Domestic Adventures

One evening while I was bathing the kids, Trent crept into the bathroom and dumped 100 plastic balls into the tub with our unsuspecting children. Lots of bath-time fun! The other toy in the picture is a bubble-maker. Just add bubble bath and turn the cranks. One side blows bubbles into the air, the other churns them out into the water.

I was mightily tempted to buy this Kellogg’s Pirates of the Caribbean cereal. Were it not for my hard and fast rule against buying sugar-packed cereal this definitely would have ended up in my shopping cart. As yummy as “chocolate pearl-shaped cereal with Pirate-shaped marshmallows” sounds and as cool as a cereal box with a pirate on it is, I restrained myself and stuck to the normal boring, healthy cereals.

Thanks to our friends, Hope and Dave, we discovered a wonderful new park on Saturday - new to us that is. Lake Lotus Park in Altamonte Springs is beautiful. Emmaline was even bold enough to try out all the slides on her own and then we walked along some of their boardwalk and trails. After lots of running around with the kids and catching up with friends, dinner at Chick-fil-a really hit the spot!

Grammy made this adorable apron for Emmaline for Christmas. Included in the gift was a set of munchkin-sized baking pans and recipes. Emmie proudly donned her apron today and together we baked mini brownie bites. Delicious!

These Chocolate Cappuccino Dreams made by Anthon Berg were one of the little treasures in my stocking this year. I love that they are shaped like little tiny cups. Sadly, this is the last one. European dark chocolate with liquid coffee centers. Yum!

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I was skeptical when Trent first told me about Firefly. Science fiction mixed with western just didn’t sound that appealing, but after the first episode we were both hooked. We’ve shared it with some of our friends too, and everyone agrees it’s a fantastic series. So why was it cancelled after only one season? We’ve heard rumors of some political motivation behind its cancellation. There is now a group pursuing rights to continue the series. Visit the Firefly site to read about their efforts and take a survey to help determine the new direction of the series.

Henry Horse received the top honor as Emmaline’s favorite animal at East Hill Farm. We even brought home a stuffed Henry, who was a tough fit in the carry-on bag. After the first of two pony rides, Emmaline’s play often began with “I’m Sarah (the Farm’s “horse girl”) and you be Henry. Come on Henry, Emmaline wants a ride.”

When we checked into the Inn, the innkeepers gave Emmaline a little basket to collect eggs. Emmie walked right into the chicken coop to collect her eggs and the next morning we would give them to our server who fixed them up just right - scrambled with cheese.

All of the animals at East Hill Farm were perfectly kid-safe and friendly. We made at least one trip a day to the barn to feed them snacks, which consisted of leftovers from our meals which our server bagged up for us just for this purpose. Emmaline very carefully rationed out the bits of bread so that the animals in each pen all had a bit.