When You Need to Dance, You Need to Dance.

While helping Sarah get dressed for bed tonight, she and I were talking about the rules and about being a big sister. I asked, "Are you going to teach Charlotte how to be a good listener?"

Sarah then proceeded to tell Charlotte the following "rules":

"You can't always play. Sometimes you have to eat breakfast.
"When you go outside and forget your sun cream, you have to come back in to get your sun cream.
"When you go to the store, you have to wear clothes.
"If you want corn for supper, Mommy will get your corn.
"When it's bedtime you need to put your clothes in the basket and Mommy will hang it on the line.
(I think she may be missing a step or two there)
"If you have a scrape, that's okay, Mommy will put a bandaid on you.
"When the battery gets dead, Mommy will get new batteries.
"You need to go off the carpet when you have juice.

and my favourite "rule":
"When you need to dance, you need to dance."

Not a bad list, I'd say.

Now

My Great-Aunt Julie was having excruciating headaches. She went to the doctor. She was diagnosed with cancer. Three weeks ago. Her funeral was today.

Too often in life we wait for the "special" moments to take out the camera. We capture memories of big events: first steps, vacations to Disney, graduations, marriages. We forget the in-between moments are what makes life, well, worth living.

Each day is a gift. Each day is one to be cherished. Now is the time.

That's what I thought as I took these shots of the kiddies at bedtime last night. They were playing on my bed. Just a regular night. Nothing "special" but absolutely everything.

"Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee." - Montaigne



Pro Baker in the Making

Sarah has been watching Grandma bake since she was a wee baby and has obviously picked up on some of the tricks of the trade.

As with most children her age, Sarah always wants to help around the kitchen: measuring, scooping, pouring, mixing. She loves kneeding dough, adding her own toppings to make pizza, rolling and cutting out cookies. Grandma is very patient with the big messes.

Lately Sarah has been making her own little concoctions without help. Often these are just a mess of God knows what in a bowl. However, a couple of months ago, at home, Sarah decided to mix up a bunch of things - first off, molasses and cocoa and raisins, and I immediately thought, "Ewww!" After it was all said and done, the mixture was cookie textured, so we rolled it into a ball, put it in one of the easy-bake pans, and baked it. And it was very yummy! Sarah ate the whole thing for her snack.

Two weeks ago at the bakery, Grandma found Sarah mixing up a huge bowl full of water and flour and a TON of cinnamon. We thought there was way too much cinnamon for the final product to turn out. Sarah added some sugar and apple chunks, and baked it in a round cake pan. It was a little heavy liked a baked pudding but still had delicious flavour.

Then last week, Sarah started mixing again. This time she had flour and baking powder, salt, molasses, water, an egg, and sugar as a base. She then decided to add coconut and chocolate chips. Keep in mind, the only help she had was with cracking the egg, nothing else was measured "properly" - Sarah was just going to all the different bins with her measuring spoons and cup and throwing in a bit of this, a bit of that. The resulting batter looking like cake so we baked it in a funnel pan. Wow! Delicious! So good, in fact, that all of the family enjoyed it for dessert with our dinner. And, because I love chocolate chips (no surprise there), I finished off the rest in the days following. Not one crumb left.

I'm a little worried Sarah might eventually come up with something of pure baking genius and we won't have the slightest idea of how to re-make it.

But, for now, I'm glad Sarah enjoys baking, and only hope she continues. Her grandma and great-aunties (who are also fantastic bakers) will be soooo proud!