baking pumpkin pie with Jake

I'm not sure where Jake got the idea, but he mentioned to me a few times before Thanksgiving that he wanted to bake pumpkin pie. It worked out perfectly that we celebrated an early Thanksgiving two weeks early with one side of Deric's family, so the day beforehand Jake and I got started on our pies. It was a good opportunity to involve Jake on the whole process of reading the recipe, buying ingredients at the store and then doing the actual baking and I knew he'd like having more responsibility in the process.

So first, we read through the recipe and jotted down a list to take to the grocery store...plus a couple extra things we needed. (I had a back up list on my phone in case I forgot what we needed because that handwriting is so cute but sometimes hard to decipher ;) )

Let's see if I can remember...
"pie crust
1 can pumpkin
2 cans (evaporated) milk"
...continued on the back

Then Jake and I headed to the store by ourselves and he got to push the cart and navigate the aisles to find what we needed.

Trying to find pumpkin pie puree amidst alllll the pie filling choices!

Can't get over him trying to read his own writing!

Back home we got right to work on the pies! The recipe was so simple and perfect for Jake to really help with. He's helped me bake for a while and I'm trying to give him more freedom and responsibility lately-- more than simply dumping and mixing ingredients. We can laugh now about the time he was sitting on the counter and broke an egg on his lap. It wasn't funny in the moment but now he thinks it is. And now he's learned to crack the eggs over the bowl, a lesson we all figured out at some point!

One of my favorite things about our house is this big counter that has room for both boys to help me bake. I'm not the "fun imaginative play" parent in the household but I figure it balances out when my activities ends with something good to eat! ;)

Jake's pies turned out great and he got so many kind compliments from our family that next day. I tried a tiny slice but pumpkin pie is just not my thing! Thankfully the rest of the family were big fans and we went home with only two slices left, one for the chef and one for his pumpkin-pie loving dad.