Catching Up...Strawberry Shortcake

I apologize for the delay and thank you to the people that inform me when they are missing my blog, it helps me refocus.  I have been very busy giving gifts and life has been a bit crazy since Justin came home...Not being his normal happy self, he was requiring to be held and comforted around the clock...literally, he would not tolerate being put down at all.  So with much patience and the help of respite providers relieving us, we got through it and after two weeks, he is almost back to normal!  He is able to play and be put down and is his generally happy self.  However, he is not yet tolerating his many therapy sessions, but this too, will come.

So, I haven't written every gift down, which is unfortunate.  However, I'm going to write about some of the ones I remember off the top of my head.  I do know that I didn't miss a day though and that is very exciting to me considering the recent chaos.  While Justin was still struggling and he had fallen asleep around 7pm that night, I decided I'd make my family strawberry shortcake for my gift.  I was super tired and didn't feel like doing anything but Tim had bought nine packages of strawberries, yes nine, and the kids were eying them and I do make really yummy shortcake.  So I decided it would only take a half hour and that would be my gift.  When my family realized what I was up to, they got really excited.

I've made shortcake lots of different ways, however, Bisquick is our absolute hands down favorite!  So, I pulled out the Bisquick box only to find there was only a small amount left...shoot!  Well, the kids were dancing around the house singing "Yea, yea, strawberry shortcake!" so I sighed as I realized I'd have to do it from scratch...This was going to be more of a gift than I had anticipated.  I pulled out my Betty Crocker book to find their recipe required a pastry blender...a what?  OK, so I definitely don't have one of those.  Then I pulled out the Joy of Cooking, oh boy, this one seemed way to complicated.  Then Tim, seeing my frustration pulled out a Better Homes and Garden book and said, "I think there is a good one in here..."  The only tricky part was cutting  the butter into the flour but I actually knew how to do that as my mom had taught me last year when she showed me the family secret on her world famous apple pie.  So I went to work.  I was happily making my mix when I went to grab the sugar...Crap!  We were out!  We don't use sugar hardly ever so I didn't even notice.  I yelled to Dakota to run to my neighbors house to grab a cup of sugar, OK, problem solved.

I was mixing in my sugar when I went to grab some eggs out of the fridge...No way!  There were no eggs.  Huge sigh.  "Dakota!" I yelled, "I need two eggs."  "Mooooommmmm, it's dark out."  Yes, it was now 8pm, an hour later and not even in the oven.  But, I wasn't giving up.  I told Dakota to go to my OTHER neighbor and ask for two eggs.  Isn't it funny how I couldn't stand my first neighbor knowing that "I didn't have it all together" and so I instructed my Dakota to go to a different one?  I find that interesting.  Anyway, another half hour and we were all enjoying warm Strawberry Shortcake and the kids went to bed happily with full bellies and I collapsed on the couch.