God cares about the little things

As you know we are on a sugar and dairy free diet. This was going to represent a problem as my children are very accustomed to decorated birthday cakes for their birthdays. I was really trying to figure out what in the world I was going to serve for Flannery's birthday, which is the first birthday of the year, just 16 days away. I decided to pray about it. Yeah, it does seem silly to pray for such a thing, but I was really at a loss for what to do. Well tonight, as I was waiting for some children to finish their showers I got online and decided to check out Dr. Fuhrman's blog. And wouldn't ya know...there was a recipe for healthy brownies!!! And a chocolate cherry pie as well!! I am not sure if I can come up with a healthy way to decorate them, but we are half way there to a healthy birthday alternative. I am hoping that come her birthday we will have been sugar free for almost two months, and that these will taste divine :-) We'll see.

You can check out the recipe here:

Black bean brownies

Let me know if you try them out. And if anyone else knows of a healthy alternative to birthday cake, please let me know ASAP.

As a side note we are giving Jed a three day trial period of no daytime tube feedings. He has been coming to me about 20 minutes before his feedings asking for food. So we decided now was the time to see if he would be able to eat enough on his own. We will continue with his night time feeding for now. After the three days if he hasn't lost more than a couple of ounces we will continue on. If he lost more than that we will have to try again at a later date. Please pray that this would be successful. So far today he ate pretty decent. Not outstanding, but he was clearly hungry. He was also showing signs of "dehydration". Not true dehydration mind you, but his body is used to an all liquid diet and without his liquid feedings his cheeks were getting red. He asked for some juice and drank it all down, and his cheeks returned to normal! Yeah! I am excited for him to be tube feeding free for the next few days. He has really had a growth in mental/emotional development. We had a lovely evening of playing Zingo together. And he spent half the day "talking" with/to me. Plus he has been helping out more around the house. It's these little 'normal' things that he has started doing that have been so encouraging to my mommy's heart :-)

Good night!