I am a scone fiend. I have been making them at least once a week since Yeva was born November 29. I've dangerously realized that I can bake a couple at a time, freeze the rest, and have a fresh scone whenever I desire. This does not bode well for my waist band or lack of self discipline. But they are oh so delicious. My go to recipe of the moment is this one originally recommended by my sister. So easy, so wonderful with a perfect cup of coffee. 2 minutes remain on my kitchen timer until the current batch is done. A recap of my day in the meantime...

Ale (formerly Max but I'm done with pseudonyms) has been learning the letter "b" since last Thursday. This comes after a minor panic on my part where I felt like we weren't doing anything "educational" and since I don't foresee preschool in his near future I needed to pick up the slack. Don't get me wrong--I'm all about play for as long as possible and I have no intentions of having him sit hours or even minutes for that matter and drill facts into his head. I do feel that I can incorporate subtle learning whenever possible. So I picked the letter 'b' at random for no other reason but not wanting to start with 'a.' I'm not teaching the abc's--that seems to arbitrary to the mind of a 2.5 year old. B is referred to as "buh," the sound it makes. This should help in the future when he starts to read. I showed him the letter and we try to think of words that begin with the 'buh' sound. Today we found ourselves reading Jack and the Beanstalk. On a whim we jumped into the car to go by some bean seeds at our local nursery. I was feeling like supermom with this nice well rounded yet fun lesson in mind until I got to the check out and the very knowledgeable woman (this wasn't home depot) said it wasn't a good time to plant beans yet--too cold. She then proceeded to put them away and brought me some radish seeds instead saying they bring kids great pleasure because the grow quickly. I departed the store with my radish seeds (not quite sure what I'm going to do with them...perhaps 'r' will be our next sound..) and a 6-pack of peas hoping I could pass them off as beans to Ale. We haven't planted them yet as we got rid of all our garden equipment in the great purge. We don't even own a trowel. So the planting will have to wait a bit longer.

After the nursery we headed up to Danny's Farm located just around the corner from our house. I'd wanted to check the place out for months and determined today the day. It's not quite a farm in the traditional sense...it is definitely a Los Angeles attempt at a nice petting zoo. It was fun and Ale loved being able to touch all the animals. The baby piglets were only a week old and very cute. Ale spent the most time with the rabbits and guinea pigs. The staff were very nice and attentive. The $5 entrance fee is a bit much in my opinion for what is actually there but it is for a good cause. (Most of the workers have special needs and the farm does a lot of work with autistic children). The $100 annual family pass fee is tempting only because it's just down the street from me and a nice place to walk to. Maybe we will end up buying one, who knows. I want my kids to be familiar with animals and where there food originates. This isn't an easy accomplishment living where we do. I'll take what I can get even if it is a small high end petting zoo.