The kids restaurant

Dan let me sleep in a little this morning while he ran "daddy's restaurant" for the boys. Dan left for his church meetings at 8:30, and a few minutes later George came into my room and told me to come downstairs. This is what was waiting for me:

A place setting complete with menu, decorated pictures, my silverware wrapped in a napkin, and an appetizer. There were also two handsome waiters dressed in ties. One of them even had an apron. He took my order (smoothie, granola cereal, and a bagel) and the boys brought me breakfast. They even came back and asked if I wanted refills when my drink got low. 

One waiter sat down next to me and announced his job was to sing to me, while the other went and played the piano.  They even cleaned up after.

Plus, Ben said it was better than a real restaurant because I got to be treated like I was at a restaurant but, and I quote, I "didn't have to break the sabbath."

They said they want to do it every weekend because it was so fun. I won't argue with that!

So amazingly cute.

Just want to share

I just want to pass this on because it's been such a sweet experience for us.

A couple months ago, George brought  a magna doodle into his room to play with. The next morning I found he had left me a cute little drawing on it. He kept leaving us drawings every day so we started leaving drawings back. George said he ran out of ideas so he started leaving us notes on his magna doodle.Usually sweet love notes, or something having to do with our day. Even though technically the magna doodle is Ben's, Ben liked the idea and started leaving us notes on papers. Now I have to admit, little kid notes are so hard for me because I want to keep every single one and I know I just can't, so after a couple weeks, we bought another magna doodle so Ben could leave his own notes to us. I feel like now I can have the memory of sweet interchanges without feeling like I'm drowning in papers I don't want to throw away. Now every night before we go to bed, we go into the big boys room, find their notes or drawings and write back to them. It's one of the highlights of our day.

Another idea someone shared at book club last night is she puts a notebook under her kids' pillows and writes questions in them for the kids to answer. Just any little questions like, "who's your best friend?" or "what made you happy today?" I thought that was a great idea, and what I'm thinking is maybe when they're little we can use magna doodles and as they get older, we can move up to the notebook, or maybe I'll just do both :)

 I love the idea of keeping an open line of communication out there, and having a place to express our love in a sweet way. So now you know.

Healthy food for kids...

This post is for my sister-in-law...She and I have talked a few times about how to provide good, healthy snacks for our children. She just recently posted on her blog about it, and I just wanted to add one idea: presentation.

I believe strongly in "if you offer it, they will eat it." Not immediately and not every time, but in general. Of course, the sooner you start your kids eating healthy food, the better. I've found that my kids are much more willing to eat what I offer if it is presented in a fun way. Dan was my inspiration for this, since every meal or snack he ever makes for me is a work of art... a few examples of his work: (he doesn't always use the same plate, it just so happened those were the pictures I had :) )

So one day I was setting out some veggies for the kids and to make it more fun, made this guy:

The boys LOVED him and he was devoured in about a minute. Dan is still the master, but I'm slowly learning :) It really does make mealtime more fun, and gives me a chance to be creative, when sometimes meal preparation can seem so mundane. The end.

cooking again!

Well, folks, the day has finally come. I finally ran out of all the freezer meals and easy dinners that I saved for myself for after Jack was born. Now I have to start cooking again for real! 

A co-worker of my husbands passed along a bunch of food network magazines that she wasn't going to use, and they have a section in them called "Weeknight cooking." The recipes are generally not terribly complicated, and I thought they would work well for me to ease me back in to cooking.

I don't really have time to type out the whole recipe, so I just took a picture of it. These were very tasty and a great way to get the kids to eat zucchini! I used 1/2 lb of  (grass-fed) beef and sauteed all the onions, since I knew none of the kids would put fresh onions on top. I also used a 14.5 oz. can of tomatoes and green chiles, and taco seasoning instead of the chipotle chile powder.  YUM!