Living, loving and growing!

A little about what's been going on with us... We found out in Sep that we were expecting another baby! I had been sick for about two weeks and finally took a test! We were pretty excited as it was perfect timing for how far apart we'd hoped our kids would be! I was super sick and started showing really fast. My mommy intuition told me from day one that I was carrying twins! At 13 weeks we found out I was right in a very painful way when we lost one of our babies! It took some time of grieving that I'd never in this world get to hold that baby in my arms, to accept that God has a plan and for some reason that I can't understand He choose to take that baby straight into His Arms. I can grieve for my loss, but I can't grieve the fact that I get to look forward to meeting my little one in Heaven or that one of my children will NEVER know pain. How amazing that one of my babies will know nothing but the glory of Heaven and being in the presence of God! What a thought! We were scared that we'd lose our living child as well, so we had many prayer warriors pleading with God to save this baby! Our prayers were answered and this little one is healthy and growing! Another Spring baby, actually due on big brother's original due date! And speaking of big brother, let's switch subjects and talk about my almost two year old baby boy Zayden Alec!!

Zayden is growing so fast and becoming such a fun helper! I baked some English Muffin Bread the other day using this AMAZING recipe. Zayden helped stir it up, taking a break to have a drink of our strawberry banana smoothie, then he ate his fair share of fresh warm bread when it came out of the oven! Look at that sweet little face! I love him so much! He's starting to understand that I have a baby in my tummy! Or as he says Bahby! Last night as my midwife was checking on baby, hearing the heartbeat and measuring my tummy he was watching with big eye's, saying over and over again, bahby? Bahby?? He's learning to be more gentle with me too, no more flying head butts into Mama's tummy! We're doing our best to prepare him for the coming arrival of his little brother. Thankfully he loves babies in general(though is is partial to baby girls) and is "usually" very gentle and loving. I sometimes think that he can tell there's something going on with me, he's become quite a snuggler in the last few months. Not that I'm complaining though, I cherish each moment with just him! I picked him up the other day and realized that he's not a baby anymore, he's tall and lanky, loves to help me around the house and Daddy in the garage, loves all things loud and fast in the car dept, but is a sweet lil guy most of the time! We're working on cutting out as much dairy as possible as he developed a bad sensitivity to it at about a year old, he's become a much happier baby as we find the worst triggers and eliminate them from his/our diet! After the baby comes we're planning on doing a huge lifestyle change in the eating dept! Brad and I are determined to get healthy and stay that way! I'm working on small changes now, but as I struggle with daily morning sickness through my entire pregnancies, some days I'm lucky to eat much at all, forget trying to make and plan a full healthy meals!

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 A few things I've been researching on the healthy eating plan is trying to incorporate more raw foods into our diet, there's so many great recipes out there. Though I don't want to switch to a 100% raw diet, I do think there would be great health benefits to adding a bunch more raw items to our menu! I mean, look at this yumminess on the plate below! Epic Raw S'more! I got the idea for this from this video from EasyToBeRaw's Megan Elizabeth! I'll post my adapted recipe down below! It was seriously as rich or more so than a "real" s'more, not to mention it was totally free of any non real foods! Healthy, sweet, no refined sugar, a real guilt free treat! Zayden gave this his vote of approval as well and I found that just rolling the cookie mixture into a ball and rolling it in coconut flakes makes it perfect for little baby hands! Yum!

My recipe for the raw s'more adapted from EasyToBeRaw..
*"Chocolate" Sauce.* Blend it up as smooth as you can, mine wasn't perfectly smooth, but it didn't matter :-)
10 soaked dates
A heaping TBsp of cocoa powder
Splash of vanilla
1/2 C water

*Cookie* Pulse in a food processor until totally pulverized and easy to squish into cookies! I found it was easier to make into cookies if I rolled it into a ball, rolled it in coconut flakes and then squished it so it didn't stick to my fingers so bad!
1/2 C walnuts
3/4 C chopped dates
1/4 C raisins
1/4 teasp cinnamon
1/4 teasp vanilla
(About 1/2 cup coconut flakes for rolling)

*Filling*
A ripe banana or two sliced up! Thickness is up to you :-)

To Assemble Your S'mores in 3 easy steps!!
1. Make your cookies, I found it easier to make all the cookies at once so I could wash my sticky fingers off before starting on the rest of it!
2. Spread your chocolate sauce on the inside of two cookies, stack as many banana slices as you want on top of the sauce on one cookie, I opted for one overlapping layer and then kinda squished my top cookie on it to make them stay!
3. Enjoy this yummy healthy treat and share it with your friends and family*