St. Teresa of Calcutta Party! (Shining Light Dolls GIVEAWAY!)

Happy Friday, friends! Today is Mother Teresa's birthday! She's set to be canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta on September 4, so this morning I teamed up with my good friend Chantal (of Shining Light Dolls fame) to throw an epic Indian-themed party! We've got a fledgling group of Catholic moms in Chicago (sound like you? join us!) that started online and is growing fast, and we had yet to plan a get-together, so this was a wonderful opportunity to meet some new people. It was actually pretty easy to put together, and I've got lots of ideas to help you start planning yours. What better way to add to the festivity of a long weekend at the end of summer than to celebrate a new Saint?



Agnes Bojaxhiu was born into a Catholic family in Yugoslavia in 1910. At 18, she joined the Loreto Sisters of Dublin and took the name Teresa, in honor of St. Thérese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Avila. She was sent to India and worked as a school teacher. Later, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, an order which became known throughout the world for its work to help the poorest of the poor. Mother Teresa was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She died in 1997 and was beatified in 2003.

A new Saint Teresa Shining Light Doll is also being released just in time for the canonization, so each child at our party received a doll, as well as a copy of Chantal's fantastic new book, Saints on the Go, which features Saint Teresa (among many others)! Would you like one for your child? We're giving away 3, so enter at the bottom of this post to win!





It was a beautiful day, so in addition to the things listed below, we had a lot of end-of-summer fun in the back yard, and a big baby party in the living room.

















On to party planning! This can be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be.

Activities:

• Marigolds are a symbol of celebration in India, so why not craft your own out of pipe cleaners and tissue paper?
• Easy as can be: print a coloring sheet (scroll down for a printable!) and provide crayons and colored pencils!
• Pray together! Mother Teresa would love it. We used the simple, short prayer from the novena to St. Teresa here: http://www.praymorenovenas.com/mother-teresa-novena/

Food and Drinks:

• If you have an Indian grocery or bakery anywhere near you, you can pick up beautiful traditional desserts, as well as snacks and other things from their frozen section. 
• Mango Lassi - Like a milkshake. Easy, kid friendly, and healthy!
• Classic Samosas - Want a little challenge? Make these from scratch (we opted for frozen to save time)!
• Indian-spiced Hummus, with slices of naan (I found it at Costco!) and raw veggies for dipping.
• Chai tea with milk and honey (decaf for kids, great iced or hot).
• Mango lemonade and/or pineapple coconut water.
• Chicken Tikka Masala with rice (scroll down for the recipe!)

To enter to win the doll and book, comment on this post letting me know how you are planning to celebrate the canonization of St. Teresa of Calcutta with your families! Extra entries for visiting Coppertop Kitchen and Shining Light Dolls on Facebook. Good luck!! Winners will be announced on September 1.  Congratulations to our winners: Mary-Anne, Nicole, and Amanda! Check your email for info about how to claim your prizes.

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Chicken Tikka Masala
adapted from Cooks Illustrated
serves 4-6

While there are lots of Indian foods that would have been more authentic than this (this dish actually originated in London, not India), it's hard to beat a kid-friendly, crowd-pleasing meal that still has a bit of Indian spice. And I really mean a BIT. I took out every hint of spicy the original recipe had to offer. You're welcome, kiddos!

Sauce:
3 tablespoons olive or coconut oil
1 onion, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 teaspoons sugar
salt
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Chicken:
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced

For the sauce: In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and stir until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger and stir together until fragrant, about a minute. Add the tomato paste and garam masala and stir together, cooking for another minute until it all blends together. Stir in the tomatoes and sugar, and bring the mixture to a simmer. Simmer for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the chicken.

Preheat broiler to high, and place a rack in a foil-lined baking sheet. Spray the rack with cooking spray. In a small bowl, stir together the salt, cumin, and coriander. Sprinkle evenly over the chicken breasts, and rub the spices in slightly so they stick. In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, olive oil, ginger, and garlic. Using tongs, dip the chicken in the yogurt mixture and coat well. Lay the chicken on the prepared rack and broil until cooked through, about 7-9 minutes per side. Chicken will be slightly charred on both sides. Remove to a cutting board and let cool for a minute or two, then cut into 1-inch cubes.

Add the cream and cilantro to the sauce, stirring to combine, and then stir in the chicken pieces. Serve with basmati rice.

