Opryland

Whew this month flew by. We spent the night  at Opryland  hotel  and had a wonderful time looking at all the lights  and displays. Jack and I road on the Delta river  boat and went sightseeing . Jack was able to ride down  this big snow hill 10 times and all 3 of us went to see the big ICE display of the night before  Christmas. I checked with the hotel  and their main 4 restaurants have gluten  free menus  so we chose the Mexican one , Solario for dinner. It was delicious.  I'm  a planner,  I always plan ahead and come prepared  and I knew there  was going  to be a refrigerator in the room and that there are places in the hotel to get breakfast  but they would be crazy busy and since we only live  an hour away , I brought  some food to keep in fridge since every place to eat there is expensive  anyway. I needed it to be stuff that didn't  require  a microwave and I knew we would be staying up till midnight  since the room was expensive and we only went for one night.  Also needed to be stuff that my two picky  fellas would eat so I packed : plastic utensils , jar of peanut  butter , stakz chips  , cashews , gf granola bars , gf crackers,  cut up summer sausage  and cheese slices  to make our own lunch ables ,  a few cans of soda and a small half pint of Jack Daniel's, Jack  drank the sprite and we had jack Daniel's  and cokes. I also packed cuties , string cheese and greek yogurt for breakfast. The trip was a success, we got  to see and do everything  we wanted and didn't  go hungry and didn't  have to pay  a ton of money for food or alcohol  and Jack even got to swim in the indoor pool for an hour and a half  while I read. Definitely  a great trip, I think  we will be doing this again next year.

Lazy Sunday

After  a Super  busy week and weekend , I finally  was able to rest a little.  After  laundry , cleaning  and working out , it  was relax time. Jack and I built  legos , wooden cars,  played  Uno  , read  Christmas books , ate a yummy dinner. Now we are watching  my favorite  movie "National Lampoon Christmas Vacation" while we eat ice cream Sundaes with Christmas  tree sprinkles . I love  this time of year.

Birthday Boy

Jack had an amazing  Minecraft family  party , a friend sleepover  the next night, Marvel  Universe Live the next day and to end the awesome  weekend , a craft and Christmas  movie day.

Puppets, plays and parades Oh my

I love  fun free stuff to do with Jack. We went to the winter  reading  program puppet show (Jack was able  to be part of the act ) , then made ornaments  and played Legos with Aiden. The next day was the play "The Frog Prince ". I thought  the children's  theater  did an amazing  job.  That night we were  supposed to go to  the downtown  Christmas  tree  lighting  ceremony but it was  rained out  so we went to see the new Penguins of Madagascar  movie instead. Then Saturday morning we went to Christmas  parade . After  the parade  the local museum had a ton of free Christmas activities for kids: pictures with Santa  and Mrs. Claus , gingerbread  cake , ornament making , Christmas tattoos, a scavenger  hunt with prize for completion, a magic show  , a balloon artist ,log building (Jack's  favorite  ) Christmas carolers and even Big Red  the WKU mascot was there. Then  my Mom watched  Jack so we could go to an Ugly sweater  Christmas  party.  It was a great  weekend. 

Productive

I have never  been this  productive after  Thanksgiving before. I did a lot  of cooking, baking and cleaning as usual  but this year I decorated the house for Christmas , finished my online continuing  education  courses  for my dental  hygiene  license renewal, sealed all the baking soda/corn starch ornaments,played games with Cathy and typed  up Jack's  progress  report.

Gluten Free Thanksgiving Pot Luck

My family has been great at accommodating  my celiac disease and I'm  getting better at turning regular  recipes into gluten free ones. My mother in law got a gluten free turkey and ham and my Mom is making gf stuffing  and a pumpkin pie. My father  in law requested the crock pot  green beans that I  make. The only thing different was I had use gf soy sauce instead of regular. Here is the recipe: http://herviewfromhome.com/the-best-green-beans/
I also made gf cornbread just from a mix and I have never  made a pumpkin roll because it always  looked complicated  but it was actually  easy. I found this gluten free pumpkin roll recipe.  For my all purpose  gf flour , I  used Betty Crocker gf all purpose flour that I found  at Walmart . Here is the recipe.  http://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/thanksgiving-pumpkin-cake-roll/
For some reason it won't let me do links.

