Mothers Day and Muffins

I had an awesome Mother's Day!!  It started with breakfast and beautiful pictures and cards made by my beautiful girls. They were both big helpers in the kitchen (Hunny told me). I got to relax upstairs until all was ready. Then they surprised me with a pendent. It is a Celtic cross with a diamond in the center and  Hunny had the girls birthstones set into the cross. We had a relaxing morning enjoying time together and nature outside our windows.

Then, we made muffins....  Well, we tried. On Monday, our homeschool group was doing a marketplace at one of the local parks. The idea was that kids could make items to sell to each other and teach about commerce... Buying and selling ... cost of goods sold ... etc ... For kids and fun. So we decided on mixed berry muffins. I had purchased a set of various gluten free mixes (Jules Gluten Free bakery) and this was our chance to try the muffin mix. I should have known not to try, after all it was Mothers Day. I should be relaxing, not baking. But I wanted to bake with my girls. I took the softened butter and try to cream it, but it flung all over the kitchen. Literally, butter flew. It was on the granite, the stone backsplash (fun times cleaning), the floor, me... It flung. After which, my little helper laughed and said, "Now that's a funny something!". So I adjusted how I was holding the immersion blender with the whisk attachment (probably my problem) and it was better. So we got things cleaned, and we began adding eggs one by one. I held the bowl wrong and we had a small fling of butter again, but this time much smaller. Then an egg got cracked on the counter  and dripped down the cabinets to to floor. Should we just stop here? Yes, but we did not. We made muffins. Mini muffins. You would think that if it takes 30 minutes for regular size muffins to cook, it should take less time to cook mini's.  Half the batter got put into the pans, the other half waited patiently. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally we decided they were not going to cook. The centers were still raw while the outside was looking scrumptious. Did we get defeated? Did we give up? No. We reinvented the muffin. We mixed the half cooked muffin into the patiently waiting batter and spread it out on a sheet pan. It turned out kind of a sponge cake muffiny squares. We also didn't sell our muffin squares creation at the marketplace either.

We figured our mistake with the muffins was instead of using just blueberries (as called for in the recipe) we used mixed berries. Which, after thawed and mushed to blend nicely into the batter, added too much moisture to the batter. We shall try again.

After our muffin mishap, we hurriedly showered and got ready for church hat evening. Even the dogs got showers that day. And we drove to church. We go to a 5:30 service about 1 hour 15 minutes away. The drive is a great nap time for the girls. We all enjoy the church.

We finished our evening with a nice dinner at our favorite Mexican uncles place (a restaurant called Uncle Julio's or as the girls call it ... the dough place .... They get to play with tortilla dough while we wait for our food). It was a great Mothers Day!!!

Oh - and in case you're wondering, we only shopped at the marketplace. Both girls took money from their own piggie banks. One got a pair of earrings, a necklace and a chocolate chip cookie, while the other bought a shower cap. It was fun.

I hope your Mother's Day had afunnysomething also!