Fried Carrot Cake

This is Dale. I hijacked Cheryl's blog to say that I bet you didn't have fried carrot cake for breakfast this morning. I think this is why we did:

Cheryl has put the kibosh on new food purchases until we use up some stuff that has been long lurking in our kitchen. This morning she targeted the unfrosted carrot cake in the freezer. And since carrot cake, that has been frozen then thawed, is kind of gucky on the outside she came up with the idea of frying it to not only dry the outside a little, but to also make it warm. She chopped it into chunks too. That made it seem more breakfasty - like scrambled eggs. The finishing touch was the bright, pink buttercream frosting that we spread once the cake came out of the pan. Isn't Cheryl great?

What did your family have for breakfast?

History Fair Liberation Day

It came! Today is the day Daniel handed in his history fair project at school. As many of you know, the last couple of months have been a bit draining on our family as we all worked to help Daniel through this project. He had to choose a topic that fit with the theme "Conflict and Compromise" in history. Then he had to find 25 resources (that's a lot, I might add), research those resources, and prepare a project. The project could be a research paper, a display board, a documentary, a dramatic presentation, or even a website. Daniel chose to follow in his father's footsteps and do a website. The act of reading material and writing down on a card what he'd read was torturous, but once he got to the website part where he got to be creative and just tell in his own words what he'd learned, he really flew.

I'd like to use this blog like an Oscar speech to express me gratitude to all of you who helped so much. Thanks to the Hatches for letting us use the privilege of their friendship to check out books from BYU -- that was invaluable! Thanks to Heather Willoughby for living in Korea and knowing a lot about Korean history. Thanks to my sisters especially for listening to me whine. Thanks to Dale for finishing the last 12 hours of work, when Daniel and I had hit our limit of togetherness. Thanks to Daniel for hanging in there and for making me smile with the way he writes.

And so, in case you want to learn a little something you probably didn't know before now (it's still not Medieval Persian Poetry, but it is fascinating Asian history), feel free to check out his site. www.myongnyangmarvel.googlepages.com

And feel free to use History Fair Liberation Day as a reason to celebrate with us!!!

Poetry

So recently, my cute niece Heather Sullivan wrote on her blog about some Medieval Persian Poetry she'd been reading and wrote of how it inspired her. At our house, we have a library book titled "Tap Dancing on the Roof" which is a collection of fun poems written in the style of Sijo or Korean poetry. I read this one and it made me smile. Heather it's not that deep, but it's still poetry!

Summer Storm

Lightning jerks the sky awake to take her photograph, flash!!
Which draws grumbling complaints or even crashing tantrums from thunder--
He hates having his picture taken, so he always gets there late.

I'm back...but did I ever really leave???

I'm grateful to know that a few of my friends have actually questioned by lack of posts lately. That makes me feel good to know someone is still looking out here. Somehow during the last month or so, there was a dark hole that essentially sucked me up and only recently set me down again. It would be difficult for me and boring for you to read the details of the last month, but some highlights might be nice.

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas....

• Our annual gingerbread house (done by our little family) was a replica of Noah's. It's tough to say if the real skating rink at the real Noah's or our candy rink was harder to build. But I can say for sure that homemade hard candy burns easily and the colored lines on candy canes can be washed off so the white part can be melted!
• I had a very nice brunch with my sisters. It's become a bit of tradition that I really look forward to. It's good to have sisters.
• We saw "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley on a cold, snowy night. It was awesome. The theater was beautiful, the acting well done, and the music extraordinary. Charles Dickens was a genius who wrote of some amazing life truths. I loved it and it truly put me in the Christmas spirit.
• We traveled to Mt. Home, Idaho, to see my cousin Mike and his family along with my Aunt Mary. It was great. Good food, good company, and two good-sized dogs for Cheyenne to maul and love.
  
• We enjoyed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Dale's Mom and her friend.
• My Christmas highlight was laying in bed at 6:45 a.m., hearing Cheyenne's feet run down the hall to the family room then turn around and run back just before she threw open our bedroom door yelling "WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!" It made my Christmas!
  
• WE GOT A Wii!!!! (I had to write it in CAPS for the sake of my children, who, even in January, think we are the greatest parents ever!)
• We took the Wii to Noah's to play on the 100" screen. That was awesome -- you really should do it sometime!
• Better than the fact that we got a Wii, is the fact that our kids were completely satisfied with all they had and were happy and grateful before we brought it out and informed them there was one more package. Their gratitude was priceless!

After Christmas.....

