A cereal Christmas morning

Some Christmases are more memorable than others. Some are known for circumstances or weather or special people. We have ...

... the Christmas Jesse was Jesus
... the Christmas Andrew and Jesse put their underwear on their heads
... the Christmas all the kids had the stomach flu
... the Christmas we met my brother's family at an indoor water park
... the Christmas we transitioned to my parents' new home

And this year shall forevermore be known as the year I forgot the yeast.

Every year, as tradition dictates, we have a movie night Christmas Eve Eve. At some point during either the first or second movie, the cinnamon roll fairy quietly excuses herself to get the cinnamon rolls ready to rise. She then joins the family who has no idea that she ever left (someone, please let tell her if Miss. Daisy dies at the end of the movie or lives to berate Hoke for another day). Christmas Eve morning she wakes up bright and early to prepare the cinnamon rolls to rise again and then everyone wakes up to cinnamon rolls that appear to have made themselves and to have magically plopped themselves on the center of the breakfast table. As if one morning is not enough, the whole scenario repeats itself Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at my parents'  house where we wake up to another round of magically appearing cinnamon rolls.

Except this year, someone forgot to pack the yeast for MomMom and PopPop's house.  The cinnamon roll fairy was all set to get the ball rolling Christmas Eve while everyone else chatted in the living room. She looked in the refrigerator where she had emptied her cold food bags and couldn't find the yeast. She looked again. She even looked in the bag with the dry ingredients in case she had mistakenly placed it there. Alas, there was no yeast to be found.

If it had been any other ingredient, her mother would have had plenty. But yeast, who keeps yeast around just in case?

No problem, the Good Doctor was ready to help out. Certain that a grocery store would still be open, he headed out to find some yeast. Closed. He tried Wal-mart. They're always open, right? Closed. At least they're giving their employees a holiday. He even tried a gas station/deli but of course they don't stock yeast. "Yup, we're traveling from Massachusetts to Florida  for the holidays, and well, the missus is wondering if you might happen to have some yeast?"

Nope. No yeast for the weary traveler.

So, while visions of sugarplums danced in the heads of the rest of the family, the cinnamon roll fairy  was awake in bed trying to figure out how she could have forgotten the first ingredient, the main ingredient for the cinnamon rolls.

Merry Christmas, everyone, enjoy your cereal!

Note: No family members were harmed by a Christmas morning without cinnamon rolls - their grandfather saved the day by filling in as Donut Fairy. Wawa may not have yeast but they do have donuts.

A tale of 2 shoo-fly pies

This morning, the Good Doctor posted this picture on FB as a very sneaky way of telling everyone that it is my birthday. He also made it sound like I made shoo-fly pie to treat myself on my special day. While I do love myself some shoo-fly pie (warm, with milk), there is actually more to this story.

One day, while the Good Doctor was happily traipsing around Kenya and I was joyfully being spat upon, hit, pinched, scratched and yelled at around home, I was also preparing a shoo-fly pie to take to church for our Sunday School class breakfast. I got up early so as to bake without a 3 year old helper and was very proud of the outcome of my endeavors. By this I mean that when it was time to leave for church, not only was my shoo-fly pie out of the oven and perfectly baked but I was also showered and dressed and so were all of my other family members who had been left state-side.

I carefully wrapped my still-warm pie in tin foil, placed it in a bag and set it between the front seats of the van.

Upon arrival at the church, someone unbuckled Victor from his carseat, and he promptly jumped down.

Right on top of my beautiful shoo-fly pie. I could have cried. Actually, I think I did cry. Too many Sundays without my help-mate and I was done. All because of a shoe in the shoo-fly pie.

I left the pie in the van and a war raged in my mind - do I go into class without a contribution for the breakfast (which could cause my ancestors to roll over in their graves) or do I go home and have a little pity party?

After dropping the kids off at their classes I returned to the van for one last check. Nope, there was no way this pie was salvageable enough to go to class. My shoo-fly pie had become a shoe-fly pie and no one was going to want to eat that thing.

Except my kids.

I don't think it even lasted through lunch.

So, this week, when I found out that my Sunday School class was again having breakfast, my pride knew it had to be redeemed; I didn't care that I would have to get up early on my birthday to bake without a 3 year old helper.

This one did not go on the floor; the person riding shotgun was warned that they'd have to hold my precious shoo-fly pie. And they did. It made it all the way to class just fine.

And that is my Tale of Two Shoo-fly Pies.

Worse than a hair in your chicken...

