The Best Smell in the World

A month or so ago, Rachael’s daughter Kate, who is Malia’s age, made bread almost entirely on her own. Rachael shared a picture of Kate and her amazing loaf with all of us. Malia thought that was pretty neat stuff and not wanting to be outdone, decided she had better get her act together and learn to make bread. We set aside this morning as bread day and with only some guidance and instruction from me, Malia crafted some delicious loaves of her very own. I have a Bosch so she didn’t learn to knead it by hand, but that’s the next step.

Malia’s interest in helping in the kitchen has waned quite a bit over the past few years and I’ve actually missed having some helpers. Knowing Kate is becoming a cooking whiz has rekindled Malia’s interest and I love it. Not only do I love having her help, but I love knowing that she wants to learn to be a proficient cook. That is something I’ve worked to teach all my kids and I’m glad she is once again a willing participant in Mom hosted cooking lessons.

The house smelled amazing all day and the boys were terribly happy to sample Malia’s success. To be honest, I was terribly happy to be a taste tester as well. Warm bread is the ultimate comfort food and always brings to mind feelings of safety and security, thoughts of home.

 

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

None of the big holidays would seem complete around here without some fun food. With Easter on the horizon, our family home evening treat was destined to be Easter themed. The kids are on spring break this week, so they were on hand to help create this evening’s delectable dessert. Malia was the only one who helped me shape the cookies, but Matthew hopped on over to help when it was time to decorate. The cookies were very easy to create. The hard part was making everyone wait to sample them. They turned out super cute and just as tasty. Hooray for fun food!

 

It Looks as Good as it Tastes

Of late I’ve discovered that I really enjoy having something decorative on our dining room table. We’ve done a lot of flowers which has been great except for the times when I pick something up and then have allergy issues from the flowers. Sneezing and having itchy eyes kind of takes the enjoyment out of the blooms. With that in mind, I decided we needed something fun for the Easter season and hit Pinterest, of course, to find some cute ideas. Once I had a plan, Malia became my cohort in crafting. We shopped the dollar store, the craft store and the grocery store to find just the right elements and then she helped me create a masterpiece. Malia and I are both pleased with the results of our afternoon’s work. Now the kitchen smells like marshmallows and chocolate. It’s a pretty appetizing alternative to flowers. And although the Peeps are going to get hard pretty darn quickly, my family is looking forward to eating the Cadbury chocolate eggs after Easter has passed.😉

 

A Hunting We Will Go

With a recent announcement from our stake leadership, weekly youth meetings have finally resumed. One of the very first activities the young women planned was a COVID safe Easter egg hunt for all the primary age children. We have not been given permission to hold primary meetings of any kind as of yet, so the young women went to every house that has primary aged children and did a small egg hunt for each family. What an amazing service for the little ones who have had no primary of any kind for over a year. Malia was so thrilled. My mama heart is full of gratitude. These girls and their leaders are amazing. 

Dulce de Lightful

With my current food trend focusing on cheesecake, I was unable to resist a cookbook called “The Cheesecake Bible.” This tome contains three hundred ways to make my mouth happy. After poring over its pages, I selected my first experiment. My latest delightful cream cheese creation was a luscious dulce de leche cheesecake. I could eat this stuff all day. It’s probably a good thing I’m required to share with my live-in taste testers. 😉 

Let the Band Play!

Tonight was an exciting evening. After a year of cancellations and disappointments, Matthew finally got to participate in a band concert. Due to the C-word, this was only his second concert ever. He was in beginning band last year and beginning band is not ready for a concert in October, so his first concert was in December. His next concert was scheduled for last March. In fact, it was scheduled for the week that things shut down. It went from being a normal performance to a streamed performance to being completely cancelled in just a couple of days and was one of his first COVID related disappointments. After a year of no performances and streamed concerts during the normal band class period, it was amazing to be back at a concert. No matter how good the recording or the stream, it can never come close to imitating live music. There were COVID precautions in place, of course, including each band having their own performance time rather than having one big concert, required masks and social distancing, but despite all that, it was glorious. Matthew is in the intermediate band and enjoys that, but he loves the jazz band. His joy in the music and the opportunity to perform were evident in his face. It was so fun to see his face light up with excitement.

