About Us

This blog is changing, just as our family is changing. It was originally started to keep in touch with family and friends far away, but when you face a life altering disease EVERY aspect of your life is changed and in some way effected by it. Now I need a place to vent, to share, to help people understand the struggles that we face as a family with 2 children that are struggling with the Disease Eosinophilic Esophogitis, and with all of us having multiple food allergies. So this blog is becoming my journal so to say, an outlet for me to express my frustrations, share my joys, and put all information into one place for those that want to know. Why share something so personal, and often too hard to bare? Well...so much of this disease is silent. We work so hard to help our kids lead a normal life and no one sees the struggles faced daily, and I think it is important to let people know and understand.

What is Eosinophilc Esophigitis?

What is Eosinophilic Esophogitis? Also known as EE, or Eos, or EoE.

First let's start off by saying, there is NO CURE! There is NO FDA approved treatment. And often the only form of successful treatment are large doses of steroids and/or elimination of "trigger" foods, which sometimes as in the case of our 2 boys is an elimination of ALL foods. Forcing them to be on an Elemental Formula ONLY diet and water.

Second let's start with the layman's definition as I know how to explain it, and then I will add links with better medically explained and more in depth definitions. Eosinophils are a form of white blood cell, and in persons with this disorder these eosinophils attack food as if they are a parasite, causing damage to nearby tissue in any part of the digestive tract (in our case the Esophogus). This causes reflux that often does not respond well to reflux meds, vomiting, pain, aversions to food, rashes, diahrea, constipation, and many more symptoms like leg and joint pain, headaches. All of which these symptoms lead to more and more problems from which many you will learn about by reading my posts.

One of the bests places for accurate up to date info go to: Apfed, http://apfed.org/drupal/drupal/index.php

And of course this blog reads most current posts first, so I'll do my best to label important posts to help you catch/keep up.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Woohoo! I Won!

As with our children’s afore mentioned food allergies, we cannot buy any bakery cakes. Therefore I have been improving my skills in the cake decorating category so that my children can have special birthday cakes. So when our ward was having a dessert contest, I figured it would be a good reason to practice some more. This is the cake that I entered. I thought it was a cute idea. I’ve wanted to make this cake for a while. For all of you perfectionists out there, (like me…in some cases) ignore all the imperfections. I am using the excuse that my materials weren’t the best for decorating cakes (I know…I also need more practice!). Someone told me Royal Icing (that's just water, powedered sugar, and meringue powder) would work and I thought I would give it a try. It was a little too heavy, but it worked well enough. Except for the parts that started falling off the cake!



So what do you think? I know nothing too original, but it was fun! Just about everything went wrong, like the handle breaking and collapsing on the cake. Needless to say most of the flowers were placed to hide imperfections. (Cake decorating tip 101)



And guess what! I won!....Well...sort of...



I won first place in "Best Presentation" and "Originality". I got a 20 out of 20 in the presentation category. But as for taste and texture I didn't even place. I am not surprised though. I tend to not make my cakes too sweet so that you can enjoy an entire slice with all the icing, and when a cake is made from scratch with no preservatives or soy it never tastes as rich. But it is truthfully healthier for you and I am good with that.



This is what the inside of the cake looked like...

I call it the Checkerboard cake and it is surprisingly simpler than you would think.
Oh...and I got second place in the overall category! Now while I am tooting my own horn, don't think that I beat out all these amazing deserts. I was the only one who came with a decorated desert and some of them were store bought.

I wasn't going to post anything about winning but then I thought, "Hey, why not? What's the use of a personal blog if you can't brag every now and then." Hee Hee, I know... I'm a dork."


We love and miss you all! Thanks Mom for all the decorating lessons!
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4 comments:

The Lee Clan said...

Wow Sis, you did a beautiful job! Congrats on your win! I'm sure it taste just fine...people in this country aren't used to eating heathly. Love You Guys!

August 15, 2009 at 8:31 AM
Melanni said...

This is amazing! Good job!

August 15, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Ariana said...

I love your cake! You are so talented! I love the braided handle.

August 16, 2009 at 9:13 AM
Elena Harrison said...

WOW!! At least two of you are doing cakes. ELena made Brody's first birthday cake, adn it was so cute and tasted good too. I was surprised that it was edible. We miss you!!! Glad you guys blog!

Michael

August 17, 2009 at 9:37 AM

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