Last night Laura asked if she could get up early and make waffles for breakfast. The idea sounded fine to me, so I told her it was a good possibility. But last night I did not sleep well, so I didn’t get up early this morning to help Laura get started on her breakfast project. I told her that we would plan on the waffles for lunch instead.

At lunch time I got out the cookbooks and started preparing to make waffles, when I realized that we have no eggs. Oops. No waffles after all. We talked about going to get eggs, and Isaac begged to be allowed to run to the corner grocery to get some eggs. But I wasn’t quite ready to do that. I sat on the couch for a minute to try to think about what to do. I decided that maybe we could do grilled cheese… but then I remembered that we have no cheese.

It was then that inspiration struck! I remembered a podcast that I listened to a few days ago, called “Munchcast“, where they talked about making Hobo pies on a campfire. They suggested using bread and ingredients for pizza. The idea translated perfectly into lunch using the ingredients I had on hand!

I hurried into the kitchen, pulled out bread, cream cheese, butter, pepperoni and spaghetti sauce. I fired up the griddle and then started assembling my sandwiches. The children always like to have a name for things, so I named this one “Grilled Pizza”. I put a nice thick layer of cream cheese on one slice of bread, and laid six slices of pepperoni on that. Then I spread a large spoonful of sauce on the other side of the bread and put the two pieces together. I spread soft butter on the top of the sandwich, laid it on the griddle (butter side down) and then quickly buttered the dry top side of the sandwich. After grilling both sides to a toasty brown, I served the first samples. It was a huge hit!!! I made sandwiches as fast as I could and everyone gobbled down all they could eat. There were repeated requests to be sure to make these again! Even the younger kiddos ate generous servings.

So, despite no eggs and no regular cheese, we had a lunch fit for a king. Thanks to “necessity” for being the mother of this invention!

Well, we spent a long weekend working hard on the siding project while almost totally neglecting the inside of the house, and it shows! Not only does it show that we put some serious effort into the outside of the house, but it shows that we didn’t do much to keep things clean on the inside of the house. So tomorrow I’m looking forward to staying inside and focusing on the interior needs of the house. That means the kids will need to do their chores more thoroughly, and it means I need to work through the laundry baskets stacked up at the foot of my bed, and it means that hopefully I’ll get a chance to finish working through the nursery and get it all sorted and decluttered. I have promised myself I will not don my paint clothes for at least a whole day. What a relief!

Today was a bit of a frustrating day, since we kept running into snags with our project. Boards would not go into place. We made mistakes with measuring and cutting. It was very hot and muggy. The children were not as helpful as they had been on other days. So at the end of the very long day when we finally quit and I was able to get into the shower, it was such a relief!

After we got some kids into bed, Michael and I headed out to run some errands. We stopped at Meijer first and found lots of beautiful fruit for good prices. Yum, yum!!! Then we went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and got sucked into buying a really cool Kitchenaid coffee grinder.  It was an unnecessary splurge, but I needed a coffee grinder and this looked like the best one there…so now we have it! Wanna stop by for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning?

One of the projects that has been waiting for a while to be completed is to repair the siding on the house where we shortened two windows in our kitchen project.  It’s one of those things that hasn’t made it to the top of the list, simply because it’s not crucial to our daily life.  It looks ugly, but it doesn’t get in our way.  However, now that we’re getting ready to move out and sell our house, it obviously needs to be done.

Michael spent his free time last week getting things ready for the big project.  He needed to shop for supplies, tear off the old siding, and figure out how to fiddle with the old-house peculiarities we always run into.  Finally we were ready to start the big work early Friday morning.

We put in two days of hard work, with every member of the family contributing to the effort. I was amazed at how competent the older children were, with their abilities to measure accurately, use the miter saw, paint, etc.  And the younger kids did their part with holding boards that were being cut, fetching things they had run off with, and picking up messes.  It was so interesting to have a big team of us all working together.  For so long it’s been Michael and me as the work team with kids just getting in the way.  Now we’re a much bigger team that doesn’t always need Michael or me involved in every step.

There is a new album in my gallery if you’d like to see a few photos of our weekend.  We will rest today, Sunday, and then put in another day on the siding tomorrow, hopefully finishing it up the rest of the way.  I’m so eager to paint it!

Judah has introduced our family to a new delicacy.  Today at lunch I served everyone beans with chopped hot dogs stirred in.  No one questioned the arrangement, except for Isaac who declared he didn’t like it.  But then I noticed that Judah had added two large pieces of banana to his dish.  I grabbed the banana out and just about dropped it into the trash, when it occurred to me that perhaps he wanted to eat bananas with his beans and weenies.  So I sliced up one of the banana halves and arranged the pieces in Judah’s bowl.  Personally, I wouldn’t be too excited about beans and bananas, but Judah thought it was just perfect.  Each bite I offered him had to have a little bit of hot dog, a little bit of banana and a few beans.  He ate most of his bowl before he was finally full.  Before I put his dish in the fridge for later consumption, I sliced the other banana half and dropped it in.  I guess it must taste better than it sounds.  Care to try some?