Friday, June 26, 2009

Guess what she got?

I can't even tell you how blessed we feel to have the Animus Ping! We are just happy to have a pump in general, but we have heard great things about the Ping. I still can't believe it!

We were sitting on the couch a few minutes ago and she leaned over to me and whispered "I got a pump!" She is so excited! She was getting a little nervous about it the other day though. I don't think she really knows what to expect, none of us really do, but I think she understands how this is really going to help her.

A year ago I would have never guessed that we would be dealing with diabetes. Now almost everything we do revolves around it! I am overcome by emotion when I think about how our lives have changed. It is no longer sadness though. She is so lucky that she has one of THE BEST Endocrinologists in the Western States as her doctor. I am still surprised with the reputation that Dr. Swinyard has. There are so many people that know him. Even when we went to the Diabetes Expo everyone knew who he was. She is so lucky to live in a time where it can be controlled the way that it is. To have a pump available to her that will make things so much easier. To have the possibility (we hope) to find a cure for diabetes in her lifetime. Or at least have the research done to always be finding ways to improve her lifestyle. The thing that I am most emotional about is the way she deals with it. She has such a grownup understanding of all this. It blows my mind that she has such control and can really listen to her body. I am so proud of her. When I say she is amazing I really mean it!

This pump is going to change our lives. I can't wait! We now just need to go to the training class and learn how to use this crazy thing. And I need to learn to get over my fear of hurting her. Those needles are a little longer than I expected! Wish us luck!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

I miss everyone at my new blog. If you need the new address just send me an email! Then come follow me! Leave a comment so I know you are there!

Big things are going to be happening this week so I would love to have the support of my (kind) blogging friends! :)

Roasted Starburst Treats

This is a treat that I don't take credit for. It was shown to us by my cousin a few years ago. There has been some fine tuning over the years to make it even better. It sounds strange but I tell you it is pretty dang tasty!

So back to our ingredients again. All you are going to need is the Nilla Wafers and Starburst candy. That is it.




Step 1- Unwrap and two flavors of Starburst candies. My hubby happens to like the yellow and orange ones. You are going to stick them on the end of the roasting sticks like so... We like the smaller sticks because they stick on there really easy.
Step 2- Roast the Starburst just until they get bubbly. They cook fast so pay attention. We have lost more Starbursts in the fire than I would like to admit.


Step 3- Put the roasted Starbursts in the Nilla Wafers to make a sandwich.

Now you could stop there and enjoy the crunchy cookie with the soft candy inside. This alone is really good, but if you want a softer cookie go on to the next step.
Step 4- Take the entire cookie and balance it on the stick, or stick it back on the end of the stick to put it back into the fire. Roast it for just a few seconds on each side. This makes the cookie really soft. Be careful not to burn it though. That isn't so good.


Now I know that everyone is going to have a bag of Starburst at their next camp out! This usually ends up being a favorite for everyone!

Peanut Butter S'mores

Words do not describe how wonderful these little treats are! I think the idea stemmed from my obsession with everything peanut butter and how to add it to a s'more. We have been able to get the technique down perfect for the perfect amount of melt, and gooeyness (is that even a word?) for it to be HEAVENLY!

HEAVENLY I TELL YOU!
Wanna know how to make them? Good so I will tell you! Here is what you will need. Some the ingredients will be used for another treat so just hold off on that.

All you are really going to need is marshmallows, graham crackers, and a peanut butter cup. You will want to get everything you need on a plate before you start roasting it. I promise this makes a difference with the final result! It isn't as good if you have to unwrap the peanut butter cup after you roast the marshmallow.

Step 1 - Put your marshmallow on the roasting stick. We suggest you use a small stick with the prongs close together. There is a reason for this that you will see in a later step.

Step 2- Roast your marshmallow. I happen to like them a little toasty. This picture shows it on fire. That was more of an oops than anything else, but oh well. It was still good!


