there problems?  Maybe that was the underlying issue. Maybe if I took these foods out of their diet their gut would heal and they could eat more and feel better. Was this really the way?  Everyone's bloodwork also came back positive for gluten intolerance. Well, everyone except Silas but that's a complicated story of mishandled bloodwork and a retest after he was off grains for a while. His numbers *off* grains were still close to  positive.  Plus he shows such a good response to a gluten free diet that I think he's probably gluten intolerant as well. I'm not about to subject him to another blood draw to find out.

I was so overwhelmed with the various allergies and sensitivities listed that I made a spreadsheet. I thought that would help me see what they *could* eat.  You can take a peek at the Allergy Chart if you would like.

I made a plan and worked with a friend with allergies in her family. Made a trip to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods an hour away and we were set. Then I started really questioning this. Per the specialist anything that was an allergy we were supposed to avoid for.ev.er. Was that truly accurate?  One thing that really had me second guessing was that Sadie only showed up as sensitive to peanuts when I was pretty certain she had a full blown allergy. This specialist never once suggested an epi-pen. Red flags were waving high.

So I researched some more and decided to do skin prick testing. Took the kids to the head pediatric allergist at the children's hospital in our state capitol. He scoffed at some of my findings which was hard to take. I have avoided mainstream doctors for several years for this reason. They weren't there when my children were screaming in fear and acting so irrational that they could hurt themselves or others when they had preservatives or food coloring. It's very, very real.



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 3 here.

Food, glorious food! Part 1

It seems like everything in the U.S. involves food in some way. Getting together for a visit?  Let's have a pitch in!  Sunday School class?  Snacks are provided!  Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas family gatherings?  Bring on the the turkey and ham and all the fixin's!

I love food. Don't get me wrong. But this whole trip down allergy lane has made it difficult to navigate. Just to have a day trip takes a LOT of planning and organization. I know that I have mentioned this before but I am not a natural born organizer.

Just to update on the whole diet situation...I know you all have been in such suspense wondering what we are eating for dinner...we went off the SBP diet and added grains back in. Not because it wasn't helping. No, we really felt good. There were just a few problems.

-Everyone was always asking for food. With five little birds constantly chirping, "Mom! I'm hungry. Can we have...?" I was going nuts.
-I would fix HUGE amounts of food that should really be enough for 2 meals and it would be gone in a matter of minutes. It got to the point where I was letting the kids eat their fill and then I would get something if there was anything left. Much of the time there was nothing left. I had to go to the store more often throughout the week so one night I just grabbed something real quick. Then it happened again. And again.

This was happening so often that I was feeling horrible as I was not eating on the diet at all. But I was still having to keep up with all the shopping, chopping and cooking. I was burnt out. I found myself questioning why this diet was working. Maybe we didn't truly need to avoid ALL of these foods. Maybe it was just one or two things that were bad for us.

Also I had figured out that Sadie was possibly allergic to eggs because of the high amount of eggs I had been eating and she had been getting through my milk. I eventually weaned her and then we really saw she couldn't eat eggs. We also noticed problems with peanut butter.

We decided to do allergy testing. We would finally have answers.  Or would we?

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3 here.

Operator error

Sadie is saying lots of new phrases here lately.  The other day she was coloring. She scribbled with a green crayon, then a blue, then a red....smiling and so pleased with herself. :)  Then she scribbled with a white crayon. Of course it didn't show up on the white paper. She then turned to me with a very serious face and said, "It's not working."  :)

Today she announced that she had to go to the bathroom and walked out of the room. This is a new thing that she has not done before.  By the time I got to her she had stripped to nothing.  I took her in and had her sit on her brand new potty seat....

Me:  Sadie?  Did you go potty?
Sadie: (In her sweet little 2yo sing-songy voice.) Nooooo. It's not working.
Me: *giggle* Well you have to make it work. (I made a little ppssssssss sound)
Sadie: Ooooohhh! Okay. (With a great big smile.)  pppsssssssssss

As if making that sound would make her pee!  Fun times!

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

The Butcher, The Baker and The Pancake Maker

Wow we have been busy!  I have lots of posts in my head but none on here. woops! I figured I had better get at least one done before the end of June. LOL

We had VBS last week. The kids were super excited because we haven't participated in VBS for the last couple of years. We were getting ready for the second day. When Avrie learned that we were going back for a second day we had the following conversation:

Avrie: I hope when we go to VBS tonight that I don't have to sit by the pancake maker again.

*At this point I am trying to figure out who in the world sat by her that talked to her about pancakes.  Poor thing.  Being reminded of a food she loves so dearly while we are grain free.....I truly believe we need to be grain free right now but sometimes I just feel terrible about it.*

Me:  Who is the pancake maker?

