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I need a food icon, really I do. This has been a great week for eating around here. Grant woke me up on Saturday saying breakfast was ready - breakfast meaning;
-pop-can biscuits out of the oven with butter, honey and jelly available
-whole wheat eggo waffles
-from scratch berry sauce
-homemade whipped cream
-garlicky, cheesy scrambled eggs
-li'l smokies sausages
-the pitcher of iced tea I'd made the night before
This is getting to be almost a tradition with him, these huge weekend breakfasts. I can get used to it, yes I can.
I have to post some recipes.
( Mashed potatoes so good they'll make you go home and smack your mama )
( tomato tart )
( Corn, black bean and avocado salsa )
I also made chili lime butter to go with our corn on the cob tonight, alongside the tomato tart, but that's hardly a recipe. And Grant actually made it, now that I think about it. I saw the idea in Southern Living magazine and told him, I believe he ground up dried red peppers we had in the cabinet in the magic bullet, added lime juice, put the butter in and processed, but if I had done it I would have just added chili powder and lime juice to softened butter with a spoon. Which could be why he stepped in, but hey. I think it would have been fine either way. The kids LOVED this. I think we'll be doing it every time we have corn on the cob from now on.
Our next big expense is going to be a larger dining table. The house where the meetup we went to last week was, where the host family had 6 kids, was perfect. It was just a plain wooden table, but it fit 4 chairs on each side comfortably, plus a head and foot chair (so 10 in all). The table we have now seats 6, but it's a very small table as far as room in the middle goes - if we want to do "family style" serving, we have to get this little rolling cart thing out of the laundry room to put the food on. Elise is one too many for it, once she starts eating, as well. But mostly, it just feels really sucky and stupid to not have a chair to offer anyone else. Bob is living here now and ends up eating at my computer desk most nights - granted that is only like 12 feet from the dining table, but still. When Robbie and Grant Sr eat "with us", they generally end up at the bar or on the back porch at that table, because even when we move them and offer, they don't like displacing Jake and Isaac to the little tiny kids' art table we have. Shaun tends to sit at the tiny little kids' art table, when he's over. WE NEED MORE ROOM. We're trying to decide if we can find what we want or if we should just make it ourselves. It will fit out there fine. As it is I'm reminded of the Weasley's eating whenever we have anyone "Extra" out there :p
One good thing about feeding so many people is that I feel very justified in going all out and doing things like making chili lime butter to go on the corn on the cob. The bad thing is obvious, and why I went and got two more muffin pans so I can bake 4 dozen at a time, because as it is 2 dozen dissapear within a couple of hours.
We've all been thinking about this house a lot. Sr is shopping around for bunk beds for Bob and Robbie, and not only did he ok me painting the sky on the kids' ceiling and having them do a mural in the bathroom...he had already been thinking of those things himself O_o He nearly bought some kind of beach themed stick on mural thing while we were in Boston, when he was repainting, but he couldn't get the measurements right. I'm in the LONG multi day process of re-organizing the dining room...we have 2 3-foot wide, 7 foot tall shelving units out there, as well as a converted china cabinet/hutch thing, that have all fallen into such an exploding-with-dissaray status...the shelving units hold all of the workbooks, textbooks, sidewalk chalk, recorder music, paints, crayons, colored pencils, construction paper, sequins, beads, googly eyes, puzzles, math gnomes, "handwriting without tears" tools...ETC. That is seriously the tip of the iceberg. Felt and index cards everywhere, it's just ridiculous. Then the hutch thing, which is about also 7 feet tall but wider, has all of the board games, photo albums and baby books, my MASSIVE fabric collection and sewing machine and hand sewing box...and that too is a mess of piled bits and things I need to tuck into this or that and scraps falling forward towards the floor, lately. Generally the scenario goes, we do a lot of schoolwork, and half the supplies get left on the table because A and A end up finishing up on their own once they understand what they're doing and I'm tending to someone else. Then dinner rolls around and Grant or I shove it all anywhere so we can serve plates. Or, I start sewing after everyone's in bed. Eventually my eyes are crossing from tired or Elise cries for me, so I go off to bed figuring I'll finish in the morning. But the morning, of course, features a toddler who cannot co-exist with sewing supplies left out, so it all gets shoved away wherever before anyone is into it. Weeks roll by and it is no longer just a quick clean up to re-organize it all - it's something that would take many many hours. So it continues to pile into chaos for a couple of months, until it's like what I should have snapped as a Before picture.
Just going through it all makes me feel excited, though. We have so many untapped resources that were forgotten behind or under something else.
Speaking of forgotten and lost - we think we have payed back everyone who loaned us money when Elise went to the ER. It required a small amount of trying to match paypal transactions to email addresses, though, and we nearly missed somebody - so if anyone out there did lend us help and NOT get paid back, PLEASE do not be shy...TELL US!! Email the paypal address and let us know right away. Hopefully I'm not talking to anyone, but I want to be sure.
I'm very challenged, all the time. Sometimes I get really super tired and go on auto-pilot for a bit. Sometimes I rant to Grant for a few minutes about how much I need a break. Sometimes I bite back tears and pray for strength. But mostly I laugh and smile and can't believe my good fortune. It always comes back around to really, really good. Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon cleaning and was nowhere near done, but my mother in law showed up just to read the kids a book she'd read to Grant a lot when he was little, and sweep and mop the floor for me before hugging me and telling me she loved me and wishes she could help more, and leaving. Today I'm sick and have had a headache and sore throat all day, but Elise is laughing easily and often. My brother fell asleep with her again tonight. Grant and I got to sit down and watch Colbert by ourselves. Isaac has tiny rubber sea creatures in an open tupperware in the bathroom, that he says are his friends. The dining room shelves are coming together, dinner rocked and really...it's like that song, "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do - life's been good to me so far..."
