Lemon Yogurt

Citrus is in season and everywhere I look the trees in my neighborhood and around town are hanging with fruit. We have a white grapefruit tree and our neighbors, who can't have citrus, have several orange and one lemon tree. Thanks to them we now have a plentiful supply of fruit waiting to be juiced and I am trying to think of anything and everything I can do with it.

Thankfully, when I was shopping at Costco a few weeks ago I happened to sample some delicious lemon yogurt. It was to die for. Everyone one in our family loved it, but with the way my kids eat yogurt I found this to be a not so economical snack. So I tried making my own!

Costco sells a 48 ounce container of Plain Greek Yogurt that I really like to use. The consistency is thick enough to handle the lemon juice without getting too thin. For this video I used my own homemade yogurt (the starter was from the Costco Plain Greek Yogurt). It was a bit too thin in my opinion so next time I will either take the time to make Greek Yogurt or head to Costco to get some.

To make this yogurt you will need:

48-64 Ounces of Plain Greek Yogurt
1/3-1/2 Cup fresh lemon juice
1/4-1/3 Cup sweetener (I used local raw honey for this video and loved it. Olive prefers sugar.)
Optional: Lemon zest and/or lemon oil (You could also use lemon extract, just make sure it's pure extract and not imitation lemon.) Start with 3-4 drops and add more if needed.

Transfer your yogurt into a mixing bow. Add the lemon juice and stir until fully incorporated. If you are going to use honey make sure it is slightly warm. You will have a much easier time stirring it in if it is warm, which makes the consistency slightly thinner. Finally, if you would like a stronger lemon flavor add in either lemon zest, lemon oil or lemon extract. Once everything is combined and you are satisfied with the flavor transfer the yogurt back to the original container and enjoy!

Our Pictures With Dove

When Olive joined our family in 2013 it was a sweet and joyous moment to watch my two older children enter the hospital room and gaze upon their baby sister for the first time. The feelings I experienced were unforgettable; my heart was so full I thought it would burst. Now, knowing how much each of my children anxiously awaited the arrival of our fourth child, I was filled with excitement and anticipation for the moment I would once again watch them enter the hospital room and meet the newest edition to our family team. April it seemed could not come soon enough. I lived and breathed for this moment through days of morning sickness, fatigue, and the pain of my sciatic nerve. It kept me going. However, when Dove died life once again showed me that sometimes the dreams we make never quite turn out the way we've imagined them, rarely does life turn out the way we've planned.

We brought our children to the hospital on January 4, 2017 to see and hold their baby sister Dove. They walked into the room, but where there should have been excitement the mood was somber. They peeked into the basket where she laid, but where there should have been movement she was still. I moved to the side of my bed and let each child take a turn holding Dove, but where she should have been warm and soft she was now cold and stiff. Just as I imagined my children admired her adorable hands and feet, her tiny little toes, and fingernails. We lifted her hat to see her cute little ears. She had my chin, the strong pointed peaks of my upper lip, and a nose we had seen before in the faces of our two older girls. She had the beginnings of what looked to be a full head of curly hair just like her big sister Olive. She was such a beautiful baby.

Benson and Olive held Dove twice. Ginger held her three times and cried. I could see how deeply she felt this loss. With Ginger I was constantly calling her over and crawling into bed with her during the early hours of the morning to let her feel Dove’s movements. Experiencing her excitement elevated my excitement and it deepened my love and appreciation for the sacred gift of life. I know she was so looking forward to the arrival of this baby. Watching her broke my heart.

We took some pictures and then Nate took the kids back to the neighbor’s house. As the nurse came into my room to go over a few final things it suddenly hit like a wall of bricks. I had lived so fully in the moment, in the experience of holding my daughter and mourning her loss that I had thought little of the near future and of the gut wrenching experience that laid before me; that I was about to leave her, abandon her, that I was about to go home and go on with life without her. It is a feeling that haunts me to this day.

It was then that I also realized that we had not taken a picture of all six of us together. I made Nate go back for the kids and we took a family photo. It’s not the best. I had thought about putting on some makeup, but found that idea to be completely pointless by the amount of tears continually streaming from my eyes. Our picture together isn’t glamorous, but it’s real.

