Yesterday, Mom and Aunt Jenni took E and G to the zoo. Aunt Becki also was there and the kids had a great time. I enjoyed the quiet time around home, though most the time they were gone was eaten up with grocery shopping and buying prizes for the kids. Why you ask?

BECAUSE THE KIDS WENT 5 SLEEPS WITHOUT A BINKY! Yay! If you can't tell, we are very happy about it :) We still have work to do because Ethan, upon reaching this goal, promptly asked for his pacifier because, "I got my 5 stars, now I want my binky back". Uh, no. Not how it works buddy. Ethan got a small Lego Indiana Jones set and Gwen got a ballerina leotard with a little skirt. Now we need to keep on them for the next 5 sleeps. We don't push it, letting the allure of a prize do most the work. They both had binkies last night which is disappointing, but we persist.

So I made these cupcakes and I was real excited because they were on my favorite cooking show, Good Eats, and looked delicious. I put them in the oven and as I'm bustling about cleaning up after myself, I notice this bowl of white powder... wha? Well shoot, it was the flour and leavening! Luckily the wet mix did have cocoa powder and beaten egg whites so they cooked up with some structure, but they came out looking like sunken soufflés. The taste was still good, very chocolaty. But eating one was like eating nothing at all. There was almost no heft to it... like air. Oh well. Maybe we'll try again today!

Dad made a quick stop at our house last night and Gwen really beat him up. He left saying, "I feel like I've been mugged". For such a little sprite, she sure is rough!