Book Review

Just Another Evening

August 15, 2012 by LoraLynn

Don’t forget to enter the MASSIVE back-to-school giveaway!

We had planned an easy supper for tonight so that we could take the kids to the pool. But there was some sort of algae problem (or “allergy” problem, as Ellen calls it) and we decided to stay home. At the last minute we thought to throw together one of our Jamie Oliver “Meals in Minutes.”

Our choice was the “Cheat’s Pizza.”

I whipped up a quick dough in the food processor while the oven heated up to a broil and the cast iron skillet got hot on the stove. Andrew made a fresh pizza sauce with tomatoes and basil from our garden. Then we transferred the dough into the skillet, threw on some toppings, and tossed the whole thing into the oven for four minutes.

Sounds easy, right?

And it was.

Sort of.

The baby was jumping in his johnny-jump-up and whining. Adam was sweetly but LOUDLY blowing raspberries and squealing at him to try and keep him happy. Willa and Mira ran through the kitchen seemingly every time we were handling a hot skillet. The house filled with smoke with our first attempt at putting the dough in the pan. Someone decided it was time to practice piano at that exact moment. And everyone else was making as much inane noise and chatter as they possibly could.

I told Andrew that at one point, I felt certain I could hear calliope music playing in the background.

Somehow, we managed to get two of This on the table.

And it was DELICIOUS. The crust was crispy on the bottom and soft in the middle. And the pizza sauce and fresh mozzarella? YUM.

Silence reined around the table for, oh, I’d say a whole fifteen seconds!

After the pizza, we served everybody dessert. Some sort of mascarpone, cherry concoction. Also decidedly YUM.

Of course, I looked down and realized I was covered in flour. Isn’t every good chef?

(Please excuse my doughy jazz hands. Apparently I thought I was in a kitchen show choir.)

The evening was made perfect by our rousing family rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner before we left the table. The kids are learning the words this week as part of school and we needed to practice. We were about halfway through our mangled version before I realized the windows were still open to let the smoke out.

Neighbors: You are welcome.

It was just the sort of random, messy, LOUD (but fun) sort of evening that I love. Unplanned, off-key, and Magically Delicious…

*********

And because you all need a little more Finn in your lives:

You’re welcome.

Filed Under: Book Review, Family Stories, Food, Homeschooling
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Now Go Read This

March 21, 2012 by LoraLynn

I don't know when I will be able to stop posting random baby sweetness. I can't help myself.

Now that I’m a milk factory, on call around the clock, I spend a lot of time clutching my iPhone, reading books on the tiny screen or studying my Bible app while nursing Finn. (Total random aside: if you’re not using the Fighter Verse App yet for Scripture memory, you should be. You can make your weekly verse your lock screen, you can listen to the verse in song, and you can quiz yourself with various fill-in-the-blank and typing games. Highly recommend!)

There’s some new reading material in the universe that is very near and dear to my heart. I thought I’d share:

First, have you heard of the Mother Letters? A few years ago, a husband asked for women to submit letters about motherhood and he gave them to his wife for Christmas. Some of those letters are being published this spring in book form. The letter I wrote in a postpartum haze after Willa was born is one of them.

I’m thrilled to be part of this project and cannot wait to get my hands on it, because I’d dearly love to know what I wrote. I can’t remember a blessed word. Honestly. And this version of Postpartum Me would very much like to hear from Previous Postpartum Me. The list of contributors is full of incredible women and you will definitely want to get a copy. I’m humbled to be in the presence of such wisdom.

Also, if you’re into Instagram, there’s a Mother Letters photo contest going on right now. It’s easy to join in (just tag your pictures with #motherletters) and I’ve enjoyed focusing on my day through the eyes of motherhood. Come play before the contest ends this week.

Second, my little brother wrote a book. I did a bit of editing for him a few weeks ago and I’m ridiculously proud of him. His book is about gardening and farming, so if dirt is your thing, this is your book. I love his heart and his passion for his subject and I think he turned out a fine project. This is the point in the paragraph where I’d like to remind you all that I changed his diapers and remember him lugging around a satin nightgown and sucking his thumb, but I will show restraint.

And finally, if you write down stories about your children, on the internet or just on paper, make sure you publish them in book form at some time or another. We try to publish a year’s worth of blog posts using Blurb. My boys have discovered these books chronicling their early years and spend hours reading them aloud to each other and giggling.

They find themselves hilarious.

That set of lanky legs is attached to a head that is buried in a book about the Vitafam in 2007. I’m so glad I have those stories, because I don’t remember a single one of them.

