Another Pumpkin Day

Well, last night Annika and I made a plan. It was time once again to make Pumpkin Cookies. We did it last year- mixed the dough, rolled it out, cut it with the big pumpkin cookie cutter- yum! So, today I went to work with the cookie cutter and some ingredients, and we prepared to make our cookies. Nils was even excited. These, of course, would be gluten free, casein free cookies so that everybody could eat them!

I took out the bowl and Annika helped me with the sugar, shortening and oil. She was standing on a chair by the counter and "reading" the cookbook to me- so cute! Then I went to grab 2 eggs- oops! There were no eggs in the fridge. Leave it to me to start the recipe without checking to make sure we had all the ingredients. Well, luckily for us, Mommy was at the grocery store, so we just had to wait for awhile to finish our project. We set the dough aside- out of the reach of little hands- and went upstairs. Annika still needed to get dressed for the day. We were in her room when I heard a little noise from downstairs. It sounded like somebody was going through a plastic bag. I knew right away that Nils must be in the kitchen messing with my bag of ingredients. Annika beat me down the stairs and quickly announced that Nils did not have our cookie mix. True, that was safe; and when I looked over at my bag of stuff, all appeared to be well. Nils was not in view. I walked through the kitchen and dining room, and then I saw him: he was in the sun room with my empty bag of xanthan gum ( a necessary ingredient for gluten free baking). The floor was covered with the powder-like substance, and he was rubbing it around with his hands - and smiling.

I walked over and grabbed him by the hand with a very displeased look on my face. Annika went and grabbed the hand vac and started cleaning up. I retrieved the second hand vac from the t.v. room and made Nils help her, and of course, gave him a lecture on not messing with things. By this time, Mommy was coming home with the eggs, but it was time for Annika to go to music class. So Nils and I went to the Pumpkin Patch to kill some time.

As soon as we returned, Annika was ready to finish the cookies. We finished mixing everything together, rolled out the dough, cut out beautiful pumpkin shapes, and put them in the oven. How exciting! We just had to wait for them to bake, frost them and eat them. I was craving a sugar cookie, and the kids were definitely ready for them.

As I was cleaning off the table, I turned and saw smoke pouring out of the oven. I grabbed a potholder and started fanning the smoke, wondering where the smoke detector was and how soon it would go off. Mommy had said that something had spilled in the oven, so I assumed that was the problem. (It happens to me all the time.) She came into the kitchen and looked at the dial on the oven, which happened to be set on BROIL. We instantly knew that a young boy named Nils had managed to change the dial without anybody noticing. He likes to push buttons and turn knobs. Our next problem was a stuck oven door. I had locked the oven so that Nils would not try to open it- unfortunately, no one could get it open. The oven was off, smoke was still pouring out of it, and the poor little pumpkins were dying inside.

We opened all the doors to let the smoke out. Daddy went to look for the instructions to the oven, Mommy went on kid patrol outside, and I helplessly stood in the kitchen, still waving the potholder. I really did not know what else to do at that point. I knew that something like this could only happen to me, and I so badly wanted a cookie, and to top it all off, every single cookie was in the oven! There was no more dough, and I was not about to make anymore.

Well, we finally were able to get the oven open. The black cookies were thrown outside, and when I left the house, the doors were still all wide open. Amazingly enough, the smoke alarm never did go off- probably because I am a fantastic "waver of the potholder". I told Annika we would make cookies another day. Thankfully, I was given the rest of the day off.

The Pumpkin Patch

I made my annual trek to the Pumpkin Patch last Saturday with Nils and my brother, Will. Nils absolutely loved it! I think his favorite thing was the "big mouth". He ran in and out of it many times! We even went through the Haunted Shed, and he did great. It's a pretty scary walk for a little kid- I ended up carrying him, mainly because I was afraid I'd lose him otherwise. We had a great time , and I'm sure we'll be going back again soon!

Happy Birthday Annika!

Annika celebrated her 4th
birthday last week. We had a big
"Hello Kitty" party, and she was definitely the princess for the evening. We had a big "blow up thing" , as Nils says, in the yard for the night. That provided loads of fun for children of all ages!