Here’s another cross-post from our food blog, an entry from my Cooking with Kids series, which I like to call “I got 99 problems, but a meal ain’t one.”

Like I said, I’m here all week, folks …

When I was a kid, I hated the nights my parents said we were having sandwiches for dinner. It just sounds boring, doesn’t it?

Of course, now that I’m an adult, I actually look forward to sandwiches sometimes; they’re quick and easy and very versatile.

To keep things entertaining, on sandwich nights I try to engage the kids by bringing in an interesting element or having them help with dinner.

Giving them choices

When I was a younger mother, I belonged to a now-defunct message board for mothers. I learned so much about motherhood from that site, but one lesson I use constantly is to pick your battles with your children. They want to have power and control over themselves, just like adults; an easy way to do that is to give them choices and let them make their own decisions (or let them think they are – parenting is just trickery with a more sophisticated name).

To be clear, just in case this is your first visit, I inherited the part of my father that dislikes being a short-order cook. Just like him, I don’t do it. I decide what we’re having for dinner and if you don’t like it, you either shut your mouth and eat or you go hungry.

My pickiest eater, Emma, was taught by her former teacher, “You get what you get and you don’t fuss a bit.” (Ironic considering she usually does the fussing. lol.)

My dad? Well, he’s famous for saying, “This ain’t Mickey D’s!” That will probably go on his headstone.

I usually always stick to this mentality, but sometimes I’ll give them choices. Sandwich nights are always DIY Dinners, meaning you choose what you eat, so they’re already hooked.

Can I take your order?

Last week we had a Lunchbox Dinner – sandwiches, Cheez-Its, string cheese and juice boxes served in their lunchboxes. It went over very, very well!

This week I decided to bring back an idea we tried a few months ago: child labor. I mean, role-playing.

Jaiden, who turns eight in 10 days, enjoys playing waitress and has pretended to run a little restaurant serving snacks several times. Tonight she donned one of my aprons, read the rest of the family our menu (with sandwich options, sides and drinks) and took their orders. Once the cook, which would be moi, finished making the plates, Jaiden also served them.

Not only does this make dinner fun and more enjoyable, but it gives children a sense of pride, self-confidence and makes them feel important when they help.

“It’s fun asking everybody’s order … what they want to drink, what they want on their sandwich, it’s just really fun to be a waitress,” Jaiden said. “Bringing the food out is fun and carrying it up high is fun.”

The other children were jealous and are eagerly awaiting their turn, but having their big sister wait on them was still fun.

“It’s fun because I can choose whatever I want that’s on the list,” Jaylen, 6.5, said. He’s often particular about what he eats and is the one who, of all four children, most enjoys having choices. He also enjoys having his sister do things for him once in awhile. “I didn’t have to do everything, I don’t have to get my napkins or my own drink.”

Jenna, who’s four, apparently sees a more compassionate side of her older sister at times like these.

“She’s giving us a lot of good food and good drinks and let us do good things, like coming in her room.” (Because, honestly, that’s what this is all about: going in Jaiden’s room without a fight.)

Waiting on her brother, sister and father also gives Jaiden lessons in paying attention to details and proverbial foot-washing (serving others).

“When you’re doing it, you have to know the right food and give them the right food,” she said. “And you have to do what they ask, like if they want a refill, give them a refill.”

Sounds pretty simple, right?

(I’m cross-posting this from our food blog, Daylicious, because I thought it was worth sharing.)

Last month Dara earned her masters degree (in library science) and to celebrate, the whole fam had a graduation dinner at Mi Tierra in San Antonio.

This is probably one of the worst family-at-a-table photos ever, but the waiter didn’t understand English, much less my dSLR. Poor Nina is blinking, my mother-in-law is hiding behind Nina’s head and Emma is barely visible. Starting from the left side: Isaac, Echo, Jaylen, Grandma Texas, Grandpa Texas, Jim (Darin & Dara’s stepdad), Jaiden, Emma, Darin, Jenna, Carrie (Darin & Dara’s mom), Nina (their cousin) and the graduate (Dara).