My pediatrician told me yesterday that prolactin affects women’s memory. So it would make sense that anything that happened to me in the last eight years is a little fuzzy, I’ve pretty much been pregnant or nursing the whole time. Some day, my children will ask me why I can’t remember things and I’ll hand them these blog books and say, “It’s all covered up in milk, honey. Now go read this.”

My boss is giving me his “serious eyes,” which means I’ve got to hit publish and go. He’s a task-master, this boss of mine.

Now go read these books…

Filed Under: Book Review, Mothering Thoughts
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All About Reading Level Pre-1: A Vitafam Review

September 6, 2011 by LoraLynn

Many moons ago, the lovely people at All About Learning Press were giving away free samples of their new pre-reading program. I downloaded it because I liked their spelling and reading program.

The samples contained about two weeks’ worth of lessons. Ellen thought they were fantastic. She begged to do them every day. She even went through the lessons twice.

I showed them to a friend with older children and asked her opinion. Her response was, “You don’t need a book to tell you to clap the syllables of words. You know how to do that.”

I retorted, “Yes, but my brain is too addled to think of it right now. The trouble is I don’t REMEMBER to teach the little people the alphabet.”

So I wrote the nice people at All About Spelling and told them Ellen was interested in being a guinea pig for their new pre-reading program. They sent us a big box of goodies to review. And Ellen’s verdict is: “It’s Good. It makes me happy. I’m learning my ABCD’s.”

And I feel exactly the same way.

The program centers around a puppet Zebra named Ziggy. Ziggy tends to get his words mixed up or need help counting syllables. Ellen gets to interact with Ziggy and keep him from getting confused. And there’s just something about a puppet that makes us giggle.

You could always make your own sock puppet if you wanted to save some pennies. You could, in theory, just show your child a picture of Ziggy and tell stories about him. But if you can pull off a puppet, definitely do it. Because puppets are COOL, y’all.

We read a silly little poem about our daily letter and then she tries to find her letter in the poem. They’re just little stories that seem kind of dumb, but she finds them funny, especially when Ziggy reads them to her. And she’s looking at the words hunting for letters, so there has to be something educational in that.

We use Ziggy to play our word games. Sometimes that involves using the box of pre-sorted cards they provide. There’s matching games and rhyming games. The concepts seem really basic, but since I’m using the upper levels of All About Spelling to teach my kids to read, I can see where these very basic concepts come in handy. Ellen is already leaps and bounds ahead of where Adam was at this stage because she understands how to break a word down into sounds and syllables.

I think that, just like Adam, she would have picked it up just fine later on down the road, but this extra boost isn’t doing her any harm. (Adam often sneaks into our preschool lesson, too, so I know he would have enjoyed this a year or two ago.)

The last aspect we do is a coloring page. On the back of the page, there’s a suggestion for some other activity to do to the picture to make it a little more “crafty.” I love that they’re very basic ideas that use STANDARD household objects. I don’t need to worry about whether or not I have fuzzy pipe cleaners or buttons on hand. The suggestions are things like toothpicks, aluminum foil, or a piece of construction paper.

That, I can handle.

And, of course, if I’m feeling lazy, I just let her color the page and be done with it. But I think having these simple craft ideas on hand means she does more crafty things than I did with the boys at this age.

Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of doing this is that I have a designated time to hang out with my Little People. Ellen loves the quality time. We’re never alone, of course. Willa, Adam, and Mira all feel entitled to participate. And Sam and Ian are never far behind. But my focus gets to be on Ellen and Willa for a few minutes when I’m not angling to just meet their needs. That’s pretty special stuff.

So, do you NEED to do this curriculum in order to succeed with All About Spelling or teaching your child to read? No. But is it great preparation? Absolutely.

It’s open and go, y’all. No printing, cutting, or thinking involved on my part. And there’s a PUPPET. What’s not to love?

*******

To show you how preschool looks in our house, I’m swallowing my pride and letting you in on one of our lessons. Now you know the truth about my dopey puppet voice and how many interruptions I field in a four minute time frame. Enjoy!

*All About Learning Press generously provided the materials for this review, but the opinions are absolutely, positively, entirely my own.

*Affiliate links included as of 1/8/12

Filed Under: Book Review, Homeschooling, Vitafam Tested (Reviews)
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Review of Give Them Grace, Part 2

June 30, 2011 by LoraLynn

Part 1 is here.

So, once Andrew and I had wallowed a bit and been truly sorry for where we had missed the boat with our kids, what were we supposed to do?

