Inspired by this very interesting post, Kit and I began discussing what sort of variation we’ll try with our kids. Christopher heard and I asked what he would buy if he had to come up with his own food for a month. I think that’s an incredible life lesson, we want to teach them how to plan a healthy menu, bake from scratch, plan ahead, shop wisely, etc.

Anyway, Christopher thought this sounded fun and he came up with his month of menus and grocery list. We’re not going to let him try this until he’s older, I don’t think I can expect it of him just yet. Mom helped by letting him know the ingredients for recipes he likes (sweet & sour sauce, bread, pancakes) and I would ask if he wanted to purchase each item (pasta sauce, bread) or make it homemade. With the pasta sauce I told him he would need to purchase some herbs & spices and he asked, “Can I use what we have in the garden?” That’s my wise shopper. He came up with the lunch & breakfast menu on his own but I read him our dinner menu so he could get ideas for what he likes.

So here is his list & menu, which I’m quite impressed with for a six year old. I don’t doubt that once in the store he would impulse shop some things but it’s actually very, very rare that he asks us to pick up things at the store not on the list. We also discussed when bulk shopping is a good idea, impulse buys, and buying a lot of something when it’s on sale for a good price. He brought up my stockpiling of those soups, asking how we knew it was a good deal and if it’s okay to buy things not on the shopping list. I said that’s why we pay attention to prices, so we can know if it’s a good deal or not. He’s learning a lot, I love it. Okay, back to list:

cold cereal
cream of wheat
peanut butter
milk
buttermilk
eggs
cheese
sausage
rice
tortillas
pumpkin
baking staples - flour, sugar, vanilla, yeast, oil, baking powder, baking soda, wheat, honey,
cumin, italian herbs, chicken broth or bouillion
chocolate chips
condiments - ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, vinegar, mayo, salsa, butter
tuna
tomato soup
chimis (frozen ones he likes)
peas
apples
carrots
bananas
potatoes
refried beans
tomato paste
pepperoni
ground meat
chicken/turkey
stuffing
cream of chicken soup (or can make homemade)
spaghetti
ravioli
juice - orange, grape & apple
root beer
vanilla ice cream (or he could just buy whipping cream and do homemade)

With these items he can make -
breakfast:
cold cereal
cream of wheat w/peanut butter
pumpkin pancakes
buttermilk pancakes
donuts
chocolate chip pancakes (he said those would only be treats )
homemade syrup
eggs & cheese with toast
sausage rice scramble (also for lunches)

lunch:
chimis
grilled cheese & tomato soup
egg or tuna salad sandwiches or wraps
peanut butter & honey sandwiches or wraps
quesadillas

dinner:
homemade pepperoni pizza
barnyard stew (cream soup, potatoes, meat, carrots)
spaghetti
raviolli
turkey & stuffing (he said Thanksgiving dinner)
sweet & sour chicken
waffles (not sure why this is dinner specific for him?)
baked potato soup
soft tacos

Not bad! I hope with a lot of practice we can help him get these skills down long before he leaves home and needs to learn how to wisely budget his money and resources and cook for himself. He thinks planning a menu at this point is really fun so we’re going to leap on this enthusiasm NOW. Maybe I’ll take him to buy this list and he can see how much it costs for his actual menu. Life lessons - I love it.

Moira just asked if she can write up HER menu/shopping list because she says she needs grapefruit, grapes & cucumbers on hers.

I was glad to see we had included menu planning, budgeting & grocery shopping on our Thaden-Pierce family plan to teach these kids to be independent and move out of the house someday but that blog post I linked above (which is a very entertaining read) gave us some hands on ideas for how to reach that goal.