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An ordinary, wonderful spring day

I couldn't have predicted that today would be one that I would especially want to remember. We had an extra three-year-old hanging out with us all day, we just moved into a new house and things are still quite chaotic, and I had a dentist appointment scheduled in the afternoon. A hum-drum day, at best.

I woke up and, suspecting that I would not have a lot of time to myself throughout the day, I immediately treated myself to a shower, complete with hair-washing. I put on makeup and got dressed before going downstairs.

I made coffee, and as I sat sipping it and reading, I heard Anne wake up. I heard her pad into my bedroom where Eleanor was still sleeping. Anne knows to check and see if Eleanor's head is popped up before talking to her - if her head is still down, she silently creeps back out of the room. She must have been awake, because Anne greeted her in the sing-song voice she saves for her baby sister, then sang the song I sing to them every morning as soon as everyone's awake:

Good morning to you!

Good morning to you!

We're all in our places with bright shining faces

and this is the way we start out our day!

Unable to resist seeing their sweet faces at that point, I joined them upstairs, and then we all came downstairs for breakfast and read-aloud time. Soon after that, our 3-year-old buddy Evan (son of some of our dearest friends from college) arrived, and he and Anne ran off to play.

I nursed Eleanor, put her peacefully in her pack and play, and she went to sleep for 2 hours. 

Anne and Evan quickly took up residence in the back yard. For almost 3 hours. As aforementioned, we just moved in, so we don't have a lot of outside toys. I found a plastic tub, a funnel, some plastic cups and bowls, and our sand toys, filled the tub with the hose, and let them have at it. I left the door open and listened as that tub of water morphed from a stew to a "mixture" to a mud puddle (after they dug up some dirt from under our fence and mixed it all together).

In the middle of this, a huge delivery truck pulled up in our alley and a delivery man maneuvered a pallet full of closet organizing hardware into our garage while the two kids stood transfixed. Their outdoor time ended with them happy, tired, and muddy from head to toe. I carried them inside one by one and plopped them in the shower to hose them down, got them into clean, dry clothes, and made lunch.

My sister in law stopped by to see the new place, and we had lunch together. The kiddos had chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and the strawberry-coconut water popsicles we had made in the morning.

After lunch, I set the kids up with a movie and I cleaned up and unpacked a bit. Eleanor went down without protest for another hour-long nap. This may not seem amazing, but she has pretty much exclusively napped in a baby carrier of some kind for her entire life, so I'm not sure how she knows how to sleep alone. I take no responsibility. She's a magic baby.

Soon after that, another delivery truck! Another crew of guys unloading and carrying and assembling,  and poof! A couch!!

Then, I enlisted the help of my small cohorts in baking a lemon meringue pie, requested by Anne after several readings of Amelia Bedelia. It turned out just right! So beautiful! So GOLDEN, as Anne will tell you. (Recipe here!)

Jamie got home and as I started to make my way out the door to my dentist appointment, Anne begged to go with me. I told her it would be very boring, but she insisted. As we walked out the door to the car she grabbed my hand, looked up at me and said, "Mamma! We're going on a date!"

Arrived at the dentist, and it occurred to me that as long as Anne was there, and Eleanor wasn't, she might as well get her teeth cleaned too!



2.5 hours later, all teeth shiny and clean, and me with half my mouth numb from a new filling (thanks to our awesome dentist for the triple dose of novocain. I love you.), Anne and I waltzed back out to the car, called in an order for takeout sushi, picked it up on our way home, and ate our miso soup, edamame, and sushi in the kitchen together, followed by a piece of lemon meringue pie.

It was just an awesome day. Not for any one specific reason. I think my expectations were appropriately low. I think I said "yes" whenever I could. I think I ate good food and drank enough water, and that I'm a better mom when I'm not hungry or craving sugar. Thank you, Jesus, for days like this. With nothing terribly remarkable in them, but somehow adding up to something spectacular. May my life be the same. A series of good days, where I did my best, enjoyed the people around me, loved, laughed, baked, played outside. Nothing flashy or ostentatious, just a life LIVED.

Charoset-Inspired Baked Passover Apples

It's a feature of my personality, not to want to miss out on anything. I struggle with decisions, because I know that choosing to do one thing means choosing not to do a host of other things. This is especially difficult for me around holiday times, because with little kids around, doing everything is totally impossible. And what's more important? That they have a well-planned craft for each day of Holy Week, or that I remember to take time to sit down and just read the Story with them? To make sure their little minds are absorbing just a little more of the mystery we celebrate this week?

