Lake Powell 2012

As some of you know we did our annual Lake Powell trip this last week and had a blast. I took some of your kids with me even though everyone was invited. Next summer is Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary and I was thinking we needed to do something to celebrate it. I was thinking of having our first Wynn & Phyllis Stout Family Reunion. Cody's sister has a vacation home they rent out for family reunions in Kanab. It is a fun place. You can check it out here www.vrbo.com/283565. I thought we could spend a few days camping at Lake Powell and then a few days at the Goodfellow house, or a whole week. We could also do it separate from Mom and Dad's anniversary and do something else for them. Either way we ought to be planning something for them. Here are some pictures of Lake Powell for you to enjoy.

                                             The boys

                                          Michelle by the girls mermaid

                                          Our camp

                                             Kylee and Gabby

                                            Baywatch girls

                                        

                                           Ummm

                                           Stuart and Heidi came too!

                                         The potty mobile- We use the fourwheeler to ride up to the potty

                                          Shelley telling Jace why had has to wear a life jacket at ALL times

                                              Jenna

                                          Emily.... or Erika

                                          Anna Banana

                                          Jace & Abby

                                         He thinks he's so cool around the girls

                                           Anna's definitely a pro wakeboarder

                                          Asia got up

                                          Jace, Jenna, and Cody celebrated their birthdays

                                          The Babes of Lake Powell

                                         Grandma Pat came too - Grandma & Gracie

                                         The Dudes of Lake Powell - Canyon, Jarem, and Josh

                                         The treacherous 8 mile hike... enough said

                                           Anna wakeboarding

                                           Anna wakeboarding

                                              Anna the pro

                                              Crystel came too!

                                                       Anna's wipeout

                                                       Shelley got up too!

Soaked flour bread update

I am reposting my recipe for soaked flour bread because I have changed it a little bit and because the last one was confusing.

Ingredients

7 cups hard white winter wheat ground
6 cups warm water
6 T apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup gluten
2/3 cup sugar

Mix together in bosch and let soak for 12-24 hours

melt 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
3 Tablespoons instant yeast

Mix into dough and let raise for 30-60 minutes

Add 2 Tablespoons salt and start kneading. Add white flour as needed til it no longer sticks to the sides. shape into 5 8x4 loaves and raise in warm oven for 25-35 minutes then bake for 25-30 minutes at 350.
I have increased the amount of whole wheat flour from the last time and I still get as good results. the last couple of times I made it I used less than 1 cup of white flour.

Easy Greens

My kids absolutely love their green veggies, especially broccoli and asparagus.  To prepare broccoli, asparagus, spinach or other leafy greens, green beans, peas - I use a steaming pan with holes that sits on top of my smaller saucepans and closes with a lid.  Chop up your broccoli, trim your asparagus or beans, or just throw in your spinach or peas and steam until fork tender and/or bright green (don't overcook!).  Then drench in butter and squeeze lots of fresh lemon juice with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.  On lazy nights I'll do toast and a heaping plate of broccoli.  They always fight over who gets to drink the "juice" left on the plate.

CALLING ALL RECIPES

So, I'm really trying to feed my family more nutritious food, and I need ideas.  I think we should post a bunch of recipes that you actually use and that are healthy, and of course tasty. Sondra maybe you can just start experimenting. :) But I'd like recipes that use chicken or beef stock or grains/legumes that have been soaked, lots of vegetables, low or no sugar, low carb, or whatever.  Just good, healthy, practical, and yummy food.  Desserts are very welcome as well, just try and keep them healthy. :)  Anyway, so here is one.  Please, please, please, help me by posting more recipes.

Everyone has had cracked wheat for breakfast, but I haven't done it for a long time so I thought I'd give it a try.  My kids loved it, and ate second and third helpings.  

Cracked Wheat/Grain

1 to 2 ratio of wheat to warm water (i.e. 1 cup wheat 2 cups of warm water) plus 1-2 Tablespoons of and acid medium (whey, apple cider vinegar, buttermilk, yogurt, lemon juice, etc.)  Soak for 12-24 hours, then drain, rinse, and add water (same ratio) and cook on lower heat for 15-20 min.  The longer you cook the more tender it will be.