I may not be raising a houseful of future chefs but I do like to humor myself every now and then into thinking that at the very least they will all be able to put a complete meal on the table, preferably one that did not originate in a box. So, to harken us closer to that goal, every 15 year old in the house is given "planning and preparing a week's worth of meals" as one of their missions to accomplish. Not completing any of the mission within 365 days means a delay in being driven to PennDOT for that coveted permit test. This doesn't mean that I approve of their total meal plan but usually we can come to some sort of compromise in favorite meals vs. varied and healthy. Example: This week's child tried to get 3 chicken meals by me before being vetoed. So, tonight's Buffalo Chicken Tacos is more on the favorite side. That's okay. As long as you make it correctly. And as long as we're not having chicken again tomorrow night.

And then this.

I will not embarrass the poor child by giving away names. That would be rude and unconscionable.

I will, however, tell you that the directions were simple: Put the chicken in the crockpot. Cover with 1 cup Ranch dressing and 1 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce. Cube 16 oz. of cream cheese and put the cubes on top of the chicken and sauce mixture. I will admit to not supervising sufficiently as I thought the directions were self-explanatory.

However, I have learned my lesson. Next time, I will add "After removing the white juice-soaking pad from the bottom of the chicken," in front of the part about putting the chicken in the crockpot. And tonight, when said child comes home from school, we will discuss the difference between cubes and bricks.

(Lest you think that our children only help in the kitchen one week of their lives, let me assure you that there are a lot of sous-chefs in our house. In fact, every night of the week each child is either helping to prepare the meal or to clean up the meal. This means that there is often a fight to see who can ask first to help prepare so that they don't have to help clean up. On the other hand, some children have chosen not to help on a regular basis. And as you have seen, that is a good thing.)

Edited to add: If it's true that you learn something new everyday, this child is going to reach the week's quota by the end of this meal. After being set straight on cubes vs. bricks and chicken juice pads, this child also learned that lettuce does not grow in tiny little taco-ready pieces. Who knew that they were big leaves and if you wanted smaller pieces you needed to cut or tear them?

Just the filling

Unlike many people, I don't like Oreos. Probably because I don't like chocolate and those two chocolate cookie layers are just two chocolate-y and dry for me.

Now, the inside filling... I would buy a whole package of that.

Only they don't come that way. And growing up, eating just the inside would not have been an option. We wouldn't have even been allowed to split the cookie and eat it in parts. Probably because that's how they do it in the commercials and we don't want to be influenced by media marketing.

As an adult, however... Let's just say, where there's a will there's a way.

There are two desserts that are oft-requested at my house and both of them have Oreos in them:

Dirt Dessert

and Cookies and Cream Fluff.

Each of these items requires smashing the Oreos so I have found this to be the perfect way to solve my dilemma of wanting just the icing.

I take three cookies (no more, no less), separate them, use a knife to remove just the icing for me, put the chocolate cookie parts in the bag to be smashed and no one is the wiser.

Until one of my daughters caught me the first time. Since she was not old enough to read the recipe, I simply told her that was what the recipe said: Remove the icing from three Oreos and set aside.

That worked for a time. Now she's older. And wiser.

So we all just take three Oreos from the package, remove the filling, and return the chocolate cookies to the smashing bag.

No one ever needs to know.

Pizza delivery

Once upon a time we were making subs to take on a day trip. I sent The Good Doctor to the grocery story for some lunch meats; ham and turkey so everyone would be happy. He came back with just ham which left some people cranky so we sent him back to the store (be thankful it's just down the hill) for some sliced turkey.

He came back with ham again.

I don't remember if we sent him back a third time or if we all just had ham subs that day.

Some things never change....

A few months ago, we were given a wonderful gift of a gift card to Domino's Pizza. I was saving it for a time when the whole family was home and since tonight, Christmas Adam (we used to call it Christmas Eve Eve but as someone intelligently pointed out to us today, Adam came before Eve, it will be forever-more known as Christmas Adam), we are all here, I determined this was to be the day.

The Good Doctor was all set to run some errands so I gave him the gift card which was very clearly marked with the Domino's logo. Keep in mind that I have been reminding him of our Christmas Adam plans for a few weeks, mentioning the names of our philanthropists and the wonderful dinner destination to which he'd be traveling. Daily. Because his short-term memory has been damaged by 8 children and no longer works as it should. Unfortunately, it was malfunctioning even before that.  Anyway, before he left, he tried to order on-line but for some reason, the code on the gift card wasn't working. He called the local store but they also could not get the card to work. So he called corporate headquarters but she couldn't get it to work and had to check with someone else who also couldn't get it to work. He gave up and decided that we would just have to pay for our meal after all.

And on the way to Papa John's he realized his mistake.

Looks like we'll try Domino's for New Year's Eve.

Unless The Good Doctor decides to try our gift card out at Little Caesar's instead.

Guaranteed your kids will hate it

My dad will eat anything.

Well, almost anything.

He's not a fan of yogurt. And he absolutely does NOT like liver.

My mom loves liver.

