Kitchen helper

Today we are having Olive Garden at home for dinner, with our friends Bill and Shawna coming over this evening.  So Amina has been helping Mama get the house ready.  Yesterday she helped me vaccuum and clean.  And today she's been helping me in the kitchen.  It does tend to take at least twice as long to do anything in the kitchen with the help of my delightful girl, but it's worth it for the joy she brings.  She gets the biggest smile on her face when she gets to do something she doesn't normally get to do.  Amina enjoyed helping me knead the dough for the bread sticks, and she was especially delighted that she got to taste a bit of this dough.  Now I hope it doesn't carry-over to playdough time, but what can you do?  Hopefully she'll see that the dough tastes much better cooked and won't want to keep eating it raw! 
Here's a quick little video of Amina helping make the bread:


Amina also helped by dumping the canned tomatos into the soup pot (well most of it landed in the pot anyway!) and by carrying cans to the counter for me.  She's such a big helper these days!  And I only put Seasame Street on for a little while so I could do some of the cooking without her help... though that only keeps her attention for a few minutes anyway.  Since Amina was helping so much I need to go re-clean the kitchen now!  Better get going!