Goodnesses

Our Stake Relief Society puts on an annual Celebration of Sisterhood to celebrate being sistaz in da hood. And that is the end of my ghetto-ness, I promise. Well, for this post at least.

This get-together is quite an ordeal every year, and these incredible women put on a fabulous program and lunch for all the RS sisters in the stake. I've really got to hand it to them, because there is a lot of planning and time spent in order to make it wonderful for us all.

This year, the theme was "A Heart Like His". It was based on a recently published book by Virginia Hinckley Pearce, one of GBH's daughters. There were parts chosen for narration, and then our Stake RSP asked many of the music-minded people to prepare numbers for the occasion that were interspersed between the narrations. All of the music was such a treat, and I felt honored that I knew them all! Those I knew most intimately were four women who prepared 3 pieces to be played as a piano quartet. Four women on two pianos - it was glorious. One of these women was my own mom, and I kept hearing reports of how wonderful it was to practice with the other three. They were totally in cahoots with each other. Two of the other women helped raise me, and the fourth moved in recently and took up post as a wonderful friend and fellow troublemaker. Thank you to all the women (and a few dudes) who shared such incredible talent with us and made a particular Saturday in March something special.

Part of the day is a fabulous lunch and a humanitarian project. The project was to put together "Birthdays in a Bag" where we donated and then assembled the makings of a frosted and decorated cake in a large Ziploc for nearby women's shelters. Since there was a birthday theme, any volunteers were asked to make a cake of their choosing to put on the tables as centerpieces for the lunch. What a great idea! I volunteered to do one, as did my friend Sachia, and we decided to make them together at my place the Thursday before the event.

These pictures show the fun!

Tessa hung out in her sling while we mixed and baked, and Sienna was only slightly needy. So we got it all done, and laughed the whole time!




The progression of the cakes: batter

Just baked:

Final product #1: Vanilla bean cake with lemon curd and berries.

Final product #2: Lemon cake with white chocolate and toasted coconut.

Both of the results of our efforts turned out yumariffic, but I got so much more out of our time together. Thanks so much, Sachia, for making the effort to come to my house and to bake despite the crazy! You lifted my spirits that day and you do every time I see you.

Here were some other excellent-looking cakes that I wanted to devour. They were aesthetically pleasing, so I hope they tasted great as well. That's the rule: if it looks good, it HAS to taste good. The converse is also true, so kudos to the makers of these:


This one was my favorite. Don't be surprised if you see some version of this on my table in the future. I've been known to steal (ahem, borrow) good ideas.

I loved the day! Thanks to all who helped make it happen!