I was reading Give Them Grace when I wrote this post, where I figured out that my family wouldn’t look like the author’s family. Therefore, I didn’t have to sweat that my kids won’t listen to the author’s three-page monologue about Jesus and the cross when they hit their brother.

I was going to have to adapt the truths to fit OUR version of normal.

The changes we’re making aren’t so much in the management of our kids or in the consequences for their actions. Instead, the change is in how we talk to them. It’s less about what they did TO ME and more about what Jesus did FOR THEM.

Now, while Fitzpatrick would argue that her book should never be distilled down to a checklist that we can memorize and then tick off when our kids misbehave, there are some fairly common threads she weaves through her discussion of showing the gospel to our kids.

Begin with prayer. Ask God to help you have wisdom to see grace in a situation that seems to be nothing but a question of who put the Legos in the potty. In my house, I tend to just put everyone in front of me where I know they’re not going to do any more damage and then drop my head in my hands and beg for help. It’s not usually out loud, but the kids are learning and will say, “It’s okay, Mommy. We’ll be quiet while you pray.”
Call their disobedience what it is (SIN) and then try and show them that their sin is not unique to them.When the kids weren’t picking up their room as quickly or as diligently as I expected, I told them how that morning I had put off starting school so I could skype with my sisters. I eventually did what I needed to do, but I didn’t do it right away or cheerfully. It was a sin of omission or laziness, really.
Point out how Jesus did it right. In this same situation, I pointed out that God sent Jesus to earth to live a perfect life since we never would be able to and God wanted to save us. If Jesus had come to earth and been mostly good, would we have been able to be redeemed? The answer was no.
If ONLY CHRIST could obey perfectly, what are we to do? Ask for forgiveness, but then pray for grace from God to help us obey next time. We can’t do it right. But we can talk to God and ask him to help us. And we can thank him for sending Jesus to be perfect for us.

This is seriously over-simplified, but it’s the general way I remember what I learned from the book. There’s a very helpful appendix in the back that gives examples of how to speak to common issues with kids based on where they are in mental and spiritual maturity.

I’d like to have it tattooed to my eyeballs.

There’s another issue the book brought up about praising our kids that has Andrew and I both standing around tongue-tied on occasion.

We train them to seek our approval, our adoration, when really we should always be pointing them to their Creator. And by teaching them to crave the approval of imperfect people, they are more likely to get frustrated and want to do the exact opposite of what we want them to do, even if that means turning from God.

As a kid who grew up a people-pleaser, living and dying by the look on my dad’s face, this hit home in a major way for me. But I love the author’s suggested response to a child who brings you a new drawing to admire: “I’m excited for you, son! Just look at the creativity that God has placed in you!”

It sounds a bit cheesy, I know, but I much prefer for my children to develop a keen awareness of the One who made them rather than to become prideful of their own abilities. I am in no way diminishing their accomplishment or the excitement I feel for them, but I am giving credit where credit is due.

And credit is always due to our Creator.

There’s a great discussion in chapter 4 about raising Prodigals or raising Pharisees. Katie at Living Devotionally has already distilled this down quite well, so if you’d like to hear more about it, I highly recommend this blog post.

But mostly, I just highly recommend the book. It has quite literally changed the way we think about parenting. It doesn’t mean we don’t still teach our children good manners or not to play in the potty. Instead, it teaches us not to place our faith in our methods, but to place our faith in God.

And that makes all the difference.

We haven’t got it figured out by any means. Most of the time, I have no idea how to handle the multitude of situations we come across every day. Which takes me back to that bit about “grace and throwing myself on the Sovereignty of God.”

And our children haven’t bowed down, kissed our feet, and totally dedicated themselves to God and a life of mission work. Matter of fact, most of the time, it’s all they can do to keep their little eyeballs from rolling right back in their sockets. But, every now and then, I’ll get just a teeny tiny glimmer of hope that they’re hearing us.

Like when Sam rushed up with a new drawing of a castle and dragon and said, “Look what God showed me how to draw!”

It’s a start, people. That’s all we can do is START, one baby step at a time. There aren’t any guarantees, other than if we ask for grace, God gives it.

And that’s a pretty fantastic guarantee to have, right?

p.s. I’ve mentioned The Jesus Storybook Bible before, but it’s a great place to begin to help you and your kids look at every Bible story and how they all point to CHRIST.

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Filed Under: Book Review, Faith, Mothering Thoughts, This Is How We Do It
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I Hear Voices and A Winner

January 5, 2011 by LoraLynn

Well. That was fun.

I have to tell you, it was very tempting to keep the comments open just a little bit longer so we could have enough to add up to 1000 “thankfuls.”

