These snapshots of our daily life–baking pies and cookies, homeschooling, soaking up fresh air, and even doctor’s checkups–are so sweet. The everyday moments, with a coffee run or two thrown in for good measure, make up our family’s rhythm of life in this season. Here’s a little update of what life has been looking like around these parts!

In the Kitchen: Pie, Cupcakes, Cake Pops, and Cookies 🍪

I mentioned in a recent post that I had plans to bake an apple pie and butterscotch cookies. To me, baking is the perfect way to slow down and bring some sweetness to our days! Between stirring cookie dough with Sadie and dreaming up new recipes, baking is such a fun way to connect and express creativity.

I blew through a bag of pastry flour for pie crusts! The flour definitely made a difference in the tenderness of the crust. I love experimenting with different ingredients for classic recipes!

Sadie and I also spent some time baking cookies together this week. Sometimes for her math lesson, we skip her workbook and instead focus on baking. Measuring ingredients, reading recipes, learning fractions (1/2 teaspoon + 1/2 teaspoon =1 teaspoon!) are practical and fun ways to work on math skills. I always feel so fulfilled as a mom and teacher in those lessons.

In my opinion, being able to read a recipe and whip up a sweet treat is just as important as learning geometry. There were so many things in school that I learned that I don’t use in my daily life (long division, anyone?!). I want to balance teaching Sadie important math concepts and practical skills (like baking!) that use math.

Plus, the reward at the end of the lesson is a warm plate of cookies!! Sadie loves measuring, whisking, pouring, and sneaking a few chocolate chips as we go. Is it messy and a little chaotic? Yup. But worth it a thousand times over for the memories and learning moments. My prayer is that she will grow up with memories of regularly pulling a step stool up to the kitchen counter and getting messy with mom as she learned life skills.

Another thing I love about trying new recipes with Sadie is that it naturally piques her curiosity for food. She loves her same few favorite foods, but if we just so happen to be baking with a new-to-her ingredient, she’s much more likely to try it out because she’s invested in the process. And for the record, she loved the butterscotch chocolate chip cookies we baked together! I’ll share the recipe we came up with soon 😊

We also made mini chicken pot pies together! We chopped chicken thighs into cubes and seasoned them with salt and pepper. We cooked the chicken in butter and then added in a can of peas, a can of carrots, and a can of cream of chicken soup. Then we made mini crusts from this recipe, put them in a cupcake tin, and filled them with the pot pie filling. We baked it all for about 20 minutes and dinner was served!

Last but certainly not least, I made Nutella cupcakes! They were a chocolate cake with a touch of espresso powder, filled with Nutella, and topped with a swirl of Nutella buttercream.

Since I filled the cupcakes with Nutella, I cored out the center of each one. What to do with the little bits of cake I removed from each cupcake? I stuck it all in a bowl, crumbled it up and mixed it with the leftover buttercream. I shaped the mixture into balls, stuck a stick in each one, refrigerated them for about an hour. After that, I dipped the cake balls in melted chocolate. Sadie decorated each one with sprinkles and ta-da… cake pops!

Sader Tot didn’t end up finishing hers (I was glad she tried it, though!) because she doesn’t like cake. In fact, for her upcoming birthday party, she asked if I could make brownies instead of cake. Mordecai, though? He gobbled his cake pop up in five seconds flat, lol.

Getting Outside as a Family 🚲

The weather has cooled off a little lately in Pittsburgh. It has been the perfect weather for the big kids to ride bikes.

Every time we’re out and about, people see our little crew–a baby in a carrier and two little ones trailing behind–and I always hear the comment“You have your hands full!” and I do. And I love it. What a blessing it is to have my hands full from these sweet kids. I’ll tell you what, though, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that comment, I would be a wealthy woman 😂

Mordecai recently got a new balance bike and he’s been working so hard on learning to ride it.

He just seems so grown up lately! Between riding his bike, talking up a storm (he asks no less than 700 questions a day!) and potty training, he’s changing right before my eyes 🥹 What happened to my baby boy?!

