It's no secret that the girls and I love to bake. It's an addiction and comfort for me, all in one. I have cherished memories from when I was a little girl of spending my summer days at my grandparents and watching my Grandma bake. I don't remember if I helped at all or not, but I do remember her constantly in her kitchen and the sweet smells that were always lingering in her home (thanks to all of her baking). Now that I think back to it, it seems as if baking was the thing to do on her street. I can remember going to visit any of her neighbors and all of them would welcome me in their homes with fresh baked goods to offer. Oh I miss that. Such a different time back then. Nowadays neighbors barely acknowledge each other, let alone have deep and lasting friendships.
Sorry, getting all nostalgic there. Back to baking - It seems like at the most chaotic and trying times I find myself with the sudden urge to bake something. Who knows, maybe that's something I picked up from Grandma. This usually just adds to the chaos with the mess baking brings but it also brings my girls and I close, which makes it all worth it. Bread baking, especially, is a favorite around here. I enjoy that it involves my girls working with their hands by kneading and forming the dough. C and I make bread dough every Thursday at our parent/child class. They don't have an oven to bake it there so we bring it home to finish up. As soon as we park our van in the garage the girls are gone in a flash bringing the bread dough to the kitchen to knead. They spend a good half hour kneading and forming the dough into shapes (last week they had snowman bread) and then we bake it and have it with dinner.
Today they had a little helper, and by helper I mean Baby L reaching and screaming for their dough. They try to be patient with him but they can only take so much, so I redirect him. As you know he loves food and these brown rice puffs
are a particular favorite of his (We have used these with all three of our children in lieu of Cheerios or other finger foods). They kept him happy and busy long enough for the girls to get their bread in the oven, and for me to snap an excessive amount of pictures to remember his cute eating habits. He loves to stand and eat when he has snacks. Maybe he's doing his own form of strength training.
He seems to love food more than my girls did as babies, yet he is the smallest of my children. Both girls reached twenty pounds by about four months in age but this little guy still hasn't gone past eighteen pounds at a year old. He seems to be taking after me in that regard, I was a teeny baby too (while the girls were more like Kevin as a baby - cute round, roly polies). He's such a little peanut, I love it. It feels as if he is staying my little baby even longer.
Have a great weekend everyone. I have some good news to share with you this upcoming week and I can not wait!
and the 
already - any suggestions? 
, I perched on top of our coffee table to take just a couple of quick photos. If you have ever used a 50mm lens then you know how you really have to back up quite a bit from your subject to get it in the shot - hence the standing on the coffee table. Well, as I was coming down from the coffee table I tipped it causing the table, myself and my camera to come down with a big thump. The table survived, I survived, my camera appears to have survived (I'll need to play with it more later to be certain) but my lens did not. I saw that the filter was shattered which is not too big of a deal but then I tried to focus the lens and it was jammed. So, back to the shop it goes. In the mean time I shall just have to practice patience. I will keep calm and just craft away my woes. Although, this really tempts me to go further in to debt with my credit card and buy a wide angle lens to use, but I know I can not and should not. Kindly shake me a few times to remind me I can't let us go further into debt!!
minus the parenting advice in it,(
visited us early in the morning on our rainy first day of spring. They tried to hide their gifts in clever yet visible spots in our front yard but the rain made it a bit tricky. They kept track of exactly where they left all of their goodies just in case the little ones needed some help finding them. Then they waited, and waited and waited. Baby L awoke and did some waiting of his own. Finally the girls woke up, got dressed and dashed outside. Even though it was very early in the morning and still rather dark outside it was a little bit too late for one of their gifts. A cheeky squirrel (quite possible the plumpest one I have seen yet) took off up a tree with the children's honey sticks, laughing and swishing his bushy tail the whole time. Oh well, our girls don't mind sharing with our friends of the forest.
and the cards (I later laminated) from 
