Things I Want to Remember

I'm sitting here, this Saturday evening, watching my family have a snowball fight on the back porch. In the usual style of SLC, we've had a taste of spring, some warmth in the air to make us hungry for outings to the park and flopping on the grass, and now it's snowing. Pretty hard, actually, and my kids are loving it. Once again I've gotten behind in all the things I've wanted to post, and as I watched the kids and Troy spontaneously start a snowball fight with gleeful shouts I saw that one of those magical moments happening right before my eyes. It made me think that I could just sum up this week in a list of everything I wanted to remember.

Thing One: Week of Cakes.

I really love making cakes. Big tall beautiful towers covered in luscious frosting. Of course, my towers never fail to lean to one side. I'm still working towards perfection. And I had many chances to practice this week. On Monday we celebrated my mother-in-law's birthday with a massive yellow cake with traditional chocolate frosting. It was the most crooked of the whole week, I think, but it sure was tasty. (A quick note: Troy and the kids have now rolled together a snowball that is taller than Bitty. Bitty is wearing slippers. I'm expecting tears at any moment due to cold feet, but so far she's just screaming with delight.) Then on Tuesday was our big Relief Society Birthday Party - and of course I'm on the food committee. It was actually my idea to have a beautiful table just filled with cakes and thus it became my job to make the cakes. I only made three of the five, and they all turned out nicely. A three-tiered lemon just dripping with creamy glaze, a gooey coconut that soaked up the sour cream frosting for three days before being served, and a dark chocolate with a fluffy whipped cream layer in the middle, ganache on top, and capped with a heap of strawberries. That one went first. I was so happy with how they turned out, and I won't tell which two came very near to being total disasters that were saved at the last minute due to some serendipitous ingredients in my fridge. THEN on Wednesday Troy's coworker Steve had a birthday. We were invited to a surprise dinner for him and as I was talking to his wife on the phone I heard these words come out of my mouth: "Can I bring a cake?" Huh. Well, luckily I still had everything I needed for one more cake, and I must say it was also a tasty treat. And now I don't need to eat cake again for a year. Except I did one more time on Friday night, but that's another story. At least I didn't make that one.

Thing Two: I made a great hat for Stomper.

Of course, I couldn't get a very good picture of it because he was being so silly, but I was very happy with the hat. (Another quick note: the giant snowball is now a full three-ball-high snowman, taller than Troy, and has a carrot nose and craisin eyes and mouth. I'm very impressed and enjoying my family's spontaneity, not that I'm taking part in it.) Anyway, here's the hat:



Knitting is becoming my happy place. That is, it's my happy place when it's not my frustrated, throw a huge tantrum, fling myself on the floor and cry place.

Thing Three: Bitty loves Shoes

Bitty got a box of dress-ups for Christmas that contains one pair of shoes. Big pink plastic shoes with a hideous flower on them, and she loves them. Well, now that she's starting to have play dates it's become abundantly clear that we need more than one pair. My sweet friend Elaine had an extra dollar-store pair at home and brought them over. They're almost worse than the first ones - pink fake snake skin. Gorgeous. Bitty was so thrilled that of course she wore them for the rest of the day, and even fell asleep with one cradled in her arms. I myself have never found hard plastic objects to be especially cuddly, but hey, who am I to deny a two year old of anything that will help her go to sleep happily?


Well, we now have a huge snowman in the back yard, which I will take a picture of later. The snow adventure did indeed end in tears for Bitty who's feet finally got cold through her slip-on-slippers, but other than that I think the evening was a pleasant one.