Our Dearly Departed Goldfish

Last year, the husband and I decided to get the little man an aquarium. Ezra's therapist mentioned it was good for vision development. Being the researcher I am, I began to scour the internet for information on the best aquariums and fish for our situation. We decided on goldfish, since they are the hardiest fish we could afford and very brightly colored. There is a small, local pet store in town that we visited to find our new fish. Micah and I enjoy the british sci-fi show Doctor Who, so we named our fish after the main character, The Doctor, and his companion, Rose. Here they are below...



The Doctor, left, and Rose, right

On Christmas Day this year, our Rose passed away. She had been sick for awhile and we tried many things to help her, but she decided she was done. We gave her the proper goldfish burial, down the toilet, and said goodbye.

 Today the mourning period was over. We piled up in the car and went to the pet store once again to find a new goldfish. Ezra loved watching all the fish swimming. I found this little cutie. He is much smaller than our other goldfish and has some black coloring as well as gold. Being the Doctor Who fans, we once again came up with a name from the show. Our new fish is named, K-9. Here he is below...


K-9 is a goldfish, however the picture isn't clear enough to see the orange coloring.



He has been spending most of his time behind the car.

Here's to hoping K-9 will like his new home as much as his last one.

Laundry Day!!!!

I have a confession....I love doing laundry!! I love taking a pile of dirty clothes, making them clean, then folding them up nice and neat. I love the satisfaction of taking my nicely folded clothes and putting them away!! Chaos into peace!! Sick, I know....but it is the ONE chore that does not bore me to death.

Why, you may ask, did I decide to write about this topic today of all days? Well (thank you for asking by the way!) today is laundry day in the VerHage house. I am washing and folding to my heart's content. Our dog and cat also love laundry day. For some strange reason, they love to get in a laundry basket full of clean clothes, so I have to work quickly when folding!!



This is our first dog, Luther. He also enjoyed a laundry basket full of clean, folded clothes!!



Due to Ezra's eczema and allergies, we have to use a natural detergent with no dyes or fragrance. About a year ago, I decided to make laundry detergent here at home. I found a website that had a few recipes to try. I opted for the powder recipe. Check it out for yourself....it's really easy!!

Enjoy laundry day!!

Life and Death of a Gingerbread House

This year, Micah decided we needed to make a gingerbread house. I thought it would be cool! I began making plans to go buy the supplies: gingerbread graham crackers, canned frosting, and candy for decoration. My planning soon came to crashing halt when Micah informed me he wanted the gingerbread house to be made from scratch. Ok, I thought, it would mean a little more work, but Christmas was only once a year....let's do it!!

We began to plan out what we wanted the house to look like and find the perfect gingerbread recipe. The pictures below are a representation of our first ever attempt at making and then destroying a gingerbread house....

Some of our supplies as we were getting ready for the adventure....the cardboard was cut out in the pattern of the house and yes, the candy made it until we began decorating!!

This is the first ball of gingerbread....after running to the neighbor's house to borrow spices, thank you Rhonda, and chilling in the fridge for several hours. Let the fun begin!!

Cutting out the shape of the house....after a few tries, I learned to flour the cardboard first...



Our first two sides done and ready for the oven!!!




Setting out the pieces to cool....



cooling....



Putting on doors and windows before the house is set up.



The house is now all put together and iced up....and no, I did not use baking soda or powder in the decorating....they are just left over from making the gingerbread!!

Drumroll............the completed gingerbread house in all her glory!!!!!!



And boy did she taste good!!!!!!



Adventures in G-Tube Feeding

Over the last few years we have embarked on a journey into the world of tube feeding. Since Ezra cannot swallow yet, we decided to get him a g-tube. This is a small device that is put directly into the stomach and sits on top of the skin. We have special tubes that fit into the device (button) to give Ezra his food. He was first on infant formula, then around six months we gave him a homemade formula. This worked great for him. Ezra got chunky, his eczema cleared up, and he looked healthy. The new formula was time consuming for Micah and myself, but the benefits outweighed all that! This last spring, however, we hit a problem with the homemade formula. Ezra got kidney stones!! After a few trips to the nephrologist, we decided the diet was to blame for the stones.

So now we were left with the decision of what to do next. Micah and I decided to keep Ezra's diet natural. We did some research and came up with a few recipes to give him. We wanted to keep his diet as close to a "normal" toddler diet as possible. After some trial and error (like discovering Ezra had many food allergies), we thought we had successfully transitioned to the new diet. At our last nephrologist visit, we discovered Ezra was losing weight. Great.......back to the drawing board!!!

This week we began some new diet ideas. Ezra needs more calories and protein according to his doctor. We also give him lots of good fats to help his brain development. So far things seem to be going well. I'm sure I'll be writing about this topic much more in the future.

This is a picture of a g-tube with the feeding tube attached for those of you curious as to what the tube looked like.

Noodles and Co.

we were just introduced to this restaurant today!! it was fantastic! our friends, the sanborn's, met us for lunch before ezra's appointment at St Vincent's. The last time we met for lunch, they took us to Five Guys burgers (which was also very good). warsaw has very little in the way of variety of restaurants, so these lunch excursions are quite the treat for us small-town bumpkins!! anyway, if you haven't been to Noodles and Co, you must try it. if you are in the indy area, go to the Noodles and Co on W 86th St. The staff was great and so was the food. Be forewarned....the indonesian peanut saute pasta is super spicy, but well worth the burn!!

ps- i was in no way compensated for this blog post by the good people of Noodles and Co, i just really enjoyed my lunch today!!