When it is soft enough, then drain water, add lots of butter, and honey to taste.  You can eat it like this, or you can add a flavored yogurt or milk. I cheated and used a vanilla yogurt from the store, but my kids loved it.  I did blend some in the blender for my younger ones so they didn't have to chew so much. I tried it with oat groats as well, and it was also really yummy.

Smoothie

Here is my Smoothie recipe:

1 cup homemade raw milk yogurt.
frozen berries.
2 raw pastured egg yolks.
1 Tbs ground flaxseed
1/2 tsp concentrace
1-2 Tbs melted coconut oil
frozen bananas

I put everything but the coconut oil and egg yolks into the blender and blend until smooth then I add the oil slowly and the egg yolks last.
All ingredients are optional but the yogurt and frozen fruit. The smoothie will be thick or thin depending on how much frozen fruit you add. Adding the oil thins it quite a bit so make sure its thick before you add it. You will have to experiment to find the ratio you like.
I break the bananas into bite size pieces before I freeze them so it is easier to add how much I want. I also take my cod liver oil with the smoothie but dont add it to it or it will taste nasty.
This smoothie is full of probiotics, healthy fats, minerals and vitamins.
I dont add the egg whites because raw egg whites have enzyme inhibitors and they are best eaten cooked. Egg yolks are best eaten raw but you dont want to eat store bought eggs raw, only pastured eggs. If you dont have homemade yogurt you can use store bought but it is not as healthy. Walmart has Dannon Plain yogurt that is a good alternative. Just make sure it is NOT the low fat version. If you cant find that, look for any yogurt that doesnt have anything in it other than milk and enzymes and make sure it is not low fat. Organic would be good too.

Soaked flour bread

I have been making the most amazing bread! I started with the recipe Sara posted for soaked flour bread and made a few changes and now my bread is even better than before I started soaking it. It is super moist and soft with very little crumb. For you purists out there this recipe is not 100% whole wheat but it is close enough for me because it turns out so much better. Here is my recipe: First I grind 6 cups of hard white wheat (Dad's) in my wheat grinder. I have not measured how many cups of flour that makes but it is probably about 10. I put the freshly ground flour in my mixer with 2/3 cup gluten and 2/3 cup sugar then I add 6 tablespoons Braggs apple cider vinegar to 6 cups warm water and add that to the flour mixture in the mixer. I think it is important to add warm water rather than cold because it activates the fermentation much better. I mix that together very well then leave it to soak for 24 hours. I have not soaked it for less than 24 hours so I dont know how big a difference less soaking would make. I assume the longer soak time is more desirable to achieve better break down of the anti nutrients and predigestion of the sugars and gluten. 24 hours later I melt a cube of butter in the microwave and add three tablespoons of instant yeast to it. Then I add the yeast and butter to the flour mixture and mix it in well. The heat from the melted butter helps to activate the yeast so that i get a better raise than just adding the yeast to cold dough. I let that rest for a while. Sometimes up to an hour or sometimes just 15 to 20 minutes. I seem to get a better final raise when I let it raise for an hour that first time. After that rest I add two tablespoons salt and start the mixer then I start adding white unbleached flour a cup at a time until it is the right consistency. last time I made bread it was about 3 cups of white flour I added. The consistency will be different than the unsoaked recipe, heavier and stickier at first but I still just add the white flour until it cleans the sides of the bowl really well. I have found that with the soaked flour you want to go for more flour than you think rather than less. Once the sides of the bowl are really clean I let it knead for 10 minutes. Sometimes after 7-8 minutes I will check it and the dough will be sticking to the sides again so I will add a little more flour. The dough is much heavier than my original recipe. It is very elastic and easy to handle. It reminds me of silly putty. While it is kneading I preheat my oven to about 180 degrees. When its done mixing I make it out into 5 loaves then turn my oven off and put the loaves in the oven to raise for 25 minutes. After 25 Minutes I turn the oven on to 350 and set the timer for 30 minutes and thats it. Sometimes I will get a better raise in the 25 minutes than others but it will catch up during the baking time. For those with a sensitive palate this bread is not as sweet as the regular recipe because during soaking the enzymes consume most of the sugar and starch. You cannot taste the vinegar and most will not notice the less sweet taste. I feel it is a worthwhile trade off to use part whole wheat and part white flour for a couple of reasons. First I believe you get a better more effective soak with the higher liquid to Whole Wheat flour ratio and by using white flour to bring it to the right consistency you are not adding in more anti nutrients because white flour doesnt have them. Secondly the white flour gives the bread more lift and a lighter texture and you dont need the dough enhancer and other stuff which I think the bread is healthier without. Some day I will try making sprouted wheat flour and using that instead of the white flour but for now that is more work than I feel like doing. Adding the 2/3 cup of gluten is very important. You will not get as near a good result without it but you dont need the dough enhancer or the lecithin.

