Grandkids and a fitting end

With Mrs Notthat out in Maryland shopping and eating in fine restaurants and generally relaxing, it was up to this blog to keep the grandkids out of trouble and somewhat entertained on Friday.


What better way to start is there than filling them with syrup drenched strawberry pancakes? After breakfast we took Darci to preschool and then got down to business. Specifically, Idiot Dog Teddy's business.


The first rule about playing in the backyard is to pick up poop. Riley wants to help (notice the blue newspaper bag on the left hand and a grocery bag in the right - is this kid left-handed?), but he just can't work up the nerve to walk on the grass until he's given the all clear signal. So he hung out on the edges, pointing out the poop piles to me.


Once the yard was safe, we headed to the sand box. Normally the sand stays dry in its plastic turtle, but it had gotten wet during those storms we had last week. While this meant that the toys that rely on dry sand wouldn't work, it also meant we could build sand castles. Notice that I let Riley wear the Jayhawk hat in the hopes that this might help the Jayhawks in the upcoming tournament. (It's slightly possible that they need more help than this though.)


Once we picked up Darci from school we came home and baked cookies, using the easiest recipe ever (not counting the tubes of dough that you just have to slice and bake). You take a box cake mix, a can of diet soda, some chocolate chips, and mix them together. I used a yellow cake mix and a diet root beer. We then added a bit of food coloring so that Darci could have pink cookies. (Just in case you had not picked up on this, pink is her favorite color. I asked Riley what his favorite color was, and he said "pink" too. I decided it should be blue, but the blue coloring in the yellow cake made the cookies green. WHM told me later that pink really is his favorite color, which apparently annoys Darci to no end. What a great kid!)

We headed back to the backyard while the cookies baked.


Darci picked (and ate) our first crop of snow peas - about a dozen of them all together.


Eventually WHM showed up and took the grandkids home, freeing me to go through the mail.


And this was what was waiting for me.

Sigh...

That's it - move along...