When the big kids go to school...

When the big kids go to school, Marie takes over! We are usually rushed in the morning, so I'll leave the girls' bowls of unfinished dry cereal on the table until we get back from dropping them off. Then, when we get home, Marie can finish her breakfast. And this, happens more than Grace and Greta, who sit on either side of Marie, would like to know! At least the cereal isn't going to waste! Xander's bowl usually has milk in it, so his gets put up right away before Marie can make a mess with it. How can she stay so little eating 3 breakfasts so often?

First Day of School

The kids had a great day at school yesterday and were excited to go back today! We met Grace and Greta's teacher at Open House last week and they also got to see her and their classroom again the Saturday before school started. They say kindergarten is fun and their teacher is nice. We walked them in yesterday and they didn't talk much but found their seats, sat down and started coloring, and neither one of them cried at all. Today, they said they weren't going to walk to their room by themselves so I asked Xander to walk with them. Hopefully that went ok. He was so proud to help and looked so cute walking them in. He was even carrying their bags for them- he had his backpack on his back and Grace and Greta's in each hand.

Xander's in 2nd grade and his first day was uneventful. We were disappointed that none of his good friends are in his class but I'm sure he'll make new friends soon. Although he has talked all summer about how he wants his friends in his class, he took the news very well and doesn't seem upset. He already has homework and has started right in on it. All of the kids were tired when they got home and were ready for bed by 7! We're going to have to get back into the school routine of early to rise and early to bed!

Here they are last year: Grace and Greta and Xander

And here's the ones from yesterday:

Xander- to cool to stand with the backpack.



Grace and Greta- Yay- We're going to Kindergarten!



Yay- We have our backpacks on like big kids! Because we are big kids, of course.



Whoa. Are we taking bricks to school in the backpacks?
And actually, they did have enough supplies for about 10 kids in their backpacks.

Chocolate Chip Cookie: Fail.

The kids started back to school today. Xander will be going into 2nd grade and Grace and Greta started kindergarten! Which is definitely a big deal and I'll blog about that later. After I dropped them off and Marie and I had colored, played games, read stories, and had snacks, I started feeling a little sentimental about all this free time I had today. (Only 1 kid=free time.) I had the brilliant idea to make cookies for the big kids with Marie. Wouldn't that make them feel all loved and special when they came home from the first day of school? I would be just like June Cleaver!

But I had to hurry because I needed to get the cookies finished before Marie's nap which needed to happen pretty soon. We made those cookies super fast! Marie was so excited! We watched the cookies as they cooked and I could tell right away something was wrong. They were really flat. The chocolate chips were like mountains compared to the cookies in the pan. And the cookies were spreading way too much and running into each other. I knew it was bad. I had noticed the cookie dough didn't seem as thick as usual but has attributed it to me melting the butter instead of using naturally softened butter. But these cookies were way too bad for that. I went back over everything in my head and finally figured it out.



This is what happens when you leave a cup of flour out of chocolate chip cookies. It is the remains of about 3 dozen cookies scraped off of 3 pans. It has been a long time since I have had a classic Melanie recipe fail. I had been in such a hurry that I had made bigger than usual cookies and crammed as many as I could onto three pans into the oven at once. These are all the cookies scraped off onto one pan after they cooled. They actually tasted sort of yummy if you get past the looks. Less flour + more butter and sugar= more yummy. In a greasy sort of way. But I managed to salvage a little of the dough I hadn't used by mixing some guestimated flour in and making it in half a brownie pan. I didn't have enough left for a whole pan and the cookie pans were all used up and way too covered in baked on mess to use. They turned out ok and tasted good but weren't quite as impressive as mounds of freshly baked cookies waiting for the kids when they got home. I guess I am no June Cleaver or Betty Crocker. Maybe more of a Lucy or a Jill Taylor. The kids were very nice and told me they appreciated the effort.

These are the good ones: