(And All My) Work Be Praise

For a variety of reasons, my kitchen has been a floury mess for the past few days as I fill the freezer with breakfast foods. Mostly, the flutter of activity is in preparation for a family vacation next week, but there was also the five pounds of grated carrots sitting in the fridge that needed to be used up. (Every so often I think it's a good idea to buy the ten-pound bag of carrots at Costco. It is rarely a good idea.) So, if you're needing thaw-and-serve breakfast inspiration, here's the short list: Baked oatmeal Breakfast Cookies. I used this recipe today, but more often use this one  with a few modifications. Freeze in dough balls, bake on the day you want to serve. Sourdough waffles . Or soaked waffles , if sourdough isn't your thing. Both reheat beautifully in the toaster oven. Morning glory muffins . I have three different recipes for these. They're hard to mess up, whatever you throw in them. Carrot snack bars . I was getting desperate to use up...

As I mentioned in Part 1 , ever since we read Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! , Owen has been collecting seeds to make a seed poster of his own. (Yes, this is supposed to be Levi's science, but Owen has been more interested in seeds from the beginning.) We've kept them in a little jar on the counter for two weeks, and last weekend I finally found a moment to get them situated in their poster-making. I offered very little guidance, excepting a small spelling correction on "pomegranate" and encouragement to use more glue. (Owen is very stingy with his glue.) Sometimes, they work so well together! I never thought about bananas having seeds. Kudos to Daddy for these tiny seeds. We lost the orange seed, but there IS a cantaloupe seed --  you just can't see it well in this picture. Also, my bean plant is still growing! It has been sitting in the same place on the counter for a while now, so we got to have a good discussion about why all the leaves are ...