Kitchen Helpers

At the end of our visit to Utah, Grandma Janelle invited 4 girl cousins over to her house to make gingerbread houses. We are not talking a gingerbread house kit from the store. That is what I made with the boys back in Flagstaff while Karl was gone. We are talking everything-made-from-scratch gingerbread houses. On her own she had already baked the dough, cut out the different shapes, made the icing and the frosting, and glued 2 houses together. She did buy the candy at the store... When the kids came over she put on the frosting and they were decorating like crazy for hours.

Everybody was loving it! Well, I am not so sure about Janelle but I do think she enjoyed it. It is a tradition in Karl's family and he has very fond memories of making gingerbread houses, castles, and even cathedrals. So maybe 6 grandkids was a good number of little helpers since Grandma has 6 kids of her own. (Karl is the youngest.) That lady is such a great example of service, patience, kindness, and selflessness to me. Thank you, Grandma! I obviously have a long way to go when it comes to each of these attributes, but I did let the kids help in the kitchen the other day:

Yes. They are wearing their pajamas before dinner time. Anytime after 5pm they are welcome to put them on. After getting up at 5:30 a few more times lately, we have been very good about putting Max to bed around 7pm and Noah at 7:30. And - wouldntyaknowit - they have been consistently sleeping until 6:30 or 7am. Works for us!

They both really like to help in the kitchen, especially when it involves a knife of some sort. I am not a fan of little helpers in my (really little) kitchen. There is no counter space and by that time of day I am usually running low on patience. The other night though I got my act together and let them help me chop the ingredients to our spaghetti sauce. I was cutting onions next to Max and his eyes started watering. After a few minutes of trying to figure out what was wrong, he ran to get his and Noah's ski goggles. Problem solved!

When Noah came home from school today, he wanted to bake cupcakes. So we put Max in the bathtub - I can handle 1 helper much better than 2 - and went to work. I had to tweak the recipe a teeny-weeny bit:

Not enough butter? Add apple sauce.
No white flour? Use whole-wheat.
Not enough wheat flour? I am sure rye flour will work.
No orange peel? We have mandarines...
Out of almond extract? How about cinnamon.

Noah does not know any better and thought they were great. Max has had 3 this evening and Karl said he really likes them.

I have not dared to try them...