After we took our family photo I put Dove back in her basket and handed her to the nurse.

We walked out of the room together as a family, we walked down the hall and then we came to a fork in the road. The nurse went right to the morgue, we turned left to go out the door. I glanced over my shoulder for one final look and then she was gone. I wanted to turn around, to run after her and take her home. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, from this horror from which there was no release. It took all my strength to walk out those doors, strength greater than my own. I was supported buy the strength of my oldest daughter holding my hand and the strength of my youngest daughter Dove holding my heart. It deepened my understanding of what it means to be a family, to be there for one another, to be a family team.

As we emerged from the hospital and I saw the sun for the first time in two days it warmed my skin and my soul. It was a reminder from the gloom of my hospital room that life goes on, that there is so much beauty in life to be grateful for, that there is still so much in life to live for.  

The Name Dove

Many people have asked about the name of our sweet angel baby Dove. Dove is a family name and here are a few words about the woman who inspired the name and how it found its way to our darling daughter.

Dove Facer Call

Dove Facer Call, born January 10, 1867 was my great-great grandmother. I have read from more than one account that she had a beautiful singing voice, so much so that she was offered free lessons by Evan Stephens (first director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir); however, because her father did not approve of these lessons she was never able to more fully develop her talent. She married young, at the age of 17, and left her home as a new bride to be a pioneer on an untamed homestead in Idaho. My children love the story about how Dove and her six month old son were left to guard the wagon (for fear that the Indians would strip and steal it) while her husband took the team of horses to help pull another wagon across the sands.

“Sure enough, the Indians came, circled the wagon and kept peeking in and saying ‘white woman and baby he heap scared’. Mother put on a brave front and assured them that she was not afraid though she sat in the middle of the wagon and kept a long rifle across her lap ready to use it if necessary. That may have been a factor that kept the Indians away. She told me many times that she was afraid.”

Dove willingly let her husband accept a mission call for two years in the Southern States despite the fact that she was left to raise and care for their five young children on her own. She was: “ambitious and thrifty, quick and alert, her work never drove her but it was always kept up. She was on time with everything, systematic with her work, when a thing needed doing she did it, her meals were nicely cooked and regular, nothing was haphazard”. It is said that other women wished they could keep house like Dove.

Dove also taught her children to work. “Home in that day was a work shop, all clothing was made in the home and girls were taught to make their own clothes including underwear. She was a kind, considerate mother, but insisted on obedience, and none of us could ever put anything over on her.” She had ten children and they said of their mother “we could always go to her for advice or if we felt depressed, she listened with sympathy and we felt better after talking with her.”

Dove Facer Call died at the age of 48 from diabetes and I found this quote especially touching: “Mother worried about leaving her family. She used to talk to me about it. She was afraid her children would forget her. Let us try to keep her memory alive in this family.” Of course, I am very honored that we can be apart of keeping her memory alive by naming our precious daughter after her.

Naming My Daughter Dove

Dove Facer Call was a name I had heard before, however it was not until the summer of 2016, when my mom recounted the story of Dove and the Indians in honor of Pioneer Day, that I was particularly drawn to it. I heard it, I loved, and I vividly remember the moment I decided that if I ever had another daughter I would name her Dove. Much to my delight I very soon discovered that I was pregnant again. Although I did not know it at the time the baby I was carrying was a girl--she was my Dove.

From my own personal experience I have found in life that often the spirit works in us, prompting us and leading us, but even when we feel sure in those whisperings it is not until we have a physical manifestation of what we have felt that we fully comprehend the profound power and reality of personal revelation. We may feel prompted to call or visit a friend, but not know why until we act on that prompting. We may feel inspired to make certain decisions in our life and not realize why until months or years have passed, making it possible to see with our own eyes what we have so long felt in our hearts. It takes trust, it takes a lot of faith, and often it takes time to understand God’s wisdom and to see just how much He can work in our lives if only we will let Him.

For me this pregnancy was full of those types of experiences. Promptings to do things, not seeing until we lost our daughter just how much the Lord had prepared me, and us, in the coming months for her early departure. How this was always meant to be. I cannot publically share all of these experiences, but here are a few I feel would be appropriate to publish.