Picture request

Hey there! About a month ago, I took THE CUTEST picture of Trey and Phyllis told me that I needed to put it on the sister's blog so that everyone could see it! It's probably my favorite picture of Trey that I've taken so far and it reminds me so much of Ben!
Here it is:

This is a picture of Michael as we were dressing him in preparation of leaving the hospital. He was there for a full week but he has been home now for more than two weeks and is doing very well.

After my last post Michael improved very quickly. They removed the ventilator on the Thursday after inserting it and he was released from the hospital Friday evening. We were in limbo all that time and weren't sure when we would be going home until an hour or so before we did, so when it happened it happened quickly. Then we were at home and I had my hands full again and I just haven't taken the time until now to post this update. He is strong and healthy and doesn't seem to have any lasting affects from his experience. He does have a bit of colic now, which is to be expected after the antibiotics, so I am working on getting more probiotics into him so that his digestive system will work well again and the fussiness and discomfort will go away. But in the meantime he is eating, sleeping, and growing well.

We are much more watchful and aware now of his breathing, of course, and perhaps even a bit paranoid. We look for any little sign of congestion and we continually monitor how he is breathing, but he continues to do great. I now know what signs should have allerted me to danger--working so hard to breathe and his color changing. I was looking for signs of congestion that would block up his lungs and prevent breathing. But he did not sound congested and his nose was not blocked at all. He coughed a few times and I could hear it, but the doctor had told me a few hours earlier that his lungs sounded fine and I couldn't tell that they were getting worse. Some of my other kids had been congested much worse and had never come down with RSV. The doctor later told me that sometimes the congestion in the lungs can only be heard with a stethescope. Michael had had labored breathing for several hours before he crashed so badly, but it wasn't constant and he seemed to recover from those difficult episodes. He would struggle to breathe and would turn quite pale, even gray, but then would start crying and be a beautiful pink again and would seem to be breathing fine for several minutes. Then he would struggle again. This went on for probably 4-5 hours. But now I realize that he wasn't recovering fully between the episodes of labored breathing. Though he seemed to be getting enough oxygen, the carbon dioxide was continuing to build up in his blood to very dangerous levels until it eventually caused him to stop breathing altogether. They can only check CO2 levels with a blood test at the hospital. Looking back, I wish we had taken him to the emergency room earlier that evening. If he had been there they would have been able to give him the help he needed sooner. I am convinced he still would have been sent to the ICU at Primary Children's and would have eventually been put on the ventilator, but I think we could have avoided the ambulance ride and the life flight because, though distressed, he would have been more stable when they sent him there. Also, I realize now that feeling the need to watch over him continually should have been a clue to us that he needed hospital care. The doctors can't cure RSV. The body must fight it as it runs it's course. But, if necessary, they can keep the baby alive with breathing support as it does. It usually takes about 7-10 days to get over RSV and apparently, day 4 or 5 is the most difficult time in the struggle. That is when the baby often crashes.

We appreciate everyone's love and support and your prayers on our behalf. We are very grateful that all this has ended so well, and we hope that by sharing our experience we can help others be more informed so they can make better choices under similiar circumstances. We love you!