Every now and then when we were growing up she would decide it was time to indulge herself and we had no choice but to join her.

To her credit, she did try to make it more palatable. She even resorted to little white lies on occasion.

There was the memorable day when I came down from the second floor, and that distinctive liver aroma was already wafting up from the kitchen. With fear and trepidation, I asked my mother what we were having for dinner (if I had known how many times I would be asked that question in my own stint as mother, I never, ever would have put her through that horror, but it would be years because I would  understand). With a smile on her face, she simply said that it was like steak.

Steak? So I had been wrong. It wasn't liver after all. I wasn't much of a fan of steak either but Oh, glorious day, we were NOT having liver!

Until 5:00 came around and she placed that piece of meat in front of me and I just knew; that was NOT steak.

Apparently my mom had tried a new recipe, Guaranteed Your Kids Will Love Liver.

I hope she got her money back.

I've tried to explain to my children that they should be singing my praises because I have never, and I will never, try to serve them that disgusting stuff. But no, they don't believe me. Instead, they have decided that egg casserole is the most disgusting food on earth.

But what's a mom to do with an overabundance of bread crusts in the freezer? Egg casserole, of course.

So today I tried a new recipe, Guaranteed Your Kids Will Hate Egg Casserole, Just Add Veggies and You'll Seal the Deal.

I tried to make it more palatable with the promise of whoopie pies for those who could choke it down without vomiting.

Well, with all these left-over, uneaten whoopie pies, I guess I'll have to have another. Don't mind if I do.

If you can't lick 'em...

There are several mysteries of life that I will never understand.

At what age does one transition from doing everything possible to avoid a nap or bedtime, to craving sleep?

Where do all of our missing socks go?

If it is a 50/50 chance that a child will get the shoes on the right feet, why are the shoes on the wrong feet 90% of the time?

If moms and dads have never bitten someone to solve a problem, yet children learn by modeling, why do so many children go through a biting stage?

And finally, what is so bad about the end pieces in a loaf of bread?

This one had me stumped and quite frankly, finding a solution has surely taken years off my life.

We went through the phase when no one wanted to eat the ends of the bread. It would not be unusual to find 6 bags of bread in the drawer, each with only 1 or 2 pieces of bread. Yes, the dreaded crusts.

Discussing the wastefulness of this situation did help and the older children in the home stepped up their game, sucked it up, took one for the team, and chose to help me out of my home economics funk. If they opened the drawer to find that they had lost the load ends lottery, they would take their turn and eat that slice of bread.

But there were still a few children who so vehemently hated those ends that they wanted to claim a food allergy.

Good try. Gluten free bread has ends, too.

So I put on my detective hat and did some sleuthing.

Because of the different times that children wake up in the morning and because some children make lunches and some buy lunches and others eat at home, the proof just fell right into my proverbial lap.

But then I learned something else. Not only do I have one child who despises the crusts of the bread, this child abhors the crusts of bread. This child is so repelled by even the thought of having to eat the crust of the bread that this child will not leave the crust in the bag for the next person but will throw the remaining few pieces in the trash so that this person will not even have the chance of getting stuck with that crust the following day, either.

In case you had any doubts, the King family is not rolling in the dough (get it?) and clearly this child's solution, while making sense in this child's brain, was not nor will ever be an adult-sanctioned solution. But since this child decided not to take responsibility for the throwing out of the bread, and since this child's adherence to the "Please Take Your Turn and Eat the End If It Is the Next in Line" rule was determinably an impossibility, it was time for a totally brand-new tactic.

The plan just came to me one day. You know, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em. Well, I wasn't about to start throwing away perfectly good food (brown potato chips, green Skittles, the non-marshmallow parts of Lucky Charms, or even the crusts of bread) so instead I decided to remove it. Don't make them eat it. Just give them end-free loaves of bread.

I bet you noticed that my kids were happier these past few weeks, right? Especially the child who finds turn-taking with loaf ends to be entirely intolerable. Because no one had to eat the ends. Everyone was entitled to the same end-free slices of bread. Everyday. For weeks. And the best part? No one noticed! They were all just so happy to be crustless. Although, if my mom's childhood mantra is right, they are losing out on future chest hair. But that's neither here nor there so forget it.

Now, for all you who are wondering how I could possibly bring myself to waste those ends, you obviously don't know me very well. I am the one who rewashes plasticware and cups. I am the one who makes my children use both sides of the index card before throwing it away. I am the one who washes baggies and reuses them (except when The Good Doctor throws them away when I'm not looking). So each and every end piece went into an old bread bag (get it, not even wasting a new baggie!) and into the freezer. When the bread bag was full, we had French Toast.

And I waited. I didn't have to wait long. A few minutes into the meal someone commented on having the end piece.

