A new member,

"Of course," Angus said. "I think for dinner tonight I might grill some steaks outside since the weather is good. It would be a shame to waste such glorious weather. I imagine the sunset tonight will be something not to miss."

"Robert might well be here for that," Kate said. "He was hoping to be able to be here for dinner tonight. If things go well today, that is. I just never know since he's balancing work at the Ministry and at St. Mungo's."

"Maybe we can go for a run after dinner," Angus said hopefully.

"You should do that. I'll see to Abbey if you lot all want to do that," Kate said. "It's liable to be Abbey's bedtime by then, and someone needs to stay with her. We can't all go outside and leave her unattended."  

"Well, at any rate, have a good day at work, Jack," Angus said.

"Whatever you like, Dear," Kate replied, going over to Angus' notebook and looking up the recipe for the cinnamon roll cookies. They were relatively simple cinnamon pinwheel cookies with a white glaze to look like the glaze that was on a cinnamon roll. They looked easy to do, really. She got out the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and salt, and she added them to a mixing bowl and charmed a wooden spoon to stir the batter while she made up the white glaze. It didn't take her long to roll out the cookie dough and spread a cinnamon sugar mixture on it, roll it up, slice it and arrange the slices on a cookie sheet to look like little cinnamon rolls.

"Jay!" Abbey called, using her name for Jess. She wasn't able to say Jess. The closest she could manage was Jay, and she was tired of the high chair now. "Jay. Gimme down. Gimme down!"

"These are really easy," she said, putting the cookies in the oven. "Ask nicely, Abbey."

"Peeeas!" Abbey said, trying to say please. "Jay--gimme down. Peease?"

"They are," Angus smiled, working in a mixing bowl of his own.

"What are you making?" she frowned.

"I'm making something I think Abbey is going to love," he replied.

Angus had a deep pink colored dough in his bowl, and he rolled it out and hand cut each cookie with a sharp paring knife. he made little cookies, just the right size to fit into Abbey's little hands, with different berry shapes. He didn't figure Abbey would know what they were until they were actually finished. Then, with a thin bladed scalpel, he made gentle designs in each cookie to represent each little druplet of each raspberry, and little shapes for the seeds in the strawberries. He wanted them to look like berries. It didn't take all that long, but it made a difference. And then he added just a little bit of green sanding sugar at the top of each berry to represent a little bit of the stem. He didn't want to add any more decoration to them. Once they were baked the green sugar would add a little shimmer without too much sugar.

"You're spending a lot of time on those," Kate said, glancing at his work. "But they're going to look wonderful, I think."

"I hope, if they look good, she'll prefer these to the cookies she shouldn't have so many of. These are made with real fruit and fruit juice instead of a lot of sugar, so it won't hurt her."

Abbey got bored watching, and she toddled off on her own. Angus saw her leave but he thought nothing about it. Kids that age had a very small attention span. He kept working. He was just ready to slide each little cookie onto a cookie sheet when he heard a splash. He straightened up and saw the door to the backyard open.

"Where's Abbey?" he was suddenly alert.

(hint--she's in the pool--going for a Labrador swim.)

Angus abandoned his work and went outside to see a little Labrador pup in the pool.

"Okay, I give up. Where's Abbey?" He asked, looking at Jess as if she were crazy. Kate followed them outside and saw Abbey in the pool. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She saw Abbey was indeed fine, but the sound of a baby falling into a pool still frightened her. It took her a moment to calm her racing heart.

Abbey would live in the pool if they would let her, Kate knew that. The child was blissfully happy in the water, and often changed into a pup just by being put into the bath water at night. That love of water seemed to be part of the Labrador in Abbey.

"That child," Kate sighed. "She still scares the life out of me when she does that. It doesn't bother Robert nearly like it bothers me, but you know she's going to be stuck that way now until Robert comes home, right? She has no idea how to get back on her own. Thank you for keeping such a close eye on her, Jess."

"What? What are you talking about?" Angus frowned.

"Robert wasn't planning on coming back until dinner tonight, and we haven't even gotten to lunch yet," Kate sighed. "Though, I suppose I could call him. The biggest problem with leaving her all day as a puppy is that she eats the cat kibble, and that upsets her very human stomach after Robert changes her back."

"I could pick up the cat bowl so that Abbey can't get into it," Angus offered, "but isn't she entirely too young to even have her Animagus abilities yet?"

"She is, but her father had some powerful Animagus abilities, so I'm not surprised she inherited that from him," Kate said. "Still, it is rare for any witch or wizard to show abilities this young. At this rate, Khaat isn't going to be able to send her to any sort of school until she goes to Hogwarts. She'll have to be home schooled. Can you imagine her going to a regular muggle elementary school and going to a physical education class and changing into a Labrador and not being able to change back? It would be a complete nightmare."

"Well, she has enough of us that home schooling until then shouldn't be a problem if that's what Khaat and Brian decide," Angus said.

"Why don't you go fix lunch, and I'll see if I can't bribe Robert to come home for lunch today? That might soften him. You know how much he doesn't like to be bothered at work if it isn't an emergency."

"Yes. Alright. I'll go start the chicken salads," Angus said, going inside to start lunch.

"Jess, stay with her, will you, while I send a message to Robert?" Kate asked. She went inside and wrote a quick note and sent it to Robert on an owl and then returned with a large fluffy towel for Abbey. "We'll hear from him shortly. Don't think I'm not tempted to bring out a bottle of puppy shampoo and wash that fur while she's happy, but I really don't want to have to clean the pool after. Care for a swim while we're out here, Jess?"