Cereal Cake

This is a quick, easy way to make a confection in less than a half hour. I made it for Johnny's birthday/ St. Patrick's Day (hence the green) since he had asked me to make his birthday cake for him a few weeks before and I totally forgot, so I made this quick "cake" by making rice krispie treats, or in this case, froot loops, with the marshmallows and butter in a saucepan, and shaping them in my cake pans. I made the goopy slime (or booger cake, as Spencer called it ;) by mixing canned rainbow chip frosting with marshmallow cream and a little green food coloring.

Update on Michael

We had some great news today and it seems we have turned the corner in Michael's care here at Primary Children's Medical Center. He was put on a ventilator (the same thing as a respirator) in the early morning hours of last Saturday because he kept failing to breathe. Monday morning they tested him to see if he would breathe on his own without the ventilator. They wanted to see him breathe well for 2 hours before they would consider removing the tube. He breathed for only 5 minutes on his own before failing. Tuesday morning they tested him again and he lasted for 10 minutes, so we began adjusting to the possibilities of a much longer hospital stay. But the nurses were very hopeful and saw a lot of improvement through the day. They were optimistic that he would do well very soon. During this morning's test he steadily breathed on his own for the full two hours so the ventilator was removed a few hours later. He has done really well today and remains quite stable, though he is on oxygen. He continues to breathe well and they are trying to reduce the amounts of oxygen he is receiving. Everyone is impressed with how well he is doing on his own, so hopefully he will be out of the ICU tomorrow. The milestones they want him to pass before releasing him from the hospital are to be removed from oxygen, to have less mucous buildup in his lungs, and to be finished with the course of antibiotics for his pneumonia. We are hoping we will take him home by week's end. He is eating well now and we are able to hold him so that makes all the difference for us. We gave him a pacifier after removing the tube because they wanted him to wait a few hours before eating. They will be removing the yellow feeding tube soon. We are very grateful for today's progress and for all the love and support we have received.

Lessons learned from the Pediatric ICU

I am writing this from the pediatric ICU at Primary Children's hospital with a very grateful heart. It is been a dramatic couple of days but Michael is stabilized and doing well as he fights RSV and pneumonia. I have learned some vital principles about breathing and I wanted to share what I have learned so the mommies of little ones can better understand how to respond to future possibilities.

Our little number 9, Michael Stout Cooper, was born February 21st and all went well. He was strong and healthy and weighed in at 8 lbs, 1 ounce. He looks like all the other kids combined but we think he looks mostly like Joseph. He is a very content little one and even quite contemplative. He was eating well and sleeping well and gaining weight and we were all thrilled to finally have him in our arms.

Last Monday night he had a mild fever and seemed to be coming down with a bit of congestion. Some of us had been sick, including me. I had just had a bout with the flu the weekend before he was born and was coming down with a cold during his delivery. But I didn't worry because it couldn't be avoided. We had an appointment with his pediatrician for his 2 week PKU/Well-baby checkup on Tuesday morning. This is the only well-baby visit I take my babies to and that is because the state requires the PKU test--which I think is a good thing. But otherwise, why does a healthy baby need to see a doctor? At the appointment his temperature was normal and all looked great. He continued with a little congestion for a few days but was eating and sleeping well. His nose wasn't blocked so he didn't have any problems nursing but every now and again he would cough and I could tell his lungs were congested. Knowing it was RSV season and knowing that pneumonia could set in I put eucalyptus oil diluted with coconut oil on his chest. It would help loosen up the phlegm in his lungs and is also a mild antibiotic. But he was still doing well and didn't seem very bothered by the congestion. None of my other kids have ever had RSV so this would be our first experience with it.

Thursday night was a bit rough and Douglas convinced me to take him to the doctor Friday afternoon. My first nine years of mothering have given me an aversion to taking my kids to the doctor. Trips to the doctor are very expensive and they don't just cost money. They also cost a lot of time, energy, and hassle, and I have come to despise them. Visit after visit I was frustrated with the solutions they had to offer for the routine illnesses of childhood my children periodically suffered from. I started looking for natural remedies and found great success. I felt very empowered to have wonderful solutions to common maladies in my bathroom cupboard rather than having to go through the doctor and then the pharmacist. Don't get me wrong, I know that the medical community has a very important place in our society. There is no better system for an emergency and they are often able to work miracles. But when it comes to long- term health issues they often do more harm than good. The trick is to know when to seek their help. Prayer helps tremendously with this, but we must also study things out in our minds and seek an education that will help us understand our children's health issues, and then be willing to do what it takes to resolve them. Sick children will be sick adults and they will not be able to fulfill their earthly assignments and meet their full potential if they are sick and tired.

