AMY BOUCHARD'S MAPLE CAKE

Amy Bouchard is the owner of Isamax Snacks in Gardner, the maker of Wicked Whoopies. Her whoopie pies come in more than a dozen flavors. Wicked Whoopies can be found in stores across Maine, as well as Wicked Whoopie retail stores in Farmingdale and Freeport.

For more information on Wicked Whoopies click here: ISAMAX SNACKS

Maple Syrup Cake

Cake:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2 cups pure maple syrup
3 large eggs
1 large egg white
1 cup chopped nuts ( preferably pecans or walnuts )

Frosting: 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
8 ounce cream cheese
1 stick butter
6 tablespoons pure maple syrup

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Grease and flour with butter or shortening two 8 inch cake pans, set aside.
Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and nuts together, set aside.
Beat butter and shortening in a large bowl until fluffy. Add maple syrup and beat until smooth. Add eggs with egg white until well blended.
Add 1/2 flour mixture then 1/2 milk, then add the rest of flour and milk until all well blended.
Divide batter equally between cake pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean.
Frosting:
Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy in a large bowl. Add powdered sugar and maple syrup until smooth. Place one cooled cake on a platter and frost the top of the cake with about one cup of the frosting. Place second cake on top of frosted cake. Frost with remaining frosting on top and on sides. garnish with chopped nuts.

Welcome to Holland

This is a poem written by Emily Perl Kingsleyem.  I wanted to share it with you as someone did with me and welcome you to Holland...it really is a beautiful place to be.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.


After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."


"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.


The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."


The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.


But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

As one journey ends, another starts

A diagnosis for K - which was once a dream has finally come to life. Yesterday 1/15/13 marked a week since her testing and we got the answer to our question that I started asking so many years ago. If you're not familiar, here is the beginning of our story My Journey with K.

K does not have the plague or a contagious disease. She is not deaf or dumb. She is a loving 10 yr old girl, that just wants to fit in. She has some challenges like anxiety, obsessing and audio processing. Her speech skills and understanding of communication are not up to par, which makes everyday things hard. K has been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 2 (ASD2) and I've known it for sometime.  As one journey ends, another starts - Getting her the help she needs to become the adult she will be in the future. To keep following visit Welcome to Holland.

If life gives you snow, make Ice cream!

 Snow Ice Cream Recipe 

1 gallon or big bowl full of snow

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup cream or milk

Again, just mix the ingredients together. You get the idea.

Monsters under the bed? This may help..

Homemade monster spray is easy enough to make and can put a quick end to bedtime monster concerns.  This strategy's effectiveness is dependent on the child (you know your child's personality best) and your powers of persuasion.  There are two main types of homemade monster spray.  

One is using a scented spray such as room air freshner or body spray.  Print off a quick label on your computer clearly marking it as monster spray and then introduce to your child.  Some parents prefer scented because children can feel better protected when they smell that it's "working."  Simply spray in corners of the room, under the bed & in closets. Do not give to children to spray. 

     The other common monster spray recipe is adding a small amount of food coloring to bottled water.  Be careful not to add too much as food coloring can stain--you can add a small amount of washable children's paint to color the water as well.  Again, clearly mark the bottle with a picture of a monster crossed out or the words monster spray.  Parents often give this spray to their children as a weapon of sorts.  If they see any monsters, the child can spray them and the monster will disappear.  Give the bottle to your child and let the hunting begin!

My journey with Tink

  When I found out I was having a girl, I was so happy.  We could do all the mother/daughter things together, like do our hair, go shopping or have pretend tea parties.. All those dreams were crushed.. .

Tink's milestones were delayed... She sat up at 9 months old, took her first steps at 15 months and said her first words at 2 all because of low muscle tone. 

Tink at her first birthday party.

   With the help of early intervention and speech therapy, She learned her name at 3. Tink was daytime potty trained by 3 1/2 (still remains in diapers at night). Although she had all these delays, she did have very interesting strengths..  Tink learned to pump on swing all by herself, coloring in the lines (mostly) & cut with safety scissors all at 2 1/2 years old, She would do these things for hours.. 

4 yrs old lining-up toys

 Sensory sensitivities: TOUCH- although she likes being hugged, it has to be on her terms. She never likes her hair brushed, she cries and says I'm being too rough. Certain clothes bother her, such as Jeans (she says they're too hard), anything with a tag is itchy to her. SMELL - She is always the first and sometime the only one to smell something. HEARING - She is sensitive to loud or sudden sounds (she'll cover her ears). TASTE - She has certain food she will refuses to eat such as cooked carrots, yet will overeat to the point it make herself sick if she is not watched. SIGHT- She doesn't like people looking at her. She says"What?"as a way of saying stop looking at me.. Yet she'll stare, almost gets fixated with others and what they're doing.

Has a hard time with being "put on the spot".

Socializing with others: Tink had no close friends, she has classmates she may talk to during school hours, but when she came home she is mainly on her own. She tries to play with her siblings, but it soon turns into an argument. She does play dolls (she called it the baby game), but it's more like role play (reliving something she has seen). She prefers to be with adults than her peers. Her favorite people to be with are "Horsey"(her grandmother) and certain teacher's aides. When we ask her what she did in school that day it's hard for her to tell us. We enrolled her in dancing school to help her with socializing, but it was very very stressful for her.  She also has a hard time understanding body language. (personal space)

At 8 years old, Tink was diagnosed with ADHD and was put on medication.  That's when I noticed a new obsession, patterning and charting just about everything she could find. For example: She would place a chart on a door, she would then tell us make a checkmark when we would enter or leave that room..   To me this was a red flag.. I started documenting her "play".

 

Age 7 using hair ties as a tool to make a pattern with her dolls.

Age 9 Lining-up cars at "Horsey's" house.

With all this said.. I think it's some a form of Autism.  I have been on this journey with Tink for almost 10 long years and still no diagnosis. Why? Because girls with autism often present with a unique set of characteristics that can make diagnosing their autism difficult. Furthermore, their set of strengths can mask their deficits. 
I just want her to be happy and to be able to live her life to the fullest! 

UPDATE: Tink has a series of appt with a developmental pediatrician starting on the Nov 27, 2012. A bittersweet moment!

UPDATE: 1/8/2013 Tink's developmental pediatrician/autism spectrum evaluation appointment went very well today - preliminary diagnosis was encouraging, but we'll need to wait until next week for a definitive diagnosis. Maybe then we'll be able to get refined support services, and help her transform and achieve!

UPDATE: 1/15/13 Tink was officially diagnosed with ASD2.  

UPDATE: 6/1/2014 - I just wanted to post one last update. Tink has been doing great! She works with a Behavioral Health 3 days a week and has OT every Monday. She still has her bad day's but is working really hard to succeed. To continue to follow her journey, go to Welcome to Holland. 

Important Info About Clothes Dryers..

The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that was fixing it told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink, ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material – I’m sure you know what your dryer’s lint filter looks like.

WELL…the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn’t go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film , but it’s there. It’s wha t is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free – that nice fragrance too, you know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box, well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen This is also what causes dryer units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out & wash it with hot soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long!

Wool dryer balls ~ This what we use now!

How about that!?! Learn something new every day!  I thought I’d share!

Note: I went to my dryer & tested my screen by running water on it. The water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water & a nylon brush & I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn’t any puddling at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!