Buckeye Brownies

I made these brownies up and this is what used.  A lady used to sell these at work and I always wanted to try to make them.

You need a 9 x 13 pan of brownies.  A box mix is fine or this is a super fast and easy recipe from Hershey's.  Don't make the icing. https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=98.

To make the topping I used another Hershey recipe.

3/4 cup butter melted
1 and 1/3 cup peanut butter
3 cup confectionery sugar

Mix together until smooth consistency.  Set aside.

Melt 2 cups chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons of Crisco until smooth.

Top brownies that have cooled for about 10 minutes with peanut butter mixture.  Carefully spread.  Then pour chocolate over top.  Spread evenly and let cool.  Cut and serve.

North Carolina visit

This was our first long trip with 3 kids and overall they did very well.

 Perry's Dad made a fabulous meal for actual thanksgiving day.  We also enjoyed visiting with great grandparents.  It was a relaxing few days.

 Friday evening we had a Thanksgiving with lots of extended family.  The kids had a great time playing with all the cousins both old and young.

The days flew by and Perry had to return to work.

Intro to Snow

We had snow early this year.  We lost two days of school and the boys have had several delays due to very cold days.  Angela's first response to snow was "white rain."  Pretty good description for no exposure to the stuff.  She likes the sled riding but is not impressed with brothers throwing snowballs.  She did try her hand throwing them at mommy.

 Aaron

 Angela

 Andrew

 The icey stuff made for great sledding and skating on the back porch.

Swimming and sleeping

 Angela has loved her swimming lessons.  We are taking the month of January off but will return in February.  She tries to swim in the tub.

 Mr. Verne spends many Sabbaths with us and Angela crashed out in his lap one week.

Angela cheesing it up in the our churches small nursery.

Visit to Great Grandpa's

We had an enjoyable but busy Christmas.  Andrew's birthday is two days after Christmas so it makes things exciting but busy.  It has become my habit to go out to WI after Christmas with a child not in school to see grandpa Graffius.  It is always an adventure with the weather but always a lot of fun,  Angela charmed all the people at the home where grandpa lives.  Great grandpa had a great time giving her sweets and playing with her.  They created a game with a grabber tool he uses and she loved the seat belt on his power chair.  We got to stay two extra days due to weather and that resulted in a chance to check out a small museum in Madison.  She liked the rocks but the dinosaurs were two big scary.  Overall a great time was had by all.

Of Vaccines

I will start this post with noting that I am not without bias.  I have chosen to vaccinate my children and there is at least one vaccine that I will probably not give my children when the time comes.  My mind could be changed on that vaccine if the data changes.  Also I have friends that I respect greatly that have chosen not to vaccinate.  What bothers me in the vaccine debate is that those of us debating whether to vaccinate or not have rarely or never seen these diseases.  So my post today is to encourage you to get first hand information about what these disease look like.  We need to do this because with our free choice to vaccinate or not it makes it possible for us to see these diseases in the future.  Especially as the number of us that choose not vaccinate increases the risk becomes more possible.  Take for example, the recent out break of measles in Texas, the 10 confirmed Syrian paralysis cases from  polio, and in 2012 the over 48,000 confirmed cases in the US of whooping cough(source CDC)  makes the possibility of your child developing one of these disease possible if not probable.  Now a person must decide if what can happen from the disease is worse, than the risk they perceive exists with the vaccine.

As you make this decision, I would encourage you talk to people have seen the diseases for real.  I am not talking doctors and healthcare professionals alone though they are great sources.  The first vaccine was introduced in 1952.  Find people that grew up before that date.  They may be your parents or grandparents.  Take Diphtheria, Influenza type B, Measles, Mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, and tetanus ask them if they remember seeing any cases or deaths from these disease.  Ask them what an iron lung was and if they knew any one that developed long term effects or even died from these diseases.  It is easy say we don't want something when we have never seen a child with this disease.

 Second, look at treatment options if the child gets the disease.  Are willing to give your child the particular treatment or deal with the fact that there may be no treatment for that disease if they get the disease.  Polio has no treatment besides treating symptoms.  With measles are you willing to risk your child being the 1 in 1,000 that gets encephalitis(data from Mayo Clinic website).  Are you willing to be the mom of a child with whooping cough must be informed of the risk infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) from the drugs used to treat the disease(one source CDC).

I would encourage each person to look at each vaccine and ask the following questions.
1.  What does does this disease mean for me and my child if we get it?
2.  Are benefits of the vaccine worth the risks of the vaccine?
3.  How do I feel about the treatments or lack of available for this disease?
4. Are there other ways to prevent this disease?

I have not addressed the cons of vaccines in this post but I suspect from all the posts I have seen lately on Facebook that you can find the other side without much problem.  Whether you choose to vaccinate or not please make an educated decision.

Post Placement #2

We had to have a family picture. So here is one of the silly ones.

We painted our gourds and pumpkins for the fall.  The boys had fun raking leaves and then jumping in them.  They taught Angela how to jump right in the pile.  We all had fun.  Today we had our second post placement visit.  It is always a great deal of hard work and I will admit I call in help from a local person to help me clean.  The boys get to get out of school early and our caseworker drives down.   With the Philippines they want lots of pictures so we have been sending 8 to 10 pages of electronic pictures.  It has helped me be more conscious of getting pictures which probably would not of happened so much with child number 3.  I can say  that Angela is picking English amazingly quickly and everyone is adjusting well.  Andrew struggled the most but has decided that for being little and girl she is pretty nice.  Aaron likes to dress her up and they like to play on the swing set together.  Angela had her first snow experience.  She has declared cold and isn't quite sure what to do with it.  So that is where things stand.