But that seemed a little OCD to me, and I am the anti-OCD.

It was such a treat to watch your lists roll in. At one point, when my inbox was exploding with comments, I sort of felt like I could hear all of the voices, whispering and swirling in thanks and praises to the heavens.

Or that may have been the kids wailing, I don’t know, I’ve been on a lot of medicine.

Either way, if you ever get a bit of writer’s block about your grateful lists, head on over to those comments and get inspired by all 798 thoughts of gratefulness. Seriously beautiful. Like a little hint of what heaven will be like some day. And what, really, our days should be like every day.

Andrew and I couldn’t just settle for one winner, so we let the Random Integer thingy pick TWO numbers. Our winners are:

Brittnie Wilbanks (who wins the book and the signed bookplate)

Melissa F. (who wins a copy of the book)

Emails are headed your way, ladies!

Hugs to all of the rest of you. You’ve made this week one big, beautiful internet hallelujah for me. And I’m grateful…

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One Thousand Gifts: A Review and Giveaway

January 3, 2011 by LoraLynn

To fully appreciate what I’m about to tell you, you need to know something about me: I’m a bookworm in temporary retirement. Sort of like the Brett Favre of Readers. (Did I just make a sports analogy? Hold me.)

I’ve loved reading since I could hold a book. But when I started holding my babies, books took a backseat. I don’t read parenting books, I’m too busy parenting. I don’t read cookbooks, I’m too busy pulling food out of my hair. I don’t read books about faith, I’m doing good to crack the Bible open. My brain is on Mommy overload 24/7. I don’t do deep thinking. I do occasionally make room for fiction, but because I’ve never learned any self-control when it comes to books, Andrew knows that I will be shutting down operations and will rejoin the family in six hours when I’ve blitzed through the book of choice.

Which means I rarely read fiction.

All of that to tell you: I read a book. A REAL book. Non-fiction. Deep thinking. Spiritual.

Crazy. I know.

I spent the holidays working my way through Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts. I’ve been reading her blog for years. Although, let’s be honest, I’m mentally fried 95% of the time, so sometimes I get a little lost and only half understand what Ann is saying. Because she writes beautifully, but she’s Cerebral. I am not currently in a cerebral state of mind.

But her book? I had to give it a try. For one thing, despite her cerebrality (it’s a word, maybe), I adore her. I met her once briefly and she really does radiate with the sort of peace and beauty you would suspect from reading her blog. But more than that, if a homeschooling mother of six writes a book, I owe it to her to read it. Because she’s living my life, five years ahead of me.

And that’s what kept me coming back for more, all through the busy holidays. Ann writes in the same beautiful language she uses in her blog to talk about the practice of gratitude. But beyond that, she talks about how she, a busy mama of six (just like me!), ACHIEVES gratitude in the face of reality. And our reality is very similar. Although I suspect mine has more poop.

What I’m saying is, it’s one thing to read a book by someone who says, “Practice writing down things to be grateful for so that you can see God and Grace in all things.”

It’s another thing for somebody to tell me how they squeeze that writing down part in amidst all the dishes, school books, sweeping, frustration, and chaos that a life like mine involves. Ann writes about beauty… in the middle of all the nitty-gritty. And suddenly, her blog all makes much more sense to me.

Even more so, this book got to me because Ann touches on the dark underbelly that I think all of us wrestle with: fear. We fear the Bad Stuff in life, the loss of loved ones, grief, terror, the things that don’t make sense, the things that are hard to be grateful for.

I know I’m not the only mama who lies awake at night, re-living all of the near misses her children had with death that day and replaying them over and over in my mind, willing myself to let it go and be grateful they’re alive but still trying to talk myself into being okay if ever one day my kids are not okay, don’t survive the fall, don’t stop at the sidewalk, don’t pull their hand away from the fire…

We all go to the bad place. We all fear the bad place. We all wring our hands over the going to the bad place.

But Ann, in her graceful, gentle way, names that fear what it really is: Practical Atheism.

Ouch. Either God is or He isn’t.

He is. I know it. But I don’t act like I know it.

This isn’t intended to be a book report, but you need to believe me when I tell you that the journey this book takes you on is Good. It’s important. It’s uncomfortable, but Ann is so real, so honest about the struggles and foibles of practicing gratitude, that she makes it seem POSSIBLE. I cried at some point during every.single.chapter. (I don’t cry when I read, people. Ever. And that’s not just because I never read.)

