The Great Flour Mishap of 2015

There is never a dull moment here at Shenanigans Inc. Yesterday, Leif woke up from his nap very cranky. I tried playing trains with him and that was a no-go. Avery took him outside to kick around the ball, and not even that cheered him up . . . weird! I nursed him for a bit and that consoled him while it lasted, but after that he continued to cling to my leg and cry. He and Harriet have been fighting a cold for the past week and I think yesterday afternoon his cold began to win the battle. Sure enough, when I checked his throat, his glands were all swollen. So, I gave him some orange pieces and then pulled out the big guns - the baking supplies. Like always, this put a smile on his face. Since I had a large bag of apples in the fridge that no one was eating because they were getting a little soft, I decided to make an apple crisp. I also remembered that there was a tub of vanilla ice cream in the freezer . . . a match made in heaven! I set Harriet down in her bouncy chair and decided to bring our supplies over to the table so that she would not feel left out. As I peeled and sliced the apples and placed them in the baking dish, Leif would pick out the best looking ones and eat them. There was no keeping him out of it once I added the sugar and cinnamon mix to the apples. Then out of the blue I heard a loud crash! I turned around and saw that my large, open bin of flour had been knocked onto the floor.

L - E - I - F!

But then it occurred to me that Leif could not have made this mess because he was currently standing on the opposite side of the table, eating sugar-coated apple slices.

But how? Who?

And then it dawned on me; the culprit was none other than our very own Miss Harriet, aka Thing 5:

And she was not even remorseful. 

That's right! I kicked over your flour. Next time, pay more attention to me. Oh, and where's MY sugar-coated apple slices?

I guess all of her kicking and splashing in the bath tub have finally paid off and this baby girl, like her big sister and brothers, is going to have one very strong soccer kick.

As I began to clean up the mess, my phone rang. It was Elliot and he was begging to stay after school so that he could watch the girl's soccer team's first game of the season. 

Do you have homework?

Well, yes.

Sorry dude, you and I have been up to 11pm all week finishing your homework and we both need our sleep. You need to come home.

But mom . . .

No, Elliot . . .

But mom . . .

Just then I turned around and surprise . . .

Leif had found the flour pile . . . Ugh! 

I have to go, Elliot, and yes, you are coming home. Good-bye.

I quickly began to clean up the flour, but I wasn't fast enough. As I was sweeping up the mess, Leif was grabbing handfuls of flour and running to the living room with them. Such a fun game, mom!

But hey, he was no longer crying.

And we had a delicious apple crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert . . .  mmmmmm!

I guess this mishap was not such a disaster after all.

Disclaimer: I may or may not have scooped a cup of flour from the top of the pile to finish making our crisp. Word of advice: never eat at Shenanigans Inc.

 . . . tee hee!

Cookies Cure Everything

At 9:04 am I heard the first, "When is Elliot coming home?", and that was enough to kick me into high gear.  The night before I planned a playdate for Avery with one of his buddies from our church, but we still had three hours before we left.  In the words of Avery, "3 HOURS!  That's literally like my entire life!". 

Avery's new favourite word is literally and it makes me giggle every time I hear him say it.  It's such a grown up word for such a little guy, nonetheless he uses it all the time.  I literally fell off my chair . . . Literally, my heart stopped . . . and so on and so on, but the funniest time was the other day after we came up from the beach.   After he had said it, he turned to me and said, "don't you like my L-sound when I say literally" . . . tee hee!  We have been working with a speech therapist to help Avery out with a couple of his consonant sounds, and L is one of them.  Usually the words we practice are lion, lake, lollipop and other kid-friendly words, but I guess Avery came up with a better one . . . tee hee!  

Anyhoo, so how was I going to entertain him for three hours?

BAKING!

Zoe is the queen of chocolate chip cookies so she took right over, while I ran around and completed a few odd jobs.  She is also a task master so Avery didn't even have an opportunity to voice a complaint. She put him right to work.  That girl is going to be such a great mama someday!

After they mixed the eggs, sugar and vanilla, Zoe collected all the dry ingredients.  When we had our cat, who by the way was named Princess Kitty and was the WORST cat on the planet, I would buy the heavy duty plastic containers of kitty litter.  Well, one day as I was about to recycle the container, I thought it would make an excellent storage bin for my flour.  This grosses my sister out to the extreme, but I washed it out really well and, presto, it was awesome!  Well, I guess Avery had never seen my container because when Zoe pulled out our "Kitty Litter Flour", Avery looked at her in horror and asked "what are you doing with the cat poop stuff?".  Without even blinking an eye, Zoe responds: "Oh, this?  This is our secret ingredient" . . . tee hee!  I thought he was going to puke right there on the spot.  It was hilarious!  I am always proud of Zoe, but at that moment I was beaming.  She truly is going to be a great mama!

Here is Scouty using his ol' Jedi mind-tricks again. "Drop the cookie . . . . drop the cookie!"

Yummy!

Avery was the official taste-tester and as soon as we were given the okay, Zoe and I descended like a pack of starving vultures. We really are pathetic, especially when it comes to cookies.

Well, now I'm off to wake up Elliot for day #3 of camp, and to prepare our traditional morning-after breakfast of cookies and milk.  Mmmmm!  Cookies are perfect all times of day!  Don't you think?