After posting this recap of Relative Race Season 15 Episode 3 I will be all caught up on sharing these wonderful debriefs that CarolinaGirlGenealogy Cheri Passey does with her GenFriends bunch every week in YouTube. RR Season 15 Episode 3 aired just last Sunday. So now I’m looking forward to Episode 4, which will premiere this Sunday April 6th on byutv.org. (If this is your first time hearing about Relative Race, go here to learn more about it.) I’ll keep posting the recaps for this season as each one comes out each week.
This episode 3 was so wonderfully tearjerking. Especially with one of the contestants, Dan of Team Red, being able to meet his mother. Can you imagine, not knowing who your biological mother is, and then being able to meet her after 50+ years? I’m so happy for Dan that this happened for him!
Credit for Image Above: Relative Race Live Facebook page
Watch Relative Race Season 15 Episode 3 here, and then the recap below.
Want more Relative Race? Read all the stuff I’ve blogged about it here.
Here’s a recap video, down below, of Season 15 Episode 2 with Ashlee, of Team Black, Season 13.
If you want to know why I love Relative Race so much, go here.
What’s extra special about Ashlee being in this recap is that her relatives are in Season 15! She got to meet her cousin, and her cousin’s daughter, Kayli, in Season 13. Now Kayli is back with her uncle, Dan, for this season as Team Red!
I got to meet Ashlee last summer as a God-orchestrated moment on the side of the road at a parade in Spanish Fork Utah. We had such a fun conversation! She wasn’t freaked out by me, a complete stranger, telling her, “Hey, I know you, I know all about you! You were on Relative Race! Team Black!” She is just as delightful in person as she is on TV.
I hope you enjoy this!
Go here for more about Relative Race. I just love it so much! It lets me feel the Holy Ghost reminding me of the Godly origin of family, motivating me to treat my family members better. I hope it does the same for you. When we make family a place we all want to be, it is an early taste of heaven.
After watching Relative Race every time, I always want to talk to people about it. I watch it on Sunday nights with my husband and youngest child who is 15. After the show, I talk about it with them, and then I text my friend Mindy with a few comments. She watches it on Sunday nights with her family too. Then I watch the video recap done by Cheri Hudson Passey of GenFriends YouTube Channel that come out in the following week. If you are a Relative Race fan like I am, you will love watching this! This particular season seems extra special with two mother/daughter teams and two uncle/niece teams. That’s the first time we’ve had such a combination, and I believe the first time we’ve had so much estrogen with 6 out of the 8 contestants being females.
Here’s a recap of Season 15 Episode 1. Thanks to Cheri Passey and her family history buff gals for getting together for this. If you don’t know what Relative Race is, go watch it here and get all the feels of family reunion love. It’s basically a reality TV show of teams racing to find relatives they never knew existed, mostly because of adoption issues.
Want more Relative Race?
Go here for a recent video interview with Dan, the host, from RootsTech 2025.
Go here for some firesides with Dan and Rebecca of Team Black, Season 3. (Did you know she works for the show now behind the scenes?), and then Jen and J.D. Barnes, Team Black of Season 6.
Here are some fun excerpts of the show so you can know how wonderful it is.
I’m always sad when a season ends and then we have to wait 6 months or so for the new season. I’m glad we can watch old episodes in the meantime. I often watch the old ones on Sundays after my church meetings while I work a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle theme of finding missing pieces matches the theme of finding missing family members. I love all of it!
Easter is less than 3 weeks away! In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some ideas for a Christ-centered Easter.
Let’s start off with getting ready for Parables Charades or Sculpturades!
For charades, just act out the clues with no talking of course. For a twist on that classic game, use play doh instead, to create a 3-D representation of the clue in sculpted form. What does this have to do with Easter? Jesus is what Easter is really about of course, and Jesus told His parables to teach important truths. The author of the book shown below suggests in the book to make playing this activity as part of your family’s Easter celebration to keep the focus on Christ. She suggests playing the game on Tuesday of Holy Week, calling it Parable Tuesday, since nobody knows for sure what exactly happened on the Tuesday of the last week. You don’t have to do it on Tuesday of Holy Week of course.
Go here to read the directions for Parables Charades. The article there is written by the same author as that of the book above, Wendee Rosborough. (My review of the book is here.) Just click on that link and scroll down in the article to the heading “Parable Tuesday, Teaching the Disciples” so you can learn all about how to do the activity and get the clues for the parables. Last year we did the sculpturades version. We had my husband, two of our sons, ages 14 and 23, and me involved. I was skeptical that it would be a hit but wanted to try it anyway. It produced many laughs, making me wish I had started this tradition years ago when all my kiddos were home.
