Adventures in Babysitting

Today, I had the pleasure of babysitting my nephews, Jorel and Elroy (ages 10 and 6) and my niece, MJ (3 years old). Because of their age range, it was a bit tough to come up with activities that would interest all of them ... but at the same time, I did not want them to spend all day watching the Disney channel and playing video games. Here was our agenda:

They were dropped off at 8:00 AM.

We had juice and churros for breakfast. Then watched about a half hour of tv while Jojo got ready for work.

After Jojo left, we did some art projects - they drew pictures and we did some paper folding crafts too.

Next we played Boggle (a word game that my two nephews were surprisingly good at). MJ ... not so much ...

We took a break for lunch. We had hotdogs and spam (Jorel's request), scrambled eggs (Elroy's request), and Honey Nut Cheerios (MJ's request). Looking back at that meal, it seems more like breakfast than lunch!

I felt guilty with the "junk" we had for lunch so we had fresh fruits for dessert. Here's MJ enjoying some fresh mangoes.

After eating, I told them they could play 1 hour of Wii. The boys played video games while MJ served me pretend dishes that she would cook in little plastic cups.

Then they went "swimming" in our jacuzzi. I had them rinse off in the shower.

It was around 4 PM, when we decided to bake chocolate chip cookies. Jorel helped me measure the ingredients and mix them in a bowl while everyone pitched in to roll the cookies into same-sized patties.

After 30 minutes, we had fresh cookies ... they are a bit lopsided but they taste pretty good. We had cookies and orange juice for our afternoon snack.

At around 5:00, we went for a 20-minute walk around the neighborhood. They came back and had a turn each at the massage chair. Finally the boys played Wii again while MJ and I logged on to the Disney Channel website and I read to her the adventures of Tinker Bell, Jasmine, and Belle.

At around 6:30, their parents came to pick them up.

It was a good day and I am glad that my nephews and niece had as much fun as I did.