Now that my husband and three daughters are at a Christmas pageant, and I have the wonderful excuse of staying home with a sleeping baby boy, I can give you Part 2! (If you missed part 1, you can find it here.)
Backing up a bit, since my laughing mother kindly reminded me that I forgot this tidbit: The night before Thanksgiving, the girls and I made pumpkin bread to have for breakfast Thanksgiving morning. Baking with the girls is stressful. They are adamant about having an equal amount of tasks to do.
“You crack the egg, then I’ll put it in, and she can break it with the spoon.”
“We need one and half cups of flour, so how about we each do a half cup?”
“You hold the measuring cup while I pour and she stirs it in.”
I kid you not. And four people crowding around the counter (me to supervise) is a mess. It didn’t help that we were pushing up against bedtime, so I was trying to hurry.
With these girls, hurrying is not in their vocabulary. That preheat oven step needs to come, like, 7th next time, because the oven was ready to go looooong before the batter was in the bread pan.
To make matters worse, my thawed pre-packaged bag of mashed pumpkin wasn’t quite enough, so I had to borrow from the bag for the next day’s pie–an issue I’d sort out later, darn it, just get the bread in the oven already!
Finally, the oven door shut and the girls were scooted off to bed, with the torturous smell of baking pumpkin bread wafting down the hallway.
The next morning, as we enjoyed our delicious bread, I searched for the bags of pumpkin I needed for my pie. They were nowhere in the fridge. I checked the counter, the sink? Nada.
Not the…
I opened the freezer. In my haste to get everything done, cleaned up, and the girls in bed, I had idiotically put my thawed pumpkin back. in. the. freezer–ceramic plate at all?!?!
The pumpkin I needed that morning to make my redemptive pie–frozen again!
But, of course, the story doesn’t end there. To be continued once again!
Hiya! I have recently discovered your blog. This has made me chuckle so much
Oh I feel your pain with kitchen mishaps and the little mini adults who are still little people. I am looking forward to next instalment. Xx
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Thanks so much, Mrs. Broon! I hope to not disappoint!
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This made me smile 🙂
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I’m glad, Arlene! Thank you. 🙂
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i can’t wait to hear what happens…
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Move over, Alfred Hitchcock. Who’s the real master of suspense now? 😉
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Exactly!
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Heh. 🙂
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The suspense is killing me! Did you ever celebrate Thanksgiving, or were you still thawing? I can picture the girls, exactly 1/3 of the frozen pumpkin, gripped tightly in an armpit.
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Haha! Still waiting for it to thaw…. 😉
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LOL! Just thaw the pumpkin in the microwave. When I freeze my homegrown pumpkin, I pre-measure it for my pumpkin bread recipe, because that’s really all I use it for. Come to think of it, I haven’t made pumpkin bread for a while. Thanks for reminding me 😀 And I hear ya about the “many hands”. Luckily I only have two, and only my daughter is interested in baking. She’s old enough now to do it by herself. You could, with the right recipe, give each girl their own bowl and have them each mix up a third of the recipe, then combine at the end. Three times the dishes, but it might go faster 😀
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“Three times the dishes” made me shudder! 😛
And I couldn’t just microwave the bag because I was afraid of the plastic melting. I also couldn’t get the pumpkin OUT of the bag while it was frozen. It was quite the dilemma. I still can’t believe I’d tossed it all back in the freezer, plate and all. I kept trying to work out a way that my husband had actually made the mistake (nearest and easiest scapegoat, right?) but no, this was all me.
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Like I said in part one… sneak off to the grocery store. 🙂 Happy Baking!
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That would’ve been so much easier, right? But the cheapskate in me said we are going to get more bang for our buck if we bake the bulk of those jack-o-lanterns!
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🙂
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So you have to pick recipes where the ingredients are divisible by 3? You know the mess would be bigger if each girl made her own loaf…
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Andrew, let me tell you, girls be crazy. It was worse when they were younger as I needed to be more worried about them cracking eggs and pouring with a steady hand, but it still stresses me out every time I bake. It’s not something I’m allowed to do alone. If I’d made it after they’d gone to bed, I’d probably hear about it for days. Shoot. Now that I think about it, I probably could’ve said that I just wanted to surprise them with it. Dang. Next time!
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You tease you!!!!! What about the pie!!!!
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I know, right? So sorry. There was only going to be two parts, but then my mom reminded me about the re-frozen pumpkin and said I should tell you all about that, too, because it nearly killed her. (The delivery may have been better over the phone than written on the blog, but I try.) Soon!
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Okay….I will wait. 😀
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Tis the season of anticipation. 🙂
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Well played PIF. 😉
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Heh.
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Geez … and I thought all super-mons were efficient multi-taskers. … but the bread looks great!
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I most certainly never claimed to be a super mom. And that’s not my bread. It’s from pixabay, but mine did look pretty much the same. I probably should’ve stated as much.
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Baking with Kids–a new book. This is delightful!
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Ha! Or at least a chapter. I’ll keep this in mind! Thanks, Jacqui.
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Cooking is overrated.
Just buy something at Costco, put it in your own serving dish, and lie about its origins. Easy peasy.
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Mike. Mike. Mike. Lie on the holiday just a month before Christmas? Surely you know the Big Guy is watching, making his list, checking it twice, and all that? No coal for me, thankyouverymuch.
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You know Santa subcontracts for all those toys, right? He hasn’t used an elf since the little buggers tried to unionize in the 1970s.
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I didn’t know this. Someone should write and illustrate a children’s book explaining all of this.
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Good idea! If only I knew someone…
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Me too. Wracking my brain over here…
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Oh boy…and there is more? Baking certainly gives you something to write about…can’t wait for the conclusion.
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My mom said to me, “This would make a great blog post.” Then later on when I texted her the next disaster, she texted back, “I’m telling you–blog post!” 🙂
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Oh no! I accidentally froze Chex mix once. I was eating it and went to put it away and opened the freezer. I will never make that mistake again:)
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Haha. Funny you should mention Chex Mix. I have two recent posts involving my CM obsession!
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I know–I figured it would “stir” a reaction:)
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Oh! Ha! You totally got me. Well done, CKH!
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Pingback: The winner of The Great American Bake Off is… Part 3 | parentingisfunny
Oh man! You had me in stitches! I can just see you patiently turning the oven dial for the 7th time, waiting for the girls to finish their thing, biting your tongue to not hurry them along! The road to independence …
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And me–who loves efficiency…. Oh man. Kids truly teach you about patience–what it is and why I don’t have it. 😉
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I hear you! As I always tell my girls, growing with them is likely the hardest thing I will ever do!
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Oh, yeah. Parenting is no joke! Thanks, PP! 🙂
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