Drawing Near Unto Sweets

I really like frosting and cake.  In that order.

I used to be a cookie girl.  But then a good friend gave me a book called "The Cake Mix Doctor," with hundreds of variations on cake mixes.  And so, naturally, Mark and I had a moral obligation to purchase the sequel, "The Cake Mix Doctor (Chocolate)."

And that is the day when unadulterated cake mix cakes died to me.  Don't be offended if I can't eat one that you might make.  It's not you.  It's me.  And the Cake Mix Doctor.

It is true that Mark and I used up a #10 can of chocolate pudding mix (dry) without ever making actual pudding.  Just by adding it by the 1/2-cupfuls to the dozens (hundreds?) of chocolate cake mixes we have doctored up.  (Please don't do the math....it's embarrassing.)

It is also true that we had to join a gym to offset our new hobby.

With those hundreds (times two) of cake ideas came dozens of recipes for frostings, ganaches, and glazes.

Yum.  Frostings....  Somewhere along the line, the frosting became more important than the cake to me.

Which is why, when The Sweet Tooth Fairy (cupcake) shop moved to Murray, my waistline died.  Also, my "eating out" budget.  

One of the best parts of the Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes was that they came with an approximate ratio of 1:1 cake to frosting.  GENIUS!

Lily's face is priceless

And then came a day that changed my life.  A friend told me that she had heard that if you go into The Sweet Tooth Fairy on a  Friday and say, "I love America's First Federal Credit Union," then the worker would give you a free cupcake..  And lo and behold, Fridays gained new importance for our family that far exceeded that of merely marking the start of the weekend. 

We may have turned into too-frequent visitors to The Sweet Tooth Fairy on Fridays.  In fact, maybe that's why they closed down the franchise closest to us.   Either that or my doctor called and told them they were giving me diabetes.

Well, fast forward a little while.  Today, in family scripture reading,  we were reading 2 Nephi 27:25 (compare Isaiah 29:13),

 "Forasmuch as this people draw near unto me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from me...."

I asked our kids what it meant to draw near unto the Lord with our lips, but have our hearts be far from Him.  

Eliza answered, and she started giving this long explanation that went something like this.

"You know that cupcake place—The Sweet Tooth Fairy—how we go there on Fridays?" (At this point in time I was thinking, Earth to Eliza!).  She continued, “And we say, ‘We love America First Bank’ but we actually have never even been there, but they give us a free cupcake for saying it?”

Yes, sometimes our children call us to repentance during family scripture time.

Hello from the Other Side: A Valentines Story

Why, hello blog.  How have you been?  I must have thought of you a thousand times.  

We've been busy for the last...um...few years.  But my kids have recently been enjoying reading about their preschool-aged exploits in your archives  And, quite frankly, I had forgotten what life was like with a bunch of preschoolers (yikes...reading this has been good birth control!).  So I realized that even though I don't necessarily want to make the time to write long and amazingly witty humor posts, I do still want to capture a few moments along the way.  So, hello again.  This is me (and Adele) wishing you a hello from the other side.  Let's see where this goes.

Valentines Day 2016

Of all my kids, only Eliza was explicitly required to bring in a Valentines box this year.  But Lily was the first one to get to work on hers.  She decided to use perler beads.  The first day, she made 5 letters before getting distracted.  Two days later, another two.  Four days later another two.  I feel like I haven't put the iron and parchment paper away for two weeks.  She was very proud of her box.  I am proud that I hid the pearler beads in a really good spot, so hopefully no one will ask to do a project with them for a long time while my therapist and I work through some things.

Eliza wanted a Harry Potter themed box.  (Not a big surprise.)  This one came together quickly. Which was good, because her Valentines did not.  

Eliza chose to write each classmate an acrostic poem.  You know, like this inspired one I just composed on the spot, with all my experience this past week of helping Eliza think of good adjectives:

Magnificent and practically perfect in every way

Outstanding at helping her kids with over-the-top projects

Modest, but also the best at Valentines projects

We discovered that sometimes it's hard to get good adjectives for a letter.  Like Y!  I dare you to try thinking of "Y" adjectives that don't have to do with yodeling.  And, for the record, Eliza was a champ about re-doing one Valentine, when I insisted that she couldn't leave "Yeasty" on as the final word in her classmate, Emily's, name.  (Darn the free online dictionary that suggested that "yeasty" meant "exuberant.")

In those cases, I recommend you ditch the adjectives, and just go for phrases.  Such as... 

