Just Add Sugar

With a title like that, you might be expecting a cookbook, but instead Just Add Sugar is a journal-style collection of the adventures of my friend Deby Scott, sharing the joys and frustrations of being a mom.  When infertility and the world said no, God said yes to Deby and her husband Eric, and in just 15 years they became the parents of seven precious adopted children. 

Of course, not every day is literally sweet!  Like the time that Deby worked for hours to make a fluffy chocolate bear cake for son Nick's first birthday.  Well, Nick, who was already a climbing maniac, managed to pull over the cake and splat the whole thing on the floor:

My cake!  My darling little bear cake!  What was I going to do now?  I was in shock and had to think fast about how to handle the situation.

I grabbed my spatula and started scooping the cake off the floor in chunks.  I tried arranging those chunks, some with frosting and some now without, back into the shape of the cute fluffy bear; but by the time I was finished, it was anything but that.  It was a hopeless, miserable mess, and one that looked very much like it had been in a horrible wreck! 

....I was heartbroken, but what could I do?...

I stuck a candle in it and we ate it!

The "Sugar" refers to the sweetness of the presence of God in daily life, and this was just one of the many many times that Deby and Eric had to rely on that sweetness!

As you might expect, many of Deby's stories include food as well as children.  But I don't want you to be misled; it's not a cookbook.  Deby wrote this amazing collection to be an encouragement to mothers, especially to adoptive mothers, but really to all moms.  And dads too, for that matter.  As I read through Just Add Sugar, I could hear just how much the stories are in Deby's actual voice.  You'll love this: it's like sitting down with a good friend and swapping tall tales...except that hers are true!