iPad recipe holder crafty Tuesday

Today is crafty Tuesday so it's time to bust out the paints, vinyl and glue guns. Today I made a cute little iPad /iPad mini holder for the kitchen. I absolutely hate fining myself staring at the counter while cooking. It causes my clutzy butt to spill and make messes. 

So I picked up this cute wood holder from our local craft store.

Paints used 

Light Ivory (white)

North Sea (blue)

First paint the whole thing light ivory and wait to dry 20 minutes. Then bust into the blue paint a light coat over the whole piece. Drying time again. 30 mins you want it to be very dry.

Now it's time to sand this baby down to give it a beautiful distressed look. 

I just love distressed looks so really glide the sand paper on the edges to bring out that ivory white.

Finally finished!

Let me know what you are doing on crafty Tuesday by tagging #craftytuesday to your Instagram photos and tweets.

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram 

@krystalchristensen

Easy Tortilla Soup for those cold raining days

In need of an easy peasy dinner idea? This is what you need! Simple tortilla soup or 8 can soup. 

It's so easy anyone can do it especially if your busy like me chasing toddlers around all day (sick kids today) 

 All you need is 8 cans, cheese, and taco seasoning. These ingredients are staples in our house so no need to run to the store. 

•1 can of black beans (rinsed and drained) 

•1 can pinto beans (rinsed and drained)

•1 can of sweet corn (drained)

• 1 can cream of chicken soup

• 1 can chicken broth

• 1 package of taco seasoning

• 1 can of green chili enchilada sauce

• 1 (14 oz) can of diced tomatoes ( I use half of a giant can because we do orzo pasta and diced tomatoes for lunch) 

• 1 can of chunk chicken breast

• shredded cheese  (as much as you want to top your soup and sour cream)

Rinse your beans add the to your stock pot, add in all the ingredients but sour cream and cheese (those are your own personal toppings) 

Stir it all up, cook on low for 3 hours ( or 2 to 3 hours low in slow cooker) stir occasionally. Now enjoy the rest of your day catching up on house chores. Enjoy!

Easy fun for kids we do a bar style toppings. Sour cream, tortilla chips, and cheese. We let the kids go crazy adding in there favorites! 

Hope you enjoy this easy dinner make sure to share with your friends and family! 

Nighttime Potty Training is getting us down and tired

So if you have followed the adventures of Lilah and allergies you may know that she might be allergic to dust mites, material in pull ups (all brands), or have a a skins condition linked to super sensitive skin. 

I firmly don't believe in pushing a child past there developmental level. Some kids may wake up with dry nappy after bed but not all do. There is no shame in that just like walking each child is different lilah was walking on the day she turned 1 Kaylie was 16 months. 

 

The new allergist asked me about the situations I told him she wakes up scratching like crazy till welted up and bleeding. Breaks my heart. His advice was well time to ditch the pull ups and put a tarp on the bed and then he practically laughed when I said what if she's not ready. 

She maybe fully potty trained in the day when she was 2 1/2 but she just might not be ready to understand she needs to wake up to pee at 3 years old. These last  7 days so far we had 2 dry nights and last night we had a total of 4 accidents and that's with waking up and taking her to the potty. So what do we do? We do not want to get frustrated or angry because she is learning but also we ran out of clean sheets and blankets. Lilahs was fed up, grumpy and tired of being soaking wet with pee. Developmental ages are all different. We want to be patient while she is learning but we also don't want to just "throw her in a pool and yell swim." I feel like crying because this is how the allergist demanded she learns to be potty trained all night. 

Dean Haddock, Psy.D. Haddock is a strong believer in using pull-ups or bedwetting alarms as tools to support kids in developing nighttime training awareness skills. "Most importantly, don't push the training pace faster than the child is capable of going," says Haddock. "And remember, stressful situations in the child's life can cause them to regress and have more accidents."

Do we stop the process or let her itch till she bleeds ? It's a tough spot as a parent you don't want to demand them but also you don't want them to hurt. Where does that leave us ... Wet, sleep deprived, frustrated, proud, worried, and confused.

 Leave a comment on when your children  were fully potty trained at night and tips. 

Underweight toddler

As many of you know weight gain for Kaylie has been a struggle. We have found a few new ways to help her gain weight! Kaylie is 19 months and in December she got sick and lost 2 1/2 lbs she was 20lbs and at her doctors visit she dropped to a low 17.4lb  her chest had a sunken hole and although she eats better than most toddlers it still frightened us. She just hit this picky eating phase along with illness just made her drop weight.  We are proud to say she is 19.9 pounds I less than 30 days!

How she gained weight back in 3 short weeks! 

•BUTTER! Extra butter in everything! Costco muffins (microwave 15sec and a table spoon of butter with some yummy homemade raspberry jam.) 

This is an easy 600 cal meal/snack for morning

• Pedisure- 240cals here's the trick we do two a day one first when she awakes before diaper change and one at bedtime. These are thick so never do them around meal time or your kiddo will not be hungry. You can add them in the blender with fruit for a yummy smoothie or add chocolate syrup or strawberry  for extra flavor. We buy at costco for 34$ they only have vanilla flavoring.

•wowbutter! It's amazing soy butter tastes like peanut butter has 200 cal per 2 table spoons. We are a peanut free house so this is our alternative. We love it on pancakes and choclate egos. 

•scrabble eggs! Easy go to in the morning, 5 eggs (between two little girls) 2 tbs of butter, whole milk and don't forget the sheredded cheese! Yummy good fat and cals for toddlers under weight. We step it up with heavy whipping cream in there eggs.

