A Weekend Outside.



This weekend, the weather was SO BEAUTIFUL.  It was a little present to us from God, coming after a week that had single digit degrees.  You know it's nice outside when everyone talks about the weather and it seems to be the topic of every conversation, even with strangers.   It's everyone's small talk.  You find yourself talking about the weather with the cashier at the grocery store, the gentleman who pumps gas, the waiter at the restaurant, and the people walking outside by your house.  After spending a few months inside, it's so nice to get out.

  

We are trying to recognize and appreciate this time in our life when we have small children and don't really have go anywhere.  We know that one day soon, we will be running children to this practice and that, but for now, we are enjoying the weekends where we have nothing we have to do.  Instead, we look forward to making ordinary weekend nights....a little extraordinary in the little things.  Like making really good dinners....

And staying up late wrapping wreaths in yarn and roses, while watching Father Corapi on EWTN.

Sunday morning was a beautiful, bright, sunny day.

My Sunday pie this week was a Chicken Pot Pie....never made one before, but OH MY, I must say it was scrumptious!!!

We spent Sunday afternoon just soaking up as much sun as we possibly could.  TJ washed cars, the boys played some football, they wandered around BAREFOOT, I ran a good five mile run around the boulevard accompanied off and on by children.

TJ and Tom even managed to put a little project together.  He spray painted chair rail black and hung it in the garage.

                               It was a lovely weekend indeed.

Thoughts on Dinner

A week ago, I just happened to come across a great cookbook. I was at the grocery store and passed by the very small row of books that Super Saver sells. I glanced down to see a bright yellow book with the words family dinner that caught my eye. I didn't have much time to stand there and check it out, so I threw it into the cart with the certainty that it couldn't be that bad. Oh what a treasure I found!! Not so much because of the recipes, although there are great ones in there, but for the great ideas of ways to keep your family at the table.

This has been on my mind for months now, ever since we surrendered to the chaos of small children and let our dinners turn into a quick consumption of food with our conversation consisting of how to keep Evelyn from throwing her food on the floor.

Dinner time has always been a priority for me. I think that it is truly the glue that makes a family stick together. Sitting down, talking with one another, asking questions, all while eating a meal that is so good it has your mouth making all those yummy sounds. I love the process of dinner. At our house it usually starts with pouring a glass of wine, getting out all the ingredients and then cooking away. Our children are great at helping with making breakfasts, Sunday brunches, lunches, bread, and pies, but dinner is usually reserved for TJ and me. Most of the time I make what I can ahead of time at lunch, and then we put it all together......together. Sometimes TJ likes to come home after a long day at work and chop away. But after this long process of dinner, the kids would be hungry and whiny, and so we just figured we'd sit (some of us standing) at our kitchen island and eat. It was quicker, and less of a mess to clean up, we thought. We have two children right now at ages which are not conducive to sitting and lingering at table, or who are able to participate in conversation. So, we abandoned it all and gave into our small children who were perfectly fine to snarf down their meal in four minutes and then be on their way.

I was not pleased with the direction our dinner time was heading.

I knew that I wanted our meals to be better, for us all to sit down and eat for heavens sake!! Then when I started to read this cookbook, she gives all kinds of ideas for keeping your children at the table and starting conversation with them. Even small children. I was hooked. It was exactly what our family was needing....to get back to the table.

The book is called The Family Dinner: great ways to connect with your kids, one meal at a time. By Laurie David.

In it are two chapters that I enjoy the most. One is: Table Talk- creative ideas to expand minds, build vocabularies, and keep family conversation flowing. And the other is: Read Around the Table- from news to poetry- inspiration is your dinner guest.

Table talk games are your solution. No more, "How was your day?"......"Fine", followed by silence. These games will loosen everyone up and get your gang talking, guaranteed. Chances are good that the silent grumps will jump in if they see you having fun. Persevere. It took awhile to make this great food; you want the experience of dinner to last. Good conversation will help extend the time your family's engaged, something long after the last bite. As long as you make it fun, you can pretty much get away with anything-even reviewing SAT test words, or memorizing the presidents of the United States in chronological order.

I was trying to do this before, by having each child at dinner say one interesting fact at the dinner table. It was cute, but got old after you heard that snakes don't ever pee for about the one hundredth time. It also took only about five seconds. These games are great because they usually last us the entire meal with everyone participating. (minus George and Evie, well sometimes George chimes in!) The first night we tried this we played the game, I'm going on a picnic and I'm bringing.... then each person has to repeat what was said before them and then tack on their new item. A great memory game. I've never seen Thomas and Annie have such fun at the table. The other night I came up with Spelling Contest. I had them spelling all kinds of words and they kept begging me to, ask me another one! I would say the word, Annie would try to spell it first and as soon as she said a wrong letter I made a very annoying, loud, buzzer sound with my voice that let them know she was wrong and that it was Thomas' turn. I'm sure you all do many of this at your own tables while eating. TJ and I were trying to, we just got stuck somewhere between the chaos and loudness of children, and the frustration of preparing a meal for an hour and then being done with it in five minutes. This sums it up perfectly, from the book: Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate.... In general, we focus more on getting our children fed than on the eating rituals meant to keep us connected.

