Make Some of Jim's Pancakes

I'm pooped. I'm tired. I am completely exhausted, but we have one more item checked off the list! Now, this item was a covert mission so it never made the written list. Thanks to my sister's knowledge of everything youtube, the girls and I were introduced to the wonderful world of Jim's pancakes. Jim is a man who makes the most creative pancakes for his daughter using squirt bottles and food coloring. He has instructional youtube videos and he blogs about his creations. Seriously, you must check it out, the man is a pancake genius. Once the girls and I had watched the videos we knew that this was something that we just had to try this summer. We also decided to surprise and astound Mac with our extraordinary pancake skills, which then turned it into a secret mission.

Jim makes it look easy. First of all, there is all the preparation. I had to get the pancake supplies (gluten free AND gluten filled for my family), the food coloring, and the assorted squirt bottles for our designs. We planned this mission for a Saturday morning because that is Mac's day to sleep in so we know he would not be snooping around. The only problem with this day is that Peanut has karate at 9:30 in the morning and we are terrible at making it there. So, this Saturday I was determined to do everything, make extraordinary pancakes AND get the Peanut to karate. The teeny tiny one had her own plans! Instead of her usual 7am wake up time she decides to wake up at 5:30am and then take a nap at 6:30am. Well, of course I go back to sleep with her and we all sleep in until 8:15am. Oops! I jump out of bed and run to grab Bug who wants to run to the store with me, and by run, I mean RUN! Hmmm...wasn't it my plan to NOT be rushing around this summer? Somehow instead of rushing to get to school we are rushing to make pancakes!?!?! Oh well, at least we have smiles on our faces. We dash into the store and find the bottles, taking a moment to celebrate our good luck because they are on sale, buy two get one free! Woohoo! We run back home and set up our work station. Time to make the pancakes. When watching the videos by Jim, I was not only amazed by his pancake skill, I was also impressed by the patience he shows his young daughter who is always by his side . So, inspired by Jim, I am determined to be patient with my own daughters during this mission. That means no barking orders and I must suppress my need for perfection when the girls are designing their pancakes. Uh oh, before we could even get started Mac comes downstairs dressed! What in the world? This is the guy who has not seen the early hours of a Saturday morning since I don't know when and here he is looking all awake and alert on the one morning we want him to stay in bed??? The girls look at me with panic in their eyes, but Peanut fixes that problem by saying, "Daddy, we are not going to tell you what we are making for you." He goes back to bed. Onto the pancakes! First, we make the gluten free pancakes for Girly. She decides to make a Club Penguin puffle and a penguin. We are shocked and delighted by our own talent, the pancakes turn out great!! Then, we have to wash all of the supplies and make new colors using the gluten filled batter. We find that this batter is harder to use and it is harder to flip these pancakes, but they also turn out pretty great. We, too, are pancake geniuses just like Jim!!! We take the pancakes upstairs and surprise Mac with our colorful creations. He is thoroughly impressed and we all have fun eating the pancakes in bed. I guess it is a good thing that it IS so much fun to make these pancakes because I have the feeling I am never going to be allowed to make regular ol' pancakes in this house again! Oh yeah, we so did NOT make it to karate, better luck next week I guess!