Not specifically for Mojo but meals we’re prepping for after Mojo arrives. I need to write them down here so I can know they aren’t lost on the notepad I keep losing. Kit was making bread while I was napping or something, and he went to our blog to find our recipe. This is why we blog. It’s my brain in blog format. But the censored version. Be glad I censor, it’s better this way, you would get even MORE random and not so nice posts if I didn’t censor… crazy, I know. Is it possible for me to blog more? Okay, back on topic -

Pantry meals (have items ready for assembly)
bowtie chicken pasta salad (will need to pick up fresh produce - grapes, apples, green onions) - bowtie pasta, canned chicken, coleslaw dressing, pineapple, mayo, almonds
tuna fish casserole - cream chicken soup, tuna, egg noodles, peas
spaghetti - noodles, sauce (canned or homemade)
calico bean soup (add cheese & sour cream) - bush’s beans, corn, kidney beans, ground meat, tortilla chips, diced tomatoes

Freezer meals (at least partially frozen, may need further assembly)
chicken tortilla soup - corn, tomatoes, chicken broth, shredded chicken, tortilla chips
taco salad (make homemade ranch dressing) - ground meat/beans, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, tortilla chips, cheese
tamale pie - corn, tomatos, meat/bean mix, cornbread mix, cheese
skillet lasagna and salad - meat, noodles, diced tomatoes, cottage cheese, parmesan, mozzarella, basil
gyros (need cucumber & tomato) - greek pita, yogurt, chicken
chicken tetrazzini & salad - spaghetti noodles, cream mushroom soup w/shredded chicken,s our cream, cheese
chicken mushroom crepes, french cut green beans - cream mushroom soup w/shredded chicken, crepes, sour cream, cheese
sweet & sour chicken, stir fry veggies & rice - sauce
chicken stuffing casserole, cranberry sauce, peas - cream chicken soup w/shredded chicken, stuffing
meatloaf, cheesy potatoes & corn
pizza
haystacks - cream of chicken soup w/shredded chicken, cream cheese, rice, pineapple, peas, cheese, wonton noodles, almonds

In freezer:
meat/bean mix (1lb) for tamale pie & taco salad
ground meat w/onions & garlic for skillet lasagna & calico bean soup
meatloaf
shredded chicken & cream of chicken soup (x2) and cream mushroom (x2)
tortilla soup (more shredded chicken)
chicken breasts for sweet & sour chicken

Not that Kit is not a fabulous cook, but my goal is to make his life as easy as possible postpartum which is really quite selfish because when his life is easier then he spends even more time spoiling me and the kids. And we’ve also done frozen meals before and then needed to use them up for various surprises like, oh - say bedrest? Or sick kids. We’ll probably make up a batch of these in June to get us through the last trimester then if I stay off bedrest and upright then we’ll do another batch of freezer meals towards the end of July to get us through August postpartum. Fingers crossed that works out okay…

Next up, my massive shopping list for this little munchkin. I asked at the birth center for the supplies list so I could shop and they said I have plenty of time, I won’t deliver for 4 more months. And I reminded them - I had a baby 10 days from now. I need to prepare, mentally I NEED TO PREPARE so they completely understood and they’re emailing me my shopping list. I need to do this so I can relax and know we’re all set even if there are some hiccups. Plus now I have my second trimester energy so we need to cram this in while we can.

I’m 22 weeks pregnant. It’s always there, every moment getting a wee bit louder. I had a baby this week. Just get me through this week. So I plan menus and I fold receiving blankets and I pack a hospital bag that I PLAN TO NEVER USE and I pray really hard to just get past this week.

See, I start out on menus and I end up on baby trauma, huh?

This is my favorite all purpose recipe and I lost my ONE copy! Just found it so I’m writing it down here to know I’ll have an off-site back up. It came from one of those freeze ahead cook-ups but I can’t remember the name.

This makes 2 dozen muffins or 2 loaves of bread (or half/half) so the amounts look like a lot and that’s why. We don’t split it but I’m sure you could. 1 cup of oil per 2 dozen muffins is one of the lower fat options we’ve found.