This is a baby step toward normalcy. Sometimes it feels like things are never going to be the same again and in reality they may never be exactly the same, but every time we regain a bit of our lives, it feels like a win. I had not realized just how much I had missed the live performances and being able to support my kids as they get back some of these events brings me joy.

Church to Child

In the past few years, it has become pretty normal for the church to do special broadcasts for certain groups within the church-youth, young adults, families, etc. However, today was a first for the church. This afternoon Malia and I watched the first ever Friend to Friend broadcast, an event created specifically for the children of the church. While we have resumed sacrament meetings and second hour meetings via technology, there has been nothing at all for the primary kids. I know that some wards and stakes have done things for the kids, not necessarily meetings or activities, but something to reach out to the children and give them something to look forward to, but our stake has not allowed anything at all. It has been hard on Malia. She has missed primary so much and while we print the activity page from the lesson manual and try to have some kind of primary experience here at home, it is most definitely not the same. Her longing for primary has brought her to tears on multiple occasions. As such, today’s broadcast was a blessing for her. As she watched she participated by singing, drawing, creating rock art, etc. It was wonderful! AND the fact that one of the presenters told the kids to start looking for rocks to create rock art had her justifying the big box of rocks she has in her room. I guess if the church condones it, I can’t really tell her not to do it. 😉

As soon as the broadcast ended, Malia declared that she was wishing for another one. I’m hoping and praying that before long she’ll be able to have some kind of primary to go back to. It has been nearly a year and that is a long time for anyone. 

Yet Another Pandemic Birthday

As my boys have gotten older, their birthday celebrations have naturally become more low key. Add to that a worldwide pandemic, and Matthew’s fourteenth birthday was downright mellow. We did the cake and candles thing (or in this case the cookies and candles thing) on Sunday while Daniel was here. Matthew opted to do chocolate chip cookie bars instead of cake, so I created a mountain of cookies so there would be a place for the candles to go. I was looking for something to make our celebration a bit special, so I picked up some sparkler candles. I thought it would be fun. What I didn’t know until after the candles were lit and blown out was the fact that these particular candles also have a tendency to reignite. It had not been my intention to make my asthmatic child blow out the candles a dozen times, but it happened and was actually pretty entertaining. Matthew was a good sport and once he figured out that blowing out the flame was not going to get the job done, he got a bowl of water, blew candles out one at a time, and immediately grabbed the extinguished candle and dropped in into the water.

Today was his actual birthday and we had balloons and doughnuts on hand to celebrate. Kevin also took him to K-1 Speed, an indoor go cart spot, by way of an activity. One of Matthew’s favorite video games is one where he just gets to drive a semi-truck all over. The creators map actual roadways and he really enjoys the driving, so driving for real was a good fit.

A few present highlights-Nathan gave Matthew a Metal Earth semi-truck. Like I said, Matthew really enjoys his driving game. He also really liked the wrapping Kev used for the presents from us. Many of his BYU t-shirts have become muscle shirts in the past year, so he has needed a few new ones. He was excited about the big boy Ironman Lego and the electric razor was a less popular, but highly practical gift.

Matthew has grown up a lot in the past year. This particular age has always held a big growth spurt for my boys, and while Matthew has not gained statuesque heights like Nathan did, he has outgrown his pants three or four times in the past year, and he is now taller than I am. He has also grown up mentally and emotionally. In some ways he has always been more mature than others his age due to the necessity of dealing with his food allergies and his subsequent greater understanding of his own mortality, but there has been a big jump forward this year. All of a sudden, he is no longer a little boy. He is a young man. We have all been faced with some daunting emotional challenges in the past year and Matthew is no exception. But he has leaned on his faith and his family and has been able to withstand the adversities that have come. That’s a valuable skill to have gained. I’m hopeful that as life eventually returns to a more normal state that he’ll remember what he has learned and continue to allow all of us to support him. Matthew is the one of my children that I intuitively understand the least, so having him learn to trust us and talk to us makes a huge difference in our relationship. I’m grateful for his trust and hope our relationship will continue to grow as we all move forward as a family.