This Nicely Sums Up How Family Dinner Is Going...

Today at the girls' school they showed me their 'cornucopia of thanks' lining the walls. Since Lucy is in kindergarten she got a nice, big paper with a photo of her sweet face. She said she was thankful for 'Riding her bike, and flying her kite.' Which is hilarious, because I think I can count on one hand how many times she's done those two things combined. 

Maggie is younger, and so she only got a little leaf on which to share her thoughts. I scoured the walls until I found hers:

And I busted out laughing! When her teacher heard me, she came out of the class and confessed to having trouble suppressing her laughter when Maggs dictated this. This made me howl because Maggie has been the most difficult child with family dinners, and mac & cheese is like her salvation. She begs for it at every meal, INCLUDING BREAKFAST, and when she's given some she gobbles it up like she hasn't eaten in weeks.

I guess we'll have to have a macaroni side dish at Thanksgiving then, right?

SOUP! IN MUGS! HOW FUN IS THAT???

Do you think our feigned enthusiasm fooled them? 

Tonight they get a softball: chicken and ABC noodles. We're all out of stars. Unless you count Sam in his performance as 'Disgruntled and Sickened Six Year Old.'

The Pot Roast Experiment

For the past six years I have had a baby in the house. This means that I have been consistently making a separate meal for at least one person each day. Which is fun. NOT! What ended up happening, most of the time, was that the kids had one thing for dinner and SOB and I had something else. Not helping matters is that us adults tend to eat later in the day, and also like to spice things up a bit. My kids want to eat at 4:30 each day and don't even try to put a little thyme in their food lest you want to hear endless cries of "iiiiiiiiiittttttttttssssssss tttttttttooooooooooooooooooooo sssssssspppppppiiiiiiiiiiiccccccccyyyyyyyyyy!"

However, Fred is growing older with every passing day, and since he can eat a candy bar, I'm thinking he might be able to eat something besides our six main kid staples. Which are as follows: mac & cheese, grilled cheese, quesadillas, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, pizza. 

(Just so you don't think I'm horrible, they get a fresh veggie each day, and fresh fruit for dessert.) 

Starting this week, I decided that we were all, as a family, going to eat the same food for dinner. I gave them some softballs, like spaghetti and (home made) mac & cheese, to start. Then I hit them with the pot roast. I knew this was going to be a tough sell, so I had oreos for incentive. 

I also decided to make some videos. 

I am not entirely convinced that they hated it, since the three oldest ended up eating everything served to them. And Fred, who is usually an adventurous eater, was under the weather, so I don't fault him for not eating much of anything. But it was hilarious.

Next week I'm roasting a chicken! Stay tuned!