Young Chef's Academy

We had THE busiest day! It started off with a garage sale, our whole neighborhood was having a garage sale so I thought it would be a good time to clean things out and make some money for my trip to Romania. The kids wanted to help out, so we all got up before 6am and started getting things set up, and as usual, as soon as we open the garage door, we have customers. It was so funny because Riley didn't want to sell much, until he got some money from stuff, then he made several more trips inside to find things he really could live without! I let the kids keep any money from toys they sold, Riley made around $30 or $40 and Regan would only sell 3 things because she can't BEAR to part with any of her stuffed animals. She didn't care about the money at all, so she ended up only making about 5 bucks.

Then we loaded up the rest and dropped it off at Salvation Army and David took Riley to his football game, and I took Regan to a birthday party at Young Chef's Academy. We have always wanted to try it, but had not had a chance yet, so we were both excited to go to the party! Regan LOVED it! She always loves helping out in the kitchen, so she had a great time.

First, they designed their very own chef hat, and then they got to mix up some pasta dough. They each got a dough ball to knead for a while:


Then they each got a turn on the pasta machine. One would crank, one would lead the dough in, the other would catch the noodles. Then they would switch off so everyone had a turn at each job. This was the favorite part, watching the small dough ball turn into a long, thin sheet of dough, and then into long, flat noodles.


Then each kid got another job, some would tear up herbs, one chopped an onion, one mashed up some butter, and Regan got to chop garlic (which is now her permanent job in MY kitchen!)


And finally, while the noodles were boiling and the sauce was simmering, they got to decorate a giant cupcake!


Regan loved every minute of it, and wants to take cooking lessons now! I'm all for it, the sooner she gets INTO the kitchen, the sooner I can get OUT of it!!

And then we had to rush back home to get Riley to his school fun night out, and we met up with Joe and Mark and went swimming to cool off from our hot, busy day.