Avrie: You know. That little girl that kept sitting by me. She would sit by me in the pew and sit so close that she would squish me flat up against the side. Just like a pancake!



Thankfully I have learned to keep things simple when talking with the children. There are often times that they are not thinking along the same lines as we are. I am so glad I didn't tell her how sad I was that we weren't eating grains. ;-)


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Gators and Monkies and Birds Oh My!

We went to a fun little place called Jungle Gardens.  They had all sorts of animals for us to see.  We tried to grab a quick family picture here. Not the best, but at least it's all of us.

I thought this huge giraffe statue would make a good picture. I've really got to work on my photography skills.

 

They had several different types of birds. Forgive me for not knowing what type. I think they are all some type of parakeet. ??  I was too busy making sure the kids stayed together to listen. They did let us hold a bird on our arm for free though.

Silas was first. Such a strong arm! The bird hopped right on.

Ellie chose a smaller bird. They put a bit of food in her hand to feed it.

 Avrie chose this sweet little thing.  It wouldn't turn around to smile for the camera though.

They gave her some food too and that got its attention!

Now we're ready to smile. :)

"Oooh! That's pinchy!" is what she was saying.

Evelyn was right there with the others and wanted to have a try. Interesting how animals just "know". The volunteer worker said that they won't always step onto the arm of a smaller child because they sense they are not strong enough. They helper asked me to hold Evelyn's hand so maybe the bird would commit but it wouldn't step onto Evelyn's arm. She got to see it up close and was happy with that.

Todd wanted Sadie to have a picture too. :)

Another attempt at a group shot. I tell ya what....group shots are hard.


You try to get five children to look at the camera, at the same time AND smile.  I figured I would just put them all on here. Between the three pictures everyone looks decent at least one time ....... I think.

Ellie and Avrie thought it would be funny to pretend they were being eaten by the crocodile. Goofy girlies.

Young man Silas wearing his hat that matches Daddy's.

I spotted this plant and grabbed Avrie for this shot. The coloring matched her dress so well.

Then of course Ellie wanted a photo shoot for her. :)

This last one I had to grab. Avrie's flip flop broke.  Not a big deal, but it was a bit ironic. On our last little family vacation to a theme park, she lost her flip flop while boarding a log ride. It fell into the water never to be seen again. So this has now become a tradition.....go on vacation and buy Avrie some new shoes!

This concludes Part 7 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Quick, get the camera!

Why did we take a picture of Grandpa taking a picture?  Funny you should ask!



Our little Sadie Bug was a bit messy after dinner. Grandma was super excited to give her a bath in the kitchen sink. Of course I was super excited to NOT have to give her a bath. LOL

Grandma wanted to document the event in a picture and had Grandpa run and get their camera. When Todd and I saw how cute it was that she wanted to capture this fun occasion, we wanted to document that very precious moment. That's all. :)

Here's a closer shot.

This concludes Part 6 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

No Eating In The Shower

Yes, you read that right. No eating in the shower.  I never thought I would have to make that rule. LOL

Ellie fell in the creek and had to take a shower. The rest of the kids were eating a snack of apples and....you guessed it....she took hers to the shower with her. Oh my. What will they think of next?

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Quite disturbing.

Last night we were resting in bed before actual bedtime. Silas was in between me and Todd and we were talking. Here's part of the conversation:

Silas:    Mom, I was gonna play a trick on you but I decided not to.

Me:      Really?  What was the trick?

Silas:    Well, I found this dried up lizard.

            Dried up lizard??!! 

Me:     Yes. And?

Silas:    I took it and squeezed it with my pliars. It was so cool! I squeezed all its guts up to its head.  Then they all squirted out.

          Ewwww!

Me:     Where did you do that?

Silas:    In the bathroom.

          At this point I recall cleaning some type of gooey substance off of the toilet lid. I thought it was a worm.

Me:     Okay. Well, let's do stuff like that outside okay?

Silas:   Okay mom. So I was gonna put the lizard on your pillow. I thought it would be funny, but then I decided it probably wasn't a good idea.

             My pillow?

Me:     Very good job!  Great decision buddy. You are right, that would not have been a good thing to do.

Silas:    What would have happened?

Me:      Mommy would have screamed and then you would have been in trouble. It would not have been worth it. Believe me.

Silas:    Oh. So I made a good choice then?

Me:      Yes.

Oh my!  I am so thankful he had second thoughts. 

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Fun out of the Sun

Our first couple days in Florida were colder than we wanted for the beach. We took advantage of some other great places though.

On Sunday we went to the Floating Chapel. While it wasn't what we would call a real church service it was a fun novelty.

You can see that it was quite windy. So windy in fact that we didn't get to leave the dock! Oh well, it was still fun.

The inside was lovely.