Freezer Muffins/Bread
3 c flour (can do some wheat, add wheat germ, etc)
1 t salt
1 T cinnamon (or pumpkin spice of doing apple or pumpkin)
1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda

Mix in large bowl. In another bowl combine:
2 eggs
1 c oil (can do half apple sauce)
2 c sugar (We do 1 1/2 cups but could do less. Also could try half sugar/half honey?)
2 c “mix” (see below)
1 T vanilla (or half vanilla, half almond, half orange extract, etc)
1 c nuts (optional)
1/2 cup oats (optional addition, may need more moisture if you add oats)

Mix wet and dry, bake as 2 loaves at 325 degrees for 1 hour or bake as 2 dozen muffins at 375 for 15 minutes.

“Mix” can be:
apples (diced or grated) or applesauce
bananas
blueberries
carrots grated
coconut
orange or lemon juice (1/2 cup)
peaches
pears
pineapple
pumpkin (I do 1 cup pumpkin & 1 cup applesauce)
raisins or craisins (I do only 1 cup)
zuchini grated

You get the idea.

Wrap muffins in sets of two or loaf in plastic wrap then in foil, stores well in freezer. Defrost in fridge. Makes great easy breakfasts or fast snacks. Can also be used for mini-muffins. If you are very careful about not over mixing the batter you can divide it in half after you combine the wet & dry and stir in two different additions. Half with lemon & coconut, half with banana. But again, be gentle so you don’t mix too much. These freeze so well that we often do a huge batch of pumpkin then a huge batch of banana. Also fun is to make a little streusel topping for them - mix a bit of flour, brown sugar, dash of cinnamon and then grate in some cold butter. Mix up, sprinkle on top. Yummy!

Every combination we do of these turns out a bit different with moisture, rise, etc. It’s a big experiment but always yummy. If you are planning to freeze them then you may want to do full oil - the applesauce/oil ones are drier and seem to not freeze and defrost as well.

Coming back from my appointment this morning Moira and I were both craving donuts - which I realize isn’t a craving, more a “state of being” for me. But when we cut trans fats, we made donuts a very rare treat and with a house closing in less than 3 weeks, I didn’t want to spent the money either. Yes, I know, it’s just a couple dollars but IT ADDS UP and it’s the principle of the thing.

SO we came home and made cinnamon rolls! Haha, those are MUCH healthier, right? But we used real butter (no trans fats) and “organic” brown sugar someone gave us, so the marketing people would call these “healthy cinnamon rolls.”

Here is the recipe we used but we did it by hand, the bread maker is out in the garage and I was too lazy to go get it. Yes… I realize how odd that sounds, too lazy to get it so we made it by hand? I’m just use to doing bread by hand now.

The kids just helped me roll them out (note to self, do not leave Bennett unattended for even a split second with a table of cinnamon rolls being made - after I started spreading the butter on the dough, he took the rolling pin to it to help roll some more.)

I’m struck again by how much better I am feeling because I just made cinnamon rolls with four kids! AND fed them lunch, did a lesson with Christopher and my kitchen is clean! (Clean being relative, but it’s really pretty clean thanks to Jenny’s visit when she cleaned and my resolution to keep it that way while Kit’s at work - he cleans when he comes home, trying to make that less necessary by cleaning myself. )

It feels good to have energy again.

SO, kids, now it’s storytime and NAPS for toddlers and quite time for you big kids. Then I promised you hot chocolate (though the snow is melting) and cinnamon rolls.

Apparently when my children are sick I ignore them and cook. So far today I’ve made:

soft tacos with chicken or ground beef (for dinner tonight)
white chicken enchilada casserole (for dinner tomorrow, used half the chicken)
pita bread recipe (it’s not like flat pita bread, it’s more like the greek ones) and did 8 flat breads & 4 bread bowls (to use with baked potato soup later this week)
filling for cadbury cream eggs (chilling now)
strawberry-kiwi sorbet (mixing in ice cream maker now)

Next I was planning to make chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter chips. We’re out of bread and I was too lazy to grind wheat so we made the pita bread instead - it makes great sandwiches, is wonderful with honey butter, the kids like it with cream cheese. Very versatile bread.

