I’m pretty sad. For the fourth time, my cute wrought iron white board has once again broken. When one of the kids was goofing off and broke it I had to put a smile on my face and remind myself, ‘People are worth more than things!” (I’ve purchased the same one four times!) It’s okay–for now I’ve made this magnet board work for Kade’s countdown:

Words can’t describe how super excited I am to have Kade home! Today we are moving sleeping arrangements around and making room for Kade. We definitely have a full house! Konsti is in Kade’s room and we don’t want to uproot him. Stefyn, Steve’s daughter, moved in with us in November so Brecken moved downstairs with her and Kade will be in Brecken’s room until Konsti goes back to Germany in June. Whew! Did you get all that?

Saturday is Sage’s 11th birthday and Sunday is Konsti’s 17th birthday.  For their birthdays and Kade coming home, my pal is coming over on Friday and we are filling up 200 high-float helium balloons and are going to float them on the ceiling. I have a super high ceiling in my main room so it will look cool–200 balloons with ribbons dangling down! If any of them don’t “make it” before Kade gets home, we’ll just add more.

Konsti got quite the surprise. His dream is to go to a Dirk Nowitzski Maverick’s NBA game (Dirk is German). The Mavericks are coming to Salt Lake City on Thursday night to play the Jazz. My neighbor was nice enough to give us two second-row tickets (for Konsti and Collin) including a huge buffet beforehand. Sage and her friend, Olivia, sent Konsti on a big treasure hunt around the neighborhood to find the tickets. Of course Konsti is ecstatic!

Guess what I did last Friday? It’s my dream to make homemade wheat bread with fresh flour from my grinder. I honestly have never known how to make bread although my mom made it growing up. Nobody makes it better than my friend, Angelyn. So Friday she came over and we made beautiful bread!

Here it is before it was baked:

And here it is afterward (along with Sage’s homemade strawberry jam):

It was sooooo easy! No hand kneading and we let it rise only once. Try it! You’ll like it! Here’s the recipe:

Angelyn’s Whole Wheat Bread

6 cups warm water

12-14 cups whole wheat flour

2/3 cup oil

2/3 cup sugar

3 T. instant yeast

3 T. dough enhancer

2 T. salt

Mix together water, oil, sugar, yeas, salt t and dough enhancer in Kitchenaid or Bosch mixer. (I have a Bosch and use the beater made for kneading.) Slowly add flour while mixing. You’ll know when you’ve added enough because the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Continue to knead for 10 minutes. Break off into five even amounts and form a loaf into five greased (I used Pam) bread pans. Let rise until the dough is about  one inch above the pan. Place all five pans in a 350 degrees oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately take out of bread pans and cool on a wire rack.

Hmmmmmm. Enjoy the feeling that fresh bread brings to your home. All the kids were so excited by the sight, smell and taste of the bread when they returned home from school. And I felt so liberated! I finally learned how to make bread and it’s so easy!!

Hope your Martin Luther King holiday is going great!

Lisa

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