Glasses at Two--Take Two

It's official.  Hayley is very farsighted.  She kept telling me she needed glasses but I didn't take her seriously.  I thought she just wanted to be like some of her older siblings, but I scheduled an exam anyway because of our family eye history.  She was right!  She was so excited to choose her frames and then she couldn't wait to pick them up from the eye doctor's office when they came in.  When she put them on, I was taken back in time to when Jillian started wearing glasses at the same age.  See the similarity?  (besides the same shirt!)

Hayley at 2-3/4 years old

Hayley and Corinne

Jillian and Alyssa (2-3/4 and 10 years)

Jillian--budding artist

How NOT to Make Bread

Lovely loaves, aren’t they.  Gorgeous rounded tops.  Or not.  So here’s how to make these beauties in your own kitchen.

7:00am—Realize that you just used your last slices of bread when packing lunches and decide to mix up a new batch of dough.  Put 6 cups hot water in the bread mixer.

7:10—Drive Evan to school.

7:30—Make breakfast, send off Grant and Alyssa,  fix hair (the girls’, not mine), find shoes, etc.  The usual.

8:15—Take Corinne and Jillian to school.

8:30—Clean up kitchen.  Notice water in the mixer which is no longer hot.  Dump it out and refill with hot water.  Pull out the wheat grinder and near-empty wheat container.  Go downstairs to the food storage room to get more wheat.  Put away the food from my last shopping trip which is still sitting on the storage room floor.

9:00—Help Hayley in the bathroom.  While there, notice the dryer full of clothes from yesterday.  Empty the dryer and sort clothes into kids’ bins.  Run upstairs and gather dirty clothes from the bedrooms and start a new load of laundry.

9:30—Play octopus dominoes with Hayley.  Answer the phone.  While in the kitchen, notice the lukewarm water in the mixer.  Dump it out and refill with hot water.  Grind wheat and make dough.  Put dough into bread pans.

10:00—Decide to take Hayley for a walk in the stroller while the bread is rising.  Walk to the park, hoping she won’t ask to stop and play at the playground.  Yeah, right.  Do jumping jacks, lunges, squats, etc. while she plays so I can still get my exercise.  Play freeze tag with her, at her request.  Freeze tag with two people?  Didn’t last long.

10:45—Pull Hayley away from the swings, promising to push her on the backyard swings later.  (which I’m sad to report never happened).  Walk quickly home, hoping to arrive before my visiting teachers.  No such luck.  Open the garage to put the stroller inside and lead them through my super-clean mudroom and kitchen (haha). 

12:00pm—Say goodbye to the VTs and head into the kitchen to get Hayley some lunch.  Oh no!!  Hello rising sinking bread.  Flat as can be.  Decide to bake it anyway.  Still flat.

And that, my friends, is how not to make bread.  The upside?  Although the kids have already eaten an entire loaf, it’s a little dense and dry for my taste.  I just saved myself some calories!  I’m so smart.