Part of this is because we’re going through the freezer & fridge and trying to see what we need to use up before moving. Really - the cadbury eggs were to finish off the corn syrup. Cookies to use up peanut butter chips. Sorbet to use up some frozen fruit. See, I’m really “packing” and preparing for the move by baking all this. Really.

Kids are all still sick and coughing and watching way too much tv. Of course the fact that they’re laying around watching tv is the only reason I’m baking this much.

Kit will share the story later about our nap…

Heidi wasn’t feeling so hot, but we had just finished our last piece of fruit in the house and it wasn’t even afternoon snack time yet. We needed a store run for some staples, so I left Heidi on the couch with a blanket and packed up all four of my kids to make a trip to Wal-Mart.

Christopher and I play a little game these days. As we’re pulling out of the driveway, he asks me how many shakes it’ll take up this time. We’ve decided between us that a shake is a minute, and with all four kids there were bound to be some delays over our usual 30 minute store run. Being conservative this time I tell him 40 and he says, “40 shakes it is!”

“To Wal-Mart!” I proclaim, and the kids in the back of the van echo in chorus.

We get there in no time flat, but the a cold norther just blew in, and it’s freezing the kids right through their light jackets that were enough for them not 10 minutes earlier. I load Emy up in the Bjorn, sit Bennett in the cart seat, and Mo and C are hanging on either side of the basket. Mo’s hat blows off in the parking lot once, and when I’m going back to get it, Ben manages to lose his glasses — which I don’t notice until I hear him yelling at me, “Ga-gee, Ga-gee!” But we worked through our minor mishaps and get into Wal-Mart without further incident.

The greeter smiles at me, “You got your hands full!” I nod politely, but say nothing. I’m one minute behind schedule. You have to focus if you’re going to get through the store in 40 shakes.

I go fifteen feet more before I hear, “You certainly have your hands full!” “Yes, I do!” I reply cheerfully.

First stop, some medicine for the Emy’s teething then a quick round in the candy aisle to get Sour Patch Kids for Heidi’s tummy. Then a bee-line to produce, and again: “You sure have your hands full!” Ho, ho! Yes. That’s only the third time I’ve heard that in as many minutes.

By this time, Christopher’s looking at me. His little face is all wound up in thought. “Why do people keep saying that to you, Dad?”

“Because, Christopher, they take a look at a lone dad with four such active and happy kids and they can’t imagine themselves in my shoes.”

“Why is that?”

“Because most of the time dads don’t try to take four little ones by themselves to the store.”

“No, why do we look like such active and happy kids?”

“Because you’re so obviously high-energy and special.”

Christopher points to a probably 10-year-old girl pushing a cart with her mother. “What about her? Is she special?”

“Not as special as you, buddy.” Ok, probably not the most kind answer I could have shared, but hey. She’s special to her mommy, and my kids are special to me. Anyway, we’re still making time. By this time, I have Christopher taking short runs to grab various bags of things — apples, carrots — and I have Mo helping me pick out other more sensitive items — avocado, tomato, etc. Ben’s trying his best to grab Emy’s feet, and Emy’s trying her best to grab Ben’s hair, and we’re doing good.

Big hit with the bakery samples today: whole red velvet twinkies prove to be popular with my kidlets.

We’re rolling, we’re moving. Christopher can recognize and grab the colby jack cheese these days, and he loves being my helper. Honestly, he’s a huge help on these excursions, because a third of the way done, Ben’s finished his twinkie, and now has decided to sing the ABCs at the TOP OF HIS LUNGS! Yes, we’re getting looks. But try as I do to cajole him into using his quiet voice, he’s having none of it.