I can see why Dara loves this place: the food is FANTASTIC! And so is the atmosphere.

I’m not a tequila fan, so I don’t normally drink margaritas, but I drank probably four or five that night. And those enchiladas! Mmm.The best ever. But you already knew that.

Authenticity always beats imitation. And now I hate eating at even my favorite Mexican joint here in Tennessee because it sucks in comparison.

While on vacation in San Antonio we pretty much developed a habit of eating Texas BBQ at lunch and Mexican for dinner. We made it a point to try not to eat something we could get at home and we only (kinda) broke that rule once (we had dinner at Chick-Fil-A one night when we met up with my friend and her family). In all fairness, we can’t technically get Chick-Fil-A here, we have to drive 40 minutes to Bartlett to get it, so I guess we succeeded in that goal.

We had Taco Cabana most often. It was close to the hotel, cheap and definitely delicious.

I wish we had Taco Cabana here. I wish we had any decent Mexican place here. Handmade tortillas are awesome (and I always ask for some when someone I know visits south Texas). Store-bought just can’t compare.

We also ate a lot of Texas barbeque (brisket). I come from the East Coast (Carolina barbeque!), they come from Texas and we all now live near Memphis, so we’ve all had our share of barbeque, along with our opinions of what’s best. I’ll save that for another day, but let’s just say it’s not Memphis.

When you go on vacation what rules do you set for eating out? Do you enjoy lavish dinners or grab fast food?

My mom says it’s time for an update, so here we go …

1. Sports are killing me – and I’m just a spectator. Well, kinda. Cheerleading has finally wrapped (whew!) and last week all four children started soccer. We have practices on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (until games start in a couple of weeks).

At the last minute, Darin was asked to coach in the beginners league, the 3-4 age group, and so he and our friend coach Jenna and Emma’s team. At Saturday’s practice there were a few meltdowns and once one or two start crying, it’s pretty much a wave of tears! Ha ha.

Lucky me, I’m team mom of all three teams. Gulp.

Games start in a few weeks and it looks like we’ll be spending quite a bit of time on the field, thankfully it’s pretty close.

Darin is also playing sports – basketball, softball and soccer. All at the same time. Basketball will end in April, then the men’s softball league starts. I swear he’s keeping me busier than the kids do.

One of these days I hope my family cheers me on like I do for them. That would be awesome.

2. The weather is getting more awesome by the day. The temperatures have dipped here and there, but today it was 71 degrees and beautiful. This makes practices and games more bearable, especially for the children who aren’t practicing/playing because they get to play at the playground (yay!). And that never gets old, apparently.

My allergies haven’t bothered me yet. I’m surprised by this because usually by the end of February I am entirely too miserable. I’ve been advised that taking a teaspoon of local honey (that is, honey produced within 20-30 miles of your home) can help with seasonal and nasal allergies (do you say it in the bee’s voice from the commercial like I do? lol). I’ve tried it. I don’t know if it helps, but I have yet to take my usual Claritin, Mucinex or anything else. I don’t even have any allergy medicine, come to think of it.

3. Not being miserable makes being outside tolerable. And I like tolerable. Because I can do things like playing with my new 50mm lens (used in the flower photos). The above photo was taken after I shot my first wedding of the season – and my first wedding as a pro! That was awesome. I’ve shared some of those photos over on the photog blog.

4. Jaiden is now in the gifted program at school. She’s terribly excited about it and I’m really proud of and for her. Her IQ is 119 according to the testing conducted by the school. She will now attend a special class for two hours every week (one hour per day on Tuesday and Thursday). Last week I had a meeting with her teacher and the special education staff; it was great to hear the teacher say so many great things about Jaiden and give me a little glimpse of the person she is when she is not with me. I kept thinking, “Wow, that is such an awesome person and I gave birth to her!”

