This could go on indefinitely

Mallory's love note from the other day, while sweet and adorable, was not entirely unprecipitated. She wrote that note in response to finding out that Liam was busy making a surprise for her.

Liam's surprise started with an empty box of Kleenex that he collected from the bathroom. "I can make something out of this," he said. First, he painted the whole thing purple. Then he let me in on the secret: he was making Mallory a treasure chest. Once the painting was complete he told me that we needed to go shopping for some fake flowers and some gold-wrapped chocolate coins. I took him to the dollar store closest to our house, where he found the flowers and we subbed in some Rolos for the chocolate coins. Back at home it was bath time and the project had to wait til the next day for completion. Last night he got some adult help hot-glueing the flowers to the chest, put the candy inside, then hid it in the back yard and drew this map to help Mallory find it. (Captions added by moi to assist the general public in deciphering. He got the elements of the back yard correct, even if the layout is a little crazy.)

And in response to that, Mallory took a shoe box from Chad's recent purchase, painted it blue, put an old stuffed animal inside, hid it in the back yard, and drew a map that was essentially a copy of what Liam drew. Except that she hid her box behind the neighbour's tomato plants rather than in the pine trees.

All of this treasure-hunting makes me think that our kids may be ready to watch The Goonies now.