Goodbye, 2023!

I feel like I’ve been so busy this year. Kids are growing and time is flying. Hardly any time or brain bandwidth for blogging. But here is a glimpse into what I’ve been up to all year.

Baking

Bread

Lots and lots of sourdough! I made at least two loaves a month, at minimum for our couples small group meetings and usually to go with any soup night, too. In fact, I just made some this week to go with my favorite Chicken noodle soup.

We were invited to a Friendsgiving party, at which the main dish would be gumbo. Justin voluntold me to make French baguettes, which I’ve never done before, as a complementing side dish. After watching many youtube videos, and coming up with makeshift substitutions for some of the specialized equipment that’s standard to baguette-baking but not to my kitchen, I successfully turned flour, water, salt, and yeast into some pretty good-looking (although rustic for sure) loaves. I wasn’t completely sold on them, though, until I broke into the inside. I was extraordinarily pleased with the flavor and texture (way more so than with the exterior appearance), and proud of myself for a not-too-shabby first try. It was great dipped in gumbo, too!

I finally perfected my tweaks on a mashup of cinnamon roll recipes, to come up with my ideal, Truly Epic Cinnamon Rolls. I’ve made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning in the past, but to get them perfect requires way too much time for December 24th/25th. So instead, I have stamped Labor Day as Cinnamon Roll Day in our family calendar, due to the labor required to produce them, as well as Justin’s availability on Sunday to keep kids out from underfoot during the first steps, and no one needing to go anywhere (work, school, church) Monday morning, so if I have to get up really early or if breakfast is served a little late, it’s okay!

Baby Showers

In the Spring, a women’s small group I’m in was having a baby shower for one of our members, who was expecting her third little boy. My contribution was a Mississippi Mud Pie; I thought I was so clever honoring her house full of boys in this way!

Over the summer, a friend and I co-hosted a baby shower for our dear mutual friend who was expecting her fifth baby. Because she was hosting, and I didn’t have to get my house ready for company, I was guilt-free able to spend hours in my own kitchen making the fanciest cake I’ve ever made, while not worrying about what messes the kids were making elsewhere. It was delicious (magnificent moist golden cake with fave strawberry frosting) and super fun – I just made a cake and showed up with it! And my co-hostess loved getting to tidy and decorate her house and then go to bed without needing to also make a cake. We were a perfect party-planning team!

Besides the summer baby shower cake, most of my baking this year was pretty humble. (Well, perhaps the baguettes were a little extra considering my state of life…) Anyway, in the fall, I hosted a smaller baby shower for another friend, and when her mom called and asked if she could have a store bought ice cream cake delivered as a way to help with the shower from out-of-state, I didn’t hesitate to take her up on the offer. I almost forgot to serve the cake at the shower, because it was tucked away (out of sight, out of mind) in the freezer, oops! But I brought it out at the last minute and all the nap-ready toddlers got their last little kick of sugar. The leftovers make an appearance in the next section, so keep reading!

Birthdays

Miryam asked for raspberry-drizzle brownies instead of a cake this year. We served them straight out of the pan, and everyone was happy. 

Justin had his classic angel food cake as usual.

Cecily got a rainbow heart cake to match the piñata she picked for her party. A few years ago, when piñatas first came onto my kids’ radar, I let them know that they could each have a piñata at ONE birthday party ever, while under my care. Kids 1, 2, and, now, 3, have each had theirs already. I should be off the hook for a couple more years at least before Paschal even knows what it is.

For my birthday this year, I dished out the leftover store-bought ice cream cake from the baby shower the week before. There was so much going on that week. And so much sugar in the house already. I guess I’m that level of Adult now, where I wasn’t even upset about not having my own dedicated birthday dessert.

Paschal got two cakes this year. On his actual birthday, I had also signed up to bring a dessert to an Advent Tea party with some girlfriends. I made chai tea latte cupcakes in full size for Paschal and fam, and in mini size for the tea party, and they were a huge hit with everyone. We used the extra frosting to decorate Christmas cookies later. Way better than typical cookie icing! His second cake, the one I served at the joint birthday party for the boys on another day, was cookies-and-cream, a flavor all the kids have been obsessed with ever since we named our pet gecko Cookies’n’Cream. I served this cake right out of the pan, too. I’m becoming more realistic about how layer cakes aren’t necessarily better just because they’re more work.

This year, Luke requested a cake that was “just marshmallows.” The kid LOVES marshmallows. So I stacked different-sized marshmallows into the shape of a layer cake, and he was exuberantly thrilled! I actually cannot overstate how happy he was about the marshmallow “cake.” It was hilarious (and so easy!)!

We were last-minute invited to a mini party / family hangout for the feast of Pentecost, sometimes affectionately referred to as “The Birthday of the Church” (being the first time the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples after Christ’s ascension). So, since I wouldn’t be busy doing anything else in the hours between church and the get-together, I decided to make a classic birthday cake to bring along: yellow cake with chocolate frosting and a few colorful sprinkles.

