Week 2

This week was another good one.  The temperatures were frigid, so we've been spending a lot of time inside.  I am so grateful that Zaya is so content to stay home with me all the time.  This year, I am going to commit to spending more time just at home.  I feel like I am so much more productive when I stay home and really, I just love hanging around with the little ones.

Zaya was hanging on to my leg, begging me to walk around. 

Kaiton is finally old enough to interact with Zaya.  It has been so fun to watch them play with toys together!

Zaya recently told me, out of the blue, "Mom, you can never have too many boxes!"  This girl really means that.  I have to be careful; I often make a pile of recoiling items by the garage door.  She usually finds it before I get a chance to take it out.  She loves to make toy boxes, and houses, and cars with any box she can get her hands on.  She kept repeating that silly statement to us for a couple of weeks before Rob found out where she got it from.  He was watching an episode of Peppa the Pig with her and heard Peppa's dad say, "You can never had too many potatoes!"  I love that she made that statement her own.  I guess that it shows that she really understood it!

Last year, I had the kids make a meal for dinner.  My mom used to have us do that when we were a little older, and I felt like it taught us a lot.  Since life is a bit slower in the winter, I had the kids do it again.  Hurley chose to make eggs, bacon, pancakes, and sun punch (from her princess cookbook), a pudding parfait for dessert.  She cut the strawberries all by herself with a sharp knife and she was pretty proud of herself!

Brooklen checked out an international food cookbook from the library.  He made avgolemono soup (soup with lemon, chicken, egg, and rice), homemade rolls, and brazilian birthday candle candies for dessert.  He is super independent and wanted to help every step of the way.  I just love how he gets in to planning things and pays so much attention to detail.  These qualities are going to help him so much as an adult!

I forgot to snap some pictures of Zaya making her meal!  She made homemade sweet potato gnocchi and a pear and blue cheese salad!  She did an awesome job rolling the gnocchi.  She was working almost too fast for me.  And they looked beautiful too!