What's for dinner?

I just don't know anymore.  I am at a place where I know that I have been cooking dinner at least four times a week for the last 10 years, but haven't a clue what the heck I have been cooking.  Some of what I used to cook has disappeared because of my decision to feed my family whole, real, unprocessed foods.  No high fructose corn syrup, no hydrogenated oils, just fresh fruits, veggies, meat, grains, and dairy.  If it local and organic, even better!  I feel so much better knowing what is going in my kids mouths and bodies.  Jeff took a little more convincing though.  He continues to complain that he wants to have "his" raisin bran and we keep a jar of Welch's Grape Jelly in the refrigerator just for him as he just can't have a PB & J without his high fructose corn syrup.  Unfortunately though, each night feels that I am stepping into the kitchen for the first time ever, trying to keep up with my snobby palate and the palates of my husband who would prefer to eat italian every night, my 4 year old who can love anything one night and hate it the next, and my 13 month old who would subsist on pasta and fruit if allowed.  Shopping is a chore since I have no idea what I will need to make the mystery dinners of the upcoming week.  Cooking is fun but following recipes every night is way too time consuming for a working mother.  Enter my slow cooker.  I throw ingredients into the pot in the morning and come home to a meal in the evening.  Brilliant!  Now, I have to go to the store and come up with something healthy and delicious that everyone may very well refuse to eat.  Wish me luck.

Frankenbaby on the move!

So, since the last time I wrote, Brooke has started walking, we went to Disney World, the holidays have passed, and Brooke turned one.  It has been a busy month.  Brooke was so determined to walk and practiced like it was her job until she could waddle forward with her arms up like a tight-rope walker.  My little personal Frankenstein's monster.  In this way, she learned to walk forward, sideways, backward, and turn.  When she fell, she crawled to something and pulled her little self right up again until she became strong enough to stand up in the middle of the room.  She is such a better walker now that in just a few weeks, her feet have come in closer together, her arms are no longer in Frankenbaby position, and she has gotten pretty fast.  She stills falls a good amount, boom, right back onto her little bum.  And still, she hops right back up as if nothing has happened.  I really think I should take a lesson from that determination, that stick-to-it-iveness.  She doesn't get frustrated and throw a temper tantrum as she falls down for the hundredth time that day.  She just shakes it off and tries again.  In that way, I must learn to be a little more like my determined and good natured little baby.