Step 3- After your marshmallow is toasted. Take it off the stick and place it on top of the peanut butter cup. Now this is where the smaller roasting stick comes in handy! In order to get the peanut butter melted enough to be a little gooey you will want to stick that in the fire too. So take the marshmallow and the peanut butter cup an balance it on top of the roasting stick. You will put it back in the fire for just a second! Too long and it will melt off the stick. And that would be a disaster!


Step 4- While using part of the graham cracker scrape it all of the stick and onto the graham cracker. See why you need a plate?


Then you have it! The soul reason I can't loose as much weight as I would like. Everyone needs to try this at least once! THEY ARE THAT GOOD! I guess the only exception is if you like peanut butter, but stay tuned. I have a few more things we roast that might tickle your non-peanut butter fancy!


Weekly Bon Fire

It seems that every week this summer we have been having a bon fire in my back yard. It usually starts by our friends and us wanting to do something, but then realize we are all too poor to go do anything. It has turned out to be a blast every time! Different friends will come by and sometimes the same old people here. Last week we had family in town from New York that we invited over. I would even go as far to say this is turning out to be a tradition.

The kids usually jump on the trampoline or play on the swing set while the adults sit and chat around the fire. It is super relaxing! We have been coming up with some new things to roast over the fire too. I will make a separate post for that so stay tuned! Here are some pictures of our bon fire a few weeks ago (that got rained out). They aren't the greatest pictures, it was getting pretty dark.









Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen


There is this little "tradition" of sorts in our neighborhood (well mostly with the next door neighbors, but my hubby usually just tags along). Whenever a really good movie comes out they go see the midnight showing of it on the day it comes out. Well I wasn't going to miss out on the Transformers movie! It is one of my favorites! So along with my half my neighbors (and half the high school population) my hubby and I went to the 12:03 showing of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen.

It was really good! I loved it! There are a few parts that they added some language and such that didn't need to be there, but over all I thought it was really good. There was a lot more transforming in this movie and honestly that is the best part! The sound effects were amazing and the twins (aka the ice cream truck), I thought, were great! The worst part was when they were right in the middle of this big fight scene and the movie stopped and the lights came on. It took them almost 20 minutes to get it fixed. I hate it when that happens!

Over all I am happy that we went. Even if I didn't realize the movie was almost 3 hours long so we got home at almost 4. Then we came home to two sick kids with high fevers. Lucky for me Dude wasn't going to go to school with a fever like that so we got to sleep in a bit. Thanks to my sister in law spending the night so we could go have a fun date night.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Family Adventure - Bowling at Fat Cats

It has been awhile since I have posted about our family adventures. We have been going on them every week still, so I will have to do a catch up post on the things that we have been doing.

This last week our adventure was going bowling at Fat Cats. This was a cool adventure because it was sponsored by the JDRF (Junior Diabetics Research Foundation). We had a blast! The kids loved it! We were babysitting my friends kids so they had to come with us and I am pretty sure they loved it too!










(please forgive me for the terrible quality of these pictures. I had my camera set to automatic so Little Dude could take pictures too and they all ended up pretty dark)

Some of the highlights of the night are:

~ loosing the little boy that we were watching. We had been there for 5 minutes and trying to find a lane and he wandered off. Thankfully he knew to go to the front desk and tell them he was lost.

~My hubby stealing my camera and ending up with a series of pictures of my behind. Be grateful then didn't end up here.

~My hubby getting a strike and then me getting a strike right after him. Our scores never got to over 90 so don't be impressed!

~The fact that my 2 year old Little Man won the game!

~That all the pizza and bowling was free!

~Learning about how we are going to raise money for the JDRF Walk for a Cure. We are STOKED to start this! Team Superhero here we come!

It was a great night!

Friday, June 12, 2009

This blog has now moved. I will no longer be posting here. If you need to find out where I have gone send me an email!
pittakgr at hotmail com
As always haters don't bother :)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

The New Blog

With a private blog you can only invite 100 people. I have more readers than that. Plus it was getting to be a pain to enter all those email address in. So this is my solution, a new blog all together.

It is really bittersweet. I have been Mommy Going Crazy for years now. I was the FIRST Mommy Going Crazy blogger out there! (trust me I have checked). I don't even know that this is going to solve the problem anyway. Whoever my hater is could end up here too. But trust me I have taken precautions to be a little more safe here on my blog. (by the way my comment hater isn't the only reason for this change. I will go into this in another post)

This is still pretty time consuming, but I like this solution better. It will take me some time to get things all set up so be patient with me. My first issue is that when I imported my blog to here it did it twice. I now have every post I have ever written on here twice. I am trying to delete them, but that is taking FOREVER! The other thing is I lost ALL of my comments. BUMMER! Oh well! Life will go on!

I do have a few questions though, all those that put pictures on your blog I want to know two things. How do you make it so no one can open them (or copy them) and how do I make them bigger? My last question is that I really want a 3 column blog. Where are some cute templates for that?

So there you have it. Thanks for your patients! You guys are AWESOME!

Monday, June 08, 2009

Pump

So I wasn't planning on posting anything until my blog when private, but I am so excited about this that I couldn't resist!

I just got a phone call from the Animus Ping rep. We found out that the Princess' pump will be covered at 100%!!!! A pink one just might be on it's way in just a few days!

I CRIED!!!!! I am SUPER excited!

Friday, June 05, 2009

Hi again everyone!

Sorry about all this Junior High drama. It was something I didn't ask for but was thrown upon me. With a public blog I suppose that is putting my family in a vulnerable position. So yes, my blog is here again. But not for long. I will be making the change to private in one week from today. I will need email address of anyone that wants to view it (haters need not apply). Even if you are family I need to have an email address since many of you have more than 1 and I wouldn't know which one to use. You can leave a comment or send it to my email pittakgr at hotmail dot com. Thanks for being patient guys, I hate private blogs just like the next guy.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Dear Anonymous,

If you feel you need to cause problems, pack up your baggage and move somewhere else. If you feel you have something legit to say why are you hiding?


~Mommy Going Crazy

Monday, June 01, 2009

Struggle

See here's the thing, almost 1 year ago my hubby lost his job. I was so angry. Not at him, at the situation. This kind of thing seems to happen to us all the time. I figured that we were doing something wrong and that we were being punished. As the anniversary approaches I am getting a little emotional about it. Our situation now isn't much better then unemployment. Yes, he has a job...sort of. He was hired by our neighbor to do contract work. He gets paid by the hour and only when they need him. He doesn't get insurance, and since there really isn't a lot of hours for him this job really isn't stable. "Better than nothing" I tell myself every morning when I wake up. He keeps searching and applying for jobs right and left. But with the way this economy is there are a million others applying for that same job and he doesn't even get to an interview. It hasn't been easy and some times we wonder how much longer are we going to need to suffer?



When Princess was diagnosed with diabetes in November I thought "this is it! The final thing to push me over the edge!" What edge? My sanity edge. The edge that I had been clinging too for 5 months, trying so hard to not let go and fall to hit a bottom so far down that there was no coming back. I had to hold on though, I wasn't going down without a fight. A few months more down the road things still weren't improving and we were {this} close to loosing so much. I have tried to be strong. I have tried SO hard to learn what I need to learn and be stronger from all this. This last year of our lives has been very difficult.



But here I am! Stronger than ever! How did I get here? There has been so much gloom that I didn't see how I could be happy until this major trial is over. It isn't over, far from it actually, but I find something to smile about every day. We have come a long way and through all this I have really learned alot.

One of the biggest lessons that I have learned is that as long as I am doing all that I can to do what is right, and to better myself, I will be blessed for that. I have to be trusting that this is my chance to prove my valiance and that I am not alone in this trial. We have been blessed so much more than I feel deserving for. It will all be over someday. And when that someday comes I hope that I look at life in a different way. With eyes of gratitude I hope!

So here's to the lessons learned this last year. Let's hope that I learn it all this time around that later in life there won't be a second (er third I guess) round of this.