Amid the chaos of extra church services, cleaning, shopping, and redecorating, I'm trying to cultivate calm. I'm reminding myself that family traditions aren't built in one year, but over a lifetime.

One spring, when I was in seventh or eighth grade, our church hosted a Passover seder. It was the first time I had been exposed to beautiful rituals of this ancient Jewish feast, and I was blown away. As we read the questions, ate the symbolic foods, and drank sips of wine, I saw in a totally new way what Jesus had done. How he had fulfilled centuries' worth of prophecy. I was moved and changed.

Every year, I feel a tug to celebrate the Passover like that again, with matzah, bitter herbs, four cups of wine, and the Haggadah to guide us through it. This year, with a 5-month-old and a 3-year-old, though, I decided that all the careful work and planning I would have to complete to make this meal happen would just end up in my frustration over their inability to appreciate it. I'm going to wait. Maybe next year. (Ann Voskamp has a wonderful post about her family's Seder here.)

But instead of giving up on the idea entirely, I made a seder-inspired meal for Palm Sunday dinner. I would have loved to have it on Holy Thursday, in memory of the seder Jesus celebrated with His disciples before He died, but again - elaborate dinner on a weeknight ups my chances of ending up in tears, so I did what I could to keep both this feast and my sanity.



The menu:

Broiled lamb chops
Pilaf
Greek salad (with lots of parsley)
Baked apples and vanilla ice cream

Charoset is a paste made from apples, nuts, honey or sugar, and red wine, and it's a traditional part of the seder plate; its texture represents the mortar the Israelites used when they were enslaved in Egypt. Here's a traditional recipe.



Charoset-Inspired Baked Passover Apples

5 Fuji apples, cored
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Arrange the apples in a baking dish with a lid. Combine the wine, water, sugar, and cinnamon stick in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Set aside. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon, and spoon the mixture into the center of the apples. Top each apple with a small piece of butter, right on top of the filling. Pour the wine around the apples, cover, and bake for about 45 minutes, until soft.

What's In Our Easter Baskets {Shining Light Dolls + Book GIVEAWAY!}

Lent seems to go in three phases around here:

1) Overzealous: "I'm going to give up bread and coffee and sugar and Facebook and TV and laughing and chocolate and alcohol. And gossiping and complaining. It's going to be my BEST LENT EVER!"

2) Despondent: "Why am I alive? Why am I so desperately weak? Jesus went 40 days without food or shelter in the desert, and then died on the Cross, and I can't even make it through an entire day at home with my kids without tearfully contemplating cocktail hour. I'm a miserable human being."

3) EASTER BASKET SHOPPING. Also coincides (at least this year) with tolerably warm weather and actual living things popping out of the ground.

We're deep into phase three, I'm happy to report, having barely survived phase two. And I wanted to share the contents of our baskets with you! I also have an opportunity for three (3) lucky winners to receive the three latest Shining Light Dolls (Our Lady of Kibeho, Our Lady of China, and Our Lady of Aparecida), and a copy of "The Virgin Mary Around the World," a board book created by the creative genius behind Shining Light Dolls, my sweet and talented friend Chantal Baros.

Inside our baskets:

Anne (3):

• The Complete Illustrated Children's Bible. We have a few books of Bible stories, but I was looking for one with longer stories, and a lot more. Most of ours have somewhere in the range of 15-20, and this version has almost 300.
• This little tub of farm animal figurines. I think she'll get a kick out of them.
• Easter sticker and activity book!
• Random stuff from Target: Hatch-n-Grow Spring Eggs look so cute!
• Chocolate cross and lambs, Anna and Elsa jelly beans, and a Peeps lollipop.

Eleanor (almost 6 months):

• I Am A Bunny
• Peek 'n' Peep Eggs
• A St. Catherine Labouré felt saint softie.
• A new sippy cup and some puffs.

We're also going to give them the three new Shining Light Dolls. Faith formation for little kids seems to be most successful if it's just mixed in with everything else, like it's not a big deal. An undetectable part of their family life. Among my girls' toys, you will find the usual suspects (Anna and Elsa, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel), along with Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Patrick, and St. Nicholas. Our religious books are mixed in with all the other picture books. Conversations about faith happen naturally that way. I like it!