I’m looking forward to making it an annual holiday staple tradition, especially among the grandchildren. I find it wonderful that in addition to focusing on the Savior’s atonement and resurrection in Holy Week, which are absolutely wonderful and essential to the Easter story, we also talk about His matchless teachings. The parables are perfect for this because they are little stories that are easily remembered.
You can read the parables directly from the scirptures or use one of the books below to read them as people correctly guess the parable from the clues.
For older people, I recommend this book with the amazing illustrations by James Christensen. I feel blessed to have found this book when thrifting for only $1!
Credit for Book Cover Photos Above and Below: amazon.com
For the younger set, Tomie de Paola’s books have simpler words and shorter summaries. You can probably find them at your local public library.
Want more Christ-centered Easter ideas?
My children’s second cousin, John Hilton III, and his wife Lani Hilton, have the idea for a Good Friday bag and other Christ-centered Easter activities over here. This takes some prep so start now!
Go here for all of Emily Belle Freeman’s Christ-centered Easter traditions to count down the days of Holy Week.
Go here for books for you to read as a mother to prepare for Easter.
Here are my favorite Easter picture books. Get these from your local public library and read one a day! Easiest, cheapest Easter family tradition ever!
Here are my favorite family traditions for Easter, under the April heading.
Here is a huge collection of Easter poems, stories, scriptures, and songs, excerpted from my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook.
Over here and here I have some recent memories of our family’s Easter celebrations, including the Immanuel Wreath.
Last of all, for adults and teens who want to dive deep into the meaning of the atonement and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, go here.
Today the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ went on sale for the first time. The publisher, E.B. Grandin, started selling it at his bookstore for $1.75, in Palmyra, New York. So happy birthday to the Book of Mormon!
You can learn more about the print shop here and take a virtual tour.
Watch the video below done by my husband’s cousin Lynne Hilton Wilson to learn of the history of the publication of this book, which is sacred scripture to millions of people.
Below the video you will find some interesting screenshots from the video.
It’s published in 97 languages in the complete format, with excerpts in 20 languages.
The timeline below shows some interesting events that led up to is printing.
The publication of this book was a huge project! Joseph Smith placed an order for 5000 copies, when the usual order at the Grandin print shop was around 600 copies. It took 12 men working 11 hours a day, 6 days a week, for several months, from the fall of 1829, until March 26 1830, when it first on sale.
What’s more important than the facts surrounding its publication is how it has borne witness of Jesus Christ and changed people’s lives. I have read it, love it, and prayed about it to God, asking to know if it’s true. The Holy Ghost has borne witness to me that it’s true.
Go here to read the story of an Italian man, a Protestant minister, who found a copy of the book with the cover missing, read it, and started preaching from it, even though he didn’t know the name of the book. He eventually got baptized by missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you go to that link at the start of this paragraph, you can also watch a mini movie about him that the Church made, at the end of that blog post.
Here’s the story of a man who read the book as a Jewish teenager when he was preparing to be a rabbi, got converted to Jesus Christ, got baptized, and served a mission for the Church. Now he is a chaplain for the U.S. military.
Over here we have a story of a man who asked, “Isn’t the Bible enough?”
Then this video below shows a woman, wife of an Air Force man, mother of 4, and native of the former Soviet Union. She was 18 when the USSR broke up. She tells her story of finding the Book of Mormon in Ukraine and becoming a believer of it, after she failed to prove it wrong. Amazing!
My Family Devotionals Ebook has more stories about the power of the Book of Mormon changing people’s lives, in the March section. Go here to get the ebook.
Want to play a Book of Mormon-themed Wits and Wagers game? Go here!
Go here to get your own copy of the Book of Mormon. Read it online here. It’s true!
This man’s story is so fascinating! Here’s what the description of the video says:
“Jason was born to a Jewish mother and Lutheran father but practiced mainly Judaism growing up. He devoutly studied the Torah and attended Hebrew school but knew of Jesus Christ from celebrating Christian holidays at home. Jason’s friendship with Latter-day Saints led him to receive a copy of the Book of Mormon. In his story, he reveals the pivotal moment when he almost burned the Book of Mormon out of anger, only to feel God stop him.”
Listen to his story below!
