Day: March 8, 2017

Lydia had a wonderful sixth birthday. She woke up early in the morning and opened one of her presents, a book about sewing projects. Abe and I let her peruse it while we went for a swim. Then we came home and Abe, at Lydia’s request, made her one of his special breakfasts. Lydia opened her gifts from Nana, among which was one very special Chinese dress. Lydia LOVES everything about China, and so this made her extremely happy.

After breakfast the girls played. The tree cutters also came and cut down both of our dead cherry trees. That added excitement to the morning, especially for Ammon.

Then the girls and I headed to the Grand America in Salt Lake for high tea. This was the highlight of the day for everyone, and, according to Lydia, it was her favorite thing about her birthday. The girls thought everything was magical. As we were eating, Lydia sighed, “Mom, can we eat like this every day?” I wish we could too, Honey!

Then we headed home and picked up some cupcakes from the Sweet Tooth Fairy. After that, the girls played at home with a neighbor child while I made Shepherd’s pie for dinner (again at Lydia’s request). At dinner we all said something we loved about Lydia, and afterward she grinningly declared she wanted to say something nice about each one of us. And she did! She has such a tender heart and such loving instincts.

After pie we sang to Lydia and she opened up the rest of her presents. Just before bedtime, her sweet church teacher came by and dropped off a present for Lydia.

It was a wonderful day, and I loved seeing Lydia smile so much. Birthdays and holidays are exhausting, but they are also maybe my favorite part of being a mom. I just love seeing my kids delighted and excited at all of the fun of life.

Happy birthday, sweet Lydia! We love you to the moon and back!

Today I baked a cake for Lydia’s birthday with the girls. It was absolute, utter madness. Ammon wandered around trying to get onto their chairs and footstools so he could join in, and because there was not enough room for him, he kept falling down, bonking his head, and crying. Then Lydia was really anxious about Mary doing anything more than she did, so I kept having to reassure her that she had had more turns than Mary. Occasionally Mary would pipe up and say things just to set Lydia off, and so we baked to the wonderful chorus of Ammon’s crying and the girls’ bickering. Fun times!

To top it all off, the recipe told me to put ALL of the cake batter into one 9 inch baking pan. I questioned the wisdom of this and re-read the instructions at least three times. Now, I actually do know how full to fill a cake pan, but this was a recipe from my Dahlia’s Bakery cookbook, and I trusted it. I figured–hey, maybe these bakers know something I don’t know about batter to cake pan ratios! Maybe I will learn something new from this!! Maybe this is some kind of baker’s secret trick that they didn’t teach me in cooking school!!!

WRONG. I was so mad at the recipe and also at myself for not just doing what I knew was right in the first place and dividing the batter up into two pans. The cake ended up spilling all over the oven, and the burned batter smelled up the house. Hours later, I can still smell it and just took a shower to see if maybe the problem was just me. Nope! The smell is most definitely stuck in the house. Darn.

But the good news is, all I have wanted to do for days is revisit The Sweet Tooth Fairy for cupcakes. After our cake fiasco, I announced to Lydia that we will be buying cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy tomorrow. She was totally fine with that. We should have just done that in the first place.

Lastly, here is a selfie that we took at Lydia’s request. I did not even know she knew the word, “selfie.” But while we were cuddling on the couch she said, “Mom, take a selfie of us!” And then Mary came running over and joined in.