dinner

Last nights dinner was a disaster. My bread bowls didn't turn out, I got carried away doing something else and the over rose and fell so they were more like disks. They tasted good but you couldn't put soup in them. We made sweat and sour meatballs instead. they were yummy.

I hope you don't see my lst post as patting myself on the back for cooking for my family. The studies that have been done said that family dinner was more about sitting down and talking than what you ate. I am not sure we did very good at the great dinner conversation last night either. Dallen got a whoopee cushion at school yesterday and all the little ones thought it was funny to put it on dad's seat every time he got up. After the third time we had it. Don't tell Dallen but we hid it with plans to get rid of it.

This is what I was doing when the rolls fell. It is a dish towel Apron. the dishtowel is Laura Ashley I loved the pink ribbon on the bottom and the flowers. All I had to do was cut part of it off sew it back on as a pocket and put a ribbon tie on it It was a very fast project only about 20 minutes and the towel was $3.

Family Dinner

I have been thinking a lot about dinner lately. My family eats together at the table at the same time more than 95% of the time. I make a meal for dinner. I do not just heat something up from Costco or make Mac and Cheese. I enjoy making dinner with my kids and the time that we spend talking and getting things ready. We set the table and all sit down together.

today I came across a radio tidbit about dinner that made me happy you can hear it here. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18753715

It basically says "The family dinner. About a decade ago, research started appearing on the family dinner, and the news was uniformly good. According to the scientists, children who ate with their families were less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, struggle with asthma, get depressed and have eating disorders. "

It did say that it was just not the act of sitting down to eat together but that you were more likely to have good conversation which lead to all the positive things. So whats for Dinner? We are having homemade Chicken soup in homemade bread bowls.

So mom how do you Kill eggs?

I told the kids if they cleaned the toy room we could Dye Easter eggs. I guess this upset Marissa a little because she came into the kitchen and asked "So mom how do you kill eggs?" She figured it out pretty fast and had a great time Dyeing the eggs.
Derek was very good at dying eggs. He even got creative and did half one color and half another.

Dallen is an old pro. the kids colored over 2 dozen eggs in just 15 minutes. WE had a great Easter weekend. We spent Saturday afternoon playing games then hunting for eggs at Grandma Thompson's.

Sunday we went to church then To the Shumway's to celebrate Grandpa Dales 77th birthday. Each family wrote a list of 77 memories of Grandpa. It was fun to celebrate and learn some favorite Memories of Grandpa.

marissa

Marissa is a Doll a great child she keeps me on my toes. She loves to play with friends take care of her baby brother and get in trouble. Most of the time the things she does to get in trouble are so funny it is hard to punish her.

Last Sunday Courtney(12) bought Marissa(4) out of Church and said "Marissa has to give a talk in primary next week. Her teacher cave her a reminder note but can't find it she thinks Marissa ate it." That is so typical of Marissa. She gave her talk yesterday and did a great job. She loved it so much she gave it again to Grandma, Grandpa, Danny and Natalie last night. She wanted to give it to the home teacher but could not find her pictures that went with it, and you have to have the pictures.

Last night we went to Danny and Natalie's. Marissa made her Wii person and when she was done she turned to Natalie and said "she is so pretty, just like me" (I wish I had her confidence)

Marissa had her kindergarten Physical so we could register her for School. She is in the 25% for Height and Weight. They think she might also need Glasses she tested 20/50.

Marissa will be in the afternoon class and have Mrs. Christensen. I hope she is ready for Marissa.

The toy eater

Isabel my sister-in-law told me her kids cleaned up their toys ever night because they were afraid of the toy monster eating their toys. I told Marissa the story and she said "your just telling me that to get me to clean up" so I googled the poem by shel silverstien and found and animation of him reading it. marissa started cleaning up so fast. She even made sure there were no extra toys downstairs. I think I might have to play this every night as a bed time story.

Here is the link to the animation and the words to the poem.
http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/books.asp?direct=true&directBook=falling&aniNum=1&aniEx=false
You don't have to pick up your toys, okay?
You can leave 'em right there on the floor,
So tonight when the terrible Toy-Eatin' Tookle
Comes tiptoein' in through the crack in the door,
He'll crunch all your soldiers, he'll munch on your trucks,
He'll chew your poor puppets to shreds,
He'll swallow your Big Wheel and slurp up your paints
And bite off your dear dollies' heads.
Then he'll wipe off his lips with the sails of your ship,
And making a burpity noise,
He'll slither away—
but hey, that's okay,
You don't have to pick up your toys.