I love that he was convicted by the statement on the title page of The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. It is underlined in the image below, regarding what the Lord has done for his fathers of the house of Israel.
I’m excited to get his book, shown below. It has an average 5 star rating on amazon. Here is the summary:
“Jason Olson felt God’s presence in the Jewish tradition he was raised in. So what was he supposed to do when he also heard God’s voice in the Book of Mormon?
“The Burning Book traces Jason’s spiritual journey from aspiring rabbi to Latter-day Saint missionary, from Brigham Young University student to Israeli immigrant, and from Jewish Studies scholar to military chaplain. It’s a memoir about one man’s experience finding God: in two faiths, in two countries, and in the lives of other people.
“Co-written with novelist and poet James Goldberg (author of The Five Books of Jesus and A Book of Lamentations), The Burning Book offers readers a glimpse into Jewish and Mormon cultures and asks what it means to seek the voice of prophets in a modern, multicultural world.”
His story reminds me of Aunt Nancy’s story, which you can read about here. Her book even has a similar title, called, The Burning Bush.
I love this quote from Elder Gary Stevensons’ General Conference talk of April 2023 where he quotes N.T. Wright:
“We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.” (Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Liahona, May 2023)
Can you imagine the shift in our society when we have several generations of families and neighbors having joy together and getting renewed each year by an intensive celebration of Easter as our “greatest festival,” even greater than Christmas? Not just a superficial Easter bunny egg hunt, but a deep dive into the meaning of each day of the Holy Week leading up to Easter? I love this challenge/invitation! I invite you to join me in it!
Here are the books I recommend to feel all the wonderful Easter vibes so you can get ready for this special day and prep to make it a holy festival. Most of these books I read last year and absolutely love.
First, the Gospel Art Book, from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so you can get the prints shown in my timeline at the top of this page. When I was a young mom, these prints were sold in a file box, and so that’s what I have, with the prints loose and not bound in a book. I used them as shown above at to the top to hang on a garland with clothespins. Every morning during Holy Week for our family scripture reading we read the scriptures related to the event of the day during Christ’s last week and hang up the picture. But now they are only available in a book, at the Church’s online store. I suppose you could carefully cut the prints from the binding and still use them in a timeline like I show above. I also have a simple free printable timeline of the Holy Week created by a friend over here.
2. Second, a book to do a deep dive into making the rituals of Easter meaningful for your family, with music and scripture readings.
Here’s a summary of the book in the video below.
3. If you have a younger family, this book below is easier to digest and execute because it is much simpler, specifically designed for little children. My review of it is here.
I love the idea from the above book of doing Parables Sculpturades. We did it last year and I want to make it a tradition every year. We laughed so hard and connected, it was a total win! Not all family members were there, I can’t wait to do it with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons in the mix this year.
Providentially, I had just found a book about Christ’s parables at a thrift store right before I discovered this idea. So, we referred to that book during the activity. That’s a little pig in the lower right-hand corner, from one of the parables.
4. This book below strikes a balance between the two above: it has more information than the simpler one, but not as much nitty-gritty, perhaps overwhelming detail as the top one. My husband’s cousin Janet Hales wrote it with her husband, Joe Hales. It has activities to do every day during Holy Week like the two above. I also love, love, that it has a scripture treasure hunt to do on the day after Easter Sunday, to tell the rest of the story about what Jesus did while he was in heaven, after He died, before he was resurrected and came back to earth.
5. This book below is one man’s personal reflections on how Easter is so meaningful to him, connected to the death of his wife.
6. Here is a wonderful dive into the grace of Jesus Christ which comes from His atoning sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane. I totally loved reading this last year.
7. If you want a fun fictional read that takes place during Easter, read this one below. It’s a romance, a bit cheesy, but also has a lovely Christian Easter theme. It’s entertaining and clean.
8. Sally Clarkson’s book below has a chapter on family traditions, going month by month through the year. I give a recap on what she reveals her family has done for Easter through the years over here.
9.Then there are the two companion books authored by Emily Belle Freeman related to Easter. I haven’t read them yet, but I’m pretty sure they depict the Holy Week traditions that she has in the videos I’ve compiled over here. I love that these books are like bookends to her Christ-centered Christmas books. For each holiday, she has one for adults, and one for children. I also love that the traditions involve simple household objects, except for an Easter lily, and focus on discussion involving thought-provoking questions involving people involved in the Savior’s last week.
10. Want some Easter-themed stories, scriptures, poetry and songs to share with your family each day? Go here to get the April excerpt from my Family Devotionals ebook, and then get stories for all year round from the rest of the book here.
