Saturday Morning Muffins

We are finally at that stage.  The one we've dreamed about for many years.  The stage where Chris and I can actually sleep in on a Saturday if we want.  The kids are old enough to get themselves up, eat a basic breakfast, and pop in their favorite movie.  Good times!  Today, after a quick six person snuggle in our bed, the kids decided they wanted to start making muffins.  They'd get the mix all ready and then I'd pop them in the oven.  Good plan, right?

Well, I let them help all the time in the kitchen, but I have never spent a lot of time going over the measurements with them.  And I always use a one-cup measuring cup for everything.  I guess learning those fractions was important after all (well, for cooking and determining a good sale price at least).

I walked in and the chocolate chip muffin mix was ready to go.  But, it looked different.  There was more of it, and it was very runny.  But they were so proud of themselves.  I asked them how much oil and water they put in.  Sophia pointed to the glass 2-cup measuring bowl. 

She said, "see, it says '1/4 cup of oil', so I filled it up to here...and '3/4 cup of water,' so I filled it up to here."  She was right, she found the 1/4 cup line, only it was the 1 1/4 cup line of oil, and the 1 3/4 cup line for water.  They had two extra cups of liquid in the mix.  I figured we would go ahead and bake them along with some blueberry muffins that I helped measure out.  Here's how they turned out.

Tasty, right?  If you look closely, you see the one on the left is actually already oozing oil out the bottom side. It was so gross!  But the kiddos learned an important lesson on measuring I think.  And I'm guessing they might be a little less ambitious and stick to cereal and pop tarts on a Saturday morning.  That might just mean a little more sleep for us!!