Hello, Weekend

***Disclaimer: I linked to past posts below, and some of the pictures in those posts are oriented strangely. It's not in my skill set to fix them, but hopefully that doesn't deter from your viewing/reading pleasure!***

Another week is gone. The second half of our weeks are more slow-paced than the first half, which is perfect considering we're all pretty done for come Thursday. This past Thursday we had plenty to cook for dinner, but Chet and I had this exchange:

Me (sprawled out on the armchair at 5:15 p.m.): Guess what I don't want to happen?

Chet: You don't want to cook dinner?

Me: Correct.

Chet: Do you want ME to cook dinner?

Me (after a thoughtful pause): No, I don't want dinner to be cooked at all in our kitchen tonight.

So we went to our favorite semi-chain, cheap Mexican food restaurant instead. We have perfected eating out on the cheap: $34 (including tip!) fed all of us on Thursday night, and Chet, Sydney, and me again on Friday night. (Picky Lorelei and Ford opted for a bowl of cereal, and a smoothie and ZBAR, respectively, for dinner last night. Done and done.)

Speaking of smoothies, Ford drinks one every day.

Long ago I blogged about green smoothie recipes, but here's the basic recipe Ford drinks each day:

• 1 handful of spinach
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (original flavor)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 frozen banana
• 5 frozen strawberries (although I don't let him watch me put those in because he claims to dislike them)
• 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil

Ruthie has started eating some food, and if I have leftover baby food I put that in his smoothie too. What the boy doesn't know won't hurt him. Speaking of the boy, I put him to work this week:

He was thrilled to be handling knives. It's high time he started earning his keep, like his sisters.

Jumping back to the subject of food, my favorite thing ever is packing the kids' lunches (although I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune come February): 

Perhaps it's how I express myself artistically since I don't have any actual artistic skills. That's Lorelei's lunch, which never contains vegetables because I'm certain she'll just throw them away.

Lorelei is the queen of starting new projects before finishing others:

I mean, why just color one page when you can color seven?!

Sometimes Ruthie goes for an impressively long time without a nap (much to my chagrin, and not without effort on my part to make her sleep). Here she is earlier this week, completely exhausted but still in good spirits:

"See?! I'm not tired! Hahahahahaha!"

"For some reason I keep zoning out..."

"Hmm, maybe I will take that nap..."

So far this morning I have tackled and conquered about 80% of the ever-present laundry mountain. We will also change all the sheets this weekend, but there aren't big domestic plans other than that. Chet has some reading to accomplish, as always. I'm currently waiting for the girls to finish ballet and it's raining, which I think is going to bring some gloriously cooler temperatures this coming week. #hallelujah

(More later on how today is our last ballet Saturday.)

Have a GREAT weekend!