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!!!