My Birthday

For birthdays at our house, we let the birthday person pick the dinner menu.  However, when it is my birthday, my kids have interpreted it to mean that they pick their favorite of what they think are mom's favorite foods.  I think it is cute so I let them all order up their LONG lists of foods.  Then I pick from what is in the freezer or what "shows up".  (Everything marked with an asterisk below was donated to us today or recently.  Sometimes I use donations to "pretend" that I am on a show like "Iron Chef", but today's blessings went together fairly easily.  Needless to say, I am very thankful for the opportunity and blessing of being challenged to make meals out of free food!)

Tonight's dinner ended up being meatloaf, salmon (which I have had hidden in the freezer for months), mushroom* brown rice, squash*, steamed artichokes* with balsamic dip, baked potatoes* (baked in the crock pot), french bread* and Cowboys "clearance" cupcakes*!  Salmon is one of the kids' favorites, but since it is pricey we only have it every several months so they were especially thrilled!

The kids (except Corrine) were home from school today on a cold weather school closing day.  Some of my children do not deal well with unplanned changes of routine so it was a long day of being asked millions of times if we can go to school. The fact that Corrine got to go to school while they stayed home made the day even harder for them.  My husband got me roses for my birthday, which is a rare treat (like 4th time in 16 years), and it was very nice to have them for comfort as I SLUGGED my way through the meltdowns, demands, snacks, lunch, snacks, demands, meltdowns, dinner prep....of the day.  Snow days are harder than the weekend for us since these snow days "sneak up" on us.  Also there was no snow/ice today, and this made it even harder for them to understand why they weren't doing what they usually do on Thursday.  Plus I think having this school week start on Tuesday (since Monday was teacher's meetings) had already confused their schedules.  

So when everyone was pleased with my birthday dinner and cupcakes, then that made me very happy with my day! (And now baths are done and everyone is snug in their beds...the day seems like it wasn't that bad.)