So, I have very quietly and sporadically started my own list of “thankfuls.” I’ve not set any limits, any goals, I’ve just started a list of things I’m grateful for. We’ll see where it goes from there.

I read this book on the Kindle, but when the hardcopy comes out this month, you can bet I’ll be ordering a copy I can underline and loan out.

I was thinking maybe one of you might be interested in having a copy for yourself. So I offer you this: leave me a comment telling me, not one, but THREE things you are grateful for. I’ll randomly pick one of you to receive your own copy of this book. And just think, you’ll already have items #1, 2, and 3 on your Gratitude List!

Edited to Add: Ann has graciously offered to send a signed bookplate and bookmark to the winner. She’s “good people,” y’all.

I can’t wait to hear some thanksgiving shout-outs from all of you. I’ll get you started with my three most recent “gratefuls:”

sunbeams on the couch
a tin of lip balm
dinner out for Mexican food with the (slightly better) children

Tell me yours???

p.s. There are no affiliate links, no free books, and no under-the-table sponsor hanky-panky going on. My opinions are my own and I wanted to share with you. That is all. Nobody call the Internet Police.

Filed Under: Book Review, Faith
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Stuff You Should Know

October 1, 2010 by LoraLynn

A migraine kicked my tail yesterday. Fortunately, we’ve all learned how to cope with these events, so Andrew wasn’t surprised last night when he walked in the door and the kids were parked in front of the TV and I was buried in my bed. Somehow I had managed to text him something about “must sever head from body ASAP” so he arrived bearing supplies for smoothies for dinner.

I believe he parked his white steed out by the side of the house before he entered.

Anyway, I thought I’d give you a few random things I keep meaning to tell you…

1. I’ve mentioned our love for the Jesus Storybook Bible. The kids wore out our first copy so I used some Amazon points and bought them the Deluxe Edition, complete with the Audio version. I popped it into the van yesterday and we all enjoyed the sounds of some British actor telling the Gospel for all he was worth. And, of course, I cried. It’s magical. You must get this. Seriously.

2. I went to visit a friend recently and she told me about a children’s book author I had never heard of, Rachel Isadora. Her books were illustrated with pictures of babies from all around the world, something that we are wanting to include in our home. I checked out a bunch of her books from the library and our absolute favorite is What A Family. It’s all about the convoluted family tree and genetic traits that get passed around. My kids love comparing their ear lobes, second toe lengths, and “thumb bends” (double jointedness). Plus, the ending makes all of us laugh. Heartily recommend.

3. Many of you probably already read my friend Kristen’s blog We Are That Family. But in case you don’t, Kristen and her family recently started a new ministry to provide care for pregnant girls living in the streets of Kenya. They have an etsy shop to raise support and I used some birthday money to get myself a “my heart is in Africa” necklace. They’ve gotten lots of neat donations to their shop, so there’s something for everyone and it’s such a worthwhile cause. Go check it out.

Most importantly… If you’re in the Huntsville, AL area, we’ll be selling HopeSuds at the Madison Street Festival this Saturday. Hope to see you there!

Filed Under: Book Review, Family Stories, HopeSuds
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How This Mother of Five Makes Healthy Bread Without Losing Her Mind

March 8, 2010 by LoraLynn

Let’s talk about BREAD, shall we? I’ve discussed the benefits of whole wheat, I’ve shown you how I make lots of loaves of bread at one time, now let’s talk about the current reality that is my life: I don’t have time for bread-making. I have all the tools to do it in big batches, what I don’t have is all the time. It really would only take me about four or five hours. But in Kid Time, that translates to 8 hours. You can imagine why.

And the problem is, bread-making isn’t really flexible. You can only let it rise so much, add so much flour, walk away from it for so long, before you have Mt. Saint Dough-saster on your hands and you’ve got to start all over.

This means that I’ve been secretly buying ONE loaf of whole wheat bread and rationing it out over a two week time frame. I hated that I was spending money on bread when I had everything I needed to make my own. I hated that I knew the store stuff wasn’t as good for us. And I hated that I couldn’t seem to make the time to make bread.

Then Megan at SortaCrunchy did a review of a book called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes A Day. I was intrigued. I tried the recipe I found online. And then I dug in and did some real research and experimentation. And I am a believer.

The authors of the book devised recipes that don’t require kneading. You mix the flour, the water, the gluten, the yeast, and the salt in a big bucket with a lid. You let it rise, you throw it in the fridge. When you want to make bread, you pull out a handful of dough, shape it into a loaf, let it rise once more, bake it, and voila – BREAD. Head over here to watch videos and preview recipes.

