Homemade Granola and Girlfriends I love to make homemade granola.  It brings me pure pleasure!  I feel like a gourmet cook as our home is filled with an aroma that tickles the taste buds.  All of a sudden children appear from nowhere and my husband gallops in  from his man-cave as the scent of cinnamon and brown sugar bring him alive.  However, the thing I love most about making the granola is dividing it up into pleasing portions and delivering them to my girlfriends. I love ringing their doorbells and handing them their bag, made especially for them.  They gracefully reach for ...

(this presentation was given at the 2010 LDS Holistic Living Conference) "Mothering is all about learning the fine art of letting go of the control, living more in the moment, and loving more-unconditionally." -Jonelle Hughes 1. Our children will learn, regardless. We are taught to be stewards of our children’s learning, and the most important learning occurs in the home. Sometimes this feels daunting, and we often check ourselves against a certain skill set by their age to know if we are “preparing them enough”, teaching them all they need to know to survive in the “real” world, and so on. I have found ...

When I was a little girl, I would go with my twin brother to a field near our home and fly kites. March was the perfect month as the wind currents would stir the air, creating breezes that were perfect for kite flying. I would hold the ball of string as my brother, Antoine, would run like a warrior, propelling the kite up into the sky, in hopes that the breeze would gracefully snatch our colorful kite and carry it into the heavens. We would spend hours gazing into the sky; watching our kite dance among the animals we ...