This morning, Zaya (5) was the first one of the children awake. She popped into the kitchen just in time to discover I was making blueberry muffins.
Naturally, she wanted to help me because Zaya loves cooking. 😊
After filling one muffin pan with liner, we realized we had run out of cupcake liners. So we made our own! 😁🧁
Using a sheet of parchment paper, you cut out squares. Then, make small slits along each side. Place the parchment paper in a well and use a small cup to help form the shape of the liner. Then, fill it with batter.
As she helped me fill the liners with the muffin batyer, Zaya said, “The batter looks like lava, and the cupcake cups are the volcanoes.” 🌋🧁
Days like this remind me how important it is to slow down and enjoy these ordinary moments—not stress about perfection.
The muffins don’t have to have matching liners or look Pinterest-perfect. All that matters to me is spending time together and the memories we’re creating. 🥰
We’re supposed to get a storm later tonight. Possible thunderstorms, flash flooding, and tornado.
I hope it just rains and there aren’t any bad storms, but if we do have harsh weather tonight, I hope everyone takes the necessary precautions and stays safe!
We moved our grow bags in a safe spot just in case it storms later tonight.
We prepped our basement in case water gets in it. This type of flash flooding is very common for southeast Michigan.
I also worked on moving our garden grow bags to spots outside that will hopefully keep them safe from the storm.
I’ll have to bring our seedlings inside so the storm doesn’t hurt them. 🌿
We’ve had unusually cooler temps all week with rain off and on. My poor summer vegetables and some of my transplants are freaking out. 😩
They’re like, “Girl, what is going on?! I can’t stand up straight.” 😏😆
It should be sunny tomorrow, so I’m hoping the soil can dry out and the stressed plants perk up.
My new celery starts have had enough of this rain!
The careors and green beans are looking good!
I’m feeling much better than I did yesterday. The rest did me good. The kids are getting better each day, too. I think by next Monday everyone will be feeling 100% better.
This viral bug has a slow recovery. We rarely get sick in the summer. 😏 I’m very thankful everyone is healing comfortably at home.and no one had to go to the doctor!
And since we’re feeling a little better, I decided to make a sweet treat for the family — homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. 😋🍪
Of course, my chef assistant Zaya (5) helped. 😄 She LOVES cooking! 😍
I’ll share my homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe in another post. The cookies are DELICIOUS! It’s hard to eat just one! 😋🍪
The day started with an early morning drive to take M (23) to work, right as the snow began to fall. It came down fast and thick, making it hard to see far ahead, so I drove slowly and carefully.
I had checked the forecast earlier that morning and didn’t see snow mentioned, so it caught me by surprise.
I always get nervous driving in the snow, so I made sure to drive carefully and at a slower speed.
A quick photo of my view of the snow from the car. It’s always snowing, it seems! ❄️☃️
I had originally planned to run errands, but the snowy weather felt like the perfect excuse to stay home instead.
It turned into a cozy day of baking homemade cookies and working on fun crafts.
Zaya (5) painting one wall from our wooden dollhouse. Zephaniah (8) had a creative idea to repaint the dollhouse and make their own designs.
Zhen’s (13) Homemade Christmas card. 😸✨️
So, the kids spent part of the day making homemade Christmas cards for their Nana and working on their crafts.
While they created, I read aloud the storybook Christmas with the Mousekins by Maggie Smith.
We loved the illustrations with scenes of baking, decorating for Christmas, and cute cottage homes in the mouse village.
This storybook also features festive crafts and recipes, so we plan on doing a few of the activities sometime this week.
The kids really want to make the gingerbread mice and a Christmas tree hat (see below).
I also baked homemade cookies—with Zaya,of course! She loves cooking. 😊
We made Kitchen Sink Cookies with chocolate chips, crushed walnuts, and caramel.
I sprinkled sea salt on top of the cookies once we took them out the oven. The cookies were DELICIOUS!
It was hard to eat just one. 😄🍪
Zaya mixing the cookie batter.
Photo by Zaya. 🥰
As we baked the cookies, we listened to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack (the Keira Knightley version—my favorite!), and the whole experience felt dreamy and cottagecore. 😌✨️
Zaya said the sweetest thing to me while we were making the cookie dough batter:
“I love making things with you, Mom. And I love making things with Dad. Making things with you and Dad is the funnest thing I can do.” 🥰🥹💜
That just made my heart melt. 😊🩷
All images in this blog post are my own photography. If you’d like to use a photo, please contact me first for permission. Thank you!
