Strawberry Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free

I'm addicted to making different varieties of oatmeal cookies, or breakfast cookies as my family has called them. I can double the recipe and make a large batch for mornings on the go (which with a 4 month old are crazy to begin with!) and eat them through the week. Plan on making my protein high ones (that include peanut butter or protein powder) the day before my 5K and the day before my husband's Tough Mudder so we have them for breakfast the morning of our races. I also plan to try a sweet potato version and a pumpkin version soon.

1 cup gluten free quick oats
2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup of dairy free and gluten free chocolate chips (I use Wegman's brand, but chocolate dream works too)
4 large strawberries

Mash bananas well and mix with applesauce and quick oats. Let sit for 10 minutes. Cut the strawberries into small chunks and fold strawberries and chocolate chips into your oatmeal batter. Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.After cooled store in air tight container.

Makes about 8 cookies at 114 calories a cookie.
(79 calories a cookie if you don't add the chocolate chips!)

Weight Loss Update

My before and after pictures so far...

Before:

Me this morning: Down 35 pounds!

Registered!

I have officially registered for my first 5k! I will be doing the Biggest Loser 5k run in Washington DC in July. Time to start training!!! I have a long way to go and only a little over a month in which to do it. I downloaded a couch to 5k app onto my iphone and did the first run on my treadmill a few hours ago and it was actually kinda fun.

Best Gluten Free cookies!

Made these last night and they are FANTASTIC! And they are only 150 calories a cookie. I make cookies with oatmeal and bananas and they are still around 100 calories a cookie so 150 isn't bad at all. After all, it is a chocolate chip cookie! And the best part?.... They were only $2.99! Amazing, I know! No more paying $4 for betty crocker cookie mix and then still needing other ingredients and you have to go home and make them yourself. These are ready to bake, break apart cookies. I also bought them in fudge brownie. I found them in the refrigerated cookie section in Wegmans!

Getting Healthy

So true!!!!

Let's fill our bodies full of nothing but junk and then when it makes us sick we can use a ton of pills to fix it and put more weird things in our bodies. I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER since we started eating healthier! I cooked some chicken in balsamic vinaigrette the other day and it was so much more oil than the hubby and I were used to that it actually made us feel sick afterwards. We used to eat stuff like that (and MUCH worse) before and we didn't even know how bad we were feeling just from the food we were putting in our bodies. You don't know how much better you can feel till you make the change. Don't get me wrong, I still hit the drive thru every once in a while. My oldest is addicted to "chicken fries" which is her way of asking for a McDonald's happy meal. But like everything else in life, it is about moderation and making smart choices. For example, getting a Big Mac, definitely not a great choice but okay if it is only like once a month. Getting triple stack whopper with everything, never okay. That's like your entire day's worth of calories in one sandwich. I wish someone would finally open up a healthy drive thru! I truly think people would go. A place with healthy, allergen friendly foods! Where you can take your child with the peanut or milk allergy and know they aren't going to have a reaction to something they eat. Where you can actually get gluten free food! If I had the money I would do that in an instant. I need to make a millionaire friend so they can back me :) How has someone like Jillian Michaels or Doctor Oz not already pitched this idea? We all know people are suckers for convenience, we are all too busy during the day. This could possibly aid in curing America of obesity. So sad that no one with the ability to make it happen is taking the initiative. 

End of the year IEP

As we get close to the end of the school year, I can't help but think about how incredibly far my little Lily has come this year. Since being diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech in September SO much has changed. When we started speech at the school in November she still only had 20-30 words, now she is using 3 sometimes 4 word sentences! There is still a lot of work to do though. Her apraxia makes it very hard to understand her so even the words she knows don't always come out correctly, but the progress she has made is truly amazing. I can actually joke with her now and she will point out things on the tv and has even started making her dolls have little conversations. At her last IEP meeting we decided to keep her in the classroom setting instead of moving to just speech therapy, there are still a lot of fine motor skills she needs to be working on. I also had them add on eating techniques, since she still struggles with forks and spoons and drinking from an open cup. They also want to increase her days from twice a week to 5 times a week next year since she is struggling with routine, like coming to the carpet for circle time without being prompted multiple times and stuff like that. But she is still only 2 (3 in July) so things like that aren't that big a deal. If someone had told me in September that I would be able to have small conversations with my daughter by June I would have never believed them. Now I just need to find ways to build on it so we can continue to learn through the summer while she is out of school!

Welcome Annabeth!

Annabeth was born on February 6th at 9:10pm at 6lbs and 11ozs!

Deciding to take a little turn on the blog and go from just infertility to covering getting into shape with a chronic disease, healthy recipes, and being a mommy to my little ones with apraxia and food sensitivities.

