What a great day.

Today was a slow day.

I knew I wanted to do two things.

I wanted to bake some bread.

And I wanted to hang out with Z-cakes.

I decided she was big enough to help me make bread.

Not just play in the flour while I worked.

When she got up from her nap

I asked her "do you want to bake bread with mommy?"

"Okay! Sure!"

That's her new phrase.

The OK is really drawn out

Okaaaaaay!

I thought a lot about how she could actually help me.

I broke the butter into pieces and let her throw them into the mixer.

I let her dump the sugar, salt, and flour in.

But I didn't take pictures of that,

because I was trying to make sure the flour actually got in the bowl.

I let her stir the goo (before all the flour was added) with a spatula.

Which wasn't exactly helping.

But I couldn't resist her "please please!"

after she saw me scrape the sides of the bowl.

I gave her some dough of her own to knead and roll out.

I gave her more than what is in the picture

but most of it fell on the floor

after she "divided" it with my pastry scraper.

And then when we were all done

I let her wash her hands.

For a really long time.

Like, as long as it might take to clean up a bunch of flour,

and dough,

and dirty dishes.

Z-cakes even helped me clean up the water

that she spilled on the floor

while she was washing her hands.

Then she wanted to go outside.

She even let me put mittens on her.

By the time she came back inside it was time to put the bread in the oven.

By the time she got cranky

(you know that witching hour when you're about to start dinner?)

it was time to take the bread out of the oven.

What a great day.