August 4

Today we drove out to Amber's house for the Great Macaron Feast of 2011. Macarons (not macarOOns) are delicate French sandwich cookies, made of almond flour and flavored fillings, that are super-trendy right now, but are a little bit tricky to make. One of the things I've always loved about Amber is how her confidence always gives me courage to tackle challenging projects. (Like making tricky French cookies with a 3-month-old, a 1-year-old, a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 4-year-old running around the kitchen.) It may be the blind leading the blind, but Amber forges ahead like she knows exactly what she's doing.

And it always turns out well. See?

Clockwise from top: chocolate ganache, raspberry buttercream, coffee buttercream with chocolate ganache, raspberry buttercream with chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream, and vanilla buttercream. My favorite? Coffee with chocolate. Can you say "yum"?

Caleb sure can.

We had so much fun making cookies, then napping off our sugar highs, that I didn't get any photos of Daisy until bedtime.

She's three months old today, you know.

We'll do a photo shoot tomorrow.

Daisy likes photo shoots. She also likes duckie jammies.

Caleb likes Daisy.

She's very squishy.

But she doesn't like being squished.

Caleb's always willing to kiss her to make it better, though.

(It usually works, too!)

This boy loves to snuggle his sister! And when he comes near her, she starts kicking her feet in excitement.

(Though I suppose it could be terror...)

But I guess there is such a thing as too much brotherly love!