Anniversary Help

I got a little help from my girls this anniversary day. Nina started by giving some spa treatment. She painted my nails, put some glitter lotion on my hands, then gave Lyla some treatment as well. Lyla helped bake the dessert for dinner. Anyone who has ever baked things with kids knows that signing up to do so means it is going to take at least twice as long to make your creation, and the mess you'll end up cleaning is going to be enormous. Still, since they love to "help," we agree to the conditions. In the oxymoronic twist of fate, I was trying to make a recipe from one of the most calm, clean, and hypnotizing cooks I've ever seen with one of the messiest toddlers I've ever seen.

The recipe was from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook. I learned of her just after we had Nina. As those of you who knew us back then remember, there was A LOT of time spent trying to soothe a screaming baby back in those days, and when I would be in the house alone, I would try to have other sounds going on in the background to keep me sane. One of the best was the show, Barefoot Contessa. It's a cooking show (and at the time, I didn't cook much at all except pasta and chicken), but the way she prepared the food, the way she talked, and the whole aura of her show was so calming and almost hypnotic for me to watch/listen to back in those days. Because she provided me with a positive memory of those days, I still use her recipes whenever I can. Also somewhat funny is the fact that Nina LOVES to help me bake. Maybe her baby subconscious remembers her mother being calm when Barefoot Contessa came on. haa haa! Anyway, since Nina was out at preschool and not able to dominate the baking scene, Lyla was the exclusive helper. This picture was taken at the begining of our cooking process. It got very very messy by the end, but we had a good time baking together.