I'm Thankful for iPhones

Without them, we wouldn't have great pictures of the year our turkey was too big for the roaster and had to be secured with duct tape!

Hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Linking this up with those wild and crazy 

iPhone Photo Phun gals:

 

The Kitchen Is Closed

Meals are important to me.

I cannot stress that first sentence enough so let me repeat myself.

Meals are important to me.

Elijah and I have always spent a lot of time (and money) on eating. We try new restaurants, grill out, find new recipes for both special occasions and every day meals, or just pick up take-out. We love food. Eating a good meal together is more than just physically satisfying. In fact, it's been a running theme of our relationship. For the past twelve years we've been sharing wonderful meals together. And our best dates always include great food and conversation whether alone or with friends.

We have always eaten dinner together nightly. We'll open a bottle of wine, spend the evening in the kitchen then clean up together. After a long day, it's comforting to sit down at the table and break bread with the one you love.

Then we had kids.

At first, with Asher, we'd feed him and put him to bed before we had dinner together. We've always put the kids to bed pretty early so it wasn't a big deal to eat an hour or so after that. Now however, we're wanting to have family dinners. We want our kids to join in the experience; discuss the good and bad parts of our days, plan for the future, learn more about each other. The problem, however, is...the food.

They hate everything I make. Amelia's only two so she sort of gets a pass to run around the table half naked refusing or begging for bites from our plates. But Asher, Oh-Em-Ge, he is going to be the undoing of my sanity.

Every week, when I make the grocery list, I ask everyone what they'd like for dinner. Asher gets a say, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, on the day that I make whatever he's chosen, he may just decide that he doesn't want, or even like, the meal. One day his favorite meal is ribs and the next day he doesn't want anything to do with it.

The point is, it's making me crazy. And the arguments had gotten so bad that I've now started a cooking boycott. I'm not cooking for the family anymore. I'm tired of the stress the complaining, the whining, the screaming, the crying. Elijah thinks that I should just "not care" but that's not really something that I can do. I HATE to cook. So when I spend all this time in the kitchen, only to hear people bitch about it, it pisses me off.

There is no way to sugar coat it. I'm mad that my children have ruined the best part of my day. I've had extensive conversations with both Asher and Elijah and have reached the conclusion that they need to figure out something that works. Until then, the kitchen is closed. I'm not so much as heating up a pizza for any one*.


*Of course, I'm still feeding Amelia but since she will only eat oatmeal, cereal and milk, it's not that big of a deal.

Mastering the List

This weekend didn't go nearly as smoothly as I had envisioned. According to my plans, we were to have put the final touches on Asher's room; which included adding shelves to the closet, completing his coin tubes, finishing and hanging the bullets, and adding another wall shelf. I expected that would leave us plenty of time to start the beadboard in Amelia's room, trim out her window and put up the crown moulding. Then, on Sunday...we were going to make a TURKEY!!!

Honestly, after seeing everything in writing even I agree the list was a little ambitious. However, we SHOULD have been able to at least make a dent in it. Granted I had to work Friday, and sleep some (read most) of Saturday, but this was all a "honey-do" list anyway. As long as the TV was working (thus keeping the kids occupied) Elijah could have totally knocked out the major stuff while I was slumbering.

The first snag was that Amelia's beadboard needed to "cure" for at least 72 hours and we didn't open the packages until Friday night. The second snag was that Home Depot didn't have any of the pipes that we needed to finish Asher's wall shelf. The third snag was that Amelia was such a total, screamy, wreck all weekend that we were concerned about having her nap in the guest room because she doesn't sleep as well in her pack-n-play and we just couldn't take a chance that she'd be any grumpier than she'd already been. So that meant we couldn't trim or mould or do anything in her room unless she was awake.

Of all the tasks I hoped to complete this weekend, we only managed to accomplish two. Elijah put up two shelves in Asher's closet (that have yet to be painted) and we made a TURKEY!!!

Yes, Sunday dinner was super awesome this weekend. I love turkey. Elijah said it was the "best meal this side of Thanksgiving" and I couldn't have agreed more. We didn't go ALL OUT, but we did have mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, green bean casserole, rolls, and for dessert, homemade pumpkin pie. The meal was wonderful and we were all pretty stuffed so we held off a bit on the pumpkin pie.

After an hour or so we all headed downstairs to have dessert. I made the pies myself and still thought they looked and smelled great! I served everyone and we started in. After the first bite we all looked at each other wondering if everyone had tasted the same thing. Yep, there was definitely something missing. While you didn't really notice it unless you took a bite without the whipped cream, I had left out a very important ingredient...SUGAR!  I don't think I'll ever live that down. Then again, I don't think I'll ever have to make a pumpkin pie again either. (My dastardly plan worked.)

The boys laughed at me and I admit it was pretty funny to make a pie without sugar but, Amelia loved it and ate her whole entire piece. So there!

Heart Full of Wine

I meant to post this yesterday and although it's late and dated, I'm not going to let these marvelous photos go to waste.

As planned, we all spent a nice quiet V-day at home together. However, after a botched calzone making attempt on Saturday night I decided to use what we had rather than ordering the usual heart shaped pizza from Papa John's.


Yes, people...I made mini heart shaped pizzas. They may not look like much, but they were full of love and deliciousness and everyone thought they were totally awesome.

We also replaced the beer with this fancy $9-ish bottle of wine. Because we're classy.

I swear I wasn't drunk when I took that picture, but I AM too lazy to make it look better.