We went for a quick walk at a local park before it closed. The kids got to mess a little in the water. Silas was so excited to collect shells. Once we had been on a few more outings he figured out that they were abundant down there and stopped hoarding them all.

This concludes Part 5 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Groceries!

We needed to head to the grocery store before we could do much else. It's funny, we ended up going to the grocery (several groceries to be exact) at least once a day for the duration of our trip.

As a side note, none of the grocery stores in the area were open past 10:00 p.m.     Crazy.  I guess it's because most everyone around there is retired and they are all in bed. LOL

We somehow didn't take any pictures of those trips. We probably should have as much as we went!

Great grandma couldn't believe how much food we went through each meal. One day we came home with 28 bananas. We know because she had us count them.  They were gone within a couple days. :)  She also took pictures of some of our dinners. She could not believe that all that food was for one meal.

I'm hoping to have great pictures in the next post, don't worry.

That concludes part 4 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Vacation at last!

One of the items that we shipped ahead of time was our queen air mattress. We put Silas, Avrie and Evelyn on the air mattress (They can all be sideways on it and still stretch out.) and Ellie got the twin bed right next to it. 

Grandma had found a nice pack-n-play at a consignment shop for Sadie. It fit perfectly in a closet right next to the bed Todd and I slept in.

They had us all set up and ready for a good night's sleep and boy were we ready for one!

When I had packed the box to ship I wasn't as organized as I should have been. (Imagine that!)   I somehow messed up the pajamas and Evelyn ended up in jammies that were a bit small for her. She didn't seem to mind though.  See her little belly sticking out?

Sometime during the night I heard Evelyn crying. She came in and said her ear was hurting. She cried and cried for quite a while. I have used some natural remedies before when her ears have hurt, one of which is onion. She usually doesn't like me to do it, but she marched into Grandma's room, woke her up and asked if she had any onions for her ear. She didn't have onions but there was some garlic. I got a bit of juice from the garlic on a q-tip and lightly dabbed her ear. That seemed to help. Here is where Evelyn and I spent our first night on vacation.

 At some point Evelyn felt better, so she left me sleeping here.

That concludes part 3 of our Florida trip.



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

The flight.

So we left off after we had boarded the plane for the first time.

Even though Evelyn doesn't use a sippy cup anymore, I brought one for the plane. I thought it might help with take-off and landing.  She had been a bit congested for a few days and I was concerned about her ears hurting her.

We were buckled and ready to go. Evelyn leaned over and fell asleep on with her head on my lap. Just as we were taking off she jumped up and screamed!  Then she proceeded to cry quietly.  She said her ear had popped and it was hurting. Poor thing.  I tried to calm her down and rub it. She fell back asleep.

The rest of the light was uneventful except for the occasional trip to the bathroom. Evelyn was scared to death to use that toilet. I think she thought she would fall out of the plane.  Then of course the flush was horribly loud, so that didn't help much.

At the end of the flight we waited until everyone had gotten off the plane before we attempted to leave. It was funny when we got to where all the gate checked items were the attendant couldn't figure out why all that stuff was still left when most everyone was gone. It was all ours! Todd again loaded up the car seat mobile and we were on our way.

We called the rental company and they picked us up and took us to our chariot (aka 12 passenger van).

We pulled into Grandpa and Grandma's driveway a little after 10:00 p.m.

Now it was time for the vacation to begin....right?

That concludes part 2 of our trip to Florida.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

What is it about scissors?

What is it about scissors that make children want to cut their hair?   I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I'm pretty sure Ellie and Silas both cut their hair at an earlier age.  I was thinking maybe Avrie was learning from their mistakes. Apparently my soon-to-be six year old girlie would rather learn first-hand why it's not such a great idea.

Sweet Avrie found a small pair of scissors from a sewing kit and lopped off a 6 inch long hunk of her hair in the front. Of course not exactly in the front where we could incorporate some bangs. Nope. Sort of in the middle/side/ish part of her head.  I admit it could have been worse.   Like when Ellie cut her bangs down to about 1/2 inch long. I really should look those pictures up.

Here she is in all her glory.

Thankfully you can't really tell when it's down. Sadly I can't pull it back in the constantly-asked-for-all-up-pony-tail that she loves. Her bangs had just gotten long enough to make it work.  Poor thing. As soon as she did it she knew it wasn't too smart.

Live and learn. 



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Have children. Will travel.

Can you find the stroller in this picture?


 
Believe it or not, there is in fact a stroller there.  It is buried under 2 car seats, 1 booster seat, diaper bag, insulated cooler bag, computer bag and duffle bag.

This, my friends, is how we made through the airport.  Also pictured are 4 kid-size suitcases and a backpack.

