Dinner

I'm big on dinnertime. Or at least I try to be. I try new stuff all the time make a lot of different things. I feed my kids and if there is somebody else around I'll feed them too.

Ahh, domesticity, how I love thee! There is nothing that floats my boat more than having a bunch of kids at my house and being able to ask if anyone wants some homemade just-out-of-the-oven cookies or watching my children eat something that they are enjoying and I know is good for them. (With John this is not often. As in pretty close to never. He won't eat anything I make and it makes me crazy.)

I try to remember that people get hungry after a long day of work/school and we are not just feeding their bodies but their spirits and we are connecting as a family and kids who eat dinner with their families are 432% less likely to do drugs--or something like that. But really for me it just means, hey April, don't just make dinner, turn off the TV and give your kids your attention. So I had this saying that I really like made for the kitchen.

My kids like to tell me it is cannibalistic, but I actually went to a class titled "What your kids really want for dinner is You" at Women's Conference so I know I'm not the only one who gets it. It's like my personal kitchen mantra, which is good to have because I spend a lot of time in there.

Does this mean we never eat dinner in shifts parked in front of the TV? I keep working on it but unfortunately not. Gathering all the kids together from the four corners of the earth for dinner at six is not easy--even when they have been told repeatedly to BE HOME BY SIX. I have seriously considered making the younger kids wear watches with an alarm that goes off at 5:55 because you can bet that even if I've seen them for the past 3 hours when 6pm comes they are no where to be found. If only I could figure out how to set a watch . . .

I also recently decided I was weary of the constant "what's for dinner" coming from six different hungry people everyday. You would think that someone maybe possibly would overhear me telling someone else--but that never happens. And I don't always have to desire to explain what kind of chicken I'm making over and over. Just chicken okay?

So I bought a little magnetic white board to write down the dinner plan and posted it on the fridge. It has worked out great. The kids have really liked it and if I forget somebody will frequently write it in for me.

Then sometimes I start with something like "roast and baked potatoes"
and end up with this:

But seriously, I'm going to be so sad when they are past this age
:(