Quinoa and Black Bean Lettuce Wraps

One of the things I find absurdly amusing is when people find out you are a vegan they all of the sudden have their PhDs in nutrition!

"How can you be getting enough protein with no meat?"
             -Easily.

"But, but, but....don't you have to drink cow's milk to get all your calcium in?"
           -Nope. Not at all.

I find it pointless to try to argue or reason with people who have already made up their mind that they are right and you are wrong. So, yeah...

Tonight was another quick, easy, and yummy meal. I like stuff like this on the nights I work!
(Original recipe found here: http://keepyourdietreal.com/food/appetizerssnacks/quinoa-and-black-bean-lettuce-wraps/)

Tostadas on Corn Tortillas w/ Re-fried Beans, Salsa, and Lettuce

We used to eat a LOT of flour tortillas. A Lot. We used them in place of bread. We are working on liking corn tortillas. They are definitely better when cooked! The beans are vegetarian. I was surprised to learn a lot of re-fried beans have lard. Gross. We always have a huge jug of salsa around so this meal came together very easily which is good since I work tonight!

How Did We Get Here? A Vegan, Gluten Free Family.

I'm going to start keeping track of our dinners. I want to do this for a couple reasons. One: I want to be able to look back and see what meals I have made so I can reference them when making future meal plans. Two: maybe somehow someone on the vast Internet will come across this blog and be in the same situation and find some hope. So how did we get here? How on Earth did we become a vegan, gluten free family? It is not something I ever imagined doing but here we are. Here is out story:

The bug first bit me in my Nutrition class during nursing school: around November of 2010. It suddenly hit me that being a vegetarian was something I wanted to try not only for me, but for my family as well. The trick  was going to be getting my meat and potatoes husband to go for it. When I came home and presented it to him, his response was, "Ok. I will eat whatever you cook." Fair enough! It was on! I started by making things we ate anyway (tacos, lasagna, etc) but replace the meat with other things or just eliminated it all together. It went over well and everyone was fed and happy.

Fast forward to February of this year. I was feeling really crappy, really tired, and really worn down all the time. It got so bad I actually went to the doctor. My vitamin D level was critically low and I was referred on to a Rheumatologist. At that point, I decided to go ahead and make the jump to vegan. I had witnessed my brother's amazing success being vegan (check out his awesome and hilarious blog: Fat Kid Chronicle) and had been doing some of my own research about it as well. For us it came down to 2 reasons: cheap and healthy. Cheap: people like to think eating healthy is expensive. Really, it is not the case. A bag of lentils and a box of quinoa does not cost much at all. You know what is expensive? Meat, cheese, and milk. Healthy: you cannot deny the health benefits of this diet. Is it the only healthy way to eat? No. Are there many other healthy diets out there? Sure. Do I care that you are not a vegan? Not really. I am in the school of thought that most people do things in their life because they have done research and are doing what is best for them. I respect that about you so please respect that about me.

Now, let's throw another little monkey wrench in. At our youngest son's 1 year well child check we discovered that he had been consistently loosing weight since he was 6 months old. He only weighed barely over 15 pounds at 1 year old. We started keeping a food diary and found that he was eating plenty and the weight loss did not make a lot of sense. I started using my nursing knowledge and the wonderful Internet and came to the conclusion that the poor baby in gluten intolerant. Once we removed the gluten in his diet, he started gaining some weight and some of his other symptoms disappeared! Wonderful! But finding things that are gluten free as well as vegan is quite a challenge. In fact, it is overwhelming at this point. I'm hoping that by keeping track it will become easier. That is the goal anyway. So that is how we got here. I will try and post what we have for dinner every night but I am a full time nurse and a mom of 6 so bear with me if I miss and night or two!

Chickpea Patties with Curry Mayo and a Side Salad with Apples and Red Peppers
(adapted from original recipe found here: http://wheatfreemom.com/blog/recipe-gluten-free-vegan-chickpea-burger/)

It's hard, and that's okay. [Mindful Mothering Monday]

This is hard. This whole mothering thing. I don't think many of us really like to admit that. I know I don't. The internet is not our friend is this area. I see Facebook and Pinterest plastered with reminders of what I'm not doing for my kids. St. Patty's Day came and went this year with barely a mention of it in my house and certainly no shamrock pancakes or anything like that. There are times I try and succeed at these things but more often than not I don't. And yet my children have thrived up until this point. It's just SO hard not to compare. I always try to tell myself though that what I see online is the best of the best. That mom who made hand felted Valentine's for her kid's classroom parties most certainly also dealt with a meltdown or an argument at some point and a mountain of laundry that day as well. See, we seem to only put our best selves out there for people to see and that is when people get the impression that we have it all together. Just because I had homemade cupcakes and hand made toppers for E and F's birthday this past weekend, in no way says that I know what I'm doing or have it all together, To me it was saying, "Hey, look what I had time to do. I hope they like it!". I've been told by people before that they look up to me or that they don't know how I do it. I usually try to answer and honestly and humbly as I can but saying I DON'T have it all together, not even close. And some days I honestly have no idea how I do it, I just put one foot in front of the other. Even 6 kids in, I'm just figuring things out! So here is real:

The kid's laundry that will hopefully get washed and dried today but surely not folded or put away.

