Kathryn August 23rd, 2011

I love how just an ordinary day can be so wonderful.
Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary happened today, but it WAS a wonderful day, full of wonderful moments of gratitude, clarity and learning. I want to share my wonderfully ordinary day with you!

It started with the wonderful weather! It was truly wonderful to the outside in the sun!

This morning I took Joshua to his weekly swimming lesson, which is always a high-light! Joshua loves his swimming lessons and today he did particularly well. I love seeing his confidence grow, and seeing the look of achievement, satisfaction and joy when he realises he’s done a good job – it’s really priceless! I am often overwhelmed and almost surprised at how proud of him I can be when he learns or does something new.

After swimming Josh fell asleep which gave me the opportunity to do some housework. I am so grateful that I could have the doors and windows open to enjoy the weather while I worked! Housework it is not something that I ALWAYS enjoy doing but I am learning to feel a great sense of satisfaction and achievement in the work that I do. I feel good knowing that I am working, to the best of my ability, to look after my family and to make our home a happy, peaceful and clean place. I am learning to appreciate work in the home and value it.

I teach a few piano students on a Tuesday afternoon. I am grateful that Joshua spending time with his Grammy and Papi, which allows me to teach for a couple of hours, and that they are willing to give their time and energy to not only help me but also bless Joshua’s life as they help him learn and grow also.

I love watching my students learn, and seeing their accomplishments. It is wonderful to see how proud and happy they are when they realise they have done something good, and achieved what they set out to achieve.

This evening I will have a quiet couple of hours at home studying for an upcoming theory exam, feeling secure in the fact that I have a wonderful husband who is out serving in his calling, a beautiful boy who is sleeping peacefully just metres away, and that as I study I will be able to do well in my exam.

I am truly blessed to be able to enjoy many aspects of life. I can enjoy my life with my husband and son, I have been blessed to be able to continue to seek education and also to continue a small amount of work. I am blessed with the time and ability to serve others and hopefully bring a bit of comfort and joy into their lives.

Today was a wonderful and beautiful day for me. I hope that yours was too

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Kathryn August 13th, 2011

Joshua turns 2 tomorrow, and it’s times like this that you start asking ourself questions like ‘Where has all the time gone!?’ or ‘When did he grow up!?’ Of course asking those questions never changes the fact that the time HAS gone, and that he HAS grown up, and will continue to grow every day from now until eternity! … I’m trying to embrace it rather than fight it, but we’ll see how that goes!

To celebrate his birthday we had a family party. I wanted it to be low key, but fun, and something he would recognise as being special and different. We decided to have a ‘Cars’ theme as it is, hands down, his favourite movie. He would watch it everyday, several times a day if I let him! To decorate we put up a few balloons along with a Cars poster and pictures of the characters, which he looked over carefully before deciding that it was in fact ‘Cars’. It wasn’t anything much really, but I knew that he would recognise it and it was something new for him.

Then we looked at the food! We just had basic party food including popcorn, biscuits and veges with dip and fruit. I also made some foccacia bread with pizza toppings and made some racing cars. I found the idea for the racing cars here and everyone thought they were great! Super easy, but as soon as Josh saw them he knew they were cars and of course, knew they were yummy!

Earlier in the week it was Papi’s birthday and of course then, the presents were for someone else! So before the party started today he was giving the present to other people! Of course, when it came time to open presents it didn’t take long for Joshy to realise that they were for him, and that he liked opening them! He was spoilt with his presents, and he loves them. He has really started to outgrow a lot of his toys so it’s nice for him to have some more age appropriate toys, as well as the other presents he got which weren’t toys. We have a couple more presents to give him tomorrow as it will be actual birthday but he did very well for himself today!

 

After the presents we had the cake! Joshua blew out the candles perfectly, even if it was at the beginning of the Happy birthday song! I decided to make a Lightning McQueen cake and although I was really nervous about it, I was really pleased with the end result. I’d never made a cake like this before and so it took a little while to do but as we went along we learnt a few things that will make it easier next time! It also helped that before I even started I had great advice from the ladies at the cake shop as well as the more experienced cake decorators in our family! Not to mention a very observant and helpful husband who assisted in the decorating as well.

