The Open House - Priceless

This is our first year with the Academy, so what do I know? About two weeks before the Open House the fliers were sent out explaining the many different categories children could compete in. The categories included Legos, baking, photography, painting, sculpting, science, sewing, etc. I didn't have time to get a new painting submitted before the deadline and I hadn't found anything super special to save and submit. However, I knew instantly that Kaeley would love to bake something.
You know, I made the mistake of not thinking things through. I hate it when I do that! I let Kaeley choose her own recipe and she chose a very cool recipe for Cinnamon Twists. I've made them once before and they were delicious. However, the recipe involves yeast, beating, rising, cutting, twisting, rising again, and then baking. Sigh. Duh. We were also a bit rusty in the kitchen. Kaeley was having a blast slowly mixing things into the bowl and spilling yeast in the refrigerator. I was trying not to do the recipe for her, but also letting her know I had said one teaspoon of salt and not one tablespoon of salt. I was also looking at the clock and wondering how our time was going to go. We let it rise for an hour, checked on it, and... nothing. I turned on the oven's heat to help with the rising and that did seem to help a bit, but it only added on more time. Then we rolled out the dough. She needed to brush butter all over the dough and I could have sworn that took ten minutes in itself. She was having a great time pretending it was a painting she had to paint. When the twisting came she ended up wringing several in the middle and then placing them on the baking sheet. It's actually kind of funny when you subtract the time limit and throw caution to the wind. But I'm a mom. I don't think most of us can do that until we're grandmoms, right? :) I'm speaking for myself I guess.
So, by the time she was done with this huge sheet of dough we had run out of time for another rising time. I threw them in the over and hoped for the best. Poor thing. We ended up with some extremely crunchy dough. They really did not turn out the way they were supposed to.
My mom wonderfully watched the two babies while Kaeley and I dropped her dish off to the school, had a lovely little date at McDonalds, and then went back to the event.
No, she didn't win a ribbon of any color. We are, however, set for next year! I know now to save some work through out next year. Kaeley and I enjoyed ourselves as we looked over all the other amazing entries and watched a young girl act out the entire Horton Hears a Who from memory.
Kaeley was very disappointed when she learned she hadn't won. So goes life, right? But she was very delighted when she saw that people were eating the Cinnamon Twists.
Sigh. Nathan is screaming for me from his bedroom. It's hard to concentrate when you can hear your son taking a deep breath, scream my name until he's out of breath, just to start all over again. Why can't he just come to the door and knock?
Anyway, Kaeley tried processing the losing in her mind and finally decided that God was happy with her. She said that she was God's blue ribbon. You can't argue with that.
We are ready for next year! Legos, Photography, Painting, Baking (something without yeast), and maybe sewing... here we come!... in
Now he's saying, "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." Ugh. What month are we in? Oh, Mommy. I mean, March!
... in six months! :)

PS. Thanks again for watching the littles, Mom! We all know you saved some of my sanity and a few Lego projects from being destroyed.

PSS. I did not dress Kaeley. :)