Cooking, Eating, Cooking, Eating...

My kids are certainly not strangers to the kitchen, be it helping me cook or eating what has been cooked... they are usually in the thick of things. Earlier in the week, steak kabobs were on the menu for dinner and so I enlisted the help of my young chef Thomas. Although I had already done the prep work with cutting up peppers & onions, as well as marinading the steak - Thomas listened attentively as I explained and showed him how we were going to "put it all on the sticks" and make kabobs.

Thinking it was hilarious that we were using the skewers (although he didn't call them that), he called the kabobs, "stick meat". Great... Mommy was serving "stick meat" for dinner along with corn on the cob and fresh sliced strawberries. Some how kabobs sounds so much LESS primitive than that. Anyways... back to my story. He did great stabbing the veggies & steak onto the stick and really did enjoy eating his own creation for dinner. Not too bad for a beginner.

Abby is in full swing of wanting to feed herself. She really wants very little to do with jarred baby food now... she would much rather use her hands to feed herself or have a spoon in hand to scoop something out of a cup/bowl. Such a little independent girl she is becoming. Did I mention that meals are VERY messy now. Abby goes through at least 3 shirts/outfits a day. This is just as bad as potty training...

Friday afternoon fun... Cooking & Snacking at Grannie & Grandpop's house:

• Not a lot really needs to be said here... every pot, pan, cooking utensil was pulled out in their kitchen to use/entertain with this afternoon.
• As you can probably notice in the below pictures - there is some real hands-on learning going on with cooking in the kitchen. Seriously... I walked in and Thomas ran up to me and told me he wanted to cook me an egg. He proceeded over to his "oven" (see oval table below) and opened a real egg carton in where there were 12 eggs. Granted the eggs were pink & blue plastic Easter eggs, it made no difference. He then asked me to pick which kind of egg I wanted (pink or blue?). After my selection, he picked it up, cracked it over the pan, pulled it apart and pretended it went into the pan. He then got out his whisk and started whisking away. I guess I was getting scrambled eggs as opposed to sunny-side up? It was too funny.

As part of the "cooking" going on, Grannie put different kinds of snacks in each of the pots and pans so they could continue "cooking". What a hoot Mary said it was. As you can see, the little chefs are eating the snacks... even Nosey Rosey herself who wants anything Thomas has.

Abby has decided that mini marshmellows are now a new favorite snack. She looks like she is practically fighting her brother for the last one.

Again... more snacks in the mouth. I'm not so sure Abby was doing a whole lot of "cooking", but boy did she enjoy the eating. The two of them certainly enjoyed their afternoon jaunt to Grannie's house.