A B C “Christopher, get a box of graham crackers.” F G H “Yes, the blue box on the bottom.” M N O P “Ok, time to get the the eggs.” U V “We check them because they often crack in the box.” Y AND Z! And so on.

The comments have stopped now. I presume that the singing is some sort of sonic barrier or perhaps like a snake rattle before a fatal strike, it is a warning to all that approaching me with a glib comment will be the last time they are seen alive. This is how people look at me, but it is certainly not how I feel. We’re having a good ol’ time at the Wal-Mart. Kids are helping, I’m just bopping along. These trips are surprisingly easy. I have a list.

I wheel around the corner and around a well-groomed hausfrau in a color-coordinated jogging suit with one child vacantly sucking on a sippy in tow. She sees my kids, then me, and then makes eye contact. You can see a momentary look of panic in her eyes. Whether it is for her sake or mine, I never find out.

Still making time. Almost done, but NO! Apparently we have to stop at the bathroom right now. That’s okay. I wait outside with Ben and Em and send the big kids in to do their thing. (Heidi insert - wait outside the family bathroom he sent the kids into, not the regular one. This is the one room one w/changing table and it’s huge, one user at a time. ) While they do, Ben starts singing again. A young couple sitting there for some reason start laughing between themselves. They’re charmed by his antics and ask how old my kids are. I answer, the big kids come out, and we’re off again.

Another young mom is around the corner. Not as color-coordinated or well-kempt. She makes eye contact. She smiles. She gets it. You can tell. There’s warmth there, not awkwardness. She’s seeing me with these kids, putting herself in my shoes, and loving the idea of it.

Checkout beckons. I realize that Mo has been hanging on the side of the cart pretty much this entire time. Wow. That PT really paid off.

Our time is almost wrecked by a trainee too incompetent to operate his station and too proud to ask for help. But hey, I don’t really mind. I’m just going to casually ignore Bennett as he starts his song up again while this guy plods along though my groceries. And again. And again. And…

Done! Christopher’s excited. He knows we were really truckin’ this time, but I can’t tell him the official time until we get into the van and look at the dash. This six-year-old can muster unbelievable amounts of patience. Y’know, for a six-year-old.

Final time? 39 shakes! We totally rock.

Heidi popped me on IM this morning and said, “The moment you walk through the door, you have to upload this movie of Emy!” Ok. Here you are:

If that wasn’t enough for you:

[ Javascript required to view QuickTime movie, please turn it on and refresh this page ]

(Heidi insert - our camera has a screen that flips around so the kids can see themselves being recorded. That’s what Emiline is looking at to the left of the shot, she was making faces at herself.)

She was throwing a fit and crawling backwards. Whoops.

I was watching a brief talk from the TED website (cool stuff) from a guy who runs a tinker’s camp for kids. Great idea — they break stuff down, rebuild it, build their own designs, blow stuff up. Great fun.

Anyway, his talk’s titled “5 Dangerous things to do with your child.” This links to the video’s original context, but I’ve embedded it in this post for the sake of convenience. If you want to skip right to the end, I’ve listed the five things below.

1. Play with fire
2. Use a knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Take apart appliances
5. Drive a car

That’s a good list, and one I agree with largely. We’re working on several of them with our kids, as a matter of fact. The one that really struck me, though, is the third there: Throw a spear.

Really, it doesn’t have to be a spear. It can be any thrown object, but objects with consequence are significant for this guy’s example. He asserts that “Humans are hardwired for throwing.” That’s not the first time I’ve ever heard that, though I’m finding a hard time finding supporting research. Despite that, I can still believe it.

We humans are fairly squishy critters. Certainly compared to our historical prey, which generally has something particularly sharp and dangerous with with they would attempt to disembowel us if we got too close. Our advantages are chiefly the ability to craft tools, determination, and bodies built for endurance. Take the hamstring, for instance. That one ligament demonstrates that we’re not well suited for flat out speed, but we can keep chasing something down long after that something, whatever it may be, has long tired out. Even better if we can poke it with something sharp before we have to start running too hard.

