The first of many!

Lately, the Lord has been convicting me of self-centeredness in all areas of my life. My flesh loves to do what I want, when I want it, and how I want it without much sacrifice. And, as in most areas of my heart, parenting most easily reveals my sin. I have been seeing a lack of desire to own my role as a mother because it oftentimes, in the midst of day-to-day life, means sacrificing what I want to do with my time and my energy to play with and do enriching activities with my children. Sounds horrible I know, but this is the nature of my sinful heart. And so... I am thanking the Lord for revealing my sin, for forgiving my sin, and praying for His help to change!
One particular area that I have been avoiding is baking and/or cooking with Abby. Knowing that she is only two and that messes and mistakes are almost unavoidable, well, let's just say that my flesh rears its ugly head! I am so blessed to have girls and I want to embrace with joy my role to teach and steward them in the kitchen. So, a first step. Today, I planned a baking project. I put Katie down for her morning nap and told Abby we had something special to do, just me and her. Her eyes lit up! We were going to bake pumpkin white chocolate chip cookies (thanks to Cynthia Pettit for the recipe). So here is how it went...
We put on our apron...

Got out all of our ingredients...

"Scooped and dumped" and made lots of fun messes

Munched on some white chocolate chips!

And then it happened... "All done Mama, all done!" Then I tried and I tried to get her back into it. "Are you sure you don't want to mix it? Do you want to push the button? Do you want to taste the dough? Do you want to scoop it out? Do you want to look in the oven and see the cookies?" And the consistent answer was simply "No please." Alright, well I guess I was to finish them by myself.

So what DID Abby want to do? Watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse of course!

And so, I finished them myself and when they were done... I got a thumbs up! "That's yummy Mamma!"

And here they are! Aren't they scary looking? What a great Halloween cookie! And they taste fabulous! Thanks Cynthia!

And so, I am excited to grow in owning my role as a mother with great joy and satisfaction. So Abby, here we go! This is just the first of many!