"Funny you should mention that. Look around you. You'll notice that everyone has an end piece. And every piece remaining on the serving dish is a crust.

(At this point all forks were frozen midway between table and mouth. Chewing was slow and deliberate and all eyes were on me.)

Let me tell you a little story..."

And the best part? The child who used to throw the crusts away and then lie about it? Almost gave it away and spilled the truth in an attempt to justify the action. The mouth opened. The mouth closed. The face grimaced. The mouth opened again. A few unintelligible sounds came out. The mouth closed. Because at the last second, said child realized that an opening of the mouth at this time would not only be an admission of truth to the parental figures but would also reveal the identify of the person who caused this meal of crust-only French Toast.

Looks like we'll be having French Toast, grilled cheese, and egg casserole every few weeks around here from now on....

If you give a boy a spoon

If you give a boy a spoon, and make a big deal out of teaching him to sccooooooooop so that he can self-feed, then you could have one of a number of results...

You could find yogurt on the ceiling in a bubble gum looking blob which said child has thrown in a fit of you-can't-make-me-eat-that-with-a-spoon rage.

You could watch said child bang his head repeatedly against the back of his high chair in another variation of the you-can't-make-me-eat-that-with-a-spoon rage.

You could get weary of the outbursts and just pick up that spoon yourself, announce "sccoooooooooooop" loudly to whoever will listen (likely not the child who is supposed to be feeding himself) and just stick the spoon in his mouth yourself.

OR

It could be a really good day and you could watch said child as he moves in close to observe the dog eating breakfast, then go over to the kitchen utensils drawer (one of said child's favorite "toy boxes"), pull out a big serving spoon, return to the dog's dish and loudly announce "sccoooooooooop" as he very happily does just that with the dog's food.

OR

It could be a very interesting day and while said child was helping with the dishes, he might just pick up the bottle brush and "sccooooooooooooop" the water.

Ya just never know.

CSI: At Home

Case 020515 - The Case of the Gum on the Ceiling

I was the first to notice it. An unmistakable pink patch right at the edge of the dining room, almost to the kitchen. Not quite round but clearly carefully spread out with a set of guilty fingers.

As each child entered the room and looked up, they confirmed what I was seeing. Gum. Plastered to the ceiling with a shocking deliberateness. Who? Why? How?

I had children stand on chairs to prove that they could or could not reach the ceiling, with or without help.

I asked children if they had any gum stashed away anywhere. I asked kids if they had been given gum by any strangers today.

I asked if anyone had seen a masked intruder run into the house at any time today, take his gum from his mouth, smear it on my ceiling, and leave without a trace (except for the tell-tale gum).

I asked if anyone had let Nana Bush, our beloved neighbor, into the house today so that she could dispose of her gum on our ceiling rather than in her own trash can. Well, she does keep a meticulous house and yard; it's not beyond the realm of possibilities that she would not want to soil it with Already Been Chewed Gum.

But alas, no one had seen anything.

So then I had to go down the list of suspects.  Victor was the first to be ruled out. Too young. Andrew was also declared not guilty. Too far away. Hope was cleared when she failed the standing on the chair test. Too short. Jesse and Ana were not home at the time of the first sighting so it couldn't be them. That left three suspects: Shoun, Isaac, and Eden.

Each was interrogated separately and each claimed their innocence. Although Shoun did give us a possible motive when he came home from school asking if I had any pine trees hidden away in the backyard because he needed pine tar for his hands so he could cheat at the up-coming Battleball Tournament. Um, no. But a child who wanted pine tar could very easily be testing out the stickiness of gum. Or so I thought. When questioned, however, he assured us that he was not allowed to chew gum at school and he had not accepted gum from any strangers he met on his way home.

That left Eden and Isaac, both of whom were trying to keep a straight face as we discussed this heinous crime.

With no evidence, no motive (other than that pine tar business), and no confession, I had to admit defeat and clean up the mess myself. Eeeeeew. I hate gum. I used to love gum. I was a pack a week chewer. It's what got me through high school and college. Trident. Cinnamon flavor. But I digress. There was a crime to solve.

I pulled over a chair (thus proving that I could not have committed this crime without the help of an assistive device), pulled out my knife, and started to scrape.

Except the "gum" came off quite easily. Too easily, in fact. It just chipped away.

And then it occurred to me. Victor had occupational therapy earlier in the day. She was bound and determined that he was going to eat with a spoon. I had just given her a glowing update on his new scooping-and-feeding-himself-with-a-spoon skills and she was ready for the show. Only he wasn't in the mood for showing off. In a fit of rage when I wasn't paying attention, he grabbed the spoon that he was determined not to use for its intended purpose today, and flung it far, far away. The yogurt (pink yogurt, I might add) that I had already scooped to make the task easier, landed all over the floor and on the OT's pants.