Another way we’ve been getting outside as a family lately? By hopping in our hot tub! Oh my word do I love our hot tub. I’ve been asked if I think it was worth it to get one and my answer is always a resounding yes.

Reasons I love our hot tub:

• It’s relaxing! It soothes tight muscles and helps me sleep better.
• It’s hot. I love being hot. It’s especially nice to take a dip when it’s cold outside.
• It fosters connection. We sit face-to-face and have great conversations 🤍

Baby Updates and Doctor Visits 👶🏼

Dakota’s six month check up went well! She received her vaccines and didn’t get a fever afterwards like she did last time!

She’s such a sweet baby! The biggest challenge is just her nighttime sleep. She wakes up a lot and sometimes it’s hard for me to go back to sleep after I feed her. Lately, if she’s up near the early morning, I just get up for the day instead of tossing and turning.

My little (very early) morning schedule has looked like:

• Feed Dakota for the third or fourth time of the night at 3:30 am.
• Get out of bed at 4:00 am and brew coffee.
• Study my Bible from 4:00-5:00 am.
• Write blog posts from 5:00-6:00 am.
• Eat breakfast at 6:00 am.
• The kids start waking up at 6:30 am!

Do I feel like I’ve lived six lives before 7:00 am? Yes. Am I ready for bed at 8:30 pm? Also yes. I am liking the morning quiet, though! If I’ve learned anything, it’s that seasons and schedules will change. Dakota will eventually sleep more and I will, too. For now, I’m using this schedule to have a little alone time ☕️😊

Everyday Joys: Coffee Runs, Laundry, and More ☕️

The early morning wake ups mean sometimes mama needs a Starbucks run! It’s always a nice treat to take the kids into Starbucks. We sit down, enjoy our drinks or food, and just hang out. I like that I’m not distracted by housework and such when we do this!

Our order: grande blonde roast with extra cream for me and a cake pop and chocolate milk for Sadie and Mordecai to share. Dakota? She was trying to grab everything!! I should have ordered her a baby food pouch since we’re trying to put some weight on her, lol!

We went to the mall with my mom this week. I needed to grab a gift for someone in Bath and Body Works and I’ll tell ya what… taking three young kids into Bath and Body Works is intense! They’re not misbehaved, just curious. It’s good practice for teaching them how to act properly in a store with breakable items. Thankfully Mordecai didn’t break anything like he did last time 😉

It was so sweet that Sadie wanted to push Dakota in the stroller through the mall. It was so close to Dak’s bedtime that she ended up just wanting to be held and snuggled and I somehow ended up pushing Sadie in the stroller at one point?! I kind of blacked out (read: early wake ups and kid chaos ha).

We also stopped in Claire’s and had a good laugh at Dakota wearing a colorful hairband 😂

Speaking of Dakota, she has been my laundry buddy lately. Our washing machine is on our basement and it’s tough to carry her and a basket of laundry at the same time so in she goes! Also, that laundry basket? It’s collapsible, so a total space saver in our small home. We’ve had it for a few years and I really like it.

She’s a good sport about it! Remember when Mordecai used to sit in the same laundry basket? Memories 🫶

Want to hear some mom math? When you have three kids and you take them all out, it feels like you have six kids. When you take two kids out, it just feels like one. When you take one kid out, it feels like having -1 kids. I brought just Mordecai to the grocery store the other day and it felt so weird to just have one kid with me!

He was very excited to take a picture by a Cyber Truck. What do you think about those things?

Other Notes and Thoughts 📝

• I’m obsessed with this granola. I always forget how much I love pecans!
• I can’t believe we’re coming up on Labor Day weekend. Do you have any plans?
• Still reading this novel and it’s cute!

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Okay, I’m signing off here! I have school lessons to do with Sadie and I’ll be pulling a cherry berry pie out of the oven in a few minutes 😊

Have a great day!