After discovering the name Dove and learning that a baby was on the way I had an experience during the first trimester that led me to believe I was carrying a baby girl and that the name Dove was far more than a name that I liked, it was meant to be her name. Although I said nothing of this experience to anyone I was occasionally pestered by my husband who was convinced that I knew the baby’s gender and was keeping it a secret. Of course I denied it, partly because I knew a boy was very much desired by both him and our son, but also because the lack of medical confirmation kept me from verbally confirming what I already knew and felt in my heart.

  

However, it was partly due to this experience and partly due again to the promptings of the spirit that I suggested we not find out the gender of the baby at my twenty week ultrasound, keeping it a surprise until the birth. I knew from how earnestly my son had prayed for a baby brother that he would be devastated by the news that another little fiery ball of estrogen was about to invade his life, but that his sweet and gentle heart would soon be won over the minute he laid eyes on her. In order to insure our secret was kept safe my OB was considerate enough to write the gender on my medical chart in Mandarin Chinese and then--without being asked-- he handed me an envelope revealing the baby’s gender just in case I changed my mind. I did not want the envelope and almost insisted that he take it back, but for some reason I felt as though I should keep it.

Well, for several weeks Nate and I kept this envelope in our safe determined not to open it until after the baby’s arrival. Then tragedy struck and we were now faced with the dilemma of not only how and when to tell our children, but how and when we should open the envelope containing the medical confirmation of our baby’s gender. Although we as parents have things in life that we keep private, our family atmosphere is one of openness. I have tried especially hard through the years to be as transparent, honest, and upfront with my children as circumstances allow. I want our family to be close and connected. I  want each member to feel valued, respected, and honored. After all, we are a team.

I was given the first dose of medication to induce labor the morning of January 3, making it a long day of waiting (between twelve and eighteen hours) before the delivery of our child. It was during this window that Nate left to retrieve our children and the envelope from the safe. l will never forget the moment he walked out of the delivery room. I knew, I knew just as I know the sun rises and sets each day that our baby was a girl. I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I should still name her Dove. After all, I had spent months envisioning this child. A little girl, much like Olive, with blonde, curly hair. I had pictured her running around our backyard on the grass and calling out for her using this beautiful family name. But despite my misgivings the confirmation was there. This was Dove. Dove Estella Mortensen.

A Middle Name

It was back in December, three weeks before losing Dove, that I left a routine OB appointment and briefly sat in my car to read through some of the life and history of Dove Facer Call. It was there that I discovered some wonderful things about my great-great grandmother, including the fact that her middle name was Estella. I still remember texting my mom (who knew of my interest in the name Dove) to tell her of my discovery and how I thought the combination was absolute perfection. My husband, however, was less convinced that evening when I suggested the name as a possibility “if” our baby happened to be a girl.  He wanted to continue on with the middle name tradition established by our two older daughters--Ginger Rae and Olive Mae. But that did not sit well with me. Dove Estella seemed so right, so perfect, and I was about to discover why.

As my husband returned to the delivery with our children there was some obvious confusion about what was going on. I called everyone over and as we sat close together Nate told them our sad, sad news. The oldest two went silent and sweet little Olive, who was so excited about this baby--with an enthusiasm I had never seen before--burst into tears. I had dreaded this moment with all of my heart. My pain, which was great, had now become unbearable.

We then handed Benson the envelope and asked him to open it and tell us the gender of the baby.  There, written and circled on the page was the word girl. I then asked the children what they thought about naming the baby after great-great-grandma Dove. They quickly remembered her story from the summer and agreed that they loved the name as well. I then turned on my phone to find out the meaning of the name Estella before officially suggesting it as a middle name (of course, from studying French in college, I should have already known). Tears came to my eyes and I could hardly speak as I read the translation: Star. So appropriate for our little girl that left us much too soon. Even more miraculous was that my nurse was then able to find a pink gown with little stars on it; it was just her size. I was so deeply touched and grateful that I had been prepared ahead of time with this lovely name. Without a doubt it was inspired, it was meant to be. The way she has touched my life fits so perfectly with her name, experiences I could never write even if I tried. She has been the bringer of peace and truth, of God’s love for me. She has and forever will be my beautiful little Dove.