Lazy Sunday

With the start of a new year comes the start of a new church time. Last year was pretty brutal with church starting at 1:00 pm because Lucy would miss her afternoon nap and end up falling asleep after our 3-hour church at 4:00 or 5:00 pm and then stay up until 10:00 or 11:00 pm. We tried to keep her up and would sometimes succeed and enjoy an early bedtime at 7:30 pm but that wasn't very often.

This year, church starts at 9:00 am which although early, works much better for our schedule since when we wake up is usually dictated by Lucy around 7:00 am. Waking up at 8:00 am would be considered sleeping in for us and only occurs after a really late night.

Now that church is over by noon, we were able to get Lucy down for her nap at 2:00 pm today and enjoyed a lovely Sunday afternoon nap for ourselves as well. Sundays can be a little tricky for me because I usually just want to lounge around and watch television or movies all day and not really cook but just snack on whatever food is around. With a toddler, that isn't really possible without some consequences, mostly her being restless and irritable from not having a way to expel her energy or receiving enough attention.

So I channeled my energy into some quality baking time with Lucy since she has started to love "helping" me in the kitchen (and I also had two bananas that were really ripe and needed to be used - I HATE wasting food). It was frustrating at first because it is a lot less work to prepare dinner or bake something without her but I know it is important for her to learn and be involved. So I'm trying give her little jobs that are at her level (adding ingredients, mixing, breaking eggs) and make her feel like she is contributing.

Lucy was a little sad at how hard it was to mix the muffins once it got thick.

But she posed for the camera one last time so I could get my shot in. 

All the hard work paid off though - 30 minutes til scrumptious banana muffins.

Buttering the baking dish for chocolate bread pudding.

She's a pro at this and helps me do it all the time.

More mixing for the chocolate bread pudding.

This was the first time we had made chocolate bread pudding and she was pretty excited to eat the chocolate pieces.

Bread pudding is a staple in our house - these bags of cut up french bread are always on sale (for $0.79!).

I buy a bunch when I see them, pop the bags into the freezer and we have bread pudding all the time.

It's one of our favorite breakfast and dessert dishes (I get a little sick of cold cereal).

Our finished banana muffins - we only had a jumbo pan so got 6 instead of the usual dozen.

All that hard work paid off!

Lucy approves!!

Brandon does too.

And the chocolate bread pudding.

My favorite bread pudding recipe so far has been the basic Joy of Cooking one but this chocolate bread pudding was from Better Homes & Garden and I was pretty "meh" about it (maybe because I didn't eat it while it was still warm with vanilla ice cream). I should have helped Lucy a little bit with the mixing because as you can see from the white there, the egg wasn't completely beat in. But all together, it was a baking success. Lucy has to start earning her keep around here and I plan to train her well! So maybe it wasn't such a lazy Sunday after all...