Gourmet

During yet ANOTHER week off (totally not complaining, but between snow and Christmas, I've worked only 4 1/2 days in the last five weeks!), I finally got down to business and made a menu and cooked real food for supper every night. It's rough to spend every day lying around in your pajamas, having Pinterest parties with yourself, playing Kinect with your fam, and then muster up enough energy to cook a healthy dinner. But I rallied, and we had some good grub this week. Until tonight. Ryan was at a hunt for the evening, so it was just the boys and I. Usually on nights like this, we make brinner, since Daddy's not a big fan of breakfast food. But I had also taken to making real breakfast the last three days. This may have been a subconscious penance for what occurred earlier in the week--an occurrence that I am 99.9% sure hasn't happened since Reed was born.

I slept past 10:00 on two occasions! Once it was closer to 11 than 10! I blame it on our boys being so self-sufficient. I recently rearranged the living room a bit and now the DVD player is low enough that Reed can operate it. Since they get a morning movie on the weekends and snow days = weekends in my book, the boys have been occupied for at least two hours after they wake up. They also get one video game turn, and their habit is to hit the Wii right after their morning movie credits roll. They set the timer for their turn and everything. The two talls don't always need help with breakfast, but if they do, it's always at least 2 1/2 hours after they wake up. Max usually wants a "snack" during the movie. We did have bagels and yogurt on hand, but a couple of mornings he brought me crackers and a bowl, and I thought, "What the heck?" and filled 'er up. But it only took a couple of days losing my most productive hours and waking up just about in time to make lunch to make me kick myself in the butt and set an alarm for the next day. The boys had used up all the oatmeal and were getting tired of their other breakfast go-to's, so I made our three fav breakfasts the next three days.

So, tonight, I invented snupper: snack-supper. Tonight's fare included apple and pear slices, cheese, cottage cheese, and the piece de' resistance: season-yo-own popcorn. I made a huge pot of popcorn on the stove and served it in "grown-up bowls" for the boys to flavor themselves with three new seasonings I bought (part of Ryan's and my plan to eat healthier snacks in the evening). You woulda thought I had Chuck E. Cheese come cater a party at our house! The boys wooped and hollered, complimented the food, ate like champs, and thanked me for "cooking so much good food!" Ha!  They literally licked their bowls clean. If I woulda known they were this easy to please, I would've skipped brinner and encouraged Ryan to go to a few more hunts!

I just read over this post and realized how LAZY I am I must sound! If I'm honest, I'm slightly dreading going back to the crazy life on Monday. A lot of friends are saying their kids are driving them nuts, but I just sleep through my kids' day our kids have been pretty great this month. I think a return to work is for the best, though. If we maintain the status quo, my kids will soon be malnourished and I'll be 300 pounds!

Let the Hunt Begin

Be still, my beating heart. I just watched my two bigs walk down the road with their handsome daddy and their coonhound pup, Shaky. Sporting mud boots, they skipped down the road shouting about the moon and the stars and the spaceship that Calvin "sighted," blue and green glow-stick/flashlight bouncing around excitedly.

This is so poignant for so many reasons. My boys have an amazing Daddy. They're old enough to be hunting. We live out in this gorgeous place where they can just walk out the door and into the woods. But most of all, my husband is finally realizing a dream.

Ryan has been an avid coonhunter since his own grandpa took him at age five. He always pictured taking his own kids out to the woods like Grandpa Calvin did for him so many times. But, since having kids, he's slowly backed away from a hobby that used to consume him - and take him out on average five nights a week. I can't remember the last time he hunted. We used to have anywhere from five to 15 hounds. Until recently, we had one.

When an old hunting buddy called him, wanting to make good on money he owed Ryan from a way-back deal by giving him a pup, Ryan agreed and decided that this pup would be the boys'. I'll admit, I have mixed emotions about the dog. She's beautiful and the boys love her. But part of her "training" is letting her run loose until she's past the pup stage so Shaky has free reign of our yard.  She's super-affectionate, which is sweet if you're a loving boy. Not so sweet if you're a baby just learning to walk outside in shoes. Or a mom running late for work and wearing white pants. Or enjoying some "me" time by soaking up some rays in the backyard. She likes to get into the van with the boys. And into the old hardware-store bins that are a catch-all on our front porch. And the kitty food bowl, which we hide on top of the grill, but she still noses down. And the neighbor's field, where she found a dead skunk carcass to deliver to our porch. But her most annoying habit is stealing stuff we leave lying around. She runs off with toys, sippy cups, scrap buckets, ball gloves, garden tools, socks, and, especially, shoes. She will wait for the boys to get on the trampoline and then come over and sniff out shoes. No matter how high they hang them in the nearby plum tree, she finds a way to nudge them down. She even removed Max's shoe while he giggled in his stroller. She immediately runs with her finds, usually to chew on them a short distance away. She eventually stashes them back by our other dog houses. I can't count the number of times we've chased her town (or Calvin has sneak-attacked her) or had to raid her hoard for a missing shoe. But she's almost grown now which means it'll soon be time to tie her up AND it's time for her to start hitting the woods.

Ryan hunted the camera down 10 minutes before it was time to leave. This is significant for two reasons: 1) Ryan doesn't do anything until it has to be done, and 2) Ryan doesn't take pictures. But he wanted a picture of him, his boys, and their dog. I think he thought this might be the picture we look back on years from now as the night that "started it all." I hope he's right...