What we all missed but will have to wait for the televised reverse-action slow-motion version to witness, was the glob that flew into the air and landed on the ceiling. Just sitting there drying all afternoon. Drying into a perfectly pink, bubble-gum-ish color and glob. Victor was our guilty party; sitting in the midst of "the talk", likely laughing to himself because he had fooled us all.

At least I had 7 other witnesses that also saw the original gum on the ceiling. Guess we all have egg on our faces now. Or is it gum?

Case closed. I just love a good mystery with a surprise ending. Don't you?

No guilt

My mom makes the most amazing treat every Christmas - Peanut Butter Balls. Think of Buckeyes on steroids. These are round delicacies made of peanut butter and coated in chocolate, with a secret ingredient that makes them better than any other chocolate-peanut butter dessert you've ever eaten. And they don't have that annoying bare spot found on the Ohioans claim to fame. Pure delight.

They're a pain to make. I know because I've made them once or twice. So most years I just leave them to my mom. We know that when we arrive for Christmas, we'll find a few on the dessert tray. And when I say a few, I mean a few. Because my mom is very stingy with her peanut butter balls. She's allowed to be since she's done all of that work. Since retirement, my dad is her self-proclaimed (or forced?) co-laborer so together, they are afforded the luxury of carefully rationing the peanut butter balls. A few for Christmas day, a few to take out to my brother's house in Indiana, and very secretly, a few to send home with me.

I've come to think of the latter as mine and mine alone. I guess it's a right of inheritance? Or maybe a privilege for the one who daily labors to feed her children and who too often has to listen to complaints or pleas for substitutions to the day's menu. Yes, this, above all, demands that there be some type of compensation from children to mother. And since no one asked me what I wanted as compensation, I made the decision independent of general consensus.

Taking into account the rare but altogether possible view that I should not be the sole beneficiary of the peanut butter balls sent to our home, certain precautions needed to be taken. As we were taking leave on Christmas day, my mom pulled the precious container out of the freezer. We exchanged a knowing look and all I had to say was, "Veggie Meatballs" and she instinctively knew what I meant. With a few strokes of her Sharpie marker, the deed was done and the peanut butter balls hoarding tradition was passed down from mother to daughter. And the Veggie Mt. Balls label stared up at me every time I reached into the deep freeze because I didn't even need to bury it under lots of veggies. Just as it did every time one of my children reached into that same deep freeze.  Only I'm sure they didn't see it with the same delight as I.

And if you're wondering, No, I felt absolutely no guilt as I rationed and solitarily enjoyed my daily dose of peanut butter mixed with that secret ingredient and covered in chocolate. Well, I may have felt a teeny tiny bit of conscience so as the supply dwindled to near-zero, I did share one with each family member who was home today, confidently telling them that they could no longer say that I had never done anything for them.

As if that isn't enough to make me Mother-of-the-Year, I then promised to sacrifice and subject myself to the pain of making them a batch of peanut butter balls. Because I'm awesome like that.

Do you think they'll find the ice cream I've hidden in there?

The creative inventor

Our last family night was all about inventing. Two children were involved in the planning of this party with each child clearly showing their own strengths. Shoun was in charge of the food theme and Eden - everything else. Together they decided on macaroni and cheese. Shoun googled "creative macaroni and cheese." He settled upon Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese. This idea was nixed by him and he didn't admit until it was too late that it was because he didn't know how to make pulled pork. Silly boy, if you know how to google the idea in the first place, maybe google can tell you how to make pulled pork.

No problem, though, because his partner is the master of creativity and ideas. She took over from here. Since they decided upon inventions as their theme, she decided that each family member could invent his or her own macaroni and cheese. Having a concert that day, I helped her with most of the work ahead of time so that we could start as soon as we came home from the 4PM concert.

We put the macaroni and cheese in the crockpot. She also cubed ham, baked the bacon ahead of time and crumbled it, cooked and cut hot dogs, cut scallions, crushed chips (regular, Bar-B-Q and Doritos for good measure), made sure we had extra cheese, salsa, hot sauce, and ketchup. There weren't any options in the way of vegetables but you have to take the inventor of the meal into consideration; Eden is my pickiest eater. We did add some left-over cooked broccoli at the last minute.

In between dinner and dessert she paired up the family members and gave them a quiz that she had prepared. They were given a time limit to look up the answer on the internet. Questions like, Who invented the toilet? For what purpose was bubble wrap originally invented? When were Crayola Crayons invented? She made this quiz all on her own as well as the prizes.

Dessert was, of course, Invent Your Own Ice Cream Sundae.

And her movie of choice was Meet the Robinsons.

Smells fishy

I don't like to eat fish. My avoidance probably comes from a scarring childhood memory involving the after-effects of eating oysters. I won't go into details but it wasn't pretty. Other than shrimp, I just haven't been very brave.

