The Great Bunkin' Pies

Today was filled with lots of things to keep us all busy and tired. We ate lunch with my sister and brother-in-law. Upon seeing my brother-in-law, apparently Annabelle associates his beard with Santa Claus. She's seen him hundreds of times, but since this is the season for Santa she's not taking chances on anybody with a beard.

So, it was "Grandmomma had to hold her" at lunch. It's very diffcult to eat lunch with a child's head above your own. You can't see around to see your food, you can't see over to see your food, so you just wiggle from side to side and change from your preferred right hand to your next to useless left hand to find the food on your plate. But we managed.

On the way back home we decided we needed some good old fresh Krispy Kreme donuts.
Later she would have her first bite of a donut. She only gets good old junk food when she comes to Grandmomma and Granddaddy's. She's in heaven here, that's for sure.

Oh, did I mention...today was apparently not going to be a nap-time day for her. I put her into her room after reading her two books and all the other routine things she does and I left the door opened just a hair so I could check on her. I stood at the door for a good while just watching her to see what she would do because her Mommy had already warned me she had escaped from the Pack-and-Play over the Thanksgiving holidays at Granny's house.

She whimpered and fussed, pulled her shoes off the bed (boy, can those arms stretch), but she didn't try to get out, so I left her for a while and listened on the monitor. I don't know how long it had been, but she was still "tee-tee potty, Gradmomma", etc. so I thought I better make sure she was indeed still in her bed.
I got up to the door and ready to peek in and what am I greeted with? A sweet little girl ready to make her escape from not just the bed, but the entire room! I don't know who was most surprised, her or me. It was a bit of a shock. Anyway, no amount of holdig, cuddling, loving, or music playing would get her to go to sleep. Finally, I told Granddaddy we would go about some errands we had to do and hopefully she would't go to sleep since it was already getting late.

As luck would have it, just after finishing our errands and as we got almost home she zonked out on us. I saw her close her eyes and warned her. She just smiled that sleepy smile and went sound asleep. She slept for a total of maybe 20-30 minutes while Granddaddy sat in the car with her after we got home. She woke herself by almost strangling and then she was in a foul mood for a while. That's what you get when you don't get your nap out. And Grandmomma was feeling a little foul moody, too, because she didn't get a chance to get her nap out because Annabelle couldn't sleep in her room today!

Earlier,I had told her that after her nap we would bake some pumpkin pies because she loved the pies I had made earlier and they were disappearing fast. It was probably close to 6:30 or 7:00 before we finally started them.

First I assembled all the ingredients on a small table that was closer to her size. I didn't want her falling off the stool and dragging the pumpkin pie bowl down on top of her and wasting all that good old pumpkin pie stuff.

She found the two eggs that were to go into the pumpkin and took one of them and tried to crack it on her head, ever so gently. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "Mommy does it". Hmmm. So Mommy cracks her eggs on her own head or on Annabelle's head? Then she picks the other up and does the same thing. She didn't really break them, just tapped them on her head.

Then she realized the mixing bowl would make a perfect hat for her little head, so onto the top of her head she plops the mixing bowl. So, Grandmomma had to stop and re-wash and dry the mixing bowl which had been on her precious, sweet little head before we could continue on.

I felt like an octopus, or maybe it was she was the octopus because she had more arms than I did. She was re-arranging everything, so they would be ready for us to continue our pie-making.

Next I let her help me measure the ingredients...the sugar was dipped from the sugar container using a small measure cup and put into the 1 cup measuring cup. She spilled very little sugar, but enough that we had to stop and clean it up. And she did get some on her shoes which made them very slippery. Keep following me on this bit of information.

Then it was time to add the eggs...Annabelle grabs both eggs, one in each hand and starts to run to the other end of the table to help crack them into the bowl. Now remember the sugar on her shoes? Yep, she not only slipped on the sugary shoes, she also hit the leg of the table. Down goes baby, an egg in each hand, ker-plop. I don't know if she held onto them and squeezed them or if they hit the floor but there were two eggs on the floor with a sweet little girl totally confused about what had happened. I laughed and laughed and told her it was just fine. She didn't cry. She was perfectly happy once she realized all was OK. Then I cleaned up the big mess after Granddaddy got pictures, naturally!

Two more eggs out of the refrigerator to complete the pie and we were on our way once again in the making of pumpkin pie.

Then she helped me open the pumpkin can and add the spices to the sugar then the pumpkin.

We stirred and stirred and stirred to get it all ready for the canned milk. She stirred while I poured that in a little at a time.

And, of course, the pie crusts had to be pierced with a fork before we could pour the pie filling into them. She's a good pie crust piercer!

The only thing she didn't really work on with me was pouring the heavy bowl of pumpkin mixture into the pie crust. I may sound to you a little nutty for letting a 25-month old help me bake pumpkin pies, but I'm not completely crazy. Cleaning up the eggs was enough of a mess for me. And she didn't really complain. She knew she couldn't do that, so I finished the pies, put them into the oven...alone...set the timer and then it was off to bathtime before the pies came out and Mommy came home.

You don't rush bathtime with this child either. She operates on her own time frame. If there's no real need for rushing you're better off just to go with the flow and let her enjoy herself, and we did.

But time was running short and two pies were getting ready to come out of the oven, so when I finally convinced her we needed to call an end to bathtime, Granddaddy's help was enlisted for the hair drying. That is my least favorite job. Her hair is sooo long and it takes forever to get her to sit still long enough to comb and dry it. Granddaddy did a really good job, though. He put her into a revolving chair and then he could turn her when she turned.

The pies came out beautifully, except for a hot-spot Grandmomma managed to get on one of them. After almost two years you would think that I would have mastered that stove wouldn't you. But not really. Guess that shows show much I don't cook.

Mommy came home, finally, before Annabelle's bedtime and she was greeted at the door by the scrumpuous smell of delicious "bunkin' pie" baked by Annabelle and Grandmomma and photographed compliments of Granddaddy.

It was a fun-filled day for all. That baby can bake a good pumpkin pie. She's practicing to follow in the foot steps of her Daddy's Granny. She has a reputation of being an excellent cook and Annabelle is going to give her a run for her money one day. Granny K. probably won't mind it at all, I suspect!