A great family recipe for salmon…..

A friend recently shared a great recipe for salmon cakes with me. I tried it and everyone at my house loved it from my 16 month old up. It will become a regular so I thought I would share it.

Now you may be asking why salmon? Well everyday it seems we hear more and more about the benefits of the omega fatty acids found in fatty fish like salmon and tuna. Most recently strudies have shown signifiant link between poor omega 3 intake and increase in alzehimers disease. So I am trying to make sure we all add more to our diet but especially my kids. There is also the fact that I try to foster the love of many different foods and encourge my kids to eat a large variety of flavors.

Salmon Cakes

1 box of Stove Top Stuffing flavor of choice (I used cornbread)

1/2 to 1 cup of mayonaise or  a half/half combination of mayo and sour cream

12-16oz of salmon ( I found some wonderful salmon in a vacume sealed package near the canned tuna, it was very fresh tasting)

Make the box of Stove Top as directed. Mix stuffing, salmon and enough mayo and/or sour cream to hold cakes together/moisten well. Shape mixture into cakes. Pan fry in small amout of oil just until warm through and golden brown. Makes about a dozen average sized patties. 

Some happiness….

I find I have so many things I want to write about I just don’t know where to start. It seems so much in my life has been hard and negative lately I just really don’t even want to address it. So today I thought I would share some of my recent happy moments.

I feel like the main words I say to my children during any given day are please don’t, no, stop, ect. I know they need to discipline but I am simply sick of saying no!!!! So I have randomly started saying yes to some of those crazy toddler requests and it feels WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!  For example the other day Aidan asked me for cookies for breakfast and I could tell by the look on his face he knew the answer would be no, so I said sure just today. He couldn’t believe it, the wonder and joy on his face nearly brought me to my knees. Then when I actually gave him the cookies, well let’s just say I will never forget that expression on his face. It brought me pure joy much more than those cookies did him I am sure.  And then a couple of nights ago Vivian just didn’t want to go to bed alone, she was in a cuddle mood. I try hard to follow good sleep practices for the kids, and she would have gone to sleep if I had followed the routine, but really I just wanted to cuddle her too. So I held her and rocked her until we fell asleep together in the recliner where we slept until 2am when I woke up and laid my beautiful peacefully sleeping daughter in her bed. I would really be happy to do that every night.

I am also really enjoying blogging. I have found many others who have similar experiences in life as I do and it has helped me find new ways to cope with my own difficulties. I have found myself laughing more often than not and taking away a lot of inspiration from others.

Vivian is begining to speak more clearly the last week or so. Now I can understand a lot more of her words. She has very polietly thanked me and blessed me several times in the past few days. Very precious. She is also becoming a little more of a mama’s girl. Now I know she really still is a daddy’s girl at heart but I really was beginning to think she didn’t care if I was around or not. I am starting to feel much better about that.

It’s consignment sale season and I really love buying girl clothes!!!!! They are all so very cute. Poor Aidan hasn’t gotten many clothes yet. The bigger they get it seems the worse the boys clothes are but I have found him a couple of really cute things. I have two georgeous coordinating outfits for them to wear for spring pictures which I think I will have made next week. I just can’t wait. They are both adorable and take beautiful pictures. I’ll attach one below just so you know it not just my mother’s opinion.

I took my grandmother to buy new shoes and everyone made it home unharmed and no one was arrested. You can’t know how happy that made me unless you know my grandmother…..just trust me it was a miracle.

My husband is always sharing news tidbits and funny stories with me that I really enjoy and I have been trying lately to find some things to share with him too. We are sort of in a who can find the better story contest and it has been very entertaining.

All in all I have many things to enjoy each day. All too often though the difficult things, aggrevation and required tasks find ways to take over and push the joy to the bottom. I am making a purposeful effort to stop that from happening. Each day I  am trying to stop frequently and find some immediate joy to share with someone I love even if it is just for a minute. And if I loose sight of that goal I can just come back here and be reminded. Again…I am loving blogging.

                                                                                      

                                                                                     

Ripple Effect

Yesterday was the worst day I have had as a mom. Really in perspective now I can see that there will probably be many more days in the future to take over the “worst day” crown but for now yesterday is reining. I, like the most of us, have been through some extremely difficult times in my life. I have had to overcome many obstacles and continue to work daily on many ongoing issues with my family. I thought there was nothing I couldn’t find a way to get through with God’s help. Well yesterday evening I let someone who really should have no power in my life push me over the edge. Literally, over the edge. I was seriously planning to take my perfectly normal, wonderfully bright three year old child to see a psychologist today. I knew it was an emergency and I had to get him in today. Then I started thinking perhaps I needed to go to, hey we all need to go even my 15 month old because obviously I am such a bad mom and human being that I have damaged us all beyond repair. I seriously wondered if the local psyc hospital could put us all in a room together for treatment. Yes I was broken. I had truly for the first time in my life completely lost it. I have complete and total faith in God. I truly believe in God all things are possible, but I was so far gone I couldn’t even think to turn to God for help. But God knew, he felt my pain, and sent me help. I finally came to my senses enough to realize I needed help. I had to call someone. I called a good friend who is very honest and supportive. I figured at least she could drive us to the psyc hosptial as I was sure I was not even competent to drive anymore.

In less than a five minute conversation her voice of reason had me back to functioning status. She is really wonderful with issues like this. Later last night I read her most recent blog post and my perspective was completely renewed and restored. I have let an issue that should have never been an issue completely take over mine and my families lives for the past two months. It has to do with preschool, yes preschool. It just sounds really stupid now that I am typing it but anything that effects your children is just traumatic to your parenting confidence and hurts your heart. After reading her post I realized how many more important things I could focus my energy on, how much more fun I could have, how many more wonderful conversations I can have with my family and friends, how many kind things I could be doing verses wasting my energy and efforts based on the lack of knowledge on someone else’s part

Now I am back, better than ever and determined to make only positive changes in my situation from now on. It also made me realize just how much of an effect we can  have on each other. We don’t stop to think that our actions kind or not effect not only those they are intended for but many others along the way. Others we had no clue could even be effected. Thank you mamadoggylove for casting the stone that started the ripple that led to Kristi’s post. Thank you Kristi just for being you! You can visit Kristi at Dying Arts

Lessons I’ve learned already today…..

Well it is only 4pm and I have as usual learned several lessons already today. I thought perhaps I would share those with the rest of you who may not have already had the opportunity to experience these.

* Your husband will never see the true humor in any blog posts that makes you laugh so loud that you wake him up at 2am

* 15 month old girls are like cats….they have servants not parents, they understand everything we say only pretend not to at their convenience, prefer to be held in your lap than entertain themselves long enough for you to use the bathroom, will scratch and bite if rubbed the wrong way

* No matter how hard you try you will never convince a 3 year old that the world is not ending if you go to McDonalds and don’t get a toy

* People who are hard of hearing often use that as an excuse to ignore information that they do not want to address

* It is far better to let your 3 year old think the bottle of personal lubricant he found in the night stand is “spoiled hand sanitizer” as he assumed no matter how sticky it makes his hands

* And my favorite today….the day your son asks you to marry him might be even better than the day your husband asked you (but don’t tell your husband that, especially on the day you woke him up at 2 am laughing at a blog)

Just imagining what else I might learn today has me excited and more than a little afraid! No matter what happens in a day you can choose to learn, grow, laugh and make the best of it. What did you learn today?