Cosette Bakes

Now that Jack is in kindergarten, Cosette and I get more quality time together. I pulled her out of preschool this year, mainly to prevent us from having to keep getting into the car for pickup and drop offs in different directions. We walk Jack to school every morning and then spend the a few hours together while Graham naps. Cosette is pretty independent and plays alone, but sometimes wants to do an activity with me. Baking is a million times easier with one kid than two. 

 Creaming the butter and sugar together

Scooping the batter into the muffin pan

Diggin into the bowl to spoon the batter out

She's doing great. Far from perfect, but she's getting the idea and being surprisingly tidy about it. If you want to bake with your kids, never pick a pressure situation where you need it done right or fast. Bake "just because," then it won't bother you when it takes a while or they are sloppy. 

After all of her scooping, I topped off the muffins to make them more even. She is mixing the sugar and cinnamon for the topping. 

Dusting the sugar. This motion is really hard for a 3 year old and she decided just to dump and little sugar on each muffin

So proud!!!

Into the oven they go (Mommy handles that part)

Watch and wait

Chomp

Geraniums

First gardening project around our new home. We know nothing about plants and are trying to learn all we can. We want to maintain the lovely trees and plants that were planted just before we moved in. We also want to fill in the gaps and add a few new things. 

After a short adventure doing this small bed with the kids, we are glad we started small. It's a lot of work! So grateful the home builder already did much of the work for us. 

8 Year Anniversary

Making memories and trying to remember where we came from. 8 years ago getting married. 7 years ago heading to Yellowstone. 5 years ago taking 6 week old Jack to Philly. This year going to dinner with a completely different 6 week old son. 

Favorite Redwood City resturant - Vesta. 

Favorite dish - barrada plate

New favorite special - cherry, goat cheese and honey pizza

Sweaty fussy boy 

Play Area Updated

Our new home has a nice little area downstairs for kids play. I bought the play table but the space looked out of place in the dinning room area and needed something to set it off as a play area. I came up with these chalkboards with art storage baskets for each child (for when Graham bring home his first art). Great deal at Micheals. I also found these adorable hanging baskets to complete the kids kitchen and drawing space. So fun to decorate and embellish my finds. 

Unpredictable

The only thing I know for sure about my daughter is that she marches to her own invisible drum. She delights in doing whatever pops into her head. I usually expect random flighty behavior, but then she surprises me by focusing on something and doing it the conventional way. Never can tell. 

This is how she wears goggles and will not accept any help. 

But she also colors in the lines. 

But then again she spells her name "c", "p", "e", "alligator"! 

Busy Weekend!

Speaking in Santa Rosa this weekend at a Mom's event. Dan's in Utah on a guys trip. The kids are loving the Santa Rosa children's museum. Busy weekend for all!