Happy Birthday Morgan!!!

Don't worry, she gets a real cake Saturday when her friends will be over.

Yesterday, Morgan turned 8! She was our early Christmas present. Her "real" party will be on Saturday, but we always let the birthday child open presents from us on their actual birthday.

Morgan asked for Lego Friends and ended up getting quite a few of them from us and Grandpa Steve.

We'll have more birthday pictures on Saturday after her big party!

Happy Birthday Connor!!!

Connor turned 16 yesterday!! Sixteen! Can you believe it? Mom and Dad still had to get him a toy, so he got this Lego set. Otherwise his presents of choice now are tools, computer stuff (Mom's not very technical, can you tell?), and money, of course.

Connor is our resident computer tech support as well as Mr. Fixit whenever Dad isn't home. He still has a few practice hours to fulfill, but then he'll be getting his driver's license.

Devon has been too busy between school and work to bake a cake and Mom has been too sick, so Costco did the honors this time.

Brenna kept blowing out the candles before we could get them all lit.

I know it was Connor's birthday, so the pictures should be of him, but Brenna insisted that she didn't need a fork for her cake.

Owen eventually decided she needed help.

Owen was so good about not being able to eat the cake. He gave everyone their napkins and forks and then fed Brenna since he couldn't eat any himself. We are over 1 year seizure free now, but sometimes this diet really kills me.

Hazelnut Muffins {Ketogenic Diet Recipe}

Owen's magnesium levels have dropped to the point where the dietician wants to add a magnesium supplement. They had always been really good until the change to the 4:1 ratio. I don't really want to add another supplement to our regimen if I can control his levels through dietary changes. He is currently taking 23 pills/capsules, a vitamin D drop, two spoonfuls of calcium powder, 2 syringes of Carnitor, and 1/2 t of potassium salt along with a scoop of laxative every day. I really don't want to add anymore to that. Nuts are a good source of magnesium, but since we changed ratios he hasn't been eating them as well, so I came up with a new recipe. We are making sure that he eats at least one nut based meal a day and I should find out this week if his magnesium levels have come back up yet.

Hazelnut Muffins 

4.2:1 ratio 270 calories

baking powder (calumet) .1 g

Truvia sweetner 3 g

egg white- raw 23g

butter 3g

mayonnaise(Best Foods)9g

hazelnut meal (Bob's Red Mill) 16g

coconut oil (Spectrum Organic) 8g

Mix all of the items together, pour into a silicone mold and bake at 350F for about 15-20 minutes.

I made 8 batches of these on Saturday. It took about an hour and a half to measure and mix everything, then 15-20 minutes baking time depending on which molds I used. 

First I have to tare out the container weight.

Then I weigh out the ingredients one at a time X8. I usually start with the egg since it is the hardest for me to get the exact measurement on.

Then I zero out the scale again and add the next ingredient.

And repeat until all the ingredients are added. My scale doesn't like to weigh out the .1g of baking powder, so I just add that to the previous ingredient. My scale does pretty well going from 3 grams to 3.1 grams, it just doesn't like to register the .1 alone.

Once I have all of the listed ingredients weighed out, I add in some of our vitamin/mineral supplements. I added a pinch of potassium salt and some calcium powder to these muffins.

This amount of salt was added to 4 batches

calcium supplement, this is about 1/4 of what Owen gets in a day

We have a .2 gram leeway in our measurements. Meaning if I'm supposed to use 3 grams of butter I can actually use anywhere from 2.8 grams to 3.2 grams. I try to go over rather than under on fatty items and under rather than over on carbs though. Because our measurements have to be so accurate, We have to scrape as much of the recipe as possible out of the container.

finished mix

I try to get the containers at least this clean

One batch of this recipe make 3 of these little gingerbread men or 6 squares.

Then we bake everything for about 15-20 minutes. I have to be careful to watch them close when baking since all the fat tends to make them cook pretty fast.

As they cool, all the oil reabsorbs into the muffins. Then we package them up and put them in the freezer. Muffins aren't Owen's favorite meal, but he still eats them pretty well. They are one of my favorite meals because I don't have to add anything to them at serving time. That makes them the easiest things to pack if we are leaving the house . Every bite is also the same ratio so they are great to have on hand for sick days when he might not be able to finish a whole meal. If he only ate half of them it would lower his calories for the day, but wouldn't mess up his ratio like it would if he ate all of his fruit, but didn't finish his cream.

Halloween 2014 {2nd year on the Ketogenic Diet}

Can I just say how glad I am that Halloween is over? It is probably the hardest holiday on the Ketogenic Diet. Thanksgiving has food, but a lot of that is easy to make similar Keto approved items. Christmas has candy, cookies, and gingerbread decorating parties, but it also has presents and singing. Valentine's is kind of a pain when your kid can't eat any goodies, but it's the easiest one to ignore and there are always cute stuffed animals to give instead of candy. There is quite a bit of food involved with Easter, but it's pretty easy to stuff eggs with money and little prizes instead of candy. Halloween though, pretty much revolves around candy Owen can't eat. He also can't wear face paint, use temporary tattoos, or carve pumpkins without gloves. Even with gloves, we have to watch to make sure he doesn't get anything above the gloves.

Now a huge part of it is just Rod and I stressing about things that usually don't happen, but it makes things tense instead of fun. We end up worrying about every possible thing that can possibly go wrong. Although I never worried about him biting through a glow stick which someone else's Keto kid did this year. By the way, if your child does ever eat a glow stick, poison control recommends giving them milk. Then if they are on the Ketogenic Diet, you have to give them a bunch of oil to counteract the milk. One more thing to add to the worry list for next year, right?

Owen just wanted to poke at his pumpkin with the little carving blade

Anyway, most of the things we worried about and prepared for, never actually became problems. The kids had a blast, as usual. Owen only asked twice if he could have any candy. Most of the time, he was just happy to get to ring doorbells. He LOVES ringing doorbells. This year he also discovered door knockers and had fun with those too. Brenna thinks all the candy belongs to her. She just helps herself to everyone's treat bags. She won't share her own though, like a typical two year old.

Morgan told Brenna that her pumpkin was cute. To which Brenna replied " No It's not! It's scary!"

I didn't get many pictures of the kids in their costumes, as usual. I just don't seem to have enough hands for the camera. I only made one costume piece this year, everything else was recycled from previous years or the dress up box.

Devon was a flapper, Connor was a hunchback, Cameron was a troll, although he couldn't wear the mask most of the time because Brenna was scared to death of it. Duncan was a wizard (I wouldn't let him be a which hunter, because I'm mean), Morgan was a witch ( which is the reason Duncan wanted to be a witch hunter and the real reason I wouldn't let him), Owen was Frodo again, he refused to be anything else. Brenna was a butterfly, fairy princess. All three because being one or the other simply wasn't good enough. Baby Carlitos was supposed to be a tiger, but he was really grumpy due to cutting teeth and refused to wear his costume. Luckily he's adorable anyway.

The kids are actually coming down off their sugar high pretty well. I didn't get any complaints when I told them they had to get dressed and do their chores before they could have any candy. The Candy Fairy arrived late Halloween night and replaced Owen's candy with a Lego set and some color change glasses, which he is thrilled with and Mommy finally got to take a nap, so we're all pretty happy right now.