First day of school

Today is Paige's first day of Preschool-4. She'll be in the same classroom as last year since it's for ages 3-5 year olds, but she'll no longer be in the group of "the little ones". She'll be the middle child for this year :)

Homemade Bread

Yesterday, I made cinnamon bread, from scratch for the first time. Up until this summer I've never used yeast before. I had an irrational fear of baking with yeast for fear that it won't rise or would be too complicated. So I started by using it in homemade pizza crust. I've made that twice this summer and both times the crust came out really well.

I came across this recipe for bread on the pioneer woman site and was ready to give it a go. The hardest part was having to wait 2 hours for it to rise. Then I rolled it out and added the cinnamon, put it in the pan and wait another 2 hours to finish rising. We sort of had to plan our whole day around my bread project! I'm also very thankful for my Kitchenaid mixer. I used the dough hook to knead the dough for 10 minutes. This would've been painful to do by hand.

The end product turned out great and everyone loves it. It rose beautifully! The cinnamon to bread ratio is just perfect. The only thing I'll change is next time I'll bake 2 loaves and freeze the second one (or just eat it).

Experiment: Ice Cubes vs. Hot Water

Paige was playing with her play kitchen today and was asking questions about ice cubes. So I decided to do a science experiment with her. It went really well!

First we took 2 glasses. One we filled with hot water and the other with cold water. Then we put an ice cube in each cup. She didn't know what would happen with the cube in hot water, so it was neat to have her observe this. Here are some questions I'll ask her and I'll try to type her responses as they come out of her mouth.

Q: What was the first thing you did in the experiment.
Paige: We got hot water that could burn us and cold water.

Q: Then what.
Paige: We put ice in the water.

Q: What happened to the ice in the hot water.
Paige: It melted.

Q: What happened to the ice in the cold water.
Paige: It didn't melt.

Q: Why did the ice cube melt?
Paige: Because the water was too hot for it.

Q: Where did it go?
Paige: It turned into water.

Q: What did you learn from this experiment.
Paige: That the ice would melt

I thought it was pretty neat that she retained all the information from our experiment and was able answer all the questions correctly!

Q: Paige, do you like Science?
Paige: Yes.

Q: Do you like doing experiments?
Paige: No

Q: Why not?
Paige: Because i like silence (I think she meant to say "science").

At this point in the interview she had already moved on to looking in Justin's ear with a flashlight to see if there were any princesses in there.

Sesame Place

This past weekend we took a family vacation and went to Sesame Place near Philadelphia. We stayed in a hotel 2 nights which was half of the fun for Paige! We got a 1 bedroom suite so Paige slept on a pull out couch and Brooke in a pack n play. Our room was big and roomy so there was enough space for everyone to have their own place.

As for Sesame Place, the girls LOVED it! Paige is still a little frightened by the costumed characters, but she still enjoyed seeing them. She just didn't want them to touch her. So most of our pictures are of Brooke with the characters.

They had a good mix of amusement park rides, water activities and shows. On Saturday morning we did a breakfast with the characters. We got to meet each character up close and personal and while we ate they each stopped by our table to say hi and take pictures.

For the rest of the pictures from Sesame Street look here.

Brooke's First Steps

On Monday evening Brooke took her first steps going between Justin and I!

Click the link below to watch the video.

Video of Brooke's First Steps