So, since the dawn of time, our kind has been conditioned to perform the calculus of throwing — binocular input, wind speed, relative height, distance, power, angle — all of it. Ask any comp sci major and they will tell you that crafting a rigid body simulation with a computer to accurately perform the computational analysis of a throw isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, except that it is. Our bodies can do all of that in the blink of an eye, and what’s more, We’re really good at it. Throwing is one of the first things we can do. Give a baby something they don’t like and FLING! away it goes. Throwing is easy.

Catching is hard.

Just as we’re hardwired over the millennia to be great on the throwing end of the spear, it would follow that we would be equally hardwired to not be on the catching end of a spear. For a less deadly example, to catch a ball, not only do we have to perform those ridiculous levels of calculus on the fly, but we have to force our little primordial crocodile brains to stand in the face of certain death and not flinch when something has been flung at out bodies. Hardwired for throwing means hardwired for dodging.

So, when a kid has to stand there and catch a ball, it’s not an easy thing to do. Yet, it’s a common indicator used as a developmental milestone that so happens to require overcoming millennia of conditioning before one can establish a basic competency.

No deeper meaning here. Just that it’s hard to catch a ball.

Next blog post: we discovered a fun book for the kids. We’re thinking about buying it. I’ll tell you about it soon.

Ok. Here’s the movie.

I was listening to to the radio in the car on my way home and this one song came on. Skid Row, I’ll Remember You. There’s something on YouTube, though I have questions about its legality. However, if you look it up, feel free to point and laugh at the hair.

So, I was listening to this song, and I realized I knew all of the words. Goodness me, I used to dance to this song. Not dance dance mind you. You couldn’t really call what I did back then dancing. It was more coordinated shuffling in time with the music. No leading involved. Leading at this point was an awkward fumble of sweaty hands trying to hold on just long enough to make it through the torture we called slow dancing. Heaven forbid it was a back-to-back play.

My first girlfriend showed me a better way. Sort of. She knew a few swing moves, and she labored to try to teach my uncoordinated self some of them. Now, instead of stress on the dance floor, it was laughing, joking, spinning out of control, falling on the floor of her parent’s living room in a heap, and getting up and trying it again. I was horrible, but it started a spark of an idea in my head.

A year later, I was president of my quorum in church, and I had the bright idea of arranging a standards night. It would be a two-pronged approach. We would set up a fancy course dinner with the girls and, having studied proper table etiquette, dazzle them with our astounding table manners. Later that evening, we arranged to have swing dance instruction for everyone who cared to try. The event was a rousing success, and it was conveniently positioned a few days before the next youth dance. With the instruction fresh in our minds, the boys of my quorum were in high demand a few days later at that dance. It was fantastic. I still had my issues — I wasn’t a particularly strong lead back then — but I loved the experience.

The strong lead thing would come back to haunt me about a decade later. The girl I was dating before Heidi, I was really crazy about her, crazy being the right word there. She was a very dramatic person and highly unstable. So was I at the time, and it was a volatile relationship, to say the least. I would do just about anything to try and please her (including pretending we weren’t dating while we were in public — yeah, I know), and one thing she liked more than just about anything else was dancing. So I would take her out every weekend I could manage it. We would hit the events sponsored by the Dallas Swing Dance Society, and I would make sure to get there early for the free dance class. Though I appreciated the hour of instruction, this girl merely tolerated it.

See, the thing was that she had been taking dance lessons for years, since she was a young girl. She was pretty dang good, too, but she was used to level of skill in her dance partners that far exceeded mine. And even though we were dating, you could see the boredom in her eyes. She didn’t even try to hide it. She tolerated dancing with me because we were together, but she really wanted to dance with someone else. It was obvious, and it killed me every time. I eventually stopped dancing with her at these functions, preferring any of my less experienced friends I would travel with. Anything to avoid those looks that would just crush me inside. It was just one of many things that, when added up, made it clear that we would never last long as a couple. Interestingly enough, we didn’t.