It was 5 years ago this past week, the middle of March 2020, that the world turned upside down. Suddenly offices, schools, businesses, churches, and other places of work, play and worship shut down. Why? Because we were told a deadly virus was spreading, and that to stop the spread, we should stay home as much as possible.
Were we told the truth?
I’m grateful for brave people coming forward to investigate what happened and share their discoveries of the truth. The above book is such a thing. In this book, you will hear from several nurses giving their eyewitness accounts of what happened in hospitals across the USA during COVID. The graphic below sums up the book, courtesy of illustrator Anne Gibbons, from the book’s website here.
In this podcast interview with Holistic Hilda, you can get a synopsis of the book from the author, Ken McCarthy. He’s a smart guy, as evidenced by him being a student of neuroscience at Yale. Please listen to what he has to say and read the book. Then make your own conclusions. His website is here.
Here is what goodreads.com says about the book:
“No human activity can ever be free from error, but to be clear, this book is not about the kind of error all human beings are prone to.
“As you will learn from the eye-witness accounts and technical information presented in this book, calling the failed COVID protocols “errors” is not accurate.
“What The Nurses Saw — It was Murder.
“These protocols were explicitly ordered by those who took dictatorial control of the medical system early in the Panic (spring of 2020). Further, when they were shown to be demonstrably failing and harming many thousands of people, experienced healthcare professionals who raised informed concerns were silenced through demotion, firing, and organized campaigns of harassment promoted by the news media and enabled by companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, in some cases in collaboration with the White House and the Department of Justice’s FBI.
“If this sounds very bad, it’s because it is.
“What the Nurses Saw is documentation of what happens in the real world when bureaucrats, in this case bureaucrats in Washington DC, take literal dictatorial control over the practice of medicine.
“On a pure dollar and cents level, one of every five dollars spent in the U.S. is spent on the products of the medical services industry, as is one of every three tax dollars. The U.S., more than any country in the world, and by a large measure, has been colonized by this industry. As part of this process, the industry and its operatives have corrupted and perverted science, academia, and the news media. Now it’s hard at work to weaken and degrade the last pillar that keeps the system even remotely functioning — the integrity of the nursing profession.
“If we fail to support our good nurses, help them hold the line, and start aggressively turning things around, there is no practical limit to how far this totalitarian medical dictatorship which we in fact live under will go in its future abuse and exploitation of human beings.
“Featuring in-depth interviews
Erin Marie Olszewski, Mark Bishofsky, Sarah Choujounian, Kevin Corbett Ph.D., AJ DePriest, Ashley Grogg, Kristen Nagle, Kimberly Overton, Nicole Sirotek and Katie Spence”
Hmmm…more than ever, I am convinced that the “pandemic” was a plandemic.
Today is Mr. Rogers’ birthday! He was born on 20 March 1928. Let’s celebrate this kind-hearted soul who definitely left the world a better place with his unconditional love and peaceful TV show. I watched his show often while growing up. I loved everything about it except for the character of Lady Elaine Fairchild, who scared me with her bulbous nose, and obnoxious ways. I also hated the operas put on by the citizens of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Yawn, they were so boring. I guess I wasn’t a cultured enough child to appreciate it all. But I loved most of the visits from the neighbors and the movies he showed in his living room. I also loved most of his music. My mom had his songbook that she bought in the 1960s when the show first came out, before I was born. It often was perched on piano, inviting us to play the music.
Here’s a fun book you can read today in honor of Mr. Rogers. It tells the story of his life, how we grew up lonely, sometimes being bullied, and sought refuge in his music and his imagination. It tells how he came up with his TV show and what a pioneer he was in creating thoughtful TV programming for children. It’s a sweet book with charming illustrations and reminds us of the wonderful legacy he left.
You don’t even have to run to the public library to read it. Just watch the video below, with the book read aloud by the author, Matthew Cordell.
Here’s his music with a jazzy beat. It’s Mr. Rogers meets swing! I love it!
Here’s a book written by a man who cultivated a healing friendship with Mr. Rogers.
