20 in 2020

Today is Daniel’s birthday. He was planning to come home this weekend so we could celebrate, but since he is currently waiting out his roommate’s quarantine, we were able to celebrate on his actual day. Birthday balloons have kind of become a tradition around here and I figured a big birthday deserved some big balloons, so Daniel ended up with a mighty large floating display advertising the fact that he is no longer a teenager. How weird is that? My oldest child is no longer a teen. Being at home also meant he could have his very favorite cake on his very birthday. Swedish swirl has been his favorite for years.

 

I’m very grateful that Daniel is a part of our family. He is pretty laid back which is a wonderful counterpart to some of the more dramatic personalities that reside in our home. He is capable of diffusing an emotionally charged situation between his siblings with his calm demeanor. In the past year, he has grown up a lot and it has been so reassuring to see that he is well on his way to becoming a capable young man who is preparing to be ready to step fully into the adult world. His testimony has grown tremendously this past year, another thing I’m grateful for, as it has helped him weather the ups and downs that this year has held for him. And his missionary service, short though it was, has made him more comfortable sharing his testimony, his gospel insights, and his spiritual feelings. It’s kind of weird to be at the stage where my kids are becoming adults because I don’t necessarily feel any older than I did a couple of decades ago, but it is reassuring to watch them grow and feel like maybe Kev and I did an ok job raising them. Hopefully there are good things in store for Daniel in the coming year.

Pros and Cons to the Latest Monkey Wrench

 It would seem that 2020 is not done messing with our lives yet, because we got another monkey wrench tossed at us on Sunday. Daniel was on his way back up to school when he got a text from one of his roommates. His roomie was having COVID symptoms, had scheduled a test, and wanted to let all those affected know. Daniel, smart boy that he is, turned around and came back home. His roommate’s test results came back positive today so it looks like Daniel will be hanging out with us a bit longer. At least all his classes were already planning to be exclusively online after Thanksgiving. Work is a whole different story, but most employers are very flexible with COVID related complications so he should be able to work that one out. As lousy as it is to be unable to go home, he would much rather be here than quarantined in his apartment. Because of when he last saw his roommate, he doesn’t even need to self-isolate, so he is able to get out as needed to help keep his cabin fever at bay. He is, however, disappointed about this turn of events. He feels, and rightly so, that COVID has completely rewritten his life and it is just keeps coming. On the flip side, he was having some conflicting emotions about missing out on all our Christmas festivities so he is glad he will be able to participate in all of those.

Moving on to a happier topic, my sister Esther is gifting to our family for Christmas this year. One of her great joys in life is choosing exactly the right gifts and she is hailed as the Queen of Christmas where gift giving is concerned. Part 1 of Christmas arrived at our house on Sunday evening with instructions to open it today. We did so and are super stoked (Yes, I know using that word dates me. I’m a child of the ‘80’s and am happy to claim my age.) because it is a Harry Potter Lego Advent Calendar. How fun is that? We’ve been very Harry focused this year and we are also Lego-philes, so this is perfect for us.

 

As we move into the last month of this year, I know many folks are anxious to see 2020 in the rearview mirror. As for me, we have some fun stuff for this month and I’m looking forward to the family time. There are usually so many concerts and activities that finding time for family stuff can be a challenge. This year, all the cancellations are leaving us with plenty of opportunities to celebrate together. In addition, I’m so looking forward to the increased focus on the Savior that always happens at this time of year. Learning to better hear his voice is something we are all working on and as my family and I do so, we are finding joy despite the monkey wrenches life keeps tossing at us.

Elf Antics

Our family has an elf. Around this time each year, the kids start watching for him to arrive. He doesn’t usually come until after Daniel’s birthday, probably so his b-day doesn’t get overshadowed by Christmas, but this year he showed up earlier than usual. I guess the North Pole has had a crazy year too, because Jingle Jangle arrived ahead of schedule so he could finish up his quarantine and still have plenty of time for fun. Malia is anxious for his time to elapse so he can come out of his elf condo!

 

Game Time is the Best

One of Daniel’s desires for this week was to play lots of games. There were games played yesterday, more today, and I suspect there will be more in the next several days before he heads back to school. I’ve really enjoyed taking this time to play with my family. We laugh and joke and tease and have a wonderful time. There may be things from my normal routine that don’t get done, but it’s a “good, better, best” thing for me. And spending time with my family is definitely the “best.”