5. No DNA test required, these are my children. Maybe. On Sunday it rained and the kids couldn’t play outside, so I sent them upstairs to clean their rooms instead of watching yet another episode of “Big Time Rush” (a horrible show if you ask me). While they were busy, I wasn’t feeling so hot, so I took a nap on the couch. You already know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

They woke me up, telling me that they wanted me to watch their show. This is not unusual – they’re always making up shows. But I sent them upstairs to clean, not choreograph! (My parents and Darin get so frustrated with me because I procrastinate tasks like cleaning my room – I once read the dictionary instead!) These are definitely my children, I thought.

I patiently watched the show and I’m glad I did. Jaylen’s dancing is quite hilarious (especially when you fast forward it!) and Darin and I couldn’t believe how much Jaiden stayed on beat. lol. Lo and behold, when I tucked them in at bedtime, their rooms were clean. So maybe they aren’t my children afterall. And they didn’t get their singing and dancing skills from me, either. lol.

6. All the women who are independent/Throw your hands up at me. All of my girls are struggling with wanting more independence and I’ve been struggling with giving it to them. Jaiden wants to do her own hair and choose her own clothes (she’s not the best at either) and it’s huge for me to just let go and let her do it. HUGE!

I don’t like my kids to look like ragamuffins, so I usually help them chose their clothing and do their hair. I send them back to change if they don’t match or have holes in their clothes, etc. This is natural, right? I care what my children look like when they walk out of this house because they’re a reflection of me – and I want it to be a good, accurate reflection.

Letting go has had some positive results in just a few weeks – Jaiden’s hairstyling is improving and having her friend Emily spend the night and give her a ton of hand-me-downs has helped her make better choices (read that as Emily has encouraged her to match).

Now four, both Emma and Jenna have exerted an increasing need for their own independence. Jenna is more forceful about it than anyone else right now, though. Well, she’s more aggressive than the other three, period. She now wants to do everything on her own, from buckling her own seatbelt (she’s now in a booster seat) to making her own sandwiches or pouring her own juice. I don’t ‘let go’ as much with her as I do with Jaiden simply because a four-year-old has no business pouring juice. lol.

“Nooooo, Jaylen!!!!! I WANT TO DO IT MYSELF!!!!”

This is totally priming us for the teenage years. I think it’s going to be one decade of alcoholism for me.

7. I made a cake wreck that was actually quite tasty. It was our turn to host coffee hour at church this past weekend, so I made a strawberry cake. And used icing instead of frosting. Because it’s made with powdered sugar and butter, icing doesn’t typically hold its shape; it was a mess by the time we got to church. But! It tasted pretty good. The Jewish priest (yes!) that was visiting our church said he wanted to take me home and that I deserved extra blessings! Ha.

It was pretty easy to make, too. I say that even though I had three little ones helping me make it. Check out the recipe over at our food blog, daylicious.

8. Speaking of being daylicious, we’re taking over. Kinda. Last week, Dara accepted the position of head librarian of Munford’s library! I’m so excited for her! Around here, everyone’s related and now I am finally related to someone that a lot of people will know (the rest of my family is pretty low-key). Very cool, right?

Our poor library is still stuck in the dark ages – physical card catalog still in use and the library is not computerized at all. Dara hopes to come in and change that! And the library committee has confidence in her.

Dara Gonzales: Change we can believe in!

(We’ll wait while you finish barfing over that last statement, Dara.)

She finishes her masters in May and will start here in June. She and Isaac are, of course, relocating. It will be great to have them close, but I know they are really going to miss Texas. Beach, barbeque and, most importantly, their friends and family down there. Hell, I miss their friends; they rock.

9. I am rocking this Lent thing. I gave up chocolate. Wednesday (tomorrow) will make 35 days since I’ve had any chocolate whatsoever. No Thin Mints. No brownies. No sweet, heavenly bite-sized Milky Way Midnights. No Twix. And did I mention no Thin Mints? No chocolate ice cream. No chocolate milkshakes. Not one chocolate chip cookie.

