Last weekend, we had friends over for pancakes, and it reminded me how much I love cooking with friends. Instead of stressing about preparing everything in advance, I simply set up different cooking stations with everything our friends would need to help us prepare. Very Montessori! (Hoss, of course, set us his own station on our bed. That boy loves the sun.)

For example, my friend was bringing the pancake recipe, so I put out all the ingredients that she requested in advance, as well as the measuring cups, etc. Then I set up another station for making fresh-squeezed orange juice. While our friends got busy at their stations, Matt