How to Make An Apple Pie and Grow Great Kids

Last week Kaya (she's decided to change the spelling on her name from Kyah to Kaya), and I made an apple pie together. Cooking together is one of the best educational experiences you can share.

It incorporates the multifaceted features of life and combines them into an activity with a delicious result.

Some of the best approaches to 'schooling' is with pursuits like these - a hands-on, real-life undertaking that interests and instructs.

Start with a jar of home canned goodness, a gift from the heart from cherished friends.

Using the internet, we search Google, the source of almost all knowledge, and find this 'perfect' recipe for a pie crust.

Kaya reads the instructions - before all else fails. Wise.

We measure the flour, adding and multiplying.

Next comes the salt, the savor of life. But it only takes a little bit to do its job. Too much of a good thing, is not a good thing.

The recipe calls for cold butter, but ours is frozen. Soft and pliable at room temperature, now it's hardened and inflexible. Sometimes we get like that, when we feel stubborn, unkind or rebellious.

Once the butter softens, we can mix it together. Combining individual elements creates and entirely new substance. Even in life, the small and simple things work together to produce something wonderful.

We've got to get the mixture just right, or the crust won't turn out. Chemistry is all about the science of mixing things.

It needs just the right amount of kneading. Not too much, not too little. Our relationships need the right amount of 'kneading' also - a lot of love, the right discipline, quality time.