It’s been a struggle, no doubt. But it’s getting easier. I just sigh, poke my lip out and continue on my merry way. I can’t cheat on Jesus, dude. He died for me, I can go without chocolate for a few weeks.

I think my dad is torturing me, though. He knows I gave up chocolate. He likes to bring me cakes at work (YES!); sometimes I come back and find he’s left one on my desk. (What can I say? I think he gets bored when my mom’s out of town.) Yesterday I came back after lunch and a horrible accident/breaking story to find the cake carrier sitting on my desk. Inside? A yellow cake! Covered in milk chocolate frosting. Sniff. Darin is enjoying it, though. (Dad makes great cakes.)

Next weekend, though, I will get some chocolate! The end is nigh, my friends. (PS – I’m pretty proud of myself for sticking to it and learning to resist temptation, which is what this is really about.)

I’ve also been fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, eating fish or vegetarian instead of red meat. I go for at least two meals without red meat, but I do sometimes give in and have beef. I’m sorry, Jesus. Please forgive me (and see the previous four paragraphs about my much bigger sacrifice and how GREAT! I’ve been doing at resisting temptation!).

10. Better than crack and totally legal. I recently tried the spinach and artichoke cream cheese and I am IN LOVE. It is delicious! I find excuses to eat toast or bagels. Mmm.

11. It’s just a number. I know I always freak out over turning 30 this year, but my sweet Grannie has quite a few decades on me and I have never heard her complain. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is her birthday!

The number would make you think she’s an old, old lady, but she’s not; she gets around better than some people 20-30 years younger than she. She’s probably older than some of her “old ladies” she took care of when we were kids, but you wouldn’t know it.

Anyway, we all love her like crazy and feel so blessed to have her in our lives!

Grannie, you’re the best grandmother ever! We hope you have a great birthday!

It’s been quite a day and I have been busy updating our website and social networks with school, government and business closures, baking, cooking, playing in the snow, reading, editing photos and updating my food and photography blogs.

I am exhausted, but I couldn’t go to bed without an update over here.

We woke up to freezing rain and were very skeptical we’d get any type of snow. Or anything more than an inch. Schools were closed, of course. By 8:30 a.m. it’d started snowing and I don’t think it stopped until after the sun set. I think we have about 8 inches total, which is on top of an inch of ice.

So, East Coast friends, believe the hype! And enjoy your snow day. (Speaking of which, check out my snow day photography tips.)

My neighbors/co-workers came down and we went sledding! It was too much fun.

Gwen and I rode together with Darin pulling us behind a four-wheeler on our trail. We could not stay on the sled. lol. Then Darin ran us into a tree. Good times.

After they left, we went on a little hike in the woods. Exhausting! Poor Jenna and Jaiden were FREEZING by the time we went back inside. It was also past Jenna’s naptime, so she was a little frozen ball of tears and tantrums. She went down for a nap, the older kids watched a movie, I believe Darin also napped and I soaked in the bath and read more of Blue Like Jazz.

We had a great Veggie-Orzo Soup for lunch with grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. Mmm.

The soup was kind of an impromptu thing, a substitution for the vegetable soup we were supposed to have tonight. You can read all about that at Daylicious.

This morning I started working on some homemade cinnamon rolls that took hours to rise. They were finally ready to go into the oven about dinner time. Joy. The family gave them four thumbs up, though.

I plan to blog about those cinnamon rolls soon. Subscribe to Daylicious and you’ll see it this week. (Also? Surprise: only 6.8g of fat!) I was super proud of the fact that I made my own cinnamon rolls! Not at all happy about the fact that it took all day, but I digress.

And since we’re talking about food, tonight we had pork tenderloin in mustard sauce with egg noodles for supper.

Yeah, I had a super serving of egg noodles (that’s a small plate, by the way). Typically I fill the kids’ plates, let Darin fill his own and plate mine up a little nicer for photos. Just in case you ever wondered. For the record, it’s hard to get dinner on the table and photograph it in the process.