Now I don't really care how fast they eat because they are still at the table. SITTING DOWN. TALKING WITH US. Don't let me fool you, it's not perfect. George usually gets up still and starts wandering and when we finally notice that he's gone, we'll bring him back.....sometimes. Sometimes we're having such fun with the older ones that we'll just let him go.


Some of Laurie David's game ideas/conversation starters are:

-my special talent is....

-something I like about myself....

-what I like about you (to the person on their right)...

-would you rather...(we got this card game from the Vaceks and it works perfectly. I set on card on each persons plate and they get to read the four funny would you rather scenarios to us. That way we don't have to come up with our own!

-I remember when...

-name something you are afraid of...

-name three places you would never go....

-spell it

-spell it, define it, use it...

-once upon a time...(start a story out loud and go around the table adding to it.

-my mom doesn't like peas....(one person starts by saying our mom doesn't like P's, what can you give her instead? They can't say a word that begins with a P, but they will think that they should say a vegetable...

-reading, memorizing poetry

ANYTHING you can think of and make fun!

- I also thought of making a weekly ritual of both Thomas and Annie getting to pick what to make for dinner and then making it themselves (with mom's help of course!) One night a week will be designated for their meal. They can rotate weeks. One of them makes dinner each week. I thought it might be a fun way for them to express come creativity and learn how to prepare a meal.

My desire is for us to turn our dinner time into a special time that no one in our family will want to miss. A time for us to reconnect together after all of us having gone our separate ways during the day. A time to enjoy fabulous meals, even healthy meals together. As our children all get older, my hope is that they will want to sit with us and talk. And hey, if they learn a few manners along the way, if they can carry on conversation with adults, learn all kinds of interesting facts, and maybe even to learn how cook meals for themselves and their families....then mission accomplished.

DINNERTIME

David asks for his dessert
Peggy wants to press her skirt
She has dance class and she's late
David says he cannot wait
Mike is giving him a ride
He'll just go and wait outside
Father tells him he will not
David mutters thanks a lot
Ann says she expects a call
Benjamin won't eat at all
Mother starts to serve the pie
Benjamin begins to cry
Mother asks him what is wrong
Father says the tea's too strong
Ann gets up to get the phone
Benjamin begins to moan
Peggy says her tights are torn
David says he hears a horn
Father says to finish first
David says that he will burst
Peggy says it isn't fair
Ann has on her other pair
Now she will be late for class
Benjamin upsets his glass
David's taking tiny bites
Ann is taking off the tights
David says the crust is tough
Mother says she's had enough
Father says it's not too bad
Mother says she's going mad
David wiggles like a mouse
That is dinner at our house.
-Mary Ann Hoberman

ordinary days....a fun summer

When people ask me how's your summer going, I say wonderful.

When I hear where are you going this summer, I simply say that we're staying home.

Home. It's a nice word.

We have no grand plans of traveling this year. We have no scheduled vacations. Our summer has been spent staying close to home and doing a lot of...nothing really. We have made some wonderful meals complete with name place cards, have had lots of family and friends over for dinner and playing outside. Catching frogs from our yard has been a highlight many nights.

New baby Clairvaux made her debut to our home at only one week old! How very precious she is. Life is a miracle. We had 15 children running around between our three families.

I'm not a good traveler. The thought of packing, unpacking, planning, riding for hours in a car all make me shiver. And staying in a hotel....well, I'd rather not talk about it. It's not that the kids are unusually difficult....no it's me. It's funny to me because when I was young and competing in gymnastics, we travelled all the time. My first trip was when we drove to South Dakota I think, for a gym meet. I was 9 years old. By myself. By the time I was in 9th grade I had been to Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Missouri, and Iowa, all for gym meets. Flying was fun. I am now terrified to fly.

I was talking with Lindsay's mom, Damaris, the other night. She told us how her mother had 13 children. They had one car. They did not go many places. No one did back then, she said. You stayed at home.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see other parts of the world, just not now. Not with small children. One day, yes. But for now, this little nook we live in is just fine.

Uncle Jarod and Aunt Laura offered to have Thomas and Annie come and stay with them for a weekend. They has so much fun. They spent two days swimming, playing and going to a county fair. They will always remember that weekend. Thank you L-O and Jarod.

We've made it a family event each week to watch Thomas play on his first baseball team. Between the Boever's and us, we have by far the biggest cheering section.

The biggest fan of them all. He comes dressed in full gear. Helmet, baseball gloves, bat, ball, and Thomas's old Yankee's jersey. We think he honestly thinks he will get to play each week.

Losing teeth this summer has been a big event. The tooth fairy must be working overtime though, seeing as she forgot to visit us one night. How could she forget?? Maybe she's been staying up too late blogging....

As summer's end is approaching, I realize that there are many things I had wanted to do with my children, but did not get to. The older I get and the more children we have I'm learning that it's not so much what we do or where we go. What is important is that we are together and are enjoying each other as we make memories. I hope they will remember the love we gave them, and the abundant food, family, friends and fun that filled our home.

egg in the hole

A new family favorite for breakfast.....

egg in the hole.

Give them a try, if you havn't already. Your kids will think you are.....awesome!

tonight's dinner

Tonight's dinner was tomato basil pasta.

Fabulous. As always.