Thankful

I am thankful  for so many things:
My family is amazing
My son and I have so much fun together - I  love relearning  things  through  his eyes , to see the beauty in simple  things like  a pile of leaves or a rainbow. I also love  how we both love  singing  and dancing  and have duet parties. Did I mention  games , this family loves games especially  when we can beat Jason.

I am so thankful for my husband and the decisions  he has made for this family, although sometimes  I may be skeptical  of his decisions they have brought  us closer and made us stronger.  I never thought I would admire him so much. His intelligence always amazes me. Why Google when  you have a Jason , LOL

I'm  thankful  for our dog  Maya because  Jason will never admit this but Maya brings out his softer side. She is a good listener  especially  when I'm  rubbing  her belly. Haha
I'm  thankful for my health more or less, some days are a struggle and my whole body aches,cause auto  immune diseases  suck but I refuse to let it consume me. At least now I have  a cause for all my joint pain , constant  headaches , anemia, several  vitamin  deficiencies, hair loss , depression, dry eye , exhaustion , anxiety etc ,  the list  goes on and on. It's  amazing what Celiac disease causes and Doctors  are still continuing  to discover  more things about  it.
I'm  Thankful for my job. I love What I do , most days. I enjoy where  I work and all my coworkers most of the time  ( hey we are human and we have  bad days and take it out on each other sometimes ) but  we are a team and we have pretty  great team work  and we get it done.

Mostly  I'm  thankful  for a roof over my head , clean  clothes, food , water, electricity.  We as a society overlook things like that and always want the latest technology  and the newest everything. 

I have  always given back  as much as I can and that is what  the Holiday season is all about. So I encourage  people to give back : donate  money ,volunteer at the red cross or soup kitchens , donate canned food to your local  food pantry  or red cross , Angel tree , Toys for Tots , a local  person having  to buy extremely  expensive medicine on a daily basis just to keep their child  alive (donate what you can and spread the word that you know of a family in need),  cook and bring food to shut in's (my Mom does this for each  holiday). I have done all these things. This year I have  donated money to a couple local families  that are in need , gloves and hats to the local  library mitten tree , soon we will be stuffing backpacks for children going to foster care. I'm not finished yet , I'm  just  getting  started.
Remember  what you have in life, slow down and take it in , be kind and courteous. Life is too short to be angry all the time,  so be kind instead, and if there  are people  that are super  mean  and rude and you don't  want to be kind to them , avoid and ignore them as much as possible.  Haha I hope I remember  that last statement  when all the family  is together  for the holidays.

Ugh Christmas shopping yuck

So I'm not worried about what to get for my son for Christmas but my husband is hard to shop for and I have a hard time making the dirty santa gifts kid friendly too. I finally figured it out with my husband. I got him a movie  he wanted , tickets to a comedy show  and a gift certificate  for a one hour massage.  I finally  have found  dirty Santa gifts that  everyone  wil love. One gift is a DVD  , candy and popcorn. Another gift is chips , salsa , queso dip , a dice game I got  for 80%off last year and a 3.00 fleece blanket.
The weather  was beautiful  today to be in late  November.  It was sunny and in the 60 's. I took the dog for a walk and I  read some of my book outside. Jason and Jack practiced  baseball. I love this beautiful  weather.

Science and Recess

Jack loves science experiments.  The library has a DVD of experiments.  The DVD tells you what you will need for each experiment and the science and explanations behind the experiment. After our lessons today ,we picked an experiment to do.  Jack wanted the color changing milk experiment. 
you will need:
A plastic plate
Food coloring
Milk ,preferably whole milk but we just had 1% and it worked just fine
Q tip
Dishwashing soap.  It called for dawn but we just had palm olive and it worked just fine.

Pour milk in plastic container ,then drop different colors of food coloring onto milk in different places. Dip one end of Q tip into dish soap ,don't glob it on , wipe off excess , then touch the soap dipped end into milk and watch the milk move and the colors mix around.  Jack was fascinated by this. It works because the soap is meant to cut out grease and fat, so the soap cuts the fat which makes it look like the milk is moving away from the soap. 
Then we went to the once a month Homeschool PE group.  Jack got to try Pickel ball today and he really liked it.