Papa Jones' Pizza

We have been hosting four grandchildren for the last few weeks. Lala and Reyes from Texas and Kayleigh and Emily from Indiana. They have been having a blast, but the house is bursting at the seams -- particularly at bedtime. We've been stacking them like cord wood to get them sleeping places! Lala has the daybed; Reyes has the trundle that stores under it. Emmy sleeps on the couch and Kayleigh takes the air mattress. After a couple of nights of the air mattress, she decided to share the daybed with Lala. That looked less comfortable to me, but for them it was a slumber party.

The kids have learned to drive the riding mower and help Grandpa mow. They walk the three blocks to the swimming pool for an afternoon's fun in the water. Of course Grandpa takes them to the local library for programs and books to read. Sometimes we let them play computer games on our computers. One of their big collaborations was an all cousin band called "New Girls on the Block" who sang a newly composed song for us on July 4. Reyes was an "honorary girl" for the occasion.

And where am I? I'm the working stiff in this family. I'm on the road doing library visits and other consultant work.

Reyes found the suitcase of my old comics. It's on it's third round of kids now. My brother's children and my children read them, and now my grandchildren are reading them. I never knew when I was running over to Dewey's Sundries with my pocketful of dimes that I was buying comics for my grandkids to read!

Lala loves the garden. She and Kayleigh have picked lettuce for salads twice. Lala wants the tomatoes and corn to get here nearly as much as Pat does.

Last Thursday when they were cycling through the shower to get the chlorine off after swimming, I began stirring up pizza dough.

"What are you making, Iris?" (The Indiana grandkids learned to call me Iris when Pat and I were dating.)

"We're going to make pizza tonight."

"Make pizza? We just call Papa John's."

"There's no Papa John's around here. The best you'll get is your Grandpa showing you how to put a pizza together. He used to run a pizza parlor when he was in Oregon."

"Oh! Our's will be Papa JONES Pizza."

Reyes decided to make pepperoni, hamburger and black olive pizza. Kayleigh made pepperoni. About the time their pizzas went into the oven, I remembered to grab my camera.











The first step in pizza making is to fit the dough to the pan. Emmy had a gentle hand with the pizza roller.

Grandpa explained the best way to add pizza sauce was with a pastry brush.

Cheese made the next layer.
finished by crumbling the cooked hamburger on the top.

Emily was gentle with the pizza roller, but she had a good, heavy hand with the cheese. Leave it to a cheese pizza lover to know that the more cheese, the better!

The best part, though was the eating.