Merry Easterween! (A Dinnertime Tale)

Today was an overly ambitious day I think.  Spring does that to a body.  Today my mother and I grocery shopped (twice - we forgot some stuff the first time), made bread, made a full on turkey dinner with fancy pants dressing and lemon dessert, let the kids paint, made invitations for Ivy's 1st birthday party, played Blokus and even got the slaves, I mean children, to do some cleaning.  Bazinga!  Yes, you may call us the dynamic duo.

And what does turkey dinner make you think of?  Thanksgiving of course, and what comes after Thanksgiving?  Christmas of course.  So I decided today was as good a day as any to send out my 2010 Christmas cards.  Better late than never, right?  And the kids school and dance pics that had been collecting dust on top of my refrigerator.  Bazinga!  A little Easter suprise in the mail for the grandparents, thank you very much.



As we bustled and baked and created, the little hellions, I mean children, orbited around us and we had some "quality time".

And by "quality time" I mean that Violet helped us cook and the boys tantrumed and threatened to run away but then were drawn into in a deep discussion about exactly how and why one might run away.  And what exactly the consequences of that might be, legally and domestically and biologically (being that it is supposed to get down to 30 degrees overnight tonight).  At what point would a person get grounded, freeze to death, get the cops called on the, or get hauled off to juvie?  What is juvie?  Couldn't we please just run away for fun and then come back and not get in trouble?  We'd only go a couple of miles and be back tomorrow morning Mom, we promise.  No kids, you don't get to run away for a day with no negative repercussions unless I do too.


The dressing was fairly impressive, though you can't tell it from the picture so much.  Actually the picture looks pretty nasty.  The blackish stuff is bacon and shiitake mushrooms and sauted onion.  Yum.

Not, actually, quite as good as Grandma's famous sage sausage dressing, but it's tasty and it's gluten free if you make it with gluten free cornbread (which we did).  If you want to try it out, here's the recipe.  We used Pamela's cornbread in place of the Jiffy cornbread they suggest.


Despite the fact that Miss Ivy was having one of the worst days of her life - sleepless, crabby, teary eyed, clingy - I still got to eat it hot because my mummy fixed a plate for me and cut up my meat.  I could eat one-handed and Ivy could nurse her sorrows away.  Thanks Mom.  I love you.   Thanks also to the Ergo baby carrier company for allowing me to flaunt my mad culinary skills despite having a baby cutting five teeth at once. 



After dinner Mitchell requested a family meeting so we all said one thing we liked about our family and one thing we wished could be improved.  I like family meetings.  We have to remember to do them more often.  The kids really get a kick out of them too.  They like having a talking piece which we pass around and whoever holds it commands the attention of the room.  Our usual talking piece is a small plastic bust of Tchaikovsky, but we were all to turkey laden to get up and get it so today we used a butter knife.

Good things about our family:  We play games together, we cook together, we go fun places like the community expo, we enter drawings.

Things to improve:  Showing respect for each other, cleaning up after ourselves - especially Daddy's bathroom habits, or alternately, do less cleaning (Henry's request).

Our kitchen extravaganza went a little late into the evening, so after dinner all little children were tucked in bed with the promise of lemon bars for breakfast.  I can't comment on the success of the lemon bars because I misread the recipe and put them in a 9x9 pan instead of a 9x13 so they were a little too thick and didn't seem to set right.  We'll chill them till tomorrow and then check 'em, and eat 'em either way because there are about 2 cups of sugar in there so despite the firmness, they should be tasty.

After the kids were tucked in bed we sampled our gluten free bread (also not done in time for dinner - I claimed I had mad culinary skills, not time management skills).  VERY easy and tasty - if you have a breadmaker you can give it a try yourself instead of paying five bucks a loaf for Udi's (the ONLY tasty gluten free bread we've found so far).

What a day!

Well, Clockwork Steampunk Kitty and I need to get to bed now and do the crossword before we turn out the lights.

Wait, what, who?

You know, Clockwork Steampunk Kitty.  The upcycled artwork from collageOrama that will be part of my Earth Day giveaway on the 22nd.

Oooohhhhhh yeahhhhh...  THAT Clockwork Steampunk Kitty.

Well goodnight all - see you HERE on the 22nd!  Tell your friends! (cuz blog posts and facebook posts directing people to the giveaway will be another way to earn entries)

BAZINGA!