Helping in the Kitchen, Goofing Off, and Warming Up

We started yesterday by doing some cleaning and cooking. Since Maya now wants to imitate everything we do, this can include her attempts to 'help' in the kitchen.

For example, here she's trying to sweep up the floor:

And here, she's assisting Dada as he starts cooking:

Later on, we had a lovely dinner with our good friends Kathryn, Kieran, and Erica. The meal included minestrone with chickpeas from the slow cooker, fresh pasta in a lemon cream sauce with veggies, and carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting. It was all yummy, and we had some fun goofing off after dinner with pieces of a foam play mat.

Here the foam squares are being used as hats:

 Maya seemed to enjoy this new hat:

Erica had to help her dad with his hat:

And then she used one as a frame:

 Maya then used a square as a shield and another piece as a sword:

In other news, the weather here has finally warmed up - the snow is melting, which is so nice, even though it's revealing all kinds of mud and leaves in our yard. We had brunch with some friends today, and then spent the afternoon walking around Cambridge. It was nice to get out and walk around again! In honor of this weather, the background image on this blog has changed.