So for the second time in 9 years I took my sick child to the doctor. He was still eating well through Friday morning and the doctor listened to his lungs and they sounded good--no RSV and nothing to be concerned about yet. I asked him lots of questions to know what I should look for so that I could understand if and when to take him to the hospital. He explained that babies are "periodic breathers". A normal healthy baby has periods of irregular breathing. Every mother has hovered over her newborn while the baby is holding his breath and there are a few anxious moments until the baby breathes again. This is normal. There is a difference, however, between periodic breathing and "labored breathing". Labored breathing happens when something is interfering with a baby's ability to get in enough oxygen. The signals that they are laboring to breathe are that they breathe quickly by taking short quick breaths, or they have to work really hard to get a breath in and you can see their chest and stomach straining to do so. Their color changes with labored breathing because their heart rate slows, so they become pale or gray. Periodic breathing doesn't affect their heart rate so they remain rosy and pink. The doctor explained that labored breathing is the sign to watch out for with RSV--but a few minutes of it isn't enough to take him to the hospital. If he recovers afterwards then there is nothing they can do at the hospital for him. But if he has this labored breathing for 45 minutes or an hour, then that is when to be concerned.

At this point, I didn't understand that there are two critical parts to the process of breathing. The first is to take in enough oxygen and the second is to expel the carbon dioxide from the lungs. Labored breathing interferes with both of these processes. Apparently, the carbon dioxide, unless properly expelled, builds up in the blood. High enough levels of it act as a sedative like morphine. It also induces apnea. The infant becomes very lethargic and will eventually stop breathing altogether. I didn't know this until we were in the emergency room. By Friday night Michael was experiencing labored breathing but after a few minutes would seem to recover. We knew enough to be concerned and Douglas and I decided to take shifts with him through the night so that one of us was always awake and watching him. At midnight he stopped breathing altogether and turned an ashen gray. I started walking around with him, jostling him and talking to him but got no response. Dallin was still awake and after about a minute I sent Dallin in to wake up Douglas. I took the baby into the bedroom and gave him to Douglas. He was still not breathing and was totally limp and lifeless. After a few more moments I called 911 and Douglas started mouth-to-mouth. It was about two full minutes before Michael took a breath. I was still on the line with 911 when he gasped and started screaming at the top of his lungs. It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. His color immediately returned to a beautiful pink and he cried for several seconds. Dallin was watching the front for the paramedics and they were on the street a few seconds after Michael started breathing again. We gave them the baby when they came in and a few moments later Michael crashed again. He stopped breathing and went completely limp. He started breathing again but very shallow and ineffective. They rushed the baby and me in the ambulance to the new hospital in Riverton a few minutes away. They checked his blood as soon as we got there and the carbon dioxide levels were very high. They can check oxygen saturation rates with a little sensor on the finger but they need a blood test to find out the levels of CO2. They put him on oxygen that they called "highflow". The oxygen is blown into their lungs with a bit of pressure and that seems to help the babies breathe more effectively. They saw from his levels of CO2 that he needed to be up at Primary Children's Hospital as soon as possible. They called the Lifeflight team to come and get him and were discussing whether to put him on a ventilator or not. By the time Lifeflight arrived Michael had stabilized enough with a higher dose of highflow that he didn't need a ventilator. He could have been transported in an ambulance but the Lifeflight team brought a helicopter so they loaded him up and flew him away. Douglas and I went back home to grab a few things before heading up to the hospital. By the time we arrived, Michael was all settled in and seemed stable. But within a few hours they had to put him on a ventilator because his breathing was too erratic and ineffective. The doctor explained that babies don't die of RSV itself. It is the secondary infections that set in like pneumonia, or an underlying health problem like heart disease, that cause the mortality risk with RSV. Michael started to develop pneumonia, but that doesn't seem to have progressed far and he is on antibiotics for it. They have cultured the bacteria to know for sure that it is the kind that will respond to the antibiotic he is on.

