Meals this week have been pretty haphazard. The best time for me to work in the yard and the garden is after the big kids get home from school. This allows the little girls to wander in and out of the house without me having to follow them around keeping an eye on them. The big kids can help with the watching. With the days being lighter later, I lose track of time or I just want to get one more area weeded or planted, etc. When I walk back in the house, it is way past dinnertime and everyone is hungry and cranky. In the interest of getting dinner on the table quickly I have just thrown together whatever is fastest and easiest without a lot of care or thought. Thursday I didn't even do that but left for the school with William for an almost forgotten meeting. As I ran out the door I told the big kids to fend for themselves and to please feed the little girls too. I think dinner that night mostly consisted of cereal.
Today, I actually took the time to prepare dinner before church. I put together a meatloaf and a large pan of scalloped potatoes. I put them into the oven and set the delay timer so that it would all be cooked perfectly when we walked back in the door. I would have just enough time to put together a salad and cook a vegetable while the kids set the table. In the perfectly planned image in my mind everyone pitched in happily together. Lauren and Steven got the plates and cups off the higher shelves while William gathered the silverware out of the drawer. Sarah would have been getting the drinks and condiments out of the fridge and they all would have lovingly let their little sisters assist them. My imagination had us all sitting down to a lovely Sunday dinner with smiles and our best manners.
Somehow reality always manages to crowd into our perfect fantasies.
It started out alright. We walked in the door from church to a wonderful aroma. Even my pickiest eaters thought that it smelled good enough to eat. (The fact that they had been fasting didn't hurt that perception.) I am always happy to get compliments rather than complaints when it comes to dinner. Rachel hurried to the kitchen because she likes to claim the right to help with the salad. I asked the rest of the kids to get the table set so that we could eat. So far, so good. Then I opened the oven. WHAT?!?
The scalloped potatoes were not the bubbling golden cheesy goodness that I expected but were a very solid dark brown almost black mass. The meatloaf more closely resembled the very inedible hockey puck. Black, dry and hard. How can something smell so good and look so awful? I looked at my options and tried to salvage it. No luck. I did manage to scrape some potatoes from the middle of the pan but they were mushy and had a tinge of burnt taste to them. We would have had to be a lot hungrier than we were to make the meatloaf appetizing. So much for the well planned meal. I was back to square one with a very hungry household and a very poorly stocked pantry as I was too busy Saturday to go grocery shopping.
You can tell what happened next can't you? Hungry cranky kids and a frustrated mom trying to come up with something else on the spot. Mix in a little disappointment over not getting the wonderful meal we were expecting and tempers got the best of more than one of us. So much for the tranquil reflective Sunday dinner of my dreams. Two kids sent to their rooms later, dinner did get on the table and it wasn't awful but it wasn't great either. I mean sometimes we have breakfast for dinner on purpose but not when our mouths were already watering for something else.
William made me promise to make scalloped potatoes later this week. I checked my schedule. Thursday may be the day to make the perfect family dinner. I can already see it in my mind...
He was able to attend his first Den Meeting on Wednesday evening. The theme was bike safety so he got the bike he was supposed to get for his birthday a few days early. Here he is ready to go to scouts except for the lack of shoes and a bike helmet. As you can see, he is one happy boy.
There are no smiles in the next photo. He was not as sullen as he looks but he has an image to maintain. He got scriptures which were not on his list of wants (they are likely to make him feel sick too). The redeeming feature was the orange scripture case that came with them. Now he has a way to carry a pencil and paper with him to church so he doesn't have to count on his mother to bring that kind of entertainment for him (she is unreliable in that way). As a bonus feature, nobody is accidentally going to take his scriptures home with them.
and a studly, lumberjack pose once the tree came down. A little more chopping and we had a small pile of wood for the fireplace and a trailer load of greens to recycle at the dump. 
Lauren had an 80's dance that night at the church. We had fun recreating an 80's look. We took her long straight hair and curled it in tiny pin curls all over her head to give her a permed look. I think that we did a pretty good job imitating some 80's mall hair. She wore a Georgio Kauten skirt (for those who will recognize the brand) that I still had from that decade. She looked good enough to get into the top five for the contest they had. Unfortunately we were hurrying so much that I did not get a good picture of her before she left. 
Steven is pretty happy to get a chance to try out his fishing poles again. We didn't catch anything but I don't know if there is much in this lake at this time of year. He was just happy to be able to try for something. I will have to find out where there are fish around here so that he can actually catch something.
William and his class at school prepared a Night at the Museum for the parents to enjoy. They had exhibits of their animal projects that they did a month ago. William created a piranha. He has been wanting me to put his piranha on my blog but we forgot to take a picture before it went to school. Here is a photo of the piranha trying to bite his ear off. Notice the terror on his face. He should be afraid, those teeth really are sharp. If you have any burning questions about piranhas or are planning a trip to the Amazon this year, give William a call, he has learned a lot and would be happy to share what he knows.
Sarah's class went to a Medieval Fair on Friday. She and I went to Salvation Army and found a long dress that she could wear. The one we found that we thought would work needed some adjusting. After spending two days putting in sleeves and adjusting the length, etc. I think that it would have been easier just to start from scratch. The dress was only a shift with two seams in it to start. I could have made it just as easily and then it would have fit her better. Oh well. After the time that we took to get it manageable, Sarah got car sick on the bus on the way to the fair. She threw up on the dress and ended up carrying it in a bag the whole day instead of wearing it anyway. Too funny! She thinks that she will wear it for Halloween though so it is not a total loss. At least I won't have to help with a new costume then.
And her hair was really cute. We put in some braids and twisted it up. It looked good all day.
And the best part (for Rachel anyway) was that Sarah brought a crown home for her to wear. Just the thing for a little girl who likes to play princess. And she is a wonderful princess who shares the crown with her little sister very well.
Between the other happenings I managed to get the garden planted this week. It is a small one but hopefully we can expand it each year. There has not been a garden in this yard so it was enough work to get a small one started this year. We planted tomatoes, zuchinni, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers and patty pan squash. Hopefully I can get some beans in too but I have to clear another area to put those in. 