10 weeks

Soooooo ready for this trimester to be over. Between throwing up and not wanting to eat anything except red meat and peas, I am very ready for the second trimester. I was graduated to my OB and already had my first appointment but I didn't have a full work up yet. He did however check my BP a couple times though and it was very high, which has me very worried because I developed preeclampsia during my first pregnancy. Since then I have been watching it at home and it seems to level out beautifully when I am relaxing, so I am hoping he will allow me to take it easy and monitor it myself instead of going on a medication, which will mean I have to be referred to a high risk doctor as well. I did get an ultrasound to get my dates correct and I saw a bouncing, head banging little rocker in there with a strong heart. So other than the BP everything seems to be going well, and my crazy two year old is definitely keeping me on my toes!

7 weeks

Went to our ultrasound a couple days ago and saw one beautiful little peanut with his heart just flickering away! He measured right on time and my RE said to go ahead and schedule my first appointment with my OB here at home. Last pregnancy I wasn't released to my OB till 10 weeks so I was very surprised he is graduating me so early. So tomorrow I have to get that scheduled and I also need to call a speech therapist for Lily. Her doctor said she is way too far behind in her speech for a 2 year old and I have to get her into speech therapy. :-/ One of the disadvantages of an only child not in child care I guess.

6 weeks

Today makes 6 weeks pregnant. The cramping has eased off a lot and has been replaced by headaches and crippling morning sickness. Whoever coined the term "morning" sickness, should be shot. I've been living off of saltines and ginger ale for days, but I did manage to get down a bowl of cereal this morning which might help. On top of that the ac has broke at our house in the middle of the worst heat wave ever. The heat index is 114 degrees and all we have are ceiling fans, which just makes me feel worse. We were lucky and kept our power through the storms though, everyone else I know in the area lost power and are being told over 24 hours before its back on. At least our house has moving air, there are a lot of miserable people out there today. :(
My ultrasound is the 6th so we are now counting down the days

5 weeks

My second beta was a 70, so I was doubling every 34 hours. I had another one on Friday but I won't get the results till Monday. Everything seems to be fine so far. I haven't had any spotting but I am definitely uncomfortable. I guess it's something about second pregnancies, I look at 5 weeks what I looked like at 12 weeks with my daughter! My belly just exploded. My ultrasound is scheduled for July 6th, I can't wait!!!

Second beta results tomorrow

I should get the results of my second beta test tomorrow morning! Definitely on pins and needles, I'm so anxious to hear my doctor say that everything is looking great. The period has officially been skipped, I should've started roughly two days ago, and the symptoms are coming in force. A lot of pulling and twinges and bloating like crazy. I could swear I am already showing, so I started googling it to make sure I'm not going insane and apparently it is very common to show early in a second pregnancy. There were multiple forums where I saw women complaining about starting to show almost immediately after they found out, some even said that was how they knew. I can tell most of what I've got is just bloat, but damn if my pants aren't starting to feel uncomfortable already. I thought I would have a few weeks but I may need to start digging out the old maternity clothes and getting them washed and ready to go. But I guess first things first....first I need to get a call from the doc. I'm feeling optimistic though, I haven't had any menstrual like cramping and absolutely no spotting. So I think it looks good.

Blood Test Results

I got a phone call from my doctor this morning about my blood test. He said the blood test came back positive, I am pregnant. My beta was only a 10 though, which worried me but he seems to think it is okay for how early I was when the blood was drawn. (About 10-11dpo) Since then I went out and bought some digital pregnancy tests because I have heard they test at higher levels so they aren't as sensitive as the others. I took one a couple hours ago and it also was positive! So now I just need to hope my numbers double like they should. I go back in for my second beta test on Monday.

Blood test

I called my doctor's office and they want a blood test to confirm so I went in this morning to get the test, I should get the results sometime tomorrow. The only thing bothering me right now is that I am terrified that this is the hcg trigger messing with me. At 9dpt I had a definite negative, no line whatsoever showed up and I even went back and found the test again to make sure, but it still has me worried. I won't be happy till I get two blood tests and I can see the numbers doubling like they are supposed to! I also had a scare this morning because I tested again and I thought it was a BFN but then saw it was just REEEAAALLY faint. So faint I was worried. So I tested again this afternoon (yes, I know, I'm addicted) and it was much darker. I'm putting up a comparison so you can see. It was the best picture I could get, but the one on the bottom looks darker in person.

Positive!

Took a test this morning and it was really confusing, looked pos but then went neg and then looked pos again after 10 minutes and I couldn't trust it. So I went out and got some FRER (first response) since its the only one I really trust and took another this afternoon. Looks like we may have another bundle on the way...

Finally got a negative

9 dpt today (so I'm probably roughly 7-8 dpo) and I finally got a BFN when I tested, so the trigger shot looks like it is fully out of my system now. I can start testing for REAL in a few days and if feels better knowing the trigger won't be screwing with my results now. Now the fun begins...

