cookies for St. Joseph!

Today I decided to celebrate the Solemnity of the Feast of St. Joseph and the inauguration of Pope Francis by baking cookies. Not just any cookies, "dark and dangerous triple chocolate" cookies. These things are rich, cakey, and unbelievably good. If you want to forget about life for a while and drift off into a heavenly diabetic coma these are the cookies for you.

Anyway, as soon as I started getting out ingredients Isaac got ready to help by pulling up a chair. He's my constant companion in the kitchen and can get pretty upset when I try to do anything without him (such as preparing raw meat, using the stove or sharp knives--Isaac is confident that he can handle these things, but I'm still not quite convinced), so I try to include him whenever I can.

Everything was going pretty well at first. There was flour and cocoa everywhere but that was to be expected.  Then, when we were almost finished Isaac got a taste of the batter (raw eggs never hurt anyone, right?) and realized how sweet it was. It then became a race. Isaac trying to shovel the batter into his mouth, and me trying to quickly finish mixing it and simultaneously stop him from ingesting it all. We don't give him a lot of sweets, but he sure does love it whenever he can get his hands on any.

I soon realized I would have to finish off the cookies without Isaac's help if I wanted there to be anything left to put in the oven. So I did what any 21st-Century mother would do: I put the bowl out of reach and went to get the camera, then blogged about it and put the pictures up on the Internet.

I put the bowl out of reach but, as you can see, he managed to find the beaters. Mmmmm, butter, sugar and egg.

I'm so happy to finally get pictures of him smiling and not making a run for the camera. Turns out all that was needed was a little chocolate.

Happy feast, St. Joseph! Please protect my men and may we follow your example of holiness and purity!

waiting, waiting, waiting...shoes!

March always seems to me to be a month of waiting. You can feel spring getting closer but, let's be realistic, this is Canada, and March is still basically winter. So we're waiting for spring. We're also waiting for Easter, and this year we're waiting for a new pope as well.

That's a lot of waiting, and I must admit that Lent has been difficult this year. Sean and I are fasting from watching tv. I'm so glad that we decided to do it and it's been really good for us, but there was quite the detox period. When Isaac was sick near the beginning of Lent I almost didn't make it.

It's amazing how much more productive I can be without tv sucking all my spare time down the drain. So I've been filling in this waiting time with sewing. Since we have so many friends who just had or are about to have babies I've been sewing baby gifts. I've actually become pretty obsessed with making these cute little soft-soled baby shoes.

Aren't they sweet? Because of the elastic in the heel, they should be nice and snug and stay on well too. I'm very seriously considering starting an Etsy shop so I can sell these little treasures. Then, of course, I had to start making little headbands to match the shoes (since everyone seems to be having girls these days).

I needed more interfacing so today I went to the fabric store where I couldn't resist picking up a few cute remnants. I also discovered a thrift store next to the fabric store and found some beautiful fabric there. My favorite place that I shopped today, though, was my mother-in-law's fabric stash. She loves to see fabric going to a good home and I love free stuff! Long story short, I have enough fabric now to be making these shoes for the rest of my life. Anyone interested in buying?