Before I sounded off to all of you, though, I wanted to give the recipes a thorough test. I wanted to prove that this method really was more efficient and just as healthy. So I took my time working through the book. I had a friend (we shall call her The Bread Whisperer) test things with me.

Here’s what I love:

- We always have bread. I can get up in the morning, grab a hunk of dough, and set it out to rise. (Usually I take two pounds and stuff it in a loaf pan so I will end up with a traditional looking loaf. The book suggests artisan bread done on a baking stone. Which is pretty, but not really practical for my gang.) I throw it in to bake just before lunch and we can have hot bread and butter with honey every day of the week. I look like super mom and I spent a total of five minutes on it. Plus, the house smells fantastic.

- The dough will sit and wait for me. When we all got sick last week, nobody ate anything for days. When I came back to my dough, it had fermented a little, but that just meant we had sour dough bread for a week! I don’t even have to wash the bucket in between batches, I can just leave a bit of dough in there and I’ve basically made a starter for sour dough. (Obviously, if your dough sprouts something green or another groovy color of the rainbow, throw it out. But it should last for up to 15 days.)

- If I forget to set a loaf out to rise in the morning, I can have hot pitas out of the oven in half an hour. I kid you not. Today I started my pitas at 11:30 and by noon, my gang was making sandwiches with these puffy little beauties. It makes me happy.

- I’ve got instant gifts to take to neighbors in need. Make a pretty loaf and nobody minds that it’s actually good for them. Right?

Here’s what I learned:

- If you buy nothing else to start making your own bread, buy a good kitchen scale. Even if you’re going to use nothing but white flour, buy a kitchen scale. It will be the difference between dense blah loaves and happy perky loaves. It becomes even more important if you’re going to use even just some fresh ground flour. Fresh ground wheat flour measures completely different from white flour. Even the author of the book has noticed the difference and has suggested that scales be used when using fresh ground flour. The nice thing is, the book provides all the conversions, so you know how much your flour should weigh.

Now I have a system for weighing everything in one bucket without having to dirty multiple dishes. I dump it in the bucket on the scale, mix, and jam it in my fridge. The difference in rise, in texture, in everything, is obvious.

- The recipes all call for vital wheat gluten. It’s not that hard to find, people. Order some online if you need to. Don’t fight it. Just add it.

- The authors of the book originally wrote Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. They took those recipes, added some whole wheat flour, cut the fat, and called it “Healthy Bread.” Here’s my issue with that: I don’t think removing fat makes something healthy. I think it makes it bland. I’m one of those healthy eaters who likes my healthy fats. I think good quality eggs, good quality butter, and cold-pressed coconut oil make the world go round. So if you’re going to try the brioche or some of the other recipes that call for eggs or butter, grab a copy of “Artisan Bread” and convert that recipe to whole wheat. Do NOT bother with the brioche recipe in “Healthy Bread.” It may be healthy, but it’s not brioche. Add another stick of butter and you’ll come closer to having brioche. I kid you not, my chef friend took one sniff of my brioche dough and said, “Add another stick or two of butter. At least.”

I never argue with a chef. They have really sharp knives.

As the Bread Whisperer, my chef friend, and I perfect making these recipes wheaty yet tasty, I’ll share our modifications with you. For now, if you’ve ever thought about making your own bread or grinding your own flour, I suggest you start with the methods in this book. Buy a grinder. Buy some wheat. Then don’t sweat learning all about kneading and the “window pane test.” Get you a bucket and make some bread. The point is not whether you know how to knead, the point is that you always have healthy bread on hand.

I think at this juncture, a video of how to measure things out quickly would be appropriate. I’ll try and put something together for you in a day or two. In the meantime, my apologies for all the verbage. It’s like Pandora’s Bread Box in my head. You people should never have gotten me started…

Filed Under: Book Review, Food, Random, Vitafam Tested (Reviews)
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Coyote Cake: It’s What’s For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner For The Next Three Weeks

August 9, 2009 by LoraLynn

Warning: The following post is a merciless assault on your eyeballs with pictures of my kids enjoying more sugar in three days than they eat in a year. Please focus on the joy (and icing) on their faces and try not to hate me for wanting to record it for all posterity.

I spent last week with two purposes: 1) keep my little brood alive and well and 2) bake a birthday cake for Adam. His request? A Road Runner and Coyote cake. This posed a bit of a challenge. Have you ever noticed how skinny the limbs of those cartoons are? No? Well, then you probably haven’t spent two days staring at Google images of them, wondering how to translate those characters to cake. I pondered trying to make a 3D version of the Road Runner, but the look Andrew gave me when I mentioned him making a “form” for me to cover in fondant told me I was probably crossing the line. Besides, I wanted the creation to still be cake. And edible.