Last week I came across an online recipe for The Best Fish Recipe Ever. My thoughts immediately went to a recipe my mom tried on us when I was little. I was called Guaranteed Your Kids Will Love Liver. With two children and a husband who despised liver, she decided to give it a go.

I can still remember coming down the steps from my room to the kitchen, pausing midway and smelling a familiar smell.  Ugh! Liver?  "Mom," I asked upon arriving at the source of the smell, "What's for dinner?"  She responded rather quickly, "It's like steak." Hmmmm. That's not what it smelled like. But steak? Not one of my favorites but definitely better than the very strong and bitter liver she'd made in the past.

We sat down at the table, ready to partake of the steak we thought she had so lovingly prepared for us. The speed with which the meat entered my mouth testified to the fact that I had only heard one word of her response, "Steak."  Well, we quickly figured out that "like steak" was not the same thing as steak. In fact, it bore a very striking resemblance to the taste of that despised liver.

I don't remember exactly how that experiment ended but I can imagine that my mom erupted in gales of laughter as she tried to explain to us that we were the test subjects in her "guaranteed your kids will love liver experiment." I am certain that we were not as amused as she. I am also certain that we had to sit there until the awful grub was gone from our dishes.

I'm not sure what possessed me but despite my better judgement I decided to give The Best Fish Recipe Ever a try. One by one my family members asked what we were having for dinner. I couldn't think of any "It's like fill-in-the-blank" statements for the formerly scale-y creature so honesty was my answer of choice. Their reactions made me wonder if I had shouldn't have instead told them it was "like chicken." Except that'd be lying because chickens have feathers and feet and a beak and fish just don't. I think I literally stepped back a few inches each time I was asked this question, trying to soften the blow as I anticipated the rude remarks from one child, the cries of despair from the pickiest eater. Then I sat back, fed the baby, and watched the rest of my family dig in.

They liked it. They probably liked the sauce poured over top better than the fish but hey, they liked it. When the Good Doctor went to clean out the almost-empty dish, he realized that I had not yet had any. They ate so much that I was left with just a small helping.

That's okay. I'm not much of a fish fan, anyway. But Mom, my "Best Fish Ever" beats your "Guaranteed to Love Liver" by a landslide and I didn't even have to tell a white lie!

Wordless Wednesday 15

My oldest male teen-ager (who I shall refrain from naming so as to save him either a big head out of pride or the shame of embarrassment) made dinner while I wasn't around. He didn't realize that the grease catcher on the griddle was broken but ingeniously solved his own problem with a measuring cup. And another. And another. And yes, one more. Well, frying hamburgers for a family of nine (with 4 growing boys) produces a lot of hamburger grease!

And no, our kitchen is not really made for cooking for a crowd. We all have to improvise.

Chick-ow?

Do we have another vegetarian in the family? I'm not sure, but we had the most interesting conversation at dinner tonight. It followed this most unusual statement by a child who shall remain nameless (but if you know which child has trouble with prepositions, you might have a clue): Eden doesn't enjoy eating chicken because she feels guilty of the cows getting killed.

Hmmm. I'm not quite sure where to go with this one.

April the First

The first day of April is one of my favorite days. Well, if I were totally honest, I'd admit that I don't need a day on the calendar to give me permission to play a good prank of two, but it is nice to have someone say it's almost mandatory to trick someone today.

Of course I do also have to put up with the little ones attempting to tell me that my hair is purple (April Fool's) or that my shoes are on the wrong feet (April Fool's) but it's all because they're learning and at least they are making an attempt. They could, like some people, grow up to be ignorant in the way of fooling others. Some people have just not been reared in the fine art of prankstering. I know. I married one. Don't feel bad for him, though. He has all kinds of other talents like getting good grades, earning degrees, and teaching teen-agers how to drive. We compensate for his lack of skill in the area of trickery by keeping him in the dark about our plans. It also means that he's also pretty easy to fool.

Like that time I called and left a message for him, pretending to be a receptionist from a certain doctor's office he really wanted to visit. He was so fooled by my accent that he called me and had me listen to the message to see if I could help him figure out who it was.

Or the time I showed him a positive pregnancy test that I borrowed from an expecting friend - and told my unsuspecting husband that we were expecting Number 6, when Number 5 was not even a year old. He was ready to call that doctor's office from the previous prank as soon as that conversation was over!

So I realize that since his children have received genes from both of us, I have my work cut out for me. It means that I have to start my April Fool's planning on April 2 so that I'm ready for the next year.

