A Busy Weekend, Part 1

Our social distancing practices for the last month have paid off when the grandkids were allowed to come over and spend the night with us on the weekend. We had a couple of activities planned, but mostly the overnight stay was to give their parents, and them, a little break.

I had found a recipe for Tie-Dye Cupcakes and because Miss W did not have a full-blown birthday party deserving of turning 10, I thought she might enjoy creating the cupcakes in the photo.

Of course she was willing to make Tie-Dye cupcakes! Besides, she had a new apron to wear when baking and cooking at Grandma's house. (This is her third apron since age 2.)

mixing the cake batter colors to just the right hue

rainbow colors

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple

layering the batter

second batch (leftovers) ready for the oven

 We used most of the gel coloring to get the vivid colors in the batter. There wasn't enough left to create the vivid frosting...so pastel colors was the result. Her choice.

Directions were something like: "layer large tablespoons of each frosting color around the side of the disposable piping bag in a clockwise direction."  Yah. Right. Since neither Miss W nor I have experience with piping frosting, we got what we got!

practicing the process on the little birthday cake

she did a very good job of piping frosting

 

the end result

colorful and yummy

While the two of us were slaving away in the kitchen, Mr. M and grandpa were doing some litter clean-up in the wash behind the house. The tall grass collects lots of run-away/blown-away trash. The wash looks better without the pizza box and the shopping bags.

Saturday morning they made birthday cards and cards for their Mom for Mother's Day.

hard at work

no glitter this time as I am still finding glitter from

the Christmas projects

thank goodness for foam stick-ons

and then some of the crew got to relax

they went home about two before the next 

visitors arrived

pasque flower

South Dakota's state flower

usually found in the wild, but I have a domesticated plant

that survived the winter

Woo Hoo!!!

Pulsatilla nuttalliana, known as American pasqueflower, prairie pasqueflower, prairie crocus, cutleaf anemone, or simply pasqueflower, is a flowering plant native to much of North America, from the western side of Lake Michigan, to northern Canada in the Northwest Territories, south to New Mexico in the southwestern United States.

Pasqueflower is the provincial flower of Manitoba and the state flower of South Dakota.

It was first formally named in 1817 as Anemone nuttalliana. It is sometimes considered a subspecies or variety of Pulsatilla patens (Anemone patens). ~ Wikipedia

and the tulips bloomed on Friday

nothing special, but a pop of color this time of year