We finished this book after I read it aloud for over a month to my three youngest children, during their kitchen cleaning/dishes time. I did read ahead and skip some parts and paraphrase because it’s written for adults and not kids. Mr. Rogers played a healing role in the author’s life, to help him heal from depression, a verbally abusive father, and the death of his brother, who died from cancer. So amazing! “I’m proud of you,” has become a phrase in our family now, which usually elicits laughter. Like when I climbed into bed one night. My husband’s head had already hit the pillow. I told him I had finished the book with the kids that day and he surprised me by saying, “I’m proud of you!” It made me burst out laughing. Anyway, I learned a lot about Mr. Rogers from reading it. He was amazing! He was a Christian minister who lived out his religion most definitely.
This past weekend was my husband’s birthday. That means it’s an anniversary of the stuff that turned the world upside down, 5 years ago. I have a lot of memories about that weekend and the ensuing months/years, as I’m sure we all do. More on that later.
This year, for a treat dessert that fits the carnivore lifestyle that I want my husband to follow to help with some of his medical issues, I made a carnivore birthday cake. What makes a carnivore cake? Technically, you could just take a slab of a steak and call it a “carnivore cake.” But I wanted to make a cake that looks pretty like a sugar-laden birthday cake but is zero carb or low carb. This one does, especially when you have a gorgeous platter like the one in the photo above.
A strict carnivore cake means it just involves animal products, which is what a carnivore eats. This recipe fits the bill. It involves eggs, cream cheese, and whipping cream. If you want to tweak it a little to make it taste better and are OK with adding a teensy bit of a few plant products, add vanilla and a little stevia to the mix.
My husband loved it, in fact, he said it was really, really good! I loved it too because it tastes light, yet filling, and slightly sweet, since I added stevia to the cream (not in the original recipe). When I was done eating, I felt that I had just been nourished with a yummy treat instead of having a blood sugar rush and then crash. It’s basically a custard with whipped cream. It tastes super light, even though it’s made with mostly fat and some protein.
No, he didn’t turn 8 years old. I just stuck a random amount of candles into the cake. We had an alternate cake for the omnivores of the party, which was a big bucket of ice cream. I topped that one with the appropriate numeral-shaped candles.
I got the recipe from Kelly Hogan of myzerolowcarblife.com, over here. She calls it “Oopsie Cake.”
Mine, below, looks a bit pathetic compared to hers in the image above.
Read below for why mine doesn’t look as good.
For each layer of the cake, you need the following ingredients (so if making two layers, be sure you get two blocks of cream cheese and 16 eggs. I didn’t read the recipe carefully enough prior to shopping and got only one block, but I still really wanted two layers, so I divided the mixture meant for one pan into two round pans and the resulting layers shown above are rather short. I’m excited to make it again and make it right so it will be as tall as a regular round two-layer cake):
-8 eggs
-One 8 oz. block of cream cheese
-32 oz. whipping cream
-Optional: vanilla, dash of salt
Directions:
Separate the eggs. Whip up the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Kelly’s recipe calls for 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar to add to the egg whites. I didn’t use any (after a futile search to find some in my cupboards) and they still formed stiff peaks.
Mix the egg yolks with the cream cheese. Add 1 T vanilla if you’d like and a pinch of salt.
Gently fold the yolk/cream cheese into the egg white froth. Pour cake mixture into a well-greased or parchment paper-lined pan, either a 9×13 or a round layer pan. Lining with parchment is super helpful, as when it’s baked you can just lift the cake out of the pan with the edges of the paper, turn it upside down on the serving platter/cake stand, and easily peel the parchment off.
Bake at 300 degrees for 25 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
While it is baking, whip up the cream. Add stevia and or vanilla to taste if you are OK with not being a strict carnivore and willing to eat plants. Whip it up to desired stiffness, for me that’s soft peaks.
Let cool.
If you used the round pans, assemble the cake by frosting with whipping cream in between and around the layers and on top. Get real fancy if you want with a dessert decorator. If you used the 9×13 pan, frost the top of the cake with whipping cream. Serve and enjoy!
Below is how the two-layer cake is supposed to look, courtesy of Bella, the Steak and Butter Gal. Doesn’t it look divine? I can’t wait to make this again, which I think I’ll do for Easter, and make the top super fancy. Maybe even indulge with some sugar-free jelly beans or Lily’s chocolate chips, sweetened with stevia. Or maybe some sugar-free colorful sprinkles.
I also want to make it for Father’s Day and turn it into a strawberry shortcake, with a few locally grown, in-season strawberries sliced thinly and delicately placed on top. The possibilities are endless!
Here’s Bella’s video below with her making it, as a birthday cake for her baby brother turning 16. Interestingly enough, Bella also adds a honey-sweetened drizzle topping.
Tree of Life Mothering 