Shoun came down to breakfast this morning and between chuckles told us that when he unrolled the toilet paper, he found a note saying, "Help! I'm locked in a toilet paper factory and I can't get out! Save me!" When I asked him if he had saved the poor guy he came right back with, "Well, I didn't know where the toilet paper factory was." Good guy. Fast learner. The best part was that he assumed Mariana was the culprit so when she came down in the morning (keep in mind that she's not a morning person), and we were all laughing at her good joke, she just stared at us with a sour look on her face.

God helped me out with the next trick. As each child came to the realization that it had snowed last night, I shouted, "April Fool's! It was really me. I just went outside last night with a bunch of powdered sugar and sprinkled it all around so you'd think it was snow. Good one, huh?" Eden thought about this for a while before asking if that stuff I sprinkled outside would be okay to eat. I assured her it would be fine. "Good," she said, "Because someone might think it's snow and start to eat it."

Catching on quickly Shoun then rubber banded the sink sprayer handle so when Mariana turned on the sink, she got a shower. (Unfortunately poor Rachel got this one first. King family members need to put up with pranks, students living here for the year should not have to do so. Sorry, Rachel. Thankfully, she was a good sport about it.)

This must be why Mariana put green food coloring in the milk. Now every time I open the fridge I think someone's celebrating St. Patty's Day. And Eden had to gag down her milk because she insisted it didn't taste right. Sorry, honey. We don't waste food around here. Green or not, you're drinking it. If it's not curdled, it's going down.

Then Jesse squeezed the toothpaste onto his brush only to find that a raisin came out with the paste. He flicked the raisin in the sink which made Mariana wonder why there was a raisin in the sink (and left me wondering why a raisin didn't come out when she squeezed her toothpaste). HopeAnne just nonchalantly told me she needed new toothpaste because there was a raisin in hers. As if finding raisins in her toothpaste is a common, ordinary occurrence. You know you're a King when finding a raisin in your toothpaste is really no big deal.

And that was all before the school day started.

Poor Eden thought she was being tricked. While on a field trip she had to use the restroom. From the stall next to her, Mariana hear Eden reading out loud, "Please do not flush..." Since Eden couldn't read the word "sanitary" she decided to stop there. At this point Mariana heard Eden's frantic monologue, "Oh know, I can't flush in here. What should I do? I can't flush. Maybe I should try another one." Just as she was about to walk out the door to try another stall, Mariana stopped her, explaining that they would all say the same thing but that it would be okay for her to flush. All's well that end's well.

Supper's the next plan. I'm going with a tried-and-true meal from our very first April Fool's Day. I remember it like it was yesterday. Andrew was 4, Jesse 2, and Mariana 1. I told the kids we were having a treat for supper - cupcakes! They were thrilled. Then I placed the "cupcakes", which were really meatloaf with pink and blue mashed potato "icing" on the table. They thought I was the best mom in the world. Then, you could see the wheels turning in Andrew's head. He got a weird look on his face, took his finger through the "icing" and tasted it. His expression was priceless.

And then he cried. And yelled, "It's mashed potatoes!" And then he cried louder.

But he got over it. And this year he's glad to know that instead of being on the receiving end of our April Fool's supper, he just needs to help me pull it off.

Jesse summed it up with this statement (while I was in the midst of a fit of giggles), "Mom, I don't think you've had this much fun in one day before."

And to hear Shoun say, after the meal was over, "Mum (I love how he says that), thank you for supper." Priceless.

Wordless Wednesday 10

Even more priceless would have been photos of the faces of each family member as he/she entered the dining room and found one of these Valentine hearts resting on each dinner plate. Just imagine:

The preschool girls with deep admiration and shrieks of delight for their wonderful mother and her excellent ideas.

The 10-year old boy looking a bit indecisive but definitely believing his mother is the sweetest person he's ever met.

The tween-age girl with an outward look of disbelief that her imperfect mother would even attempt such a feat, but inwardly cheering for such a great and perfect mom.

Two teen-age boys who couldn't have been any more extreme in their responses. One with a look that meant, "Seriously, Mom? Did you really have to do THIS? Have you not even considered what my friends would say if they saw this? Of course they will never see this because I'm going to eat it before there is any proof that I actually ate a hot dog cupid's heart for Valentine's Day dinner, but what IF?" (Please don't tell him that this idea was titled "Puppy Love" in the magazine) And another boy, who with a small smile wordlessly said, "I just love to see him get so upset about the little things. Thank you, my dear, loving mother, for antagonizing him so. You make my job of embarrassing him so much easier by the loving things you do."

And my love-struck husband who carved a small portion in his day to remember the holiday and to take me to breakfast, finishing the picture by emitting small chuckles every few minutes and with a look that said, "You are always so predictably unpredictable."

Or maybe he did actually say that.

Gotta love Family Fun magazine and their great holiday ideas.