My favorite part of the day? When my friends came over to play! It’s just like having snow days as a kid when the entire neighborhood would congregate at one house. It was great!

Gwen, TJ, Tyler and Sara came over (and you can see Gwen has a pool in her hands – we were going to sled in it, but it didn’t work). Sara sits with Gwen and I and stayed with Gwen and TJ last night because of the storm; she lives an hour away and in case we had to work, she didn’t want to be stranded at home. Conditions are so bad that she is actually now stranded down here, but I don’t think she minds. I wish we could have a sleepover, though. That would be hilarious. TJ’s sister, brother-in-law and nephew came over too.

Anyway. I’m off to bed to get ready for another day of being snowed in. It’s still precipitating and our vehicles are stuck in the driveway. Fun times.

I forgot to post our meal plans for last week and the week prior, but we’ve been working on eating out of our own pantry and trying new things while still trying to maintain eating healthier than we used to.

The first week I remember having BBQ chicken breasts, some meatless suppers, macaroni and cheese, broccoli and cheese rice and … goodness, I don’t remember everything. Oh well. And last week our something new was pan-seared salmon with a mango chutney, sauteed spinach and polenta cakes; we’d never had salmon (at home), mango, a chutney or polenta. It was a pretty great meal, I have to say. I need to work on my chutney, though.

I was also given a pound of Neola Farms beef as well as a roast, so we had beef tacos one night and the tastiest roast another night.

This week I’d planned on cleaning the upstairs bedrooms and sacrificing my weekly grocery store trip, though I did pick up some breakfast items, a few ingredients for Sunday’s supper and hot dogs and bratwurst. My total for this week was something like $50-60 (and I saved about $15).

On schedule this week, we have:

Fennel-crusted pork with roasted root veggies, a recipe from this month’s Real Simple magazine (Darin was the only one who liked the parsnips, though)
Cheddar brats, hot dogs, chips (not that healthy, but it was my attempt at giving the family a break after all of the new recipes)
BBQ rotisserie chicken, macaroni and cheese, rice
Homemade chicken and rice soup (using leftover chicken and rice)
Homemade vegetable soup
Tortellini or rotini with marinara sauce
Leftovers (whatever’s leftover from the week)

It’s nothing too inventive, I know, but it uses what we already have. We’re also expecting some frigid temps later this week, so I don’t mind two soups (in fact, I’m looking forward to them!).

Looking for new recipes? Check out daylicious, the food blog I write (and need to update!) with my sister-in-law, Dara.

And if you’re looking for meal planning printables, look no further! We have several meal planners and shopping lists, which are free for a limited time (until Jan. 31, 2010). Happy meal planning!

I know many of you remember when Jaiden was born; yesterday she cheered for her first basketball game. If she was nervous, she didn’t let on; she was very excited to grab her pom-poms, put on her uniform and cheer.

Incidentally, it was also the first basketball game she had ever seen. Their team won 17-16.

And as everyone knows by now, we have been experiencing some very, very cool temperatures. We’re talking in the teens. Freezing divided by two and minus four, for instance. For those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line, this is nothing; but when Southerners beg for temperatures to warm up to the freezing point, you know there’s a problem.

We’re fascinated by this thing the rest of you know as normal winter. We get in the car with our cameras and drive around, looking at cold things.

This lake? Well, part of it is frozen. A lot of the ponds and lakes around here are frozen and rumor has it parts of the Mississippi were frozen over, too. The river is much deeper than this lake, though, so I don’t know if there is any truth to that (perhaps the shallow parts near the bank). (Isn’t this photo awesome? I love it.) (more…)

I’m very proud to announce something new for Life’s Like This and Daylicious: free digital printables!

I’m big on meal planning – it helps save time and money – and want to share some free resources to help get you started (or keep you merry along your journey).

Head on over to the new downloads section and snag yours today!