Onion Zucchini Blueberry Muffins

The other day I made blueberry muffins for breakfast. Not really as a treat, but more because I was out of cereal and bagels and I didn’t feel like making oatmeal. I started getting everything out and was almost instantly surrounded by children all wanting to “help”.

Ok.

Fine.

My three youngest hovered around me, fetching milk and eggs, holding the measuring cup while I poured stuff into it. Everyone wanted to stir. An argument broke out on who was going to lick the spoon. Usually, I dump a can of pumpkin into my muffins, but I suddenly remembered that I had a ziploc bag of shredded zucchini in the fridge that would go great in muffins. I grabbed the ziploc bag out of the fridge and started dumping it into the batter.

There was an instant outcry.

What are you doing??? What is that?? Why are you putting it into the muffins!

And then a cry went out to all the other kids, MOM’S PUTTING WEIRD STUFF IN THE MUFFINS!! And then more kids gathered around to see what on earth mom was doing.

Relax guys. It’s like zucchini bread. Remember zucchini bread?? It’s good. You like it. You won’t even taste it in the muffins.

Good grief.

Ok, so that is what was coming out of my mouth. But in my head I was having a freak-out meltdown. Because, as I was dumping that zucchini in the batter I had got a strong whiff of onions. And I suddenly remembered that when I had been grating that zucchini in my food processor, the night before, I had been grating it in order to add it to soup. And I had also been processing onions. And I hadn’t bothered scraping out the food processor in between veggies, cause it was all going into the soup. Except I ended up with too much zucchini, so I just stuck the leftover into a ziploc, all mixed up with onions. And now I had just dumped zucchini/onions into my blueberry muffin batter. And I was now having to defend my choice loudly to my children.

I always put some cinnamon sugar on top of the muffin batter before I bake it.

Let me tell you, I heaped on the sugar this time. (Maybe if it’s super sweet, no one will taste onions??).

I stuck those things in the oven and then went and collapsed in my room. Away from children. Feeling depressed. What a way to start the day.

Mess up breakfast.

Cause let me tell you, these kids were already feeling suspicious about the zucchini. They were already on hard-alert, ready to find anything wrong that they could. And now there was actually something wrong to find.

The timer finally went off and I pulled my beautiful onion zucchini blueberry muffins out of the oven. They looked delicious. I sent off a heartfelt prayer. Lord, you are a miracle worker and your miracles don’t have to be big and extravagant. Could you please, just let these muffins taste fine and not taste like onions???

And prayers were answered. They tasted great. The kids loved them. They went back for thirds.

And now you are probably feeling very hesitant to eat anything I make. And all I can say about that is, you’re probably right to be cautious.

Follow me for more creative ways to mess up when cooking.

Large Family Life

One of the things I beat myself up about is that I don’t feel like I work very hard. I have a lot of days that are slow paced, mixed in with days of pure chaotic busyness, then back to slow pace again. “You are so lazy” is something my brain likes to say a lot. And maybe I am. The jury is still out on that one. But I am starting to think that maybe I am not a lazy person and rather, I NEED a slow pace. So I structure my life in such a way that I can keep myself from staying in a stressed-out state at all times. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

To reassure myself that I am not lazy, and actually do get things done, I sometimes make lists of my accomplishments. (Surely I’m not the only one that does this??) So, today, as I was making my reassurance list of accomplishments, it got me thinking about Large Family Life. I do a lot of things that feel really normal to me, but I know to others it may seem over the top. Just for fun, I decided to take some pictures of Large Family Life.

Ok, so here is 24 hours worth of dishes. I do the dishes, but a couple times a week I tap a couple teenagers to do the job. Since it gets spread around so thin, they usually don’t complain.

Food is a big deal. I buy most things in the extra large size or bulk, or just end up getting four times what everyone else does. I get these breakfast bars because my kids eat breakfast at school, but some of them don’t like school breakfast, and some of them are more hungry in the morning and want something extra, and we get up and out of the house pretty fast, so we don’t take time for a sit down breakfast. Note, the box is on top of the fridge. This is a signal to the kids that this is off limits unless I put it out. Otherwise, it would be gone in a day.

My kids also eat a lot of fruit. This is a week’s worth of fruit for them, and we are three days into the grocery week already.

I got extra eggs this week because we’re going to have frittata. I will probably use 36 or 40 eggs to make the frittata.

Any time I bake, I double or triple the recipe. Baking is a really inexpensive way of feeding a lot of kids.

Today I finished doing laundry and then folded everything. All the kids help put it away. My four oldest kids at home do their own laundry, so their laundry isn’t in the picture.

I have a sock basket that not only has odd socks in it (I recently cleaned this out and threw away about 2 grocery bags full of old, unmatched, holey socks), but also has random socks that don’t belong to anyone in particular, but are too nice to get rid of, and will be waiting around for the next person that needs them. The only clothing I get rid of is what my youngest child outgrows.

