Author: Kim

The Perfect Parent

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Are you the perfect parent? 

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Who am I?

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A few short months ago I launched this humble blog.  It was, and still is, my hope to share my heart.  While I have had no difficulty in stringing words together as they relate to food, recipes, and competitive cooking, I have strained and struggled to compose entries relating to family life.  It’s not as if I am at a loss for words.  My head is spinning with topics and personal stories to share.  My next blog post has been sitting in my draft folder for nearly two weeks, yet I simply can’t hit the publish tab.  Why?  Last night that question was answered.

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It’s Not All About the Dough!

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For nearly eight months I had waited for this day to come, and now, here it was!  After breakfast all one hundred finalists filed into a small room off of the main ballroom.  We were carefully lined up in the order of our kitchen station location.   We also emptied our pockets of any personal belongings.  Nothing, and I mean, nothing personal was allowed onto the Bake Off floor.  No tissues, no phone, no camera, no lip balm, no pictures of the kiddos…nothing!   Hey, there’s a million dollars on the line here.  I get it; they mean business, so much so that we were told that we would not be permitted to use the restroom without an escort.

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The Road To Vegas

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Now that my status as a finalist for the 46th Pillsbury Bake Off had been confirmed, my husband and I were left with a dilemma:  do we take the whole family out to Vegas, or do I head out solo?  The kids were eager to go; they wanted to see mom in action.  My husband and I were hesitant.  Las Vegas, a place neither one of us had ever been to, just didn’t seem all too family friendly to us.  To our surprise, many people told us to the contrary.  They provided a litany of kid friendly attractions that we were sure to love.  Even our pediatrician suggested that we take the kids along.  We prayed about it and simply asked that the Lord close the doors shut if it wasn’t His will.  Well, door after door was not only closed, but slammed in my face.  It was becoming abundantly clear that I would be traveling solo.

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The Road to the 46th Pillsbury Bake Off – Part 1

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Meatball and Breadstick Sub Skewers

It was January 2013, and I, like many of my fellow competitive cooks, was eagerly waiting for Pillsbury to release the rules for the upcoming Bake Off.   This would be the year that I seriously try my hand at becoming a finalist.  I had attempted to put together a few recipe submissions for the 45th Bake Off, but they all fell flat.  I had tried WAY too hard to create something.  None of the submissions were ones that I would feed my family, none of them had my fingerprint, none of them were me.  So I wasn’t surprised to be watching the festivities from the comfort of my home.

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The Bird, the Bread, the Bake Off.

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I remember cooking my first Thanksgiving meal.  I was a newlywed who was still finding her way in the kitchen.  At that time in my life, I regularly turned to Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker, and the Gorton’s Fisherman for cooking advice.  They were always so helpful and reliable.  Cooking from scratch was not something that was important to me at the time.  However, I knew that I wanted to impress my guests at my first Thanksgiving meal.  I figured that I would cook both a turkey and a fresh ham, neither of which I had ever cooked before.  I feel really old making this statement, but this was before we had a desktop computer.  I didn’t have a plethora of cooking advice and recipes that were strokes away, and, at that time, I don’t even think I owned a cookbook.   I figured that I would wing it.  How hard could it be?  I planned out the menu which included the traditional green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, and a pumpkin bread courtesy of Pillsbury.

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The Journey Begins

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Welcome to my new blog, my first blog, Life in the Van.  Let me explain the title.  No, we don’t live in a van.  My kids were concerned about that one.  However, as the mom of three active boys, I do feel like I live in the van at times.  Life happens in that van.  Great talks.  Laughter.  Off key singing.  Often the van is the first seat after a celebration.  It’s the place we exhale.

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