I decided to let my Gratituesday post become my “here’s what we ate on Monday post”. Why? Because feeding my family is fun for me. Because I think it’s important to be grateful for all of the “little” things in life – like food – that we don’t typically give much thought to each day. And because I’m thankful for all of the variety God has provided. (Let’s all give a big hooray for the fact that we don’t have to eat a diet exclusively of manna and quail for 40 years straight, eh?)  So here we go:

I was the first one awake this morning (as is typical) and was ready to get started making blueberry pancakes when Elias, usually the first boy of the house to wake up, joined me in the kitchen. He had received a “Snacks on a Stick Maker” for Christmas, which has been so much fun to play with. Since we hadn’t tried pancakes on a stick yet, he asked if we could try it this morning. Sure? Why not. ;)  (By the way, I didn’t have any fresh blueberries so decided to use freeze dried berries that I’d bought from Vitacost. These worked great!)

Well, the “pancakes on a stick” turned out to be a big hit with the whole family. However, making breakfast this morning took approximately two hundred hours. The machine only makes six at a time, and the boys could all eat about that many per minute. I cranked them out as fast as I could, while reading Bible to the boys and getting them started on their other assignments for the morning.

Check out our mis-matched drinking glasses. Being the same would be so boring, don’t you think?

I thought the blueberry pancakes on a stick turned out especially pretty.

After a morning filled with world history, math, laundry, and answering a few emails – I started making our lunch of Chicken and Noodles with carrots. While it was cooking, I mixed up the Bbq meatballs which were to be our dinner. I was also planning to take dinner to our friends who just had a baby! Four pounds of hamburger later, our meatballs were put into the fridge, ready to bake at dinner time. (My meatball recipe is in this ebook.)

I finished up our lunch, “cheating” just a little bit by using purchased whole wheat fettuccini noodles. Ya can’t make noodles without eggs – and I had used the last of mine in the meatballs. :)  I also rewarmed some homemade cabbage rolls (recipe coming to you soon) to help make the soup stretch a little farther.

To help clean out the fridge, and to add more nutrients, I threw some leftover peas into my soup. Yum!

Not surprisingly, we still needed to stretch our lunch to fill the boys. A jar of this summer’s applesauce to the rescue!

After lunch I got out a few frozen cookie dough balls I had made a while ago and baked them to take to our friends tonight. 

Apparently this move was a little bit cruel since I only made enough cookies to take to our friends, and didn’t make enough for our kids. (The poor little dears had to settle for the leftover fudge brownies I had made a few days ago.)

Sometime mid-afternoon as the boys were wrapping up their school work for the day, I had them head into the kitchen to take turns scrubbing potatoes for dinner. Elias and I left to pick up a few things at the store – including jeans for his ever-growing long legs. 

In the meantime, Matt got the meatballs and potatoes into the oven to bake for dinner. When we got home, all the boys unloaded the van while I made green beans and packed up the food to deliver to our friends. I was blessed to have a wonderful visit with them while I held their new baby. Bliss!

When I got home, we sat down to eat our own dinner. Not only had Matt baked the potatoes and meatballs for me, he had put a spaghetti squash into the oven. What a great addition to our meal!

And there you have it. I mostly followed my meal plan, with several additions and adaptations to round everything out and to fill up the boys. Plus, why make pancakes when you can make pancakes on a stick (and kill two hundred hours of your morning)?! :) 

God is good. Food is fun. Thanks for letting me share!

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