Breadmaking, reorganizing, and more growing up

Well, I did it!  I successfully made homemade bread!  I've tried to make bread in the past and I don't know what I did wrong, but it never rose and was never a success.  Thanks to a wonderful article on easy breadmaking, making bread finally doesn't intimidate me!  Here are our loaves rising in a very full fridge.

Finished bread cooling!  Along with a batch of granola - which is crazy easy and cheap to make yourself!  Plus you can adjust the recipe to fit your oil/sugar preferences.

Next on my list of things that must get done: organizing and condensing this mess.  Our upstairs has a really funny layout, but it makes it awesome for kids.  What kid doesn't love cozy nooks and crannies?  I wanted to clean up this space that is rarely used (and a complete hazard to the kids because it is attached/one side of our playroom) to create space for Summerlin's kitchen and hopefully a reading nook also! 

It took several hours, a big bag of trash, and a car full of things to take to the thrift store, but I was able to condense everything down to this one organized, compact cabinet.  There's a very narrow linen closet upstairs that I put all our desk things in.  I also made one large rubbermaid container with kid's craft supplies that I stored in an easy to access space in our attic.  This cabinet did have our old living room TV on it, but we realized that it was pointless to have such a large thing in the playroom considering the kids don't really watch tv and we almost never watched tv upstairs.  (Free TV up for grabs....it's probably 30something inches and it's about 6 years old - not HD, but flatscreen.  The old desk is free to a good home also.)

Another sign Summerlin is growing up (and our house is slowly become less overrun by baby equipment) - she's sitting in a booster at the table with us now.  Hopefully this will go well and she'll stay there.  I like having all of us sitting around the table together.

I'm a big believer in letting kids figure out how to feed themselves.  To me, it's a pain in the ass to spoon feed a kid while you're also trying to feed yourself and keep an eye on another toddler.  Sure, it's a mess, but they learn so quickly when you give them the chance to teach themselves.  Here's Summerlin feeding herself yogurt this morning.  She loves being independent, just like Jackson did.

Like I said, it does get messy....really messy!  But home is a good place for learning these skills!

One last picture of baby girl (she's taking over the blog lately because she doesn't run and hide when I pull out the camera).  Her legs are getting so long.  She was the skinniest baby until about 6-8 months, then she put on a little baby chub.  It was so cute.  Now she's growing so fast that the chub is disappearing so quickly.  Those little legs are getting long and thin again!