Reading

Someday next year, I might get around to a Books of 2023 post, with an exhaustive list of all the books I finished this year and a thought or two about each. Here, I’ll just note my favorites.

Non-fiction: Bakhita: from Slave to Saint by Roberto Ítalo Zanini
St. Josephine Bakhita is my Confirmation saint. I knew almost nothing about her, when I chose her. Having learned so much about her from this book, I feel pretty certain that what actually happened was that she chose me. Her story is truly miraculous, inspirational, and moving. I absolutely loved this book.

Modern fiction: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
I had seen the movies multiple times, so the story, the characters, and the setting were all very familiar to me already, but I had never actually read any of these books. My assessment: It is such a well-told story! The vocab isn’t as lush as my fave classics, of course, but it is, after all, written for children. The structure of the plot and the character development make it an extremely enjoyable read. I did not expect to like this book as much as I did, so that was a fun surprise.

Classics: Macbeth by William Shakespeare
I had never read a Shakespeare play in its entirety outside the context of school. I’d read (and seen, and performed in) many of them, for classes and for theater, throughout high school and college, but never Macbeth, one of the most famous, and, incidentally, Justin’s favorite one. Now, this had been on my “to read soon” list for a little while already, but a double date we were planning, to go to a small show called “Drunk Shakespeare,” bumped it up the line. I found out that Macbeth was the play to be played upon, so we watched some “Cliff Notes” type youtube summaries so I wouldn’t be lost at the show, and then we had an excellent time with our friends. After having familiarized myself with the plot in this unconventional way, I checked out the full text from the library, breezed through it (not needing to catch every single detail in order to write a paper about it later, and knowing “what happens” already). I was able to just sit back and enjoy the well-crafted verse and clever lines and truly tragic story. It’s a gem.

Life Events

My Word of the Year this year was “Home.” It manifested in a couple different ways.

First, in my not inviting people over for dinner every time there was a blank on the calendar. Justin had to remind me that I was doing that on purpose. I wanted to focus more on the people and relationships within our home, but I tend to compulsively plan things to host, so this was a team effort. I joined a new book club after my other one dissolved, and Justin made me promise not to host any of the meetings, and that’s been a really good thing for me. “Home” went well this year, and I hope to keep it going next year, too.

Second, we rearranged and upgraded several physical things in our home. We’ve never been in one house this long before, so since I didn’t need to pack up everything I own, then find a new spot for everything in a new place, I got an itch to move things around and spice things up in the space we have. It was really fun taking the time to pick out exactly what would work best for our current house and family status:

• We put a gate across the driveway so I can let kids (including the toddler) ride bikes while I make dinner, without needing to check on them every 30 seconds, and it’s just as great as I hoped.
• Our living room music ambiance speakers are finally hooked up and making life feel pretty fancy: completed just in time for the Christmas season, music + fireplace on has been the absolute coziest.
• We moved the kids around so that we now have “girls room, boys room” instead of “baby room, big kids room.” Justin now has a door to his office, which is also a guest bedroom now, instead of a playroom. This new arrangement has made our few houseguests (and me as hostess) even more comfy, and Justin’s work environment more comfy as well, no matter what the kids and I are up to in the rest of the house. The old office loft space is now a really cute “reading nook.” Who knows how long this arrangement will serve us, but for now it’s working really nicely.
• We put new bookshelves, throw pillows, and curtains in the living room. We’ve never ever had curtains in any of our living rooms. And I’ve always kind of hated the throw pillows that came with our couches. It never occurred to me to buy new pillow covers (not needing to buy all-new pillows) until this summer. We were getting new frames for some pictures Justin’s grandmother painted, so I picked pillow covers to bring out an accent color in one of her paintings. Justin had picked out the bookshelves (much more refined than the clunky Ikea bookshelf we had in one corner – that one got promoted to boys’ room toy/book shelf and it makes so much more sense in there). We chose the curtains together, and I just love the whole effect!

“Home” aside, we celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary! My mom so graciously offered to come stay with the kids so we could take a little anniversary vacation. We stayed in a Bed & Breakfast in Hot Springs, AR, and we got to fill up on much-needed sleep and quality time, and we had a “Family Board Meeting” (check out how it works in this podcast). It was wonderful!

Family vacation this year was to an AirBnB on a lake in central Texas. We swam for hours, we tubed for hours, we fed deer and watched movies and collected seashells and got ice cream and bbq and lots and lots of Vitamin D. I grew up going on a family vacation of some sort every year, and I love that we are able to do this with our kids now, too, even if it’s only a few hours away from home.

Welp! Thanks for reading my ten-page thesis about 2023. Cheers to a new year!