Surprisingly Easy

We always go grocery shopping on Sundays, it's a natural end to our weekend. This week was no different, besides the fact that this is our first gluten free week. I have been spending a lot of time researching. Researching brands that are/aren't GF and good recipes. I was expecting today to be really hard trying to shop for all things GF but it was surprisingly easy. I was well prepared with my list and my menu plan. Here's what it looks like...

Monday: Last gluten-y dinner out for the husbands birthday!
Tuesday: Tacos, with no tortillas. We used to eat this regularly before going GF. I am anxious to try the GF tortillas though!
Wednesday: Beef Stirfry
Thursday: Shrimp Carbonara
Friday: Homemade pizzas, on GF pizza crust
Saturday: Grilled chicken alfredo(all Classico sauces are GF)

I have high hopes for this week, I even bought GF bread so we could have our sandwiches for lunch. We are trying a few different brands and next week I plan on trying to make my own bread! The GF pasta we are using this week I already know are delicious!

Gluten Free

Brett and I had been thinking about going Gluten free for awhile now. Mainly because of the research we have seen and heard about gluten's affect on asthma and seizures. It is something we have put a lot of thought into and have finally decided to take a shot at it, a good shot. It will be a family change, mostly for Braylen's health but for ours too. There are many benefits of going gluten free. Braylen will also be going dairy free so we can see if that helps as well.

Now I'm not saying that Brett and I will never eat gluten again, I am sure we will. We are doing this for our baby, we would do anything for him. It will change a lot; no more eating out, family get togethers will be more difficult, and we have to make sure everyone that is around Braylen will be on the same page. There can't be anybody slipping him anything, even just one bite.

Brett's 25th birthday is a week from this Monday on the 30th. We are officially going gluten free the day after. There was a groupon earlier this week for Emealz. It is a meal planning service that has several different options for everyone. I bought the groupon that included a whole year of service for $29.00. We choose the Walmart gluten free plan. I thought this would really help me with gluten free resources and ingredients. I do not usually shop at Walmart but it seemed cheaper and even had some brands listed with it. I plan on checking it out and maybe taking it to HyVee to shop anyways. They also have a lot of options.

There are a lot of gluten free resources out there these days, including knowing people who already do it! I'll keep you updated on how it's going!

No Answers

So I promised I would go into more detail about the trip to the neurologist. We went a few weeks ago to St. Louis to see him. We thought that we would maybe get some answers, especially since we were driving from Columbia to see him. It turned into just a consultation and he wanted to set it up for us to do an EEG here in Columbia and have it sent to St. Louis for him to read. 

We scheduled an EEG here at the hospital for this past Tuesday morning. I was told to keep him up late and wake him up early. Ideally, people sleep through EEGs or sit very still with their eyes closed, only I didn't know this. So Monday night we kept him up an extra two hours and woke him up two hours early on Tuesday. He had to have clean hair (so they could put the electrodes on his head) so we gave him a bath and just played for awhile. 

We arrived at the hospital just in time for his appointment. They checked us in and said that someone would come to get him when they were ready. We waited about 2 minutes before a girl came to get us. Brett and I were both there and she only wanted to take one of us, so I went with him. Before we went back she told Brett it could take an hour or two, like he was crazy for wanting to wait for us. 

Once we got to the room she said, "He's going to take a nap right?" I told her that he had been up for awhile but knowing him, (my active, rambunctious, crazy loving TWO YEAR OLD) I said "well no." I was not fully prepared by anyone and thought that as long as he left the cords on his head, we could read or play games, heck even eat snacks. I told her that there was zero chance that he was going to sit on my lap for at least an hour, closing his eyes and NOT moving. She asked when his usual nap time was and I said it was right after lunch time, she found it odd that he did not still take a morning nap. 

She was making suggestions such as bringing a bed in or coming in at his nap time to make this work. Problem is if Braylen isn't comfortable with where he is, for example; a strange hospital with a lady he does not know, he most likely won't even blink. Some days, granted they are bad days, he won't even nap. That really threw her for a loop as if he was the first two year old to ever refuse a nap. Call me crazy but we have also taught Braylen to self soothe, as in I do not rock or put him to bed anymore. I haven't done that for a long time.  He sleeps in his own bed and we put him in there awake. He falls asleep without us in there. This just wasn't a practical situation for my two year old and I was not prepared for it.

So at this point we are trying to figure out out how to go forward. The girl suggested we wake him up around 2am and keep him up until the EEG. I want to see what his pediatrician has to say about it all, after all she blamed him for us not being prepared or sleepy enough. Hard to believe, his doctor is who I trust the most and he is amazing. 

Here are some pictures from our day trip to St. Louis earlier this month, Braylen was a perfect passenger!

Okay, this was not from this trip I just had to share it!

Quick Update

I don't have too much in terms of news on Braylen. We went to his neurologist appointment in St. Louis last week. He didn't really have much to tell us, I will have more on that later.


I wanted to post a super awesome recipe that Brett and I tried this past weekend. I have to be honest, I had never made popcorn that did not come from the store bought bags that you pop in the microwave and it's done! This popcorn tasted amazing and tasted much lighter. I felt good still after eating it!


Self-pop popcorn


1/4 cup of popcorn kernels
Brown paper bag
Melted butter/salt to taste


Put popcorn kernels in brown paper bag and fold the top down a few times. Put in microwave and stay by to listen for pops. Stop when the popping slows, just like you would for normal popcorn bags. Add salt and butter to your liking!


I just used a little melted butter and salt! Enjoy!

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