Joshua had such a wonderful time! He told us several times this afternoon that he was ‘happy’ and it was clear that he was really enjoying himself! With half of our extended family living interstate it was a relatively small gathering, which was kind of nice. Of course we missed all of our other family and wish they could have been here but the small numbers meant I could focus more on Joshua during the party and that it wasn’t too overwhelming and noisy for him! We spent the remainder of the evening playing with his new toys and despite being over half an hour past his bed time, he was very disappointed when he had to go to bed!

His birthday tomorrow will be a much quieter day, but we hope to enjoy spending some quality time with him. Part of the day will undoubtedly involve me spending some time wondering how I was blessed with such a precious gift. The unconditional love that exists between parents and their children is amazing. It’s also hard to comprehend how a small child can contain so much! He’s gentle, loving, energetic, inquisitive, playful, happy and determined…. and that’s just before he gets us out of bed in the morning! We love you Joshy!

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Kathryn July 12th, 2011

We have this photo of Dallin when he was a little boy. Apparently one day his Mum found him sitting there under the carport, he had found the chair, dragged it there and was watching the digger and truck for ages. I’ve always thought it was a pretty cute little story and photo!

Well yesterday we came home today and there was a digger digging up the footpath just down the street. We were heading inside but of course Joshy had already seen it, and when I tried to bring him inside he insisted ‘digga digga digga’… when I said no and brought him inside (because it was cold and I was tired!) he grabbed my hand and insisted ‘look look look’… So he took me outside, led me through the gate and down the footpath. We stood there for a minute, when it became painfully clear Joshy was in for the long haul!

We only stayed out there for a couple of minutes but I’m sure if I had let him he would have stayed there the rest of the day! So needless to say I think Joshy is most certainly entering the ‘little boy’ stage of life…and maybe, just maybe, becoming more and more like his Dad everyday….. and I love it! I love that Josh can be so determined and know exactly what he wants to do. (even if it’s not what I was planning on!)
I love that he can be so full of life and getting into everything and yet at the end of the day he will lay next to me while we’re reading scriptures and stories, gently giving me kisses on my cheek.
The 2 most important men in my life are my husband and my little boy, and one of my greatest joys is seeing them play together, and watching their relationship grow. Life is wonderful with my family!

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Kathryn May 8th, 2011

I am a mother, and as such, I am a home maker and a wife. I am a sister, a daughter and daughter in-law, an aunt, a teacher, a carer, an example and a friend. This is my work. It’s what I love and it’s who I am. I try to take pride and care in each of these things.

Dallin and I were having a discussion recently about how we define our self, and our self worth. During our discussion we discussed that what is most important is defining ourselves by things that are eternal and unchanging. Not all women in the world can define themselves as mothers, but they can define themselves as women. We have a divine nature to love, care for and nurture others…not just our children. That is eternal and it is unchanging.

I am grateful that I have the divine nature and call that is womanhood. I am blessed to know that I can bless and enrich the lives of those around me. I can constantly strive to be better and hopefully also help others to be better. I am grateful to know I can do and be all of those things independent of anyone or anything else.

It is true that there is no calling in this world that will ever be equal to motherhood in ANY way. There is nothing that ever will be as fun, painful, rewarding, challenging, tiring, enlightening, empowering, terrifying, precious, heartbreaking, joyful or all-encompassing as motherhood. My heart breaks to think of those who would be truly amazing mothers but have not been blessed at this time to be so. My heart breaks even more for those who have somewhere lost their divine desire to want to be mothers… it’s a true tragedy to see those women living below their privilege….

I have had many women in my life who I will be forever grateful for. Their examples have taught me all I want to be as a woman and a mother, whether they themselves are mothers or not. Thank you to my mother, mother in-law, my ‘other’ mum, my grandmothers, aunts, my precious sisters and my dear friends for being those examples. I would love to share with you what they have taught me, but that would have to be a topic for another day.

Womanhood is an honor and a privilege.

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Kathryn May 4th, 2011

Thanks to Cooking.com for featuring our photo of this in a photo gallery in May 2012.

So it was Dallin’s birthday this week. He’s not a man for ‘hoo haa’ – he didn’t want a special dinner, he didn’t want friends over, he didn’t want to have take away – so we went about our day as usual, he got home and we had chicken rolls for dinner because that’s what was on the menu plan (yeah, I know… exciting right!?) and then he looked after the boy while I taught a half hour lesson. Very understated!
There was only 1 request Dallin had for his birthday. When I asked him what type of cake he wanted he said ‘Cake!? No…. or, maybe a 7 layer jelly cake’ (Jello-o for any Americans reading this) – Well, when it’s the only request he has what else am I meant to do but research, and make a jelly cake!?

