Sometimes I’ll go trolling through the picture files on my hard drive, looking for something new to tinker with. While I have plenty of images related to my professional life, I’ve been surprised lately at how few personal photos I’ve taken. The lesson here is: use your camera.

Just keep shooting.

Playing.

Dreaming.

Exploring.

Triple layer chocolate cake? Someone must love me very much indeed. That someone would be my mom and dad who created this gorgeous piece of baked goodness for my 35th birthday last month. Yes, I did eat it for breakfast the following week. Yum yum.

I’m going to keep the creative juices flowing on View from the Prairie Box by posting photos. Many will be leftovers from the 2012 DPP. I may or may not add words to go along with the images.

It’s Easter morning—He is risen, He is risen indeed!—and I am at home blogging and partially watching episodes of My Little Pony on Netflix. The stomach flu not only knocked me out of attending Redeemer’s Good Friday service, it also left me as weak as a kitten Easter morning. So while our church family gathers this morning to worship our risen Savior, we are at home resting. The ingredients for our Easter feast sit quietly in the refrigerator awaiting a postponed meal with my folks. Fortunately Livia was still able to hunt eggs, an annual tradition with Grandma & Grandpa, yesterday afternoon. I’m pretty sure she would’ve burst into a million disappointed pieces if she had to wait longer to find all those fun Easter treats.

I leave you with shots from our egg-dyeing extravaganza Thursday afternoon. In the past I’ve run to the grocery store to buy more eggs to dye as one dozen is never enough. Lesson learned: three dozen eggs is just right to wear out my crafty kid. We had fun and she was ready to close up shop before the last three or four were complete—perfect. This year I baked the eggs in the oven per Renae’s suggestion, using this Alton Brown recipe. Though it felt incredibly odd to place the little eggs directly on the oven rack, I loved this method of hard-cooking eggs. They turned out perfectly and only a few cracked (with no drips at all). I should note that not only did I steal Renae’s idea of dying eggs in glass coffee mugs, I also requested those specify mugs for Christmas as I’ve long coveted Renae’s. See what living next door for eight years does for you? Identical kitchenware.

Happy Easter, friends. We worship a living Savior today, and every day of the year! Praise God.

DFW Airport, January 2012

As it turns out, I don’t feel any better about avoiding sweets on Day 4 than I did on Day 1. Bummer. The sensation of denying myself sugary treats has become more familiar, however. I am less likely to reach for a Swedish fish or Dove chocolate to pop into my mouth. My mind is beginning to grasp that those things are off limits—don’t even think about it, missy. But I want want want to eat sweets almost all day long. The very idea of self-denial is clearly not something I am accustomed to. (Interestingly enough, we’re not avoiding sweets for Lent, the timing is merely coincidental.) This challenge began in the interest of breaking an addiction to something that is obviously not healthy in my life. You can imagine how it’s not helpful to munch on sweets all day long when you have diabetes. :)

What I am enjoying is the knowledge that I can pick and choose what goes in my mouth. I can pick and choose healthy, life-giving items over the ones that are temporarily rewarding, yet life-draining in the long run. I know I will return to eating all those blessed, amazing, spectacular tasting desserts. I simply hope to show a little more self-control when that time comes.

There are moments in a mother’s life that she wishes to preserve for all eternity and today we experienced one. This, my friends, is what went down in my house: my child did the dishes. But wait, there’s more. She heard my brief lecture—something about not being able to play right now because there was junk all over the house and I had to put it all away first—and then responded by washing our dishes and scrubbing the sinks. Seriously. She did that without me asking! It was remarkable and precious and thoughtful and so helpful, so so helpful. While she was doing the dishes, I put toys away, dusted, wiped down surfaces, and took out the trash. Awesome.

**Lest you be tempted to look over at your kid who fought you tooth and nail today when you asked him to merely brush his own teeth, take a deep breath. Don’t compare. I realize that sharing good news invites comparisons. For instance, my awesome sister-in-law reports that my niece, age 5, is tying her shoes. My reaction was this: Am I supposed to teach my child to tie her shoes? Whoops! Today dishes, tomorrow shoes, I suppose. ;)

What do you like to eat/drink when it’s cold out? Post favorite recipes for warm drinks, hot soups and filling casseroles in the comment section.

We had a really fun day yesterday. Livia has been brandishing her cutlass—“It’s a cutlass, not a rapier,” she explained to me—and donning the pirate earring and eye patch for a few weeks now. She has such a strong imagination that she got lost in her girl pirate role, explaining to someone, I can’t recall who, that she really was Livia and not a pirate. Our friends the Littles hosted a party for some school friends and it was a great time. This is the first year I’ve pulled out my camera to document the celebration! Normally I’m running from place to place, in the dark, with my costumed child.

It was also a fun day because I got to make cupcakes for Livia’s classroom. My inspiration photo shows a spider cupcake with nicely curved black legs. I learned quickly that perfectionists do not good classroom mothers make, and settled on red legs that poked out kinda straight. And then, because my child is a self-proclaimed entomologist, I told the first-graders that spiders have eight legs and the cupcakes have six. Spider mite cupcakes, perhaps?

I hope my friends had Happy Halloweens as well. Now, it’s on to November. November!! Before you know it, Christmas will be here.

Before

We moved into the Prairie Box in December of 2001. I’ve always loved the light and space of my kitchen. The large south-facing windows make the kitchen a cheery place to be, which is good since I don’t love to cook. Love to bake, yes. Love to cook, not so much. Renovating the kitchen was on our 15-year plan, so, since we’re selling at year ten, we did a partial renovation to encourage the sale of the house.

After

Gone is the mint green wall color and gone is the horrendous wallpaper border. All surfaces were lightened with a coat of white paint, including the two types of faux brick the previous owner must have found immensely attractive. A brand new countertop and sink made a huge difference in the overall aesthetics of the room. I enlarged one of my apple photos and we hung that over the stove.

I love my new kitchen. I hope the new owner does as well.

I love having Livia next to me while we bake cookies. She helps crack eggs, samples each ingredient, and then cleans off the Kitchen Aid paddle for me. Plus, with her, baking is an Event and we don aprons. Makes it more fun that way.

Shiloh gets in on the action, too. He cleans up the floor. Today he decided the bare arches of my feet needed cleaning—way ticklish.

We like to make this chocolate chip recipe from my Aunt Ruthie because it makes enough for a crowd. What cookie recipes are your favorites?