Bikes and Bread...

They have nothing to do with each other, except for the fact that they are two things my boys have enjoyed immensely lately.

We've been trying to teach Eli how to ride his bike. Grandma Stark found him one that is just the right size with training wheels! He loves to sit on it, but we're still working on the peddling concept. The helmet was a huge hit and he barely would remove it to sleep. He insisted on keeping it on while playing at the playground later, even though the bike had been left at home.

Thanks big brother!

Bread...

So, I took this bread making class a few months ago. A sweet sister in our ward who has been baking bread her whole life showed us how to make whole wheat bread. I was eager to attend, since I have tried to do this and failed miserably. It shouldn't be that hard to follow a recipe, right? Wrong! Bread is a fickle beast and I knew I needed an expert to show me the tricks of the trade. The loaf I made at the class turned out so nice I was excited to try again at home. Sister Smith told me that she will make 2 loaves worth of dough in her bread maker and then take them out and shape them in the loaf pans to bake them. I thought this was a brilliant idea and I tried it. Um, mine kind of worked, but not super great. Try #2 was worse. Then, one day I decided to go for it again. I tried different methods each time: put the flour and dry things in first then pour the wet yeast mixture over the top, try it the other way around....and so on. This new time I thought I'd mix it a bit by hand just to make sure it got going. I put the bread maker in my laundry room, thinking I was so smart to not have it taking up space in my microscopic kitchen (anyone who knows how small my kitchen was in Pullman will understand when I say that this one is smaller...seriously!). It takes a while to do its thing and I figured the timing would be just perfect. I could shape the loaves when the babies were sleeping and not have to be bothered. No, that didn't happen. It seems I didn't have the pan all the way stuck in the machine because at some point it had popped out and the dough was just rising and not being kneaded at all. I was so sad. I had ground the wheat myself, and to waste 6+ cups was tragic to me. Not only that, the babies were up and Eric was bored. I got grouchy really fast (no surprise there either). So, I did what any good mother would do. I got out the dough, squished it all together and tore off a hunk for each kid, Okay, not for Noah, that would be bad. I showed Eric and Eli how to knead the bread and just to get out some aggression and frustration and stuff I showed them how to spank the dough! I wish I had a pic of Eric's face when I first spanked the dough as hard as I could! I think he was scared. Then I smiled at him and said, "Now your turn!" He whacked his hunk as hard as he could. Soon, the 3 of us were kneading and spanking and whacking and laughing our heads off! Noah was happy sitting in the middle of all of us playing with some toy. We shaped our loaves and stuck them in the pans. I am not kidding in the least when I say it was the best bread I have ever made!

Eli's very own loaf. It was small and he ate it all himself. He was so proud!