Jolie's cupcake day

Jolie has, as of late, had a special interest in cooking, to the point that her grandparents have purchased a play kitchen and a microwave that lights up! The first thing she asks for in the morning is her "cooking," and I can rarely ever wander into the kitchen to heat up a Hot Pocket without her asking to help. "JOLIE DO IT!" she yells.

So today, we decided to make cupcakes with her, and let her help out as much as possible. Jolie proved to be a very good assistant in the kitchen!

Here she is spooning batter into the cupcake liners. This did end up being a bit of a mess, between the two of us, and she has picked up my bad habit of licking the batter from my fingers (or in her case, her elbow....?). But she did really well - I'd say we equally dripped batter on the countertop.

While the cupcakes were in the oven, Jolie refused to leave her perch atop the counter, because she was RIDICULOUSLY excited about the container of sprinkles. Even when I did get her down, she insisted on carrying it everywhere around the apartment with her.

The cupcakes came out, and once they were cool, it was time to frost! I separated out a jar of frosting into four containers and mixed them with neon food coloring - blue, pink, green, and purple. Jolie's favorite color is blue, probably because that was the one she learned first, and she was excited to frost some blue cupcakes with her daddy's help.

And then came the sprinkles! The container was a bit too large and unwieldy for her little hands, so she had to be content with picking up sprinkles with her fingers. Not bad for her first decorating job.

We frosted a few more together, and then came the best part - eating the cupcakes! Jolie was so happy to be taking a bite of something that she'd helped to make herself - her excited smiles showed just how proud she was of herself and how happy she was for all three of us to be spending time together, doing something fun and tasty.