Breakfast

Breakfast is an under-utilized meal in our house. We put lots of thought into lunch and dinner, but breakfast is still a struggle during the school year because we hit the ground sprinting in our house. I am normally at the gym by 5:15 and Jason is NOT I repeat NOT a morning person so he is sleeping until the last minute possible to allow him to hopefully have a few minutes to drink coffee in peace and then Jonah wakes up either like me or like Jason depending on the day and there's no rhyme or reason to how he's coming out of the gate. Jonah eats some cereal (it's at least non-GMO and organic and obviously gluten free, and it has happy penguins on the front...) Jason drinks coffee and I normally grab a chicken sausage and yogurt once I'm already at school. See...we're kind of epic breakfast failures. This afternoon, I had a chiropractor appointment (I do pretty much every monday) and Jason had to run an errand in Conroe (he missed some dry cleaning when Sadler shut down a few months back and they've been there ever since) so he picked Jonah up from school and I came home and got started on dinner and realized that I had been a flake and forgot to get dinner out.

    I opened the fridge and saw the TJ's turkey bacon and thought that breakfast sounded good. I got ready to start my normal pancake recipe and decided that I would fall it up a bit and added some pumpkin and nutmeg and cinnamon. I cooked some eggs for Jason and got distracted mid grits make for me, so those didn't happen, which is probably for the better, but we had a really good, fairly healthy last minute dinner. Random side note: The Trader Joe's agave and maple syrup is A-MAZE-ING. I don't care if they wanted $15 a bottle, I'd buy it. So so good. We had enough left over pancakes that we took one over to the neighbor and Jonah and Jason will have them again for breakfast in the morning. I think Jonah actually ended up with one in his lunch...he really really liked them.

Pumpkin Pancakes

1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup pureed pumpkin (I used the Trader Joe's organic)
1 cup All purpose GF baking flour (I use Red Mill)
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
a bit of nutmeg 
1 cup milk (it may also take some cream, we use raw full fat cow milk...It also may take a bit more milk, I had to add a few more splashes of milk to get the right consistency) 

Then cook as normal pancakes :-) I make mine about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake.

    We had Trunk or Treat last night at church. Halloween is basically a holiday created for Jonah. He gets to dress up and go around and talk to people. He has got to be the most social 4 year old I know. He has never met a stranger. I think he had more fun giving out glow bracelets (that was our substitution for candy) then he did going around the parking lot and getting candy. I still haven't figured out what we're doing with the tons of candy we'll end up with because he's cute and friendly, so everyone always gives him a ton. I hate to not let him trick or treat because he just likes talking to people so much, I just end up with tons and tons of candy and I don't want to give it to my kids at school either, which is what I've done in the past, I'm sure Jason has a plan for it...

     The other thing that happened which I'm still kind of trying to process is that one of our friends came to me and told me that our family and our healthy eating plan has been inspirational to quite a few other people. I hear from some people (not very many on here, I'm pretty sure I talk to myself on here) that we as a family have been helpful to them, but I guess I hadn't really stopped to think about it. I really try  and be encouraging instead of judgmental towards people and I think that helps as well. I know that I am still out of control overweight, but it's getting better, but I know that I don't want people looking at me and making assumptions and so I make a good firm effort to not to the same. It's hard to not come across that way because I really do think that everyone would feel better if they made different food decisions and strived to eat closer to the source of the food, but I can't force anyone to make that decision. I also know that I have felt completely hopeless before with health and weight loss and more then anything else, Jonah's health. I was confident to be honest that this wasn't going to be a whole lot different then anything else I had ever tried. I have always said though that I'll try anything in the world that would help and so I did and gave it everything I had, and wouldn't you know, that it worked. I am encouraged that other people are looking at what we are doing and it helps them to want to be healthier. Life I've said before, if we can do it, anyone can. :-)