Now, I know that I would never make a hand model, but my hands aside the picture looks pretty good, and I’ll admit that the cake looked pretty good too! So Dallin took this photo and posted it on his Flickr account and has had atleast 1 or 2 people ask how I made it!? Although it took me 2 days to make, it’s really quite easy.

You need as many packets of Jelly as you want layers, sweetened condensed milk… again this will depend on how many layers you want. You also need Gelatin, lemon juice and a whole lot of boiled water. For this one I used 4 different jellys and 2 cans of sweetened condensed milk.

Milk Layer
3/4 cup boiled water
2 dessert spoons of Gelatin
juice of 1 lemon (I used bottled of lemon juice and just guessed how much)
1 can sweetened condensed milk

Jelly Layer
1 pack of jelly
1 1/2 cups boiled water.
Dissolve jelly in boiling water and allow to sit (in the bench) for a minimum 30 mins until mixture is warm to cool, but still liquid. I left one for atleast a couple of hours and it was fine.

I started with a milk layer and poured about half of the mixture into a 9″ cake tin. Once it was set I poured the jelly layer on top – repeat until complete, making sure each layer is set before pouring on the next one! Because the milk mixture is much more than you need for 1 layer you can either adjust the quantities to only make as much as you need at 1 time OR you can leave the milk sitting in HOT water until you need it again, so that it stays liquid OR (and I haven’t tried this) I heard that it doesn’t take very long to ‘melt’ in the microwave if it’s set.

The 4 jelly, 4 milk layers, completely filled my 9 inch spring form cake tin, to the very top – so you may want to take that into account when planning how many layers! I had thought about decorating the top with a small amount of cream (just a border)- but I ran out of time, and Dallin likes jelly – just jelly – cream or ice cream or any other garnishing or decoration is not required! Having said that, I did have left overs tonight with cream and some crumbled chocolate and I thought it was great!

Now, having done this once I have just a few things I would do differently.

*On a side note, my husband lived in Switzerland and Germany for 2 years and he tells me that the word for jelly in German means ‘Food of the Gods’*

First, I would endeavour to make the milk layer as thin as possible. Mine got thinner as I went along but I would have like them even thinner….

Second, I used a spring form pan and lined it with glad wrap….That was painful…. I’m sure some bakers out there would be horrified to know that I only own either spring form or silicone bakeware. Next time I would use either a silicone or a standard cake tin. This would be in the hopes that I could invert the silicone dish and it would come straight out or, I could put the cake tin in boiling water for a minute before inverting it straight on to a dish.

Third, I would have started a day earlier so that I wasn’t pouring the last layer of jelly on at 4.30pm the night of his birthday…..

Fourth, When pouring the last layer on I would leave the tin in the fridge and bring the jelly to the cake instead of the other way round…. I’m sure my sticky jelly floor agrees with me

I did play with the idea of giving the cake a thin biscuit base, for 2 reasons, the first is completely selfish – I love biscuit bases – I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure it’s genetic (well that’s my excuse). The second reason is that I thought it would just give a bit of foundation and stability to the cake. If I was doing a biscuit base then I would go back to the spring form pan, but I wouldn’t necessarily line it, just to keep the outside as smooth as possible.

If you do a google image search for jello layer cake you will see a few different ones which look infinitely better than mine but I’m pretty sure the recipes are all very similar.

But after all of that the most important things are that 1. Dallin loved it, and 2. I had fun and was pretty happy with the end result.
Make sure you let me know if any of you try it, I would love to see and hear about it

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Kathryn April 23rd, 2011

Joshua is at an age now where he can ‘help’ me with many of my daily activities. He helps me fill up the washing basket, type emails, take photos, put his toys away, put his dishes in the sink, put the rubbish (and sometimes the ‘not rubbish’) in the bin. He’s starting to become my little shadow and helper and I generally just love having him with me. I love seeing him explore and enjoy life, and one of his favourite things to help me with is cooking!
It’s wonderful! Now I can use baking as an activity that Joshua and I can do together and hopefully, with some delicious results! Josh and I have a great time as I try not to care too much about the mess he makes as he help me ‘mix’ the ingredients… or that he uses my measuring spoons to scoop out spoonfuls of batter which he then proceeds to eat….

