How We Eat When the Kids Are Gone

(This post is not entirely true as my sweet honey took me to The Olive Garden tonight for a delicious 2 for $25 meal of never-ending bread sticks and salad, fried calamari, pork and beef ravioli, spaghetti and meatballs, and smoked mozzarella chicken. Yum!)

We try to eat at least one nice meal alone at home on weekends when we're kid-free. Here's what we ate last time:

~an artichoke slathered in butter and steamed in vinegar water
~homemade dip of butter, sour cream, mayo, garlic salt, and lemon pepper
~baked tilapia, crusted with seasoned, whole wheat crumbs
~kale chips, made by baking kale with drizzles of EVOO and sprinkled with sea salt
~blueberries
~herb & butter mashed potatoes

Man, the kids missed out ...

On second thought, when I read through the list with the palate of a child, maybe they would be happy they were gone!

Tips for Large Families--Size-wise, not Weight-wise

Hey, since I'm attempting to be a regular blogger again--did you notice I've posted every other day for a whole week? Didja? Didja?--I'm planning to introduce a new blog series on things I've figured out that make mothering large families easier. See, I've been cooking, cleaning, and shopping for a family of seven for more than ONE WHOLE YEAR now, which obviously makes me an expert, right?

I have a few tips already planned, but what would you like to know? Laundry? Food storage? Food consumption? Toilet paper usage??? This is your chance to ask any question you've been wondering about.

My best friend, Brooke, came from a family of nine and I always wondered how her mom did it. In fact, I might have creeped Maureen out by watching for clues whenever I was over there. I mean, they ate more than a loaf of bread in one lunch! :)

So have at it. As a prompt, I'll add a photo of our kids that might raise some questions.


Yes, we went out in public like that and, No, it was not Halloween ...

Chasing Sunsets by Eva Marie Everson

Buy it

I'm not going to pressure myself by calling this an actual "review," so I'm just going to tell you what I thought about this book, okay?

I've read several, if not many, of Eva's books--she was the FIRST coaching class teacher I had at OCW way back eight or nine years ago--and this is my favorite so far. The writing is rich, the scenery lush and humid and alive. There's sadness, romance, mystery, faith ... and also the fallout of an unwanted divorce. Unless I blinked and missed them, there aren't many books written for the Christian market that focus on a divorced woman and the wooing of her injured heart. Having been through this myself, I found the emotions and hard situations incredibly true-to-life.

She also does some really different things with Point of View(POV) that worked. Quite often, when I'm editing and a client needs help with understanding POV, I'll give examples of books that do it well. I'm adding Chasing Sunsets to the list.

I did not want the book to end. In fact, I just might be downloading the next book in the Cedar Key series, Waiting for Sunrises. :)

Rice Counter: Strict or Scheduled?

Anyone else out there noticing something different about the last few weeks? Like a noisier house? More lunches to fix? Exuberant children with nothing to do?

Yep, it's definitely summertime.

I love the extra time with the kids, but with five to keep track of, I can tend to be too strict. Not so much in reality, but in my own head. The kids really are great, but at times I add stress where there doesn't need to be. The only one that suffers? Me.

So this year I'm going more for a loose schedule than a strict idea of what each day should look like. For instance, because nothing is harder than prying a sixth-grade boy off Minecraft, some days will be unlimited electronics. However, some days will be FREE of electronics. Most days will have the usual 1.5 hour limit per child. Even those lines blur: if one boy is watching the other play, does that count for his time or not?

Also, each day each child is expected to have outdoor time, 15 minutes of math, 30 minutes of reading (the Bible for some of it), and do their usual chores. Simply by asking them to fit these activities in, I'm guaranteeing they can't spend every moment begging for more computer time. They don't know it, but they're also stretching their time-management muscles. :)

One of my favorite sites for math work is freerice.com. For each question the kids answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to United Nations World Food Program. I'm now thinking of watching them read and adding a scoop of dinner to their plates as they turn a page ...

Any tips for how you handle having your lovely children home for the summer while keeping everyone learning, growing, moving, AND having fun?