Update

Obviously no news yet, I'm only about 6dpt, but I took a test last night and it was positive so the trigger shot is still in my system. I've had trigger in my system anywhere from 3dpt to 10dpt in the past before it was out, so I like to test to see when it leaves so I can trust any real tests I take near expected AF. Can't really trust any symptoms or anything right now because I have the trigger in my system, but I have had some cramps and twinges so I am optimistic. Fingers crossed...

Finally have a chance

Had a couple more appointments since my last post. On Saturday I got the great news that I was ready to trigger!!! (For you fertile folks, that is a shot we get of hcg that forces our eggs to ovulate) I had an 18, plus a 14,13, and 11. My doctor said the 18 will obvious ovulate and usually anything over a 12 will as well. So he thinks the 11 might have even bulked up a bit in the 14 hours that spanned between my ultrasound and my trigger shot that night and I could have as many as 4 eggs! Which is amazing! We thought we were going to have to cancel this cycle and suddenly my body just decided to work. So we triggered Saturday night and I have been pulling out all the old tricks I can still remember. Elevating the hips, just lay there or sleep as long as possible, I went out and bought a thing of preseed again since it seemed to work last time.  I'm sooooo hoping this works and we don't have to do another cycle of injections. I had been taking them for so long it actually feels weird that I don't have to take a shot before bed anymore. Definitely don't miss them though, I was starting to get little bruises on my stomach from the multiple shots. Fingers crossed!!! I should be able to stay busy and not think about it tooooo much. My brother graduates in a couple weeks. We are so proud of him, he actually made it through high school and is graduating on time, autism and all. It was a long road with a lot of battles but he made it. We will be having a party at our house the day of graduation so I have a lot of cleaning and preparing to do in the next couple weeks. Hopefully it will keep me busy so I don't go analyzing every little symptom I get like I used to during the TWW. (Two week wait, waiting to take a pregnancy test) So now it's on to cleaning, buying a lot of red and black decorations, and trying not to think about babies!

Doing all the wrong things

Apparently I got a lovely case of sun poisoning over the weekend. Which sucks enough on it's own, let me tell ya, but apparently it is going to effect my fertility as well. We went in on Monday (Yes, memorial day, they had to unlock the building just to see me) and my larger follicles haven't grown any and it seems like a few smaller ones may have gotten a little bigger. Still nothing we can work with. Then the doctor informed me that I have to drink insane amounts of water because of my sunburn. She said sunburns can dehydrate us on their own, and if I am not getting enough liquids my follicles won't grow. So if I don't drink like a gallon a day my follicles won't grow regardless of my injection dose. Ugh, I swear I have the worst luck. My vitamin D deficiency was an issue, so I thought heck yeah a day on the beach will be good for me! Wrong.

 Lily and her cousin at the beach

With Daddy

Playing in the sand

I've apparently done all the wrong things in the cloth diaper department as well. I have been doing more and more research and apparently washing them in an HE front load washer is COMPLETELY different from washing them in a top loader. I've been using an insanely large amount of soap, no where near enough water, and not rinsing them completely. So I had to strip them. I tried the dawn method and it ended horribly for me. No matter how much I rinsed them in the sink before putting them in the washer for a final rinse I couldn't get the soap off and they foamed up like crazy. So about 12 rinse cycles later they were not soapy, but some still smelled of poop. So I decided to go with the hot water method. I threw all the clean diapers in the washer and put it on sanitary (extra hot) with no soap and set it on the longest cycle. They soaped up like crazy, my "clean" diapers were anything but. So after a few extra rinses I finally had good smelling diapers again. (Thank goodness) Now I have cut back my laundry soap drastically and I am continuing to cut it back while paying attention to how many rinses it takes to get them clean. I may finally be getting the hang of this.

Small follies and stinky diapers

Well my RE appt this morning actually went well. We aren't ready to ovulate, but it did seem like I had dominant follicles starting in both of my ovaries. One had a 11mm and the other had a 12mm, but we have to be careful because I also have about ten 7-8 mm follies in each ovary as well and I don't want any of those to get too big. I don't need my own TLC show thank you very much. (Though I LOVE Quints by Surprise, I follow them on Facebook and everything I'm addicted) So we are staying on the same dose I'm on and going back in again on Monday.

 Decisions, decisions...

I also stripped Lily's diapers last night, which took FOREVER because Lily had a night terror and woke up while I still had a sink loaded with diapers. Plus I had to rinse them several times to get the suds to go away. They smelled fantastic when I finished so I thought it was successful, but when I smelled them this morning when they were dry they still smell like poop! It's so frustrating! So I have the stinkies in the wash again right now. I read somewhere that with HE washers they don't come clean because there isn't enough water and it is good to run them on the bulky/large setting, so I'm trying that. Plus I think I will turn them inside out and do another quick wash that way and see if it helps.

Here's Lily at ice cream with some friends. Always has to be the center of attention, lol.