Baking a Cake: Millie and Mommy November Date

More cake!

Love

Millie constantly has a notepad or drawing pad of some sort with her.  She is always coloring or drawing or writing.  I love coming across her drawings and writings.  She drew this one night while we were reading her chapter book before bed.  Melts a mom's heart.

Teddy 15-months and Millie 6-years -- For the Record

Teddy: 18 pounds 15 ounces (5th percentile)
           2 feet 6 inches (11th percentile)
           17.99 inches head circumference (19th percentile)

Millie: 39 pounds 8 ounces (17th percentile)
         3 feet eight inches (25th percentile)
       

November Merrill & Mommy Date

Merrill and I had a date to go to a bookstore to buy a new book for the month of November.  A new book store had recently opened up in downtown Kirkwood so it was perfect timing.  Bookstores can be hard to come by these days so it was really exciting to see an online bookstore open an actual store.  Merrill enjoyed browsing through the books.  She picked out gifts to give Millie and Teddy for Christmas as well as several books for herself.  After book shopping we met up with the rest of the family and walked around downtown for a bit and ended up at the dance store in town to get the girls new dancewear.  Everyone was happy by the end of the day (except maybe Teddy -- the dance store was a little more than he could take ...)

Weekend Fun

We were lucky to share our fun-filled weekend this past weekend with Scott's parents as they traveled through St. Louis on their way to Arizona for the winter.  Our fun was a little lopsided in that our Saturday was jam-packed with activities and our Sunday consisted of making our own fun at home (after Millie's soccer game was cancelled due to the crazy weather), but it seemed to work for everyone.  Kids and grandparents alike were all in bed by 8:00 both nights, so we must have worn them out!  

Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon gave plenty of time to introduce the girls to the tradition of playing cards with Grandma

Saturday, Merrill had a birthday party to go to at the Magic House, so Scott and his parents took Millie and Teddy to play and Merrill and I joined them after the party.

 Millie looks like a natural in scrubs -- future doctor or nurse?!

After the Magic House we headed down to the "Loop" for an early dinner at Blueberry Hill and a little walk in the drizzly rain followed by seeing Pinocchio at the COCA theater.  

Sunday was a MUCH more relaxed day.  Lots of reading and playing cards, watching "Charlotte's Web," drawing, more playing ...  a brief getaway to book club for me ... more playing ...

All-in-all a great way to spend the weekend!  

Flowers for No Reason

I was delighted to get a surprise delivery from the UPS man on Friday and even more delighted to see they were flowers from my wonderful husband.  I am still and always will be the luckiest.

{Cake}

Merrill's date with Scott this month was to make a fancy cake.  Now, cake-making is generally my job around here, but these two have apparently picked a few things up along the way 'cause they held their own and created a fancy and delicious cake.  When Scott asked Merrill what kind of cake she wanted to make, she decided she wanted a half vanilla and half chocolate cake.  I think originally she was visualizing something like a black-and-white cookie but in cake form, but when we showed her pictures of a marble cake she was sold.  She was very particular though, and did not want a bundt cake -- she wanted something she could frost and decorate :).  So, we found a recipe for a marble sheet cake and Scott and Merrill made a plan to make their cake last Friday so we would have it when his parents were in town.  Merrill was very generous and shared her date time with both Teddy and Millie.  (Okay, I may have snuck in there during the decorating too ... ).

Merrill was also very clear that she wanted to make a rainbow marble cake, so that's what they did!

"Merrill's Rainbow Marble Cake"

I think the cake was a hit!  Millie and I have a date to make a fancy cake this month too -- we'll be making ours for Thanksgiving dinner so we can share it with our family.  That's a lot of cake for one month!