The kitchen. Neglected all weekend since we were out and about most of it.

I doubt you will see many pictures like this on Facebook. So let's all just be gentle with each other. This is hard, it's hard for all of us. And that's okay!

*For more encouragement head over to Small Town Simplicity

Stay at Home WHAT?? {Mindful Mothering Mondays}

It's true. My husband is a stay at home dad. And an amazing one at that! It took me several years and about 3 kids in to come to be okay with the fact that he is better at "all that stuff" than I am. For so long, I felt like I should want to be home and I wondered why I felt that constant pull (a pull I'd honestly felt since childhood) to be in the medical field taking care of the least of these. It took me so long to realize that God matched Jase and I up for just that reason. So often, early in our marriage we sat and talked and struggled and fought about what Jason was going to do to support us. What career should he pick? Where should he work? Nothing ever really jumped out or seemed to be the right fit. While always in the back of my mind, I knew nursing was my calling.

So, I am the one who has the education, the drive, the want to work out of the home and better myself and my community. I'm the one who pulls on those scrubs and Danskos 3 nights a week to go and take care of the sick while my babies sleep at home without me.

He is the one who gets up while it is still dark, (me having just dropped into the bed from a long night at the hospital) to make sure kids are fed, hair is combed, dog is let out, etc. He's the one who chiefly drives kids around and drops them off where they need to be. He's the one who bathes 6 kids and puts them to bed at night. And you know what, he's GOOD at it. He's better at it than I could ever be.

We definitely don't fit the traditional husband/wife rolls. And there are still times I get that twinge of, I don't know, a case of the "what ifs". Sometimes it's hard to explain it to people and watch their faces twist up in confusion. "He stays home? How do you manage to pull that off? Why?" No one would EVER think to say some of those things to a mom who stays home, but for some reason it's different for a dad.

The most important things we have learned is to make the best of the strengths and gifts God has given us instead of trying to force ourselves into a mold that just isn't right for us. Him being home and me working 3 nights a week also allows for LOTS of family time where all 8 of us are together and that is something I would not trade for anything.


For more encouragement, head over to Small Town Simplicity

Always a Celebration {Mindful Mothering Mondays}

In just this past month or so, we have had:

*a first baseball game
*a half birthday
*a first Fall dance class
*5 first days of school
*a first unsteady crawl across the living room floor
*a first play date at a friend's house

And that is just what I can think of off of the top of my head! One thing I love about having such a big family is that it seems like we are always celebrating something! There are so many milestones and new things spread between us all. That's not to say that there is not more room for heartache with this many family members. We've also had:

*a first fall off a zip line
*a first grounding from the X-box for a whole weekend
*a first missed ball game (by me, because of work)
*a first runny nose

And many others, I'm sure. But we try to focus on the good and celebrate together with each new journey. It's nice to know that no mater what, we have each other to go through all this with. It's my job to make each one of those sweet babies know how precious and special each and every new thing they go through is and that I'm there to enjoy the journey with them.


Head over to Small Town Simplicity for more encouragement!

A Titus 2 Mom {Mindful Mothering Mondays}

I get this a lot, more times than I can count really:

               "How DO you do it?"
               "I only have 1 (or 2 or 4...) and I can barely keep it together. How do you?"

Truth is, I do it just like everyone else does. One foot in front of the other, taking things on as they come. A mountain of laundry? 6 hungry kids waiting for dinner? Balancing working as a nurse with my responsibilities at home? I just do what needs to be done. Is it always pretty? Is it always right? Do I always do it with a happy face? Of course not, but what in life is perefect. There are too many nights to list where all  I want is to climb into a hot bath, read a book, and pretend like the chaos is not going on right outside the bathroom door. But that is not the life I have and it is not what God has picked for me. He, for reasons I don't always understand, picked this life for me. Picked these kids for me, this house for me, this husband for me, these responsibilities for me.



"...urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind..." Titus 2: 4-5

This has always been a favorite verse of mine. Since the time I was a 19 year old newlywed I have craved this kind of woman in my life. A woman who has been there and done that and can say to me, "See? You can do this." A woman to say, "See? I have 6 kids. You can do it!"or "See? I'm a nurse. You can do it!"or "See? I got married when I was 19. You can do this!" But that woman has never been there. What I've come to realize recently is that maybe, just maybe, I am that woman to someone else. Maybe I'm her to the woman who wonders how in the world I keep my head above water with 6 kids or puts in my night shifts as a nurse with a smile on my face. Maybe someone sees me and thinks that if I can do it and survive then surely they can.

I never want to give off the impression that I have it all together or that my life is great all the time. It most definitely is not, but a positive attitude can go a long way. I can only continue to do my best and hope that someone somewhere is being encouraged by me.


Stop by Small Town Simplicity for more encouragement