We had also shipped a box of Summer season clothes a week or so before the trip. That helped a lot and cost about the same amount of money it would have cost for another checked bag on the plane.





Saturday 2/18/12
1:15 p.m.
We packed  shoved everything and everyone into our minivan and headed for the airport.

2:00 p.m.
Potty break at a McDonald's near the airport.

2:30 p.m.
Arrived at the airport. Todd dropped me and the kids off with the stack of luggage you saw earlier. We checked our one very large suitcase and the rest were carry on bags.

3:15 p.m.
Todd had parked the van and took a shuttle back to find us. Here's a picture of the kids while we were waiting.

 3:20 p.m.
We started on our trek to security and stopped for another potty break.

3:30 p.m.
Loaded back up and ready to go. Todd carried the large duffle bag. Silas had the backpack and a pull-behind suitcase. Ellie, Avrie and Evelyn each had a pull-behind suitcase. It was slow going but it worked out really well to keep them busy lugging their suitcases around. No one ever thought to run off. I stayed at the end of our little train to make sure they were all heading in the right direction.

3:40 p.m.
We made it to security. They saw us coming and actually opened up a separate area so we didn't hold up the line. (Why would they ever think it would take us longer to get through? LOL)

I had the children dress in easy on/easy off shoes but it turns out that anyone under 12yo doesn't have to remove their shoes. woot!

They let all of our food go through, but had to rub something on each baby food jar to check it for possible explosives. On the other side of security we had to re-assemble our makeshift car seat holder. (We used bungi cords to keep everything on the stroller.) Each child was responsible for their own suitcase, so again they were quite busy. They sat and waited for us to get situated.

3:50 p.m.
We made it to the gate!  Everyone found a spot and watched planes take off and land. The kids were super excited!  I had made up snacks so we had "dinner" here. 

Our menu:
Turkey meatballs
clementines
cheese sticks
celery sticks
red bell pepper slices
bananas
grapes

We purchased a bottle of water to share.

4:15 p.m.
BEEP!  My cell phone alarm rang to remind me of our last scheduled potty break before boarding the plane.

4:30 p.m.
Once first class boarded they let us go since we had small children.  We traveled toward the plane in the same order we had been in. Todd stopped off to take the car seats and stroller apart to gate check them. So that meant that Evelyn ended up boarding the plane first. ummm  Let me just say that it's probably not the best idea to have the three year old go first.

The first seat she came to, Evelyn jumped in and said, "We're going at Florida!".

We finally made to it our rows of seats. We took up 2 rows of 3 seats each. Todd got one row with Silas and Avrie. I got the next row with Evelyn and Ellie. We passed Sadie back and forth.

That concludes part 1 of our trip to Florida. The fun was just beginning.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

But I thought it would work!

 But I thought it would work! 


This is a phrase we hear often from Silas.  He is a thinker.  When he sees something, he wants to figure out its full potential.


The most recent item was Evelyn's dollar store flashlight.  Silas had seen his Daddy use a flashlight under water, so of course he wanted to see if Evelyn's would do that too.

You know the old adage, "You get what you pay for"?  Her flashlight did come from the Dollar store ya know.

Here's a quick pick of Todd explaining to Silas why it........ummmm.......didn't work so well.

 

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Tape comes in handy

The kids had  been outside with their daddy while he was working on some things around the house. Avrie came to us before bed and said her fingers hurt and that they were sparkly.  She really wasn't too upset about being sparkly. (Sparkly seems to be a word that comes up more and more often here.) 

Simply put:

  Sparkles = Good              Pain = Bad   

We finally figured out that she had touched some fiberglass that Todd had been cutting and gotten small shards in her hands.  Daddy to the rescue!  Todd put tape on her hands and it pulled the shards right out.

Being the smart little girl that she is, Avrie was not at all upset that her hands were no longer sparkly.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Carob Cake

Our family has basically been grain free since September.  We were invited to a birthday party for our nephew and I didn't want the kids to have to watch everyone eat birthday cake, so I decided to make my own!  I got the recipe from a wonderful support group for the SBP diet we are following. This recipe had carob powder, mashed baked sweet potatoes, eggs and some other ingredients.

Lovely farm fresh eggs, separated.

I beat the egg whites until stiff and then added the other ingredients.

 

Here is a  picture of the batter.  Notice the two little dollops of batter in the center?  I have never smoothed my cake batter out before.

Baking with no flour has a learning curve. LOL  Here is the cake when finished baking. The batter didn't settle. Woops!

Apparently Silas didn't mind that this was a flourless cake. ;-) 

Licking the bowl clean.

We did enjoy the cake but not at the party. After all that work, we went off a forgot the cake at home.  Thankfully, the kids didn't seem to mind.  It probably had something to do with the yummy homemade popsicles that we did remember.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy