Mama's Big Helper & Happy Girl

Today has been a fun and relaxing day - so far. We decided to stay home and just hang out - no cleaning involved and we only did two loads of laundry. Marshall has had a pretty tough week at work so Jack and I decided to make sugar cookies for him. No Huli, they are NOT the slice and bake kind . . . but all we had to do was add butter and eggs. So we did cheat a little, but my baking skills are improving!

Here's Jack pouring the mix in the bowl.

Mixing . . .

. . . and getting ready to taste his first bite of raw cookie dough! Yummy - if only it were chocolate chip and mixed in ice cream.

My Mama always adds green and red sprinkles to Christmas sugar cookies, so we decided to continue the tradition here. And yes, the spoon is still stuck in the cookie from where Jack was conducting an official taste test. He approved.

Then he got a little distracted when he discovered that he could open the toaster oven and drop his spoon in, and then take it back out, and then drop it back in again - you get the picture.

But in the end, Jack was extremely distressed that we had to take the cookies away and put them in the oven to bake.

I distracted him from the baking cookies when I pulled out the Dustbuster to vacuum up pine needles that had fallen off the tree this morning when I watered it (ok, so there was some cleaning today). Of course, Jack was there and willing to help. He even managed to do it without taking his fingers out of his mouth.
Later, he got to enjoy the fruits of his labor!

Not to be left out, Anna has been such a happy girl today. She's full of herself and has been doing a lot of talking and smiling. Here are just a few pictures I managed to capture this morning.

Ahh, Hank is never far away!

See . . . some things never change. Here's Hank on the same pillow with Jack when he was eight weeks old (Anna was eight weeks on Wed)!