 

Gratitude

 See the beautiful herb encrusted turkey swimming in its own delectable juices.

 See the vultures, forks in hand, prepared to deface said beautiful turkey.

See the feeding frenzy commence. 

 

See the naked, yet still delicious, turkey.

Now, you may ask, what kind of mother would let her offspring attack the delightful end-result of a week of defrosting, brining, prepping, and roasting? That would be me. And why in the world would I do that? I learned it from my own mother. 😉 And to be completely honest, I had the camera in one hand and a fork in the other. There is no way I’ll let my children desecrate a turkey without me.

As with all things since March, our Thanksgiving looked a bit different this year. Instead of having a crowd for dinner at my folks’ house, it was just six us of for dinner at home. We spent the day relaxing, smelling the roasting turkey, playing games and anticipating pie. The kids even had a marathon multiplayer Chicken Invaders game going in the afternoon.

It was much calmer, quieter, more peaceful than our usual celebration. And it made me think. We are at the point where our kids are growing up and moving out. In the next ten years, I suspect we’ll be seeing a few new faces at our table. As we’ve done with Christmas, I think it’s time to start creating some Thanksgiving traditions of our own. I love gathering with my family. And because Kevin’s mom always schedules her celebration for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we’ve never had to alternate between families. But in coming years, it is going to become important that we have our own traditions in place. When Kev was growing up, Thanksgiving and Christmas were both celebrated with his grandparents. It was fun and all, but his mom has expressed some regret over the fact that she never established traditions for her own family. I don’t want to have those regrets twenty years from now. So in the next year, I think we’re going to be making some decisions. Pie day with my mom and my sisters is always a chaotic, crazed mess…and so much fun. So maybe it’s pie day with the extended fam and turkey day at home with our own little clan. I’m not sure yet. But we’ve got time to figure it out. We’ll counsel with our kiddos and see what they think as well. Their preferences are an important part of this equation.

 

As I ponder today on the many things for which I’m thankful, I can see that my family and I have been greatly blessed this year. Yes, we’ve had challenges and disappointments. Yes, we’ve had to change our life plans on numerous occasions. Yes, we all wish COVID was not a thing. But still, we can all see the multitude of tender mercies that we have had as well. I have much to be thankful for and in fact, Kev has encouraged all of us to allow our troubles to be swallowed up in increased gratitude for our many blessings. And you know what? It works. Focusing on all the good the Lord showers down on us helps us deal with the bad a bit better. My heart is full today as I ponder on all the ways in which my family and I have been blessed.

 

It has been a good day. A peaceful day. A day full of gladness and gratitude. And by the way, the bean juice pie is delicious. It tastes just like the real thing. Weird but true.

Pumpkin, Apples, Berries and Bean Juice

Today was our annual pie day. Pie day is usually a marathon pie making extravaganza in my mother’s kitchen, but COVID forced us to bake separately this year. Nevertheless, numerous pies still came into being today. My siblings and I all shared pics of our pies and my mom kept a running tally, just like she always does. Our contribution was eight pies-apple, raspberry, banana cream, lemon, lemon meringue, cranberry orange custard and two pumpkin. And only one of those pies was not safe for Matthew. More on that later.

Each of kids selected their favorite flavor of pie. Malia chose raspberry and except for some advice and help transferring the pie crust to the pie pan, she made the entire thing herself. My role was supervisory. I am so pleased that she has a desire to learn to cook and is becoming proficient. I admit that I’ve been a bit slow to teach her, but a lot of that is because her interest has been limited of late and I’m not willing to fight with her about it. But her desire to learn has started to reemerge and I’m really glad. Her pie is beautiful, and I’ll bet it tastes good too. 😉

While the creation of Malia’s pie was drama free, not so for the apple pie. I’m generally a careful cook, but I was a bit off my game where the apple pie is concerned. I made my own pie filling back in the fall, so once the crust was ready to go, I dumped in the filling. Unfortunately, I forgot to drain off the liquid so I could thicken it. I didn’t want to pour it out of the crust once it was in because that would make the crust on that edge more likely to scorch in the oven, so I called the turkey baster into action a day early and sucked the liquid out. I thickened it and then proceeded to assemble my pie. I got my top crust in place, perfectly vented and creatively crimped…and then looked over and realized that I had forgotten to put the thickened liquid back in. I didn’t want to destroy my beautiful crust by pulling it off to add the liquid, so I reached for the turkey baster’s smaller brother and used a medicine dropper to squirt it back in through the vent holes. I was as gentle as possible and tried to distribute the liquid as evenly as I could. At the end of the day, the pie looks pretty darn good despite all the trauma involved in its creation.

Daniel asked for lemon meringue pie, thinking that would be impossible to do Matthew friendly. But I’ve been cooking egg and dairy free for over a decade and in that time, I’ve seen a lot of different things. One of the egg substitutions that has started making its way around the internet in the past few years is using aquafaba, or the liquid from a can of beans, generally garbanzo beans (chickpeas). It’s something I’ve been wanting to try, but I’ve been holding off because Matthew can’t eat chickpeas. Because he is allergic to peas, there is a high risk of cross reactivity with chickpeas. And I couldn’t find any info on whether or not aquafaba from other varieties of beans would work the same. But I decided it was high time I just tried it out to see what would happen. I used the liquid from a can of great northern beans since they are light colored and mild in flavor, hoping it would work out the same. And guess what? It whips up just like egg whites. It’s so cool! It looks exactly the same, has the same gloss from the sugar and the same stiff peaks! The only thing I did differently was add a bit of zantham gum to help stabilize the meringue. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too long to get the meringue on the pie, so it lost some loft and doesn’t look as pretty as it did when it was freshly whipped. But still, egg free meringue is a reality in our lives! I can hardly wait to taste the pie tomorrow.

Now, about that one pie that is not safe for Matthew. The one he can’t eat is the cranberry orange custard. Egg free custard simply doesn’t have the same silky texture as an egg custard and this particular pie is Nathan’s favorite (one of my favorites too), so we used real dairy and eggs. Since Matthew has his favorite dairy free banana cream pie to look forward to, he doesn’t care a bit about the custard. And as always, Kev is a pumpkin pie man through and through.

I can hardly wait to cut into all these delights tomorrow. It will be a challenge to choose which one to taste first!

Spooky Eats and Treats

 Trick or treating in the middle of a pandemic seems pretty sketchy to me. Malia completely agrees. And there are many other families who are on the same page we are because the neighborhood, which is normally a hubbub of children and parents roaming the streets on All Hallow’s Eve, is eerily still. Our doorbell rang exactly twice. And we ignored it because we had a sign on our door informing any visitors that we were skipping trick or treating this year.

But no trick or treating did not mean no fun. We had an afternoon household scavenger hunt that led Malia and Matthew to a treasure trove of Halloween goodies. We enjoyed a spooky themed dinner of spaghetti and eyeballs. And then we made homemade doughnuts and root beer. Matthew and Malia had never experienced homemade root beer, so it was super fun to introduce them to the tasty goodness. And becoming mad scientists by turning normal raspberry jelly doughnuts into monster doughnuts was both delicious and entertaining. The boys mostly just ate theirs, but Malia and I created a menagerie of ghastly ghouls.

Nathan had to work until 7 p.m. (costume required, of course) but made it home in time to enjoy our spooky sweets. His spaghetti and meatballs costume, a throwback to one of his elementary school favorites, won him first prize in the employee costume contest. Malia wanted to be a horse and thank goodness Amazon sells horse costumes. She wasn’t interested in any of the cute ones I could have created. She was all about the realism and I definitely did not relish the idea of trying to come up with something that would meet her exacting standards. As for Matthew, he went low key, simply creating a “this is only funny if you are a musician” t-shirt. He loves band. And he really loves jazz band.

It was different this year, that’s for sure, but I loved it. Instead of Halloween being a mad dash to get the kids to eat something healthy before begging for and subsequently eating their own body weight in candy, we were able to enjoy our victuals and enjoy each other’s company. As with all things, I know normal will return. But my youngest is 9 and since our kids stop trick or treating once they hit middle school, we only have a couple more years of roaming the streets. And then maybe I’ll have a couple more years of happy at home Halloweens before they all decide friends are more fun. I intent to take full advantage of that. Because what’s not to love about spending an evening with my kids? 😊

Jacks of Joy

We only had two kiddos interested in carving pumpkins this year. Between work and school, Nathan has been pretty busy, so he opted to skip the carving this time around. Matthew and Malia both chose designs that reflected their current joys. So of course, Malia chose a horse. Matthew chose a wacky music design-the alto clef. His costume is a random music reference as well, but I won’t spoil that one. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow. 😉