I hit upon my solution when I happened to grab a book by this author at the library. In The Whimsical Bakehouse, she discussed her “chocolate method,” which is just melted chocolate, piping it into forms, letting it harden and then placing them on a cake. It tastes better than fondant and has endless possibilities.

Did somebody say chocolate?

Suddenly, I had a plan.

Day one of cake-making, I asked our favorite baby-sitter Miss R. to come hang around. She brought a friend and I quickly realized that I needed every set of hands they could offer. Miss R. and Miss K. melted chocolate, broke up squabbles among the children, and handled potty duty with Ellen so that I could focus on the piping. I printed out pictures of the coyote and road runner and placed them under the parchment paper. Then I traced an outline onto the parchment with dark chocolate. Later, I filled the outline in with colored chocolate.

We let it harden. (I turned the air down to keep the temperature cool for the chocolate and the kids whined all day about “freezing.” Poor little spoiled babies.) Once the figures were hard, I flipped them over and we had a more defined picture. Ta-da!

I did two of each character, which worked out well since my second batch was much better than my first. And they all broke into pieces. I stored them carefully in a safe spot in my bedroom (about the only safe spot in the house) and left the air cooler all week to keep them from melting. I’ve been slowly eking the temperature back up so we won’t all be whining about the heat in a day or two.

After I was done piping, I had the idea to let the kids play with the rest of the chocolate. I spread parchment paper on the table and handed them each a piping bag. It wasn’t, perhaps, my best idea.

Or my neatest idea.

But because I had lots of help, my head didn’t explode and the kids had a blast inhaling as much sugar as their little fingers could stuff in their mouths. I’m a little surprised one of them didn’t just hold the piping bag over their heads and squeeze.

Eventually Adam emptied his piping bag and just stuck both hands in the chocolate and smeared it. Tactile Boy was in hog heaven. They all were.

Day Two we made the actual cake. I used Smitten Kitchen’s recipe and I doubled it. I was worried about having enough for all our guests at the party, so I bought two 12 inch round pans. This turned out to be a lot of cake batter. The kids didn’t mind.

The batter tasted wonderful. I’ll be honest, the cake once baked was just okay. Nice and fluffy, but it was just… yellow cake. And a lot of it.

See how big those pans were? When stacked, that cake was twice the size of my head (Not counting my hair, of course.)

Day Three, Adam’s actual birthday, was icing day. He woke up and asked to ice his cake. He was so excited to lick the beaters. Unfortunately, the recipe I chose for the icing didn’t call for beaters. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be allowed to lick icing. I melted all the chocolate (again, I doubled the recipe, so it was a LOT of chocolate) and then mixed it with the sour cream and corn syrup. It seemed like a really pretty icing.

But as soon as I got it on the cake, all the chocolate hardened again and there was no time for “making a crumb layer” or smoothing it out pretty. My goal became “cover the cake while you still can.” I should also mention that I used the bare minimum of corn syrup called for. The kids liked it, I liked it.

It was only after Andrew tasted it that I remembered my taste buds are sadly warped because I love DARK chocolate. The more bittersweet the better. But since I wasn’t serving the cake to just me (tempting as that was when the kids shook the table, fought over the spoons, and stuck their fingers in the bowls), I probably should have increased the sugar a bit.

At any rate, I stuck the chocolate figures on (in bits and pieces), piped Adam’s name, the message, and the flares for the rocket, and we called it a day. Andrew snapped my picture while I sat and waited for my blood pressure to drop to something respectable.

Here’s an up close shot:

Adam was super excited, and not just because he was hyped up on sugar. We talk about birthday cakes all year long. So a finished project is a big deal.

And, alright, so there was sugar involved.

Finally, I need to give a shout-out to my neighbors for helping me with this. You know how they say it takes a village to raise a child? Well, apparently It Takes A Cul de Sac To Bake A Cake. I’m pretty sure I walked back and forth to my next door neighbor’s house five times in one day to borrow things and use her microwave. Another neighbor took the kids for an hour so I could catch up on all the stuff I’d let slip through the cracks while I was baking. So, thanks, y’all.

And, um, you guys want any leftover cake?

Filed Under: Book Review, Family Pictures, Food, We Like Cake
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For Your Listening Pleasure

September 17, 2007 by LoraLynn

I was one of the lucky recipient’s of a Monk and Neagle giveaway at BooMama’s site. Now that I’ve heard it a good fifty or so times, I feel ready to share with the rest of you.

