Christmas delights

This is the delightful new bedspread Amberlee sewed for me for my birthday. It makes me so happy, almost giddy, every time I walk in the room and get a shot of all those bright colors! It's exactly the picker-upper I crave in the middle of winter.

These are the Thomas Keller gougeres we made for Christmas dinner (from Bouchon, I think). Wow! Another deluxe delight this Christmas!! I have to say though, that I like the Tartine gougeres a LOT too, and the Tartine variety are so beautiful. I'd like to make them both the same day next time so I can compare them, especially the flavors, more fairly. It's been too long since we made the Tartine gougeres, so it's hard for me to be sure of which ones taste better. Josh thinks the Thomas Keller version tastes better while the Tartine version looks better.
And here I am eating a chocolate pot de creme (recipe courtesy of Cook's Illustrated) at the Christmas Eve party. The chocolate was topped with whipped cream then garnished with crushed peppermint candy and a peppermint meringue cookie. Make sure to serve these when the chocolate creme is at room temperature. They taste much better (smoother, creamier, lighter, yet still very rich) than when they're cold (too rich and overwhelming...you can only eat one or two bites when they're chilled).
Seems like I forgot to take pictures of the rest of our Christmas festivities. Oops. I was too busy making the festivities happen to also make some pictures happen. At least Josh remembered the camera on Christmas morning. The videos he took are the best. See the videos of the kids on Christmas morning.

Halloween Highlights

A ghost.
A seal.
This boy LOVES to cook! "Sawt, sawt," he says as he grabs the nearest thing he can find and shakes it over whatever he's cooking.

This girl LOVES to hug, squeeze, kiss, chase, tickle, and boss her brother.
This boy busted his chin open on the wooden stairs at the French House at the tail end of a family Halloween party. A few days later he busted it open again on the metal trim of the bench in the dressing room at Old Navy. The day after that he busted it open again when he tripped and smacked it into the carpeted stair between the kitchen and tv area. We used super glue to repair it each time, but after so many repeats the final result left a solid line of scar tissue in the middle of the healed wound. Oh well, at least it's on the underside of the chin, and not very visible. Poor little guy—that was a tough week.

Easter Blues

Don't let the title of the post mislead you. Easter was as pleasant a day as could be, with the bluest of blue skies and perfect temperatures. Blue is a calming color, and the brilliant sky helped invoke the peacefulness that the Resurrection and Atonement of Christ bring to our lives.

Following is a whole slew of photos from the day.

Hunting for eggs and baskets from the Easter Bunny.

Jennifer made a piñata.

The piñata stick cracked!

And the winners for best photos of the day:

Preparing for Easters

We dyed eggs at the 'rents place. I think Mavis and Annie (not even pictured here) dyed the most eggs — close to 2 dozen each. Izak is on his mission, and his friend, Jana, who is a girl (not officially the girlfriend, although they do write to each other every single week!) comes over every now and then to hang out. Jana and her sister Kate showed up when we were dyeing eggs. That was fun for us. It was also especially nice that Jana and Lexy watched the kids for us afterward so we (me and the sibs and spouses and 'rents) could all go to Shoga for dinner. I've only been once, but I was pretty impressed with Shoga, the new Japanese restaurant next door to Outback in Orem (kitty corner from the University Mall ... just South and West of it). Real Fresh! And flavorful. I'm excited to go back. Also, I finally made it to red mango and it was real fresh too. Great flavor! I had the regular flavor yogurt with strawberries and mango. It was exceptional!

Lastly, and more importantly, in the week leading up to Easter I ended up talking with Mavis about the meaning of Easter. We talked about Jesus' death (we didn't go into much detail yet) and His resurrection. Also, several weeks ago we visited Grandma Irons again, Janet's mom, who is quite old now, and close to death. She has soft, bony hands; thin, matted, grey hair; hunched over body; can't hear much, etc. It scared Mavis a bit, although she was a good sport and gave out hugs, danced for Grandma, and let Great-grandma hold her hand. So out of the blue, on multiple occasions, Mavis angrily told me, "I don't want to die!!" "I'm not going to get old!" "I don't like Heavenly Father's plan!" And then, when she was in trouble the other day she yelled at me "You just want me to die!" It seems that my attempts to teach her about Easter and resurrection, and our visits to Grandma have combined to cause her quite a bit of inner turmoil. She was so sad that it made me feel sad too, although I have to admit that deep down I also wanted to chuckle a bit at how sensitive and thoughtful she is. I was thinking about this in church the other day and realizing that the reason I don't suffer from the same fear is because I have felt the comforting spirit of the Holy Ghost confirming to me that there is life after death, and that there is a Savior, which is Jesus. I hope to be able to help Mavis find her answers and feel the same peace in her heart.

Workout Barbie

Okay, just one more Halloween costume. This one was really a winner. She gets an "A" for style, for craftsmanship, for concept. She even has an accessory jump rope attached to the inside of the packaging. What a babe! The box is a delicious pms 218c.

Halloween Dance at the Caldees' place

Witches fingers (breadsticks with almond fingernails . . . I stole this creepy idea from the fun party we went to last week).Winners: "The Best Tights Couple"
We were delighted that Sarah Palin joined our party.
The Asian crew wearing real kimonos, Thai shirts, authentic fisherman pants and special hats (including an upturned rice steamer basket hat).
Josh's delicious clam chowder.
Ursula, the bad sea witch from "The Little Mermaid". Appropriate costume for Granna Leslie considering Mavis dressed as Ariel.
Grandma Helen grew some extra legs too!
Becky's cute ghosties.
Tall & tasty breadsticks. Josh also made two trays of the best focaccia.
More witches fingers. Jennifer crafted these from carrots. Creepy.