What's For Dinner? Week 2

Sitting down with my family at the table for a meal is hands down my favorite time that we spend together.  It just feels good and right.  Up until Will was about 11 months old, I worked four 10-hour days at my job from 8-6:30, Tuesday-Friday.  But getting home at 7 was not very conducive to having family dinners at a reasonable hour (especially when Will was going to bed around 7:30 every night) and I wanted our new eater to have that routine and stability each day.  So I made the decision to forfeit my day off and switch to five "8's" Monday-Friday and have been getting home at 5:00 ever since. 

I love the ritual of gathering, praying, talking and eating together.  It is almost always the highlight of my day.  We talk about the "high's" and "low's" of our day.  We talk about recent happenings and upcoming events.  Craig is often joking with the kids and there is often laughter.

Lest you think our kids are perfect eaters, let me assure you that they are not.  Things are most definitely not always smooth and pleasant.  They whine and argue and spill milk.  They often complain about or refuse the main dish.  And, with Sophie at the age of new independence, we frequently have tantrums over climbing into the chair on her own and fastening the bib on her own, etc. but yet she whines for her daddy to get food onto her utensil for her and/or "feed her".  There are battles.

But! I count it all as totally worth it.  This is quality time tied to invaluable lessons!  With a few reminders, they are learning table manners.  They are developing language and learning to listen when someone is speaking.  (That is a BIG one that we're working on.)  And I almost always let it roll off my back when they refuse a dish.  They're being exposed to a variety and they're watching one or more of the rest of us enjoying the meal.  Inevitably there is something on their plate that they will eat and it's generally always healthy so I trust that they will eat and try new things when they are hungry and frequently exposed to a wide variety.

Totally worth it.

And now we are just a couple weeks away from another CSA season, complimented by LOTS of u-pick fruits and eventually foods from our garden.  Oh, how I love summer and all it's abundant bounty!

-------------------------------------------------------------

{Menu for May 5-11}

On Saturday morning, we "babysat" Mya & Stella for a few hours and I decided on Weelicious banana waffles to serve for breakfast.  Whenever I need to mash banana for a recipe, I love using my potato masher to get the job done easily.

Signing of the cross before our prayer.

This week, I had a serious craving for guacamole so I made one of my favorite meals to pair with it:  pulled pork tacos.  I LOVE how easy this meal is to prep in the crock pot... I hate shredding the meat later.  But it's so worth it.  We love this meal!

I made a big strawberry/pecan spinach salad with that poppyseed dressing again for Grandpa's 90th birthday party.  And we had leftovers through the week that actually kept quite nicely in a big Tupperware bowl.  So I served that as a side several nights.  Lasagna was another main dish this week.

Also not pictured are the cheeseburgers we did on the grill another night.

But ooh!  I tried these new cookies from Pinterest:  Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Pretzel Cookies!  They were delish!  I highly recommend.