Andrew and moved away from Huntsville seven years ago assuming we would still be able to find good Christian music. We were wrong. The stations in our area played the same stuff that had been out for ten years or more. So a few years after we left, we were disappointed to return to Huntsville and realize that the same music was playing there as well. There was indeed “nothing new under the sun.” Eventually, we have given up trying really, and stuck with old favorites or, well, with Nichole Nordeman. Beyond that, we tuned out the noise of so-called “contemporary Christian music.”

So I was very curious when BooMama started singing the praises of a group called Monk & Neagle. We missed the first album they released, so I downloaded it from iTunes. There were several songs on there I really liked, more than just the average one or two, and I knew Andrew would love it. It had a bit of a John Mayer flavor to it, but we like John Mayer, so that’s a good thing. And we may be the only people who hadn’t heard of this group until now, but that’s what living in the Beltway will do to a person.

When my new CD arrived, we stuck it in the player and listened to it all the way up the driveway. Then we sat in the car for a few minutes more. The first track on the album, “Beautiful, You,” was a keeper. It’s got a catchy, upbeat tune. And it’s all about the power and the beauty of God. My boys love it. Good dancing music.

We kept right on listening through the next track, “The Twenty-First Time.” Now that song, well, they’re just plain meddling. Very convicting. Talks about seeing Jesus in everyone, even those who are less “desirable.”

The next song, “Hallelujah, Jesus,” is a simple praise ballad. But it’s the simplicity of it that makes it so beautiful. It’s those two words together that sum up our lives here on earth and what is to come. It is all to HIS glory.

The fourth track confused me a bit. It’s a lovely little number about their wives called “Stars Would Fall.” But it’s on their first album. It sounds like they re-recorded it for their new label, and while I like it, I think I would be a bit bummed if I had bought this CD and it had a “duplicate” off their previous album. Doesn’t change my opinion about the song, which is that it’s fun and sweet, but it’s still a question mark.

Track 5 is a tear jerker called “What Soldiers Do.” It portrays a father talking to his son before leaving to war. It’s touching and has a nice melody. I like how he points his son to Jesus, no matter if he returns from war or not.

“Yours Forever” is another catchy ditty about allegiance to God. The whole CD is filled with lovely melodies, catchy hooks, and just some plain fun music. This song isn’t particularly earth-shaking, but it’s cute and a good one to dwell on if it gets stuck in your head, which it will. Because it’s catchy that way.

“More Than That” slows things down again with a contemplative melody and lyrics about how God deserves so much more than we give Him. “So I fall to the ground, because I want to be better.” Yep. It’s a good kick in the seat of the pants.

Track 8 is another love song. Sort of has a reggae kick to it, in an acoustic sort of way. If you know what I mean. A sand between your toes, Caribbean afternoon, feel good sort of song. Andrew approves, and I know any woman would be thrilled to have it written about them. Good to see these artists devoting some attention to their wives. And it’s a good thing they’re already taken, or I imagine they’d have to deal with a lot of single female groupies.

“Fallin’” is a love song to Jesus. Another keeper.

And then we go back to marital love for “Into Orbit,” which is super fun and another great one to blast as you’re cruisin’ down the road with the one who makes your heart go pitter-patter.

The last song is “What Soldiers Do” again. The album cover says it’s a remix. I’m having a hard time hearing much difference. Maybe there’s a mandolin in the back that wasn’t there before and a few more subtle differences. Maybe if I listen to them both more, I’ll hear it. But if you’re going to put a remix on the album with the original, I think the difference ought to be easy to pick up. I still love the song: “Even if you never go to war, you’re a soldier, too. And when you have a son like you, teach him to fight for what is true, because that’s what soldiers do.”

Overall, this album is a refreshing drink in what seems to be a dried up genre of contemporary Christian. The music is top-notch. The lyrics are more challenging than anything I’ve heard in five years. I wouldn’t call Monk & Neagle ground-breaking, but I respect them for producing something with integrity, something that’s more than fluff, something that’s sure to stay on the playlists… for at least ten years or so.

Thanks, BooMama and Sony BMG, for the chance to check out the record and enjoy some good tunes. Keep ‘em comin’.

Go check them out.

P.S. I did email the p.r. guy that sent me the CD to see if I could get any answers to my questions.

No response.

I tried, people, I tried. I went for the journalistic approach and got shot down by “the man.” Oh well. The music is good, the lyrics are sweet, and my toes tap a lot. I’ll keep it the album either way. You should, too.

Filed Under: Book Review
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