The Search for Miss Direction: Peanuts and Pickles with the Bean

Long before I was ever pregnant with Noah or Kayla I ate my first peanut butter and pickle sandwich. My Mom got me hooked on it sometime during my school days and I distinctly remember quite a few odd glances when I indulged at at lunch. If you've never had one, I strongly suggest you try it. When it comes to odd combos, give me white bread, creamy peanut butter and dill pickle slices any day.

So today being National Peanut Day and Snack A Pickle Day had me searching out a similar odd way to blend them together which I did in the 3 P salad we had with dinner; peanuts, pickles and peas! Noah looked at me like I had finally officially gone off the deep end when, as every night, I announced what the food of the day was and how we were celebrating it. I don't think he was concerned about the odd combination, it's just that Noah HATES peas. Grant was more skeptical for the obvious reasons. For him, three hours later the jury is still out if he likedour little experiment. Noah, on the other hand, adored it. Once I convinced him to actually try it (our rule is you have to at least TRY the food of the day) he decided that not only did he like it, but what a great way to eat peas. "I can't even taste the peas, Mom, this is awesome!"

I'm with Grant - it was a little odd. And I agree with Noah, if I hadn't seen the peas I'd never have known they were there. Not sure that I'll be all over this strange combo again tomorrow, but I'm definitely going to hold onto this one.

In other news, if you missed me yesterday it was because I was super PTA busy all day. After surviving my first morning all on my own without any kiddos or any 'plans' (my house sparkled after two free hours!) I had a Board meeting, came home in time for dinner only to head back to Beechview for Cirriculum Night. I got to spend some time in Noah's class hearing about the plans for the year, signed up a ton of families for the PTA and then headed out for a celebratory drink with my fellow Board members.

This morning Kayla and I headed up to the Church where my MOPS meetings are held so I could check out the bulletin board I am to be designing then were off to the library for story time. Then after a quick errand to pick up a game for tonight's "Family Game Night" we came back for some lunch and Kayla's first solo Kid Kitchen.

She did FABULOUS! It coldn't be Peanut Day without having some kind of peanut butter snuck in there, so Mikayla made some Peanut Butter bars for dessert tonight. Honestly, the Bean made these almost completely by herself. I of course helped, but she was large and in charge opening everything herself, stirring, breaking up the graham crackers for the food processor which she ran by herself, even spreading out both the peanut butter mixture and chocolate with minimal assistance. She was delighted with herself and (bless him) Grant made a huge deal out of how much he enjoyed them, even comparing them to his absolute favorite, Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Go Bean go!

As I mentioned, we made a stop to get a game so we could have a Family Game Night tonight. For awhile I've been keeping my eye out for "Trouble" because I figured that'd be a great one for all of us to play. Self pat on the back, good call, Mama. We played teams the first time around, then Noah gave it a go on his own. They both really enjoyed it and I bet that I'm going to be hearing that 'pop-o-matic' thing quite a bit over the next few days...

Grant and the kiddos are going to build fire trucks at Lowe's in the morning (Noah has been talking about it for 3 weeks now) and then we'll all be back here for the game. Then I think we're going to go see Turbo tomorrow night. Should be a good day. Oh, and cream filled donuts and hoagies in there somewhere. Until then...