• I made another wedding cake. This one was for a friend of the family. It had a party theme to match the party-themed decor including a number of giant pink balloons. My two favorite things about it were 1) that when you cut it open, the layers were pink and dark chocolate to match the pink/black decor, and 2) I tried a new recipe for a strawberry cream filling that was fabulous!! It was like having strawberry ice cream in every bite!
• We had a one-day Wilde Family Reunion with all of Wendy's family (including son Chris who lives in New York), us, and LuDean. It was great fun. If you've never played Wallyball, I highly recommend it.
• We've spent hours and hours working on Daniel's history fair project. He's making a website so when it's done I'll be advertising on this site.
• I've cooked, cleaned, volunteered at the school, driven, watched lessons, tutored algebra, visited friends, attempted to save the world and my children, read for the book club, taught Sunday School, helped in the nursery, proofread some papers, exercised, paid the bills, and basically carried on my everyday-average-homemaker-kind of life (and I know there are a whole bunch of you out there who know exactly what I mean!!!)

Now I'm back and wishing you all a happy, joyous, prosperous, adventurous, funny, marvelous 2008!!!

Do we live in Hawaii, or what?

Last Saturday I got one of those burrs in my bonnet that made me want to clean out a drawer or two. I took out everything from the silverware drawer so I could wash the plastic container and clean out the drawer. In the back I found a rock that was 3"-4" in diameter. The whole family was in the kitchen so I asked what I thought was a rhetorical question, "Does anyone know why there's a rock in the silverware drawer?" To my surprise, Dale piped up, "Yeah, that's the rock I use for breaking open coconuts!"

I have two thoughts: It's been years since we last bought a fresh coconut, but apparently we're prepared! It's better than the method he tried to use the time he put the coconut on one of my nice stoneware plates then brought out a hammer.

Coconut, anyone??

An Annual Christmas Miracle

Today was Day One of the public viewing of the annual Festival of Trees for Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. I've attended multiple times in the past, but I've never been more involved than this year. What an amazing event!

Several months ago, my sisters suggested doing a tree to donate to the event in honor of my niece Heather's sweet conjoined daughters who passed away shortly after birth earlier this year. And so it began. We met to decide what to do (thank goodness they have good ideas and thank goodness for Jessica who can improve on those ideas). We chose a pink tree for the girls. We met to go shopping for the supplies. We found beautiful white and clear ornaments. We met to actually decorate the tree (it takes a long time to put ornaments on then wire each item to the tree!) Cathy and Colleen met to take it to the exhibit hall. We were discovering what a time and money-consuming process this act of love could be. None of those meetings included Jessica's time shopping for the tree or Heather's time making the beautiful quilt to give. Then today we met to go and act as Hostesses at the festival itself. There we stood for four hours, guarding our little section of the room to make sure no wayward children crossed the roped-off barrier or that no mean-spirited soul made off with any thing of value. Mostly we just got to chat with each other and an occasional passerby who was looking at the trees.


In the course of those four hours, I had a lot of time to stand and think about what we were a part of. I'm including a picture in here looking toward one half of the hall. There was another equal half the other direction. There I was in the midst of a miracle happening all around me. For weeks and months now, hundreds of other little groups did what we did with our little tree, then it all came together. Hundreds of trees were decorated and donated as gifts of love. Hundreds of people showed up last night and paid extraordinary prices for those trees so the money could "go to the kids" at the hospital. Hundreds of volunteers like us stood there today and will do it again tomorrow and the next day. Hundreds more will wrap those trees up and deliver them to their purchasers this weekend. There were crafts and treats and performers. There are untold numbers of people and untold dollars being given purely out of love and kindness. I've heard that this event raised between 1.5 and 2 million dollars last year. Wow! That's a pretty great way to start the Christmas season. I think I'll do it again next year!

Cornucopia of Gratitude

Now that Thanksgiving has passed and November is nearly over, I want to share our family's cornucopia of gratitude. I'm sure it will not surprise any of you, but this is Daniel's creation, set out for our family to recognize our blessings. He created the cornucopia, posted it on the door to the sunroom, and made tons of small fruits, vegetables, etc. to fill it. Each night at dinner we would write something for which we are thankful. What a great reminder. I know it made me particularly thankful for Daniel and the rest of our family, for our countless blessings, and for simple things that often slip our minds. If you want some real insight into us, you'll enjoy such entries as 'rainbow sandals, honey butter, our big red ball, and French bread.' Whether it's real or in your head, may you each enjoy a full cornucopia of gratitude this season!