-pop-can biscuits out of the oven with butter, honey and jelly available
-whole wheat eggo waffles
-from scratch berry sauce
-homemade whipped cream
-garlicky, cheesy scrambled eggs
-li'l smokies sausages
-the pitcher of iced tea I'd made the night before
This is getting to be almost a tradition with him, these huge weekend breakfasts. I can get used to it, yes I can.
I have to post some recipes.
( Mashed potatoes so good they'll make you go home and smack your mama )
( tomato tart )
( Corn, black bean and avocado salsa )
I also made chili lime butter to go with our corn on the cob tonight, alongside the tomato tart, but that's hardly a recipe. And Grant actually made it, now that I think about it. I saw the idea in Southern Living magazine and told him, I believe he ground up dried red peppers we had in the cabinet in the magic bullet, added lime juice, put the butter in and processed, but if I had done it I would have just added chili powder and lime juice to softened butter with a spoon. Which could be why he stepped in, but hey. I think it would have been fine either way. The kids LOVED this. I think we'll be doing it every time we have corn on the cob from now on.
Our next big expense is going to be a larger dining table. The house where the meetup we went to last week was, where the host family had 6 kids, was perfect. It was just a plain wooden table, but it fit 4 chairs on each side comfortably, plus a head and foot chair (so 10 in all). The table we have now seats 6, but it's a very small table as far as room in the middle goes - if we want to do "family style" serving, we have to get this little rolling cart thing out of the laundry room to put the food on. Elise is one too many for it, once she starts eating, as well. But mostly, it just feels really sucky and stupid to not have a chair to offer anyone else. Bob is living here now and ends up eating at my computer desk most nights - granted that is only like 12 feet from the dining table, but still. When Robbie and Grant Sr eat "with us", they generally end up at the bar or on the back porch at that table, because even when we move them and offer, they don't like displacing Jake and Isaac to the little tiny kids' art table we have. Shaun tends to sit at the tiny little kids' art table, when he's over. WE NEED MORE ROOM. We're trying to decide if we can find what we want or if we should just make it ourselves. It will fit out there fine. As it is I'm reminded of the Weasley's eating whenever we have anyone "Extra" out there :p
One good thing about feeding so many people is that I feel very justified in going all out and doing things like making chili lime butter to go on the corn on the cob. The bad thing is obvious, and why I went and got two more muffin pans so I can bake 4 dozen at a time, because as it is 2 dozen dissapear within a couple of hours.
We've all been thinking about this house a lot. Sr is shopping around for bunk beds for Bob and Robbie, and not only did he ok me painting the sky on the kids' ceiling and having them do a mural in the bathroom...he had already been thinking of those things himself O_o He nearly bought some kind of beach themed stick on mural thing while we were in Boston, when he was repainting, but he couldn't get the measurements right. I'm in the LONG multi day process of re-organizing the dining room...we have 2 3-foot wide, 7 foot tall shelving units out there, as well as a converted china cabinet/hutch thing, that have all fallen into such an exploding-with-dissaray status...the shelving units hold all of the workbooks, textbooks, sidewalk chalk, recorder music, paints, crayons, colored pencils, construction paper, sequins, beads, googly eyes, puzzles, math gnomes, "handwriting without tears" tools...ETC. That is seriously the tip of the iceberg. Felt and index cards everywhere, it's just ridiculous. Then the hutch thing, which is about also 7 feet tall but wider, has all of the board games, photo albums and baby books, my MASSIVE fabric collection and sewing machine and hand sewing box...and that too is a mess of piled bits and things I need to tuck into this or that and scraps falling forward towards the floor, lately. Generally the scenario goes, we do a lot of schoolwork, and half the supplies get left on the table because A and A end up finishing up on their own once they understand what they're doing and I'm tending to someone else. Then dinner rolls around and Grant or I shove it all anywhere so we can serve plates. Or, I start sewing after everyone's in bed. Eventually my eyes are crossing from tired or Elise cries for me, so I go off to bed figuring I'll finish in the morning. But the morning, of course, features a toddler who cannot co-exist with sewing supplies left out, so it all gets shoved away wherever before anyone is into it. Weeks roll by and it is no longer just a quick clean up to re-organize it all - it's something that would take many many hours. So it continues to pile into chaos for a couple of months, until it's like what I should have snapped as a Before picture.
Just going through it all makes me feel excited, though. We have so many untapped resources that were forgotten behind or under something else.
Speaking of forgotten and lost - we think we have payed back everyone who loaned us money when Elise went to the ER. It required a small amount of trying to match paypal transactions to email addresses, though, and we nearly missed somebody - so if anyone out there did lend us help and NOT get paid back, PLEASE do not be shy...TELL US!! Email the paypal address and let us know right away. Hopefully I'm not talking to anyone, but I want to be sure.
I'm very challenged, all the time. Sometimes I get really super tired and go on auto-pilot for a bit. Sometimes I rant to Grant for a few minutes about how much I need a break. Sometimes I bite back tears and pray for strength. But mostly I laugh and smile and can't believe my good fortune. It always comes back around to really, really good. Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon cleaning and was nowhere near done, but my mother in law showed up just to read the kids a book she'd read to Grant a lot when he was little, and sweep and mop the floor for me before hugging me and telling me she loved me and wishes she could help more, and leaving. Today I'm sick and have had a headache and sore throat all day, but Elise is laughing easily and often. My brother fell asleep with her again tonight. Grant and I got to sit down and watch Colbert by ourselves. Isaac has tiny rubber sea creatures in an open tupperware in the bathroom, that he says are his friends. The dining room shelves are coming together, dinner rocked and really...it's like that song, "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do - life's been good to me so far..."