I had been thinking for a while about making playdough with my sister and her 2 yr old girl and so a few weeks ago we went over to their place to do just that! The recipe is so quick simple, and you can find it on the side of a Cream of Tartar container …. I’ve also given it to you here!

1 cup of salt
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of water
2 Tbsp of oil
4 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
Food colouring

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until mixture congeals.

When we made it we halved the above quantities and made it in 4 different colours. Keep in it an airtight bag/container in the fridge and it should last for 6 or so months. I found you need a reasonable amount of food colouring if you want bright colours like I did. Just a few drops will give you quite a pale colour so it’s best to get the ‘bottles’ of food colouring as opposed to the little dropper packs.

It always impresses me how much the kids just love to be involved and help. I will measure out the ingredients and then let Josh pour them into the bowl/saucepan… it’s so simple and yet he loves to be helping me. Also another note… I discovered that the Cream of Tartar containers hold about 6 Tbsp… because I only had 1 container and I wanted to make 4 colours (which would have required 8 Tbsp) I just reduced the amount of Cream of Tartar in each batch…

We had lots of fun making playdough, although it did get a bit tricky when both kids were wanting to help and there wasn’t enough room!

It was good fun and I’m sure that most kids would love knowing that they’re playing with playdough that they have helped make! All you need then is some cheap cookie cutters and a rolling pin and you’re set for all your playdough fun!

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Kathryn March 31st, 2011

On Saturday we got back from spending a week in Sydney to visit with family, the whole trip was wonderful! It contained many of the elements that make holidays such a wonderful time!

First – I didn’t feel guilty for not constantly thinking about the washing, the dishes, the ironing and all the other household duties that fill my day at home. Now I don’t want that to sound negative because most of the time I feel a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I have a pile of clean ironed clothes and a clean bathroom and kitchen – but it’s nice to have a break every now and again!

Second – We had a couple of days where we spent almost the whole day just as a family, the 3 of us spending time together having fun and enjoying each others company. As I’m sure you all appreciate it’s not something that most of us get to do very often – having uninterrupted family time is a unique and wonderful opportunity that we always take with both hands.

The third thing, and in many respects the most treasured, is that we were able to take time to visit with our extended family. We stayed with Dallin’s brother and his family and although it was crazy, hectic and at times stressful, it was so wonderful to watch the kids play together, they had a wonderful time! I loved being able to play with our niece and nephews and watching them laugh and play, as well as seeing Joshy’s face light up while he was playing them. One of his cousins now does ‘Joshy kisses’ and Josh learnt to say ‘BLAY’ it was really sad to leave them!

One of the high-lights for me was on the last night when we met up with Dallin’s Aunt & Uncle along with his cousin with her kids. Dallin hadn’t seen his cousin in around 7 years and although I knew who she was we had never really spoken before so it was great to see and meet them. What made it so wonderful is that although you could say we had never really met there was no time lost in the introductions and getting to know each other – we were just family.

While we were in Sydney my family were back in Adelaide working hard to pack up and clean my Mum’s house in preparation for her move interstate (and yes, I do feel guilty that I wasn’t here helping!). Mum and Adam left on Tuesday for a 12 hour drive and are now relaxing in Mt Beauty for a few days before Adam comes back on the weekend and Mum starts her new job on Monday. Although it is of course sad to see Mum leave, we’re excited for her starting a new job in a new town. It will be a big change but I’m sure that she will love it and probably won’t ever want to come back!

So after the holiday and farewells we are coming back to reality, but it has all reminded me and impressed upon me how wonderful and important family is. Whether we live just down the road or millions of miles away and whether we spoke yesterday or haven’t spoken for years, nothing changes the fact that we are family. That bond will always be there and I hope I can always appreciate it!

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Kathryn March 21st, 2011

A couple of months ago we decided we were overdue for a family holiday and that we should head to Sydney to visit Dallin’s brother and his family! As always, it seemed like forever away, but now here we are in Sydney, and I’m sure the time will just fly.
It was a fairly wet day in Sydney on Saturday and so although we had great plans of bikes, pools and parks, those plans never eventuated and we spent most of the day at home, with an afternoon trip to the library.
It was not an ‘exciting’ day as such, but it was also a lovely day! One of my highlights of the day was in the morning when the boys were just playing together, hiding under blankets, kissing and hugging each other, and generally just having fun together! When I think about it, one of the main reasons that we wanted to take this trip was so that Josh could spend some time with the boys. They’re his only 2 boy cousins and we don’t know very many other boys his age, so it has been wonderful to just watch him playing with them.