And we finished the meal with Sweetheart Cupcakes from allrecipes.com. I'm not into buying boxed cake mixes but they had these creative red and pink surprise centers. And I just happened to find a box of yellow cake mix on the bent-and-dent discount table at Giant that morning. I did, however, make the icing from scratch. Wanting to give them a strawberry flavor I considered putting strawberry puree in the icing but since that would mean that I couldn't eat one due to allergies, I opted instead for Nesquick Strawberry powder. An experiment that worked quite well! It definitely helped to cover the boxed-mix taste of the dessert.

King Family Icing

Cream together:
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. shortening
1 c. butter or margarine
1 lb. powdered sugar

For strawberry flavored icing, add Nestle's Quick, Strawberry flavor. Don't ask me how much since I just dumped til it was tasty. Enjoy!

Who eats Grapenuts?

My favorite winter meal is soup and homemade bread. Better yet is soup that's been in the crockpot all day so the smell is permeating the house. Start baking the bread, and the whole house is ready for dinner. It's even better if there's snow on the ground and a fire in the fireplace. But seeing as only God can supply the first and we don't have the latter, most times I have to do without the atmosphere. Thankfully, this week's meal plan has soup scheduled for tonight - and there's still snow on the ground. I guess I could sit in front of Andrew's Mac and light the fireplace app for the full effect. Or not.

Tonight's soup du jour is Vegetable Bean. Mmmm. I can't wait! I know at least one child who will be going to bed with her belly a little on the empty side. Oh well. That's her choice. She just doesn't know what good food is.

And the bread tempting us with its aroma tonight is Grapenuts Bread. You knew there had to be a good use for Grapenuts cereal (other than breaking your teeth), didn't you? A wonderful cook from our previous church brought this to us along with a home cooked meal after the birth of one of the King kids. Sorry I can't remember which one. They all just run together after time. Remembering which kid had just been born is the problem; I remember who made the bread. It was Mary Hange and we're still enjoying Mary's excellent recipe. Be prepared to eat it warm, just out of the oven; it's just not as good the next day. If you think you're going to have any trouble with that, just give us a call; we'll be right over. Not tonight, though, we have just 23 minutes to go for our own loaves. Better get started so you, too, can enjoy it tonight.

Oh, you don't have soup simmering in the crockpot? Nor do you just happen to have Grapenuts on hand? Ah, that's too bad.

Grapenuts Bread

1 c. Grapenuts cereal
2 c. buttermilk
Pour buttermilk over cereal and let sit.

4 c. flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. sugar (I use a little less but don't tell my family)
Mix together and add to the Grapenuts mixture.

2 eggs, slightly beaten
4 tsp. butter or margarine
Mix together and add to the rest of the ingredients.

Put in 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Hot Chocolate

I don't drink hot chocolate; as a general rule I don't eat chocolate. Period. However, my children drink hot chocolate on a regular basis in the cold months. So about once a week I find myself mixing up the secret family recipe to keep our pantry stocked. I didn't realize our hot chocolate habit was so unusual until a friend of Andrew's said, "That's hot chocolate? We just get these little packets that you empty into a mug."

What do you know? How simple. But I just can't break tradition. I'm still using the same recipe my mother made for us so many moons ago.

I have no idea where the recipe originated. All I know is that it's what my mom made every year and so did most of the ladies at church. It was served in the church fellowship hall after Christmas caroling, at Mt. Top with church friends after sledding all day, and in my home after shoveling.

We like to say it's healthier and cheaper than the bought packets but I don't know that anyone ever tested it. And is hot chocolate ever healthy?

But this week I found a new use for our hot chocolate: Valentine's cards.

I was never a big fan of the store-bought, just-add-name version of said cards so we always make our own. One year we stuck oranges in a bag, added a "Orange you glad we're Valentine's?" note and voila!, a Valentine. We've also taped Snickers onto card stock with a note reading, "Valentine, you make me laugh." So it was back to the drawing board when the little girls needed Valentine cards for their Tap and Clap class.

First, we made the hot chocolate, easy enough. Here's the no-longer-secret family recipe:

1 quart dried powdered milk
1 box Nestle Nesquik Chocolate Flavor (21.8 oz.)
6 oz. CoffeeMate
1 c. powdered sugar

Mix it all together. (My apologies to all my friends who prefer recipes that come with video instructions. I haven't been able to talk Andrew into making a video of me making hot chocolate)

To make your hot chocolate, put a heaping 1/3 cup of mix into a mug and fill to the top with boiling water. My family also likes to pour hot water only 3/4 of the way full, then add warm or cold milk to fill.

Next we poured the mix into little treat bags, added a few marshmallows and chocolate chips,

stapled on a note saying, "You warm me up, Valentine," , included the directions, and we were done.
Apparently it's so easy you can make it while wearing your ballet leotard.

Kid-friendly, but not necessarily sanitary. Caught!