I became a strong lead, probably in large part because of her, perhaps despite her. I took a social dance class when I went back to college for my Master’s degree. (I was still with the other girl at the time — she wanted an easy A in a PE credit, and I wanted to learn how to dance better.) Wouldn’t you know it, I learned a large number of fun dance steps from Foxtrot to swing (east and west coast) and even a little dabble in the Hustle. More importantly, I was able to overcome my confidence issues enough to later take Heidi by the hand and have a splendid time with her on the dance floor at many of these DSDS activities we attended during our first year of marriage. Heidi showing pregnant doing the Lindy Hop at the old water treatment place is a beautiful sight. We have pictures somewhere.

I want my kids to learn how to dance. They won’t understand why it’s important for them to learn when they’re teenagers, but I’m sure when they’re all in high demand at the youth dances, it’ll start to click. It’s the confidence thing for the boys. I want them to be confident enough to take a strong lead, but gentle enough to allow their partner’s grace and beauty to shine. The girls — I want them to be able to trust their partner enough to accept a lead, and be kind and gracious enough to accommodate those partners who may not be as good as they are. Social dance is a rare art these days, and the Pierce kids may end up dancing with each other from time to time for lack of partners, but I want this skill to become second nature to them. How well they acquit themselves on the dance floor will inform the way they conduct their relationships throughout their lives.

The kids DEVOURED this last night so I need to save it:

Original recipe (with my modifications)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (we did chicken)
1/2 c milk
1 small onion, finely chopped (1 T dried onion)
1/4 c grated parmesan cheese
1/4 c sour cream

Mix all well, add
1 1/2 c cubed cooked chicken (I did 3 chicken tenders broiled, but next time I would BARELY bake them since they dry out in oven…)
1 1/2 c cooked thin spaghetti (I did 2 cups)
1 small zucchini sliced thinly (I did 1 cup steamed broccoli on side, chopped up for ours and withheld for kids on side so they would finish their noodles and then whine about eating their broccoli afterwards except Emy, she likes veggies.)

Bake in casserole dish covered for 30 minutes or until hot at 350 or 375 degrees. Can serve with cheese on top.

It was on a Campbell’s soup can and looked good (and anything that looks good these days I need to embrace!) but I was really surprised at how much the kids LOVED it.

Update: I loved this recipe but when Kit went to heat it up for the kids later I had to leave the room!! So I hope to enjoy it again but Kit had to finish it off because the smell was too much for me. Ah, the fickle pregnancy appetite…

My parents live on this street and we like to take walks down the road as it runs along the river. Tonight I snapped some pictures of the homes we pass - starting with my favorite:

My parents’ place:

Kit and the older three kids enjoying the river view, and getting a little too close to the edge for my comfort:

We came back from Kansas with so many pictures it’s unreal (even for Thadens) and a great set of picture frames & mirrors, compliments of the grandparents. I’m just now settling on which photos to put up - here they are.

The vote below really has been fun for us to read, thanks for everyone that posted their website and their “vote” - I knew some of you were reading, but I think in our head we’re still just writing for the kids and our families. I love our blog, I love that we have such a detailed record of Bennett’s NICU time and Emy’s entire pregnancy and first year and so much of the kids’ lives. It’s been a family journal in a way we never envisioned when we started years ago. But honestly we didn’t think that anyone else would be reading along with us still… we thought the readership would lose interest once Bennett got home and the NICU updates ended, since we started this specifically for NICU updates. Of course we thought we were going to stop blogging then and look what happened. It took on a life of its own.

Anyway, thank you for being willing to comment and let us know who you are. We’re happy we can provide some amusement in your day! I’m going to keep bumping the vote up so anyone stopping by can say hi. Of course feel free to comment on any post.

Sometimes I wonder if they practice being this cute, or if it just comes naturally to them?