Now we’re just looking forward to the rest of the week and some nicer weather!

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Kathryn February 26th, 2011

It’s true…. I have become a member of the Bonds Baby Bandwagon….

Over the past few weeks on Facebook I have seen many links appearing, saying
“I just entered my little bub into the 2011 Bonds Baby Search. See how cute ‘insert childs name’ looks and remember to vote when the polls open on 28/02/2011″

I debated and debated …… but just for a bit of fun, I entered Josh in the competition! I would love you to go to the Bonds Baby Search website and vote for the cutest kid… Of course it would be great if the cutest kid was my baby, but if it’s not then that’s ok! I know several others who have entered their babies as well, and I’ve looked through the gallery…. all I can say is I’m glad I’m not judging the competition!

Just so you know how it works – on Monday 21 March they announce the shortlist – The Shortlist is the top 50 babies as chosen by Bonds. It will be announced along with the People’s Choice Top 10. Then on April 4 they announce 10 winners, including 2 peoples choice winners.

I’m not the sort of Mum who believes in entering their child in every baby competition known to man… I am completely aware that I have rose coloured Mummy goggles on when I look at my boy, and he’s probably not as cute to everyone else as he is to me… so really I’ll be completely surprised if he comes out of this as a Bonds baby – but hey, it’s worth a try!

Also taking polls on which theme you like better… this one or the other one?

And if you haven’t already and would like to receive updates of our blog (and Dallin’s Flickr feed) by email then just subscribe using the box at the top right hand side of this post….

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Kathryn February 23rd, 2011

So I had turned off the computer, was getting ready for bed and suddenly I realised… I have a load of washing that I planned to do today, and I never did it! I also checked the draws and confirmed the fact that it can not wait until tomorrow…. I turned to my husband and he looked at me and said ‘Well you better get it on then….’
Well, there goes my early night! I now have to wait up for another hour for my washing to finish!
So I find my self with a spare hour and I’m thinking…. What to do?……Blog of course….housework will wait! And just to warn all those who can’t handle completely biased mothers who rave about their children….. stop reading NOW!

On Feb 14 my beautiful boy was 18 months old….. where has the time gone!? In some ways it feels like it was only yesterday he was born, and at the same time it feels like he has been part of our lives forever! It seems like he has always been walking, chatting to me as we drive along, standing at my feet saying UPEEEEEEE (Up please) and completely destroying my kitchen every time I cook a meal! – But I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I love watching him learn! Josh started swimming lessons in Term 4 last year, and has continued this year. I wondered how he would go getting back into the swing of things and it took a total of about… 15 mins, and suddenly he was doing twice as well as he did last term. He now kicks (something I hadn’t been able to get him to do before) and he loves blowing bubbles in the water. He now plunges his head in face first and blows bubbles. It’s even a struggle to hold him now! He just loves going under the water, and when he comes up he always has the BIGGEST smile on his face! It is such a joy to see him so happy and growing so well.

Most children, and adults these days, upon picking up a camera would hold it out in front of them and expect to look at the screen to take a picture. However, as most of you know, Dallin has a digital SLR camera which requires you to look through a view finder (remember those!) to be able to see your ‘shot’ – Joshua now knows what a camera is, no matter what it looks like! He was outside one day with his Grammy’s compact digital camera, holding it up to his eyes just like his Daddy does…. how he made the connection we don’t know, but I sure think he’s a clever cookie!

He loves reading books, making animal noises, running around outside, riding his bike, blowing bubbles, running around with things over his head… He just loves life, in a way that only a child can. I often struggle to keep up with him and find things to interest him, and that’s before I even think about what I should be teaching him!
It’s no wonder he can sleep 12 hours at night, and have a nap in the middle of the day…. If I put as much energy into absorbing and living life as he does then I’m sure I would need it too!

Children are such a joy, whether they are your children or not…. I love my nieces and nephews like they’re my own and am (almost) as proud of their accomplishments as their parents are! If you have the opportunity to be a part of a childs life, grab it with both hands and use it for good. You may be a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, friend, teacher….. but whoever you are you can guarantee there is a child watching you, so be careful what you do! Yes, they’re hard work but the love you receive in return it more than worth it…. Let alone the joy you receive from watching them grow and learn. Love a child – the rewards are priceless.

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