Messy, Messy, Messy!

Somewhat inspired by a book I recently read on parenting, and armed with adorable aprons they were given for their birthday, I tried baking with the twins. They have "helped" me bake before. But they were really just in the room, occasionally pouring something for me, but mostly just observing (or playing a beautiful drum solo on the pots and pans). This time they actively did everything possible. Not realizing the camera was 5 feet away, I didn't get any pictures of the twins in action (I'm so bummed. It was adorable). But here are some pictures of the aftermath.

There was one portion of time where I needed to take over (the mixing wasn't going well), and the twins filled that free time by emptying the spice drawer and making towers out of the spice containers. I thought that was a brilliant idea (and sort of wished I had been the one to come up with it)!
They very much enjoyed scooping and pouring flour. So much so that each of them (while I was working with the other) scooped and poured extra flour - on the counter, floor, each other, etc. It was a mess :) Lesson learned - always bake with the twins when the kitchen needs a good cleaning!

We made bread and a shortbread tart thing (I sort of made it up based on cookie recipes the twins could actually eat). They got so excited when we had this for dessert that night and they knew they had made it (and daddy was pleasantly surprised by how yummy it was)!

The best thing was that evening, in the shower, when they both were "pouring" various shampoo bottles into bowls and mixing the ingredients. LOVE it :)

The other big mess, from the last few days, was unintentional. Birthday cards have been an incredible source of excitement as they have come daily in the mail. Birthday cards with money have been even more exciting since we have let them put the money in the banks themselves! Allie was joyfully running her bank to the living room to get the money while Ryan was gleefully running the money to their room to get to the banks. The two met in the hallway and this was the result:

Allie was clearly distressed at the destruction of her beloved bank. She was comforted when they got the opportunity to put ALL of that money into the remaining bank! That fun activity kept them busy for quite a while. Long enough for Daddy to clean up the mess.

I always tell people they are welcome to drop in any time as long as they don't mind if my house happens to be a complete disaster when they arrive. Thank goodness I have learned not to be stressed by toddler mess, since we've had quite a few since they turned 2!!!