• whip cream and fruit, got to sneak in any fruit they refuse to eat. Our house it's bananas great high cal fruit that my girls won't eat. Throw that berries yogurt into a bowl and add the whip cream to make them think it's an icecream treat! 

• one dish dinner mexi rice! 

It's so good and so quick and simple. I freeze half the meal for a later lunch or dinner perfect freezer meal. 2 cups or rice 4 cups of water boil and cook rice 15 minutes. While rice is finishing up I chop 1 chicken breast into cubes and strips sauté on skillet with veggi oil till cooked. 8 mins turn to low add 1 can of black beans, 1 can corn, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1/2 package of taco seasoning. Mix it all up on low and add the rice. Then add 4 table spoons of sour cream and serve! 15 min dish and tons of good cals and you can sneak in veggies which is always a plus! I add salsa to mine. Easy to to store put half in a gallon bag and freeze or refrigerate.

Hope these tips help! 

New Treatment Option for Children with Peanut Allergies

Lately we have been seeing this  flash up all over the news, Good Morning  America, Good Things Utah, and of course research journals. Having a child with peanut allergies can be rough, exhausting at times. There is no job more important than being a protective parent. I find myself going crazy trying to protect Lilah from all peanuts. In short this means during Christmas when neighbors deliver goodies they go directly to the garage. (sadly) because we have no idea what they are exposed to or what is in them.


It is hard to be told that your child can't enjoy the same treats in class as the other students, or the heart ache of throwing away 80% of her Halloween candy. It is heart breaking when they sit at a table alone. It makes you feel like you are failing your child. Airplanes are especially scary because you are thousands of feet up in the air with no hospital or doctors if your child goes into Anaphylaxis, your only saving grace is an epi pen. Which it does not always work.


So this new trial that many people including us are willing and wanting to try is called oral immunotherapy (OIT) for peanut allergies they also have it for milk and egg allergies. It is a 6 month trial with minute doses of peanuts and there proteins. They expose peanuts to your child under the watchful eye of a physician and medical staff. They monitor if an epi pen is needed or if they have minimal reaction over the 6 months they increase the dose. The overall goal and results is children with deadly allergies are actually able to be around peanuts and ingest them with out life threatening results. The success rate is above 80% and growing!  We will be meeting with Dr. Jones next week to determine if we want to go this route.


Lilah's health is the most important thing and we want her to feel involved and not isolated. This is one of our main interest in  the trial so that she can live a normal life with out fear of an allergic reaction by touch or taste. Rocky Mountain Allergy in Layton Utah is the only clinic in Utah that does this therapy, I believe they maybe the only one on the west coast region.

It is nerve wrecking debating if we should try this trial or not.  Even allowing her to be exposed to this allergen makes my stomach curl into knots. We have prayed hard for answers and I feel that after meeting Dr. Jones I will have better insight into the whole process. I know that parents are flying in from around the country to join this OIT immunotherapy for peanuts.

2015

Wow  it is 2015! I can't believe it! So the last 6 months have been so busy and crazy it's been hard to keep up blogging. 

Family update sadly my grandmother passed away in July which is so incredibly heart breaking. I know she is in heaven looking down on us. Grief counseling was very hard for Lilah but I'll write more in another blog. Let's keep this positive. 

So what's new in our family Lilah has seen a new allergist and I am not sure how I feel about him. I feel like we are at square one but after some more blood work we might have more answers. Christmas season is hard due to all the peanuts and treenut a in everyone's houses but this year it seemed easier we threw Christmas Eve and day events at our house which made it super easy to track all candy and food! 

Kaylie is walking and talking up a storm, her kidneys seem to be okay we have more testing in a few months but she did finally get diagnosed with reflux at the base of the kidney and still has bilateral hydroniphosis but she is managing very well. We did have a recent scare tho, Kaylie has always been tiny due to her kidneys but she got sick in December at 18 months she dropped from 20lbs to 17.2 so we have been working hard on getting her back to weight and proudly she is back to 18.6 lbs. we add butter whole milk, whipping cream and olive oil to everything to increase her fat and calorie intake.  Which is a struggle since  she is a picky eater but the massive amount of support we received is a complete blessing 

Taking the step towards homesteading

Do you ever get exhausted over bills, errands and the constant spending at grocery stores. I am so tired of all the fuss and constant errands. I, myself am a home body, I love keeping busy with the girls, homemaking, cleaning and the animals. While making our bi weekly grocery list I pondered why we are always purchasing store products like bread, canned veggies fruit and spaghetti sauce. 

It dawned on me, I'm lazy. Yes it's true I cook most items from scratch mainly because my oldest has extreme food allergies to nuts and peanuts. Everything manufactured says processed on or I. The vacinity of nuts. So yes baking and cooking is my "hobby" lol more like forced hand. But it's not all bad what's bad is that I always but two loves a bread a week from Costco. While I know how to back bread and just choose to spend money at te grocery. It's true I have not had a garden in years but the time has come to take a step in the past and start homesteading more intensely. 

So as of just the month of October I no longer buy bread I make it from scratch 5-7$ a week for two loaves ... But now it's less than a 1$ per loaf by making it myself. There is only 5 ingredients! What!! And tastes better. 

This summer I canned over 48lbs of peaches for the whole year along with 60lbs of tomatoes my neighbor grew we split the bounty 12 spaghetti sauces, 10 salsas. 

My lovely raspberry bushes produced an over load of raspberries so the girls and I canned 12 plus jars and froze 2 lbs of fresh berries. 

This is just our start. As each month comes and we prepare for the first we are going to take the no grocery store challenge to witness the savings, the joy and challenges of homesteading. Our only flaw will be yogurt and milk. Maybe I convince my hubby to getting me a goat but for now that is our only store purchases. 

Wish us luck!