Shining Light Dolls are beautiful, sturdy, and safe and fun for all ages to play with! Baby Eleanor loves them as a teething toy and Anne loves to use them to play pretend games. We love love love them! The designer, Chantal, releases a few more designs a couple times a year. She is doing such a great job, filling a gap for beautiful, cool toys that teach kids (and adults) about our faith. While I'm teaching my daughters, I'm also learning! I had never even heard of the majority of the apparitions of Mary featured in the book. There's always more to explore, and the book and dolls are just a jumping off point.

I'll also say, with all the hubbub lately about Barbies and other dolls in different shapes, sizes, and colors, these dolls are a breath of fresh air for my impressionable girls. Body shape? Irrelevant (hooray!). Cultural diversity? NAILED IT. 

Enough talking. You NEED to see them!!

Our Lady of Kibeho:

Our Lady of Aparecida:

Our Lady of China:

You want them, right? OF COURSE YOU DO. Jump in the Rafflecopter to win - make sure to get your entries completed by midnight on Tuesday! Three lucky winners will be chosen on Wednesday, so they'll get to you in plenty of time for Easter. Good luck!

{UPDATE} The giveaway is closed! Congratulations to Heather, Maryann, and Trish! Check your email for details on how to claim your prize! :)

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H is for... {Honey Muffins}

I've thought a lot about "survival mode." About those times in your life, like when you've just had a baby, when you have to get down to the most basic level of what absolutely needs to get done in your life for your family to stay alive. Nothing (or almost nothing) extra. Quick and easy meals. Instacart for groceries. Calling that walk to the park and back your "workout." Leaving clean laundry unfolded in a basket for weeks and calling it a win that it even got washed and dried.

Truth be told, I think it's the attempted re-entry to normal life that's hardest for me. I want to know what to expect. In survival mode, I don't expect anything, so anything at all feels like a victory. This in-between time, though? The baby is four months old, not a newborn any more by anyone's standards, but still needing me an awful lot. It seems like I have it together every other week. Every other week I'm able to get my house cleaned, make reasonably delicious, interesting, healthy meals, parent successfully (read: with minimal yelling), get to the gym, talk to friends, connect with my husband, get some reading time, drink enough water. On the in-between weeks, though, I feel like a complete and utter failure. I just did this last week, I think. Surely I can replicate what I just did last week!

But then I'm yelling at my 3-year-old, eating cookies one after the other like a crazed starving person, wondering how a family of four could possibly have worn this many clothes since I last did laundry, which couldn't have been more than 2 days ago... could it? It's like last week I was comfortably swimming in this lake, thinking how cool and wonderful the water felt, thinking that yes, I was getting tired, but this work was so worth doing, was even fun! And this week, nothing is perceptibly different, but I am half-drowning, wondering how I'm possibly going to get through another minute, let alone until bedtime.

This morning, I got back to basics. I listened to my girl instead of getting distracted by my phone. I sat down next to her on the floor and joined her in arranging and rearranging seashells. We read picture books for a good deal longer than I had planned on. We made cookies together, with sprinkles and yellow icing smiley faces. She went down for a nap, and I folded just one load of laundry. Put another one in. Did a few dishes. And just like that, I was swimming again. Because I decided to put love first. Put our relationship first. I put aside my sometimes-compulsive desire to get out the door and give my daughter enriching experiences, and reminded myself that sometimes the best thing for all of us is just to stay at home together, playing and reading and enjoying this fleeting time of life.



This week, we're focusing on the letter H. H is for...

How am I going to do this? How will I survive?
Help!!!
Hard. So hard.
Home.
Healthy choices making a real difference. Enough water. Enough sleep. Healthy food. Fresh air. Basics.
Happy. Dancing to happy music, making happy faces on our treats.
Heaven: the end goal of all of this striving. All of this worry, all of this work. So very worth it to bring glory to Him.



Honey Muffins
from Super Natural Every Day

These simple muffins are quick to mix together and contain no refined sugar! The addition of millet gives each bite a lovely pop! They are also fantastic on subsequent mornings split, buttered, and broiled until crispy.

2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1/3 cup raw millet
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain yogurt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup honey
Grated zest of a lemon, plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.

Whisk together the flour, millet, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, butter, honey, and lemon zest and juice. Pour the wet into the dry, and mix together as gently as possible. The batter will be slightly puffy. Scoop the batter into the muffin cups, and bake for about 15 minutes, until the muffins are golden and beginning to crack on the top. Let cool for 5 minutes in the pans, remove to a cooling rack, and cool completely (or eat warm!).

Makes one dozen.