At this point, he remains stable and they have tried to wean him off the ventilator. By yesterday they had reduced it by almost half and he can breathe over it but not well enough yet to reduce it any further. He is still struggling with the apnea. They will try again tomorrow to reduce it further. Douglas was allowed to give him a wonderful blessing and we both feel we will be able to take him home with us eventually. Sierra taught us that babies have a choice in this too and that worried me. Who wouldn't choose heaven and exaltation over the challenges and rigors of this life if they are given a choice? But Michael gave Douglas the assurance yesterday that he was fighting this and would try to overcome it, so we have high hopes. For the most part he is calmly handling all the tubes and the pains that come with them. He has not been sedated since they put in the ventilator and for the most part is handling it all with great patience. There are times when he is wide awake and we can interact with him a little, and there are moments of stress and discomfort, but he tends to calm down quickly and he sleeps most of the time.

We have insurance that seems to be a good plan so hopefully all will go well in that regard. We are hoping not to have to pay more than a few thousand. Because he was more than 2 weeks old he was sent to the pediatric ICU rather than the newborn ICU and he is a few beds down from where Sierra was.

This is all new to me and we are very grateful that we didn't have to pay for this knowlege with our baby's life. My heart goes out to you, Heidi and Monterey, once again as I contemplate your experiences in this same place.

Sweet and Savory Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken

For Valentines Day, I wanted to make a yummy meal, so I concocted a plan to combine as many of my favorite flavors as I could think of that would still complement each other, and the result was this:

Sweet-glazed maple bacon-wrapped creamy spinach alfredo-stuffed butterflied chicken. But that was a really long recipe name, and might sound a bit intimidating to the budding cook, but just know that it really is not that hard to make, and is worth it. My kids, Spencer, and Crystel all give it their approval. So here is the recipe:

Sweet and Savory Bacon-Wrapped Stuffed Chicken

4 large boneless chicken breasts
1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened
2 Tablespoons dry alfredo sauce mix (half of a 1-ounce package)
1 cup or more chopped spinach
2 Tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1+ Tablespoons buttermilk (for creamy consistency)
8-10 strips uncooked bacon (I used maple-smoked)
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup brown sugar, unpacked

Butterfly chicken breasts and salt and pepper them to taste. Using a sheet of plastic wrap on top, pound thin with a meat mallet for easier rolling. Stir dry alfredo mix and buttermilk into cream cheese. Add spinach and sun-dried tomatoes to cream cheese mixture. Spread mixture onto chicken breasts and roll up from the long side. Wrap each chicken roll with bacon, securing with toothpicks if necessary. Place chicken rolls in a 2-quart baking dish. Mix ketchup and brown sugar together and drizzle or baste over the bacon. Bake for 40-50 minutes at 375°, or until chicken reaches 160° internally.

Yes, We are moving!

OK everyone, you may or may not have heard the rumors yet but we are moving in 2-3 weeks. We are still in the same stake, so it's close. We found out we could refinance our house at the same price as we could buy this house and so we chose to buy it and sell our house. Wouldn't you know we just got the back yard in. Oh well, this time it will be different because the yard and basement are already in. It's a great retirement home for us and we have a great mortgage interest rate and we can pay off the house in increments and lower our monthly. So it's perfect for us. We have not sold our house yet, but we qualify for both payments and David has a bunch of consulting coming in over the next few months so we can afford to wait to sell the house. Here are the pictures since they have taken them off of the web.

Yes, it has a fifties diner with soda fountain, juke box and all. It has two full length decks. It's on 2 1/2 acres but most of it is unusable trees in the ravine. There is a trail that goes right through the property and it's just beautiful. We also have two full kitchens. We took the kids to see it yesterday and they went crazy. We are all very excited!

Basement family room

There are only three usable rooms in the basement but they are huge. Our kids will bunk up but we will still have a guest bedroom!

Master bedroom

Master bath

Office

basement