Prune Cakes for My "Old Man"!

• 1/4 cups all purpose flour (I used whole wheat)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (I used kosher)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup old fashioned or quick cook oats, uncooked
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 3/4 cup applesauce, unsweetened
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 Tablespoon canola oil
• 1 large egg
• 3 medium carrots (1.5 cups)
• 1/2 cup prunes, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 400*F. Grease 12 standard muffin-pan cups or line cups with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir in oats. In medium bowl, with fork, mix milk, applesauce, brown sugar, molasses, oil, and egg until blended; stir in carrots and prunes. Add applesauce mixture to flour mixture; stir just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).
3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin-pan cups (muffin cups will be full). Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Immediately remove muffins from pan. Serve warm, or cool on wire rack to serve later.

Ice!!!!!!!!

So we get up yesterday at 5:45 so that Russ would be ready to leave at around 7:30 to go to the lectureship that the MSOP students were supposed to go to at the Nesbitt church of Christ. As I'm getting ready to start breakfast we get an e-mail saying that the students were not going to Nesbitt because of inclement weather. At this point nothing was happening outside, so we call to make sure. No lectureships, no school. By 7:00 it starts raining, then it turned to sleet, that turned to snow, that turned back into sleet, then it turned back into rain. It rained for the rest of the day, stopping around 10 or so at night.

This is what we woke up to this morning:

The school library

So much ice that it broke some of the trees
My friends car
Our car
The air conditioning unit
This is a SINGLE blade of grass


Hopefully all this ice will be gone by tomorrow so we won't have a hard time getting to Independence for worship services.

Example of our new meals

Just to give a comparison of the difference in the way we ate before and after the health problems.

This is most likely what we would have eaten before:

Here is an example of what we eat now:

The burgers are now turkey burgers seasoned with Mrs. Dash, No Salt and blue cheese on top, the fries are baked sweet potato fries, and a small salad was added.

It's a bit different than we're used to, but we've been eating this way for the last three weeks, and Russ has lost around 20 pounds.

Eight months of changes

The past eight months have had a lot of changes for our family. The first of which was uprooting ourselves to move halfway across the state of Tennessee to Memphis. The purpose of this move was so Russell could attend the Memphis School of Preaching, a school with a two year program to help Christian men to become knowledgeable Gospel preachers.

We moved into our apartment on June 26th, and three days later, on the 29th the summer session started full swing. They had one week of classes, then the next week they were sent on a door knocking campaign trip to Chattanooga for the GBN Lectureships. This had to be one of the hardest weeks of my married life. It was the first time Russell and I had spent a night apart in the entire time we've been married. But after four sleepless nights, and three days packed with visits to the zoo, the kids and I made it through the week and Russell returned late on Thurs. night.

The next three or four weeks were uneventful with days filled with classes, and nights filled with studying the Bible and books, working on memory work and attending the Power Lectures at the Southaven church of Christ.

We then had a two week break between the summer session and the first quarter, so we when back to Crossville to spend time with Russell's mom and step-father. During this break we found out we were going to have another HUGE change in our lives. We found out that we were going to have a baby! This was totally unexpected and unplanned, but a blessing nonetheless.

After we recovered from the shock of this news, everything was progressing uneventfully. We found out that the baby is a girl and we chose the name Lilly Rose because I've had it in mind since I was 8 or 9.

School was going along fine until two days before Christmas. Russell had a blackout, and passed out in class. a week and a half later he had another. He had had these before, but never this close together. So we make an appointment with the doctor, who started a series of test on Russ, blood work to check his blood sugar, heart tests, and she sent him to a neurologist. The neurologist diagnosed him with seizures(what we were calling blackouts) and sleep apnea. The results of these test showed that he has glucose intolerance, and a benign tachycardia; in english this means he is pre-diabetic and has a racing heart rate. The treatment of these conditions are medication for the seizures and the heart rate, and a diet to lose weight for the pre-diabetes.
So far the diet seems to be working, in two weeks Russ has lost about 12 lbs(on our scales, not the Dr.). Plus, he hasn't had a seizure since Friday. He is going to the sleep center tonight for a sleep study to see how bad his sleep apnea is. We will find out in a couple weeks if he will need a machine to sleep with.

About us and this blog

My name is Christie and my husband is Russell. We have been happily married for seven years. He is my best friend in the world, and the man who saved my life (in a manner of speaking). Not long after we were married we started a Bible study that resulted in my obeying the Gospel. We are both members of the New Testament church of Christ, and I have had the joy over the years of watching my husband grow in his knowledge of the Bible and in his desire to preach the Truth.
We have six children, five here with us on earth and one waiting for us in paradise. First off, there is A,15, second is Z, 11, Jeremiah, 7, Jessie would have been 3 this year, Lilly Rose, 2, and Tempest, 1. We strive to be the best Christian parents that we can be, teaching our children to obey the Truth and serve the True and Living God.
This blog is about our family, the changes that come about in our lives, and the way that we handle them. So sit back and join us on this journey we call life.