May go crazy if anyone thinks of any more Valentine ideas

Obviously deserves a raise.  Or two.  

Might have already bought Dollar Tree valentines with suckers for 2017.  So there, children of mine.

Sage has always been a fan of the personalized Valentines.  (Remember her "You can't beat me" Valentine?)  This year, to ensure that we never needed to put the iron away, Sage made an individualized pearler bead creation specific to each child's personality in her class.  She made a Harry Potter lightning bolt, a frog, a skateboard, a basketball, and many, many more.

When Sage announced, the night before the big end-of-the-world-if-I-don't-win Valentines box competition, that she wanted to do a vending machine Valentines box, I wanted to cry.  But since she had spent so many hours creating personalized perler masterpieces (hey--that could be the title of her future etsy shop!), I took pity on her, and helped her with her Valentines box.  Okay, fine.  I made it all.  But that was so we could all go to bed by 1am instead of 4am.

At first, I covered a box in black paper and I positioned all the candy on top.  Then I crossed my fingers, and presented it to Sage.  Her delicate response was, "Um, Mom, that looks good, but I was kind of hoping the candy could be underneath some plastic or something."  Darn, darny darn.
So I pulled out the big guns and got to work.  (For the record, the big guns=10 more hot glue gun sticks for the box and sugar for me.)

Lookin' good.  Especially considering how sleep deficient we all were.

The only complaint about this box comes from Christian--who was desperate to have the contents of B3.  He was upset when he put his hand in the "drawer" that he couldn't reach up into the candy section to whisk away those orange tic tacs.  What do you think I am, Christian?  An actual engineer?  Nope!  Just a hot glue gun maestro.

Sage did win "Best of Show" for her box.  Which almost made it less painful that she had to leave school at 10am with a migraine.  Probably from lack of sleep.  Or maybe from excess perler bead activity.  Yeah, that's it.  I think we might need to ban perler beads from our house for...I don't know...a year or ten?  You can never be too careful with these kinds of things.  : )

Compliments from the heart

Eliza wrote me this little gem a few years ago.  

Jazzy 

Awesome

Nice

Excellent 

Love        

Marvels

Opra    (Opera? Oprah?)

Magnificent

Who doesn't love a good acrostic poem--with all their exciting adjectives and truly heartfelt compliments?

  

Day of the Dead

Get your Day of the Dead caricatures here!  By our very own up-and-coming 6-year-old artist.

Diamonds aren't the only best friends

My good friend, Julia, gave me a bunch of her high (and I mean HIGH) heeled shoes after her recent back injury.  The girls went CRAZY trying them on this morning.

Lily was delighted to add three inches to her height!

After this one shot, all the kids crowded to have their glamour shots taken.

4 kids, 7 high heels, 1 bathroom.  I can't wait until they are all teenagers.

Lily wanted to see if she could make her feet stay at the top and not slide down to the toes!

This girl is a natural poser.  Has she been reading fashion magazines on the side?

Even Christian had to get some shoe action.  Always on just one foot.  He seemed to prefer black.

Eliza decided an umbrella would be the perfect prop for this outfit.  I have to agree.

And suddenly the costumes were flying.

Anything goes-even a boot and an open-toed heel.

And now they are busy writing a fashion show/play.  The main characters: 3", 4", and 5" heels, of course.   Clearly diamonds aren't the only best friends a girl can have.  Thanks, Julia!!!

Look no further for good parenting

Christian cried an especially long time before going down for a nap one day.  I peeked in later to find this.  Oops.

He forgave me when I gave him free reign on the marshmallows later.  Because that's how good parents say "I'm sorry," right?

Fashion

I took this picture of Christian on Mother's Day.  He was tromping up and down the hallway, wearing one of my shoes and pushing a stroller.

I am always delighted when he puts on my shoes.  I don't know if it means he loves my sense of fashion, or that he wants to be like me.  But either way, I'm flattered, and I love this kid.

And, while we're speaking of dressing up, Lily's latest favorite look is to wear her swimsuit cover up, and that's all.  There is no event that she doesn't want to wear it to: as a substitute for PJs, a lovely dress to wear to the school/the store/churh, even a cover to a swimsuit (imagine that).  It has proven to be quite the multi-purpose frock in her mind.  I feel less enthusiastic about this than Christian wearing my shoes.

Notice the addition of biker gloves to the ensemble.  Classy.

Decorating by Lily

I just found this unposted Christmas blog in my archives.  Better late than never, right?

They say two's company, and three's a crowd.  But what about four Nutcrackers on one branch?

Decorating by Lily