Every day after school I check everyone’s backpacks, sign folders, take care of papers and keep an eye on who has homework so I can have them sit down later to do it.

Decorating for Christmas is always fun as everyone has to be represented. Stockings are ready to go. Everyone also has their own Christmas mug.

So these are random tidbits. I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom of lots of kids. It suits me. I have lots of time to think and ponder, read, be involved in people’s lives, and feel like I’m giving my kids the home they need to be able to grow into the people they were meant to be. I realize that having a big family and being able to stay home with the kids is a big blessing and I hope I never take it for granted. And I’m going to keep working on my self-talk that’s always trying to put me down. Not lazy. Just slow and steady.

My Not-so-Picturesque Day in Pictures

I’ve decided to do a Picture Diary of my day today. With some commentary.

Enjoy.

sleeping Noah

So, the two year old climbed in my bed in the middle of the night. This picture about sums up how that feels.

Then at 5:30 am the phone rang. It was the school calling to tell us there was a 2 hr delay because it had snowed. Woohoo! We could sleep in! Except the phone call woke my husband, who decided to just get up. And then his moving around woke up this little guy. So, I got to get up almost an hour earlier than normal on our 2 hr delay day.

nomisnow O

Of course, since there was snow on the ground, the kids’ 6th sense woke them up, and by 6:30 am I could hear little voices exclaiming about snow. (On a school day we get up at 7 am). By the time it was light outside, the kids were ready to go frolic in the snow. I took my obligatory snow pictures. I have ten years worth of snow pictures from this very angle. (Happens to be the inside of my doorway, I’m not going out in the snow.)

Of course, in order to go out in the snow, the kids needed to get their winter gear out of our hall closet.

closetmess

You will note that they left at least one coat hanging in the closet. (No, they didn’t put the hole in the back of the closet, that was already there.)

So, we had plenty of time to play in the snow, drink some hot cocoa, get ready for school. My morning was all planned. I would drop off the elementary kids, then the middle school kids, then I would have just enough time to get to the dentist with my 8 year old and the two little boys, where the 8 year old was getting a crown on her tooth.

Ten minutes before it was time to leave, I sent one of my boys out to the van with the keys to start it warming up. They returned and told me that the van would not start. Oh no. I double checked, and yep, the battery was dead. Now what? My husband was working out of town and while our driveway was full of vehicles, they either didn’t work, or I didn’t have the keys to them. I called my husband. He told me to get his new work truck and jumpstart the van. This involved me having to brush off a bunch of snow, figure out how to start it and drive this humongous stick-shift truck through my yard so it would be close enough to the van to jumpstart. (I haven’t driven stick shift in 14 years.)

jumpstart

But as you can see, I did it.

Which made me feel like this:

workerwoman

The elementary kids were tardy, the middle-schoolers had to run to not be late, but we made it to the dentist on time. Yay.

Then I got home and had to deal with this.

Because the night before, my old dishwasher fell out of it’s opening one time too many. My husband had brought home a new dishwasher and it was sitting in my dining room.

And I somehow thought that he would be able to install it for me last night. But, alas, he didn’t have the proper tools with him, so it didn’t happen, and I didn’t wash the dishes yesterday. Sigh.

The rest of the day was spent baking..

muffins

These amazing muffins were enjoyed by most, but some sacrilegious child ate only the sugar top and the blueberries, leaving the rest in a giant pile of crumbs.

I also made stew.

stew

Which one child completely abstained from, and two more children filled their bowl of stew with crackers, but somehow decided they weren’t actually hungry enough to eat it, when all was said and done.

I also made a run to Walmart before supper, where I forgot to buy my dentist-going daughter the award I had promised her for enduring dental treatment. Which meant I had to go out again after supper.

Then, while relaxing with the kids before bedtime, watching some Studio C on Youtube, my alarm went off.

Which was a good thing, because I had completely forgotten that I had an older daughter at work who was counting on me to pick her up. I could not live without all the alarms I have set on my phone.

And so, after bringing her home, I ran around getting all the little kids settled into bed. And now, my day is finally done. For the most part. Just a couple little chores here and there to do on my way to bed.

Diary of a Mom of Ten

blueberry muffins

Summer. Day 597 of rain. (Maybe a slight exaggeration.)

9am

I currently have eleven children in my house. (Mine and some extras.)

I made some beautiful blueberry muffins. Not because I was feeling especially domesticated, but more because we are out of cereal and blueberries were on sale at Aldis and I stocked up.

Of course, half my kids looked at the muffins and decided they wanted eggs instead. Since eggs are theoretically healthier than blueberry muffins, I gave them permission to cook their own eggs. They then proceeded to cook their eggs in my iron skillet and forgot to add oil to the pan first. When I exclaimed loudly about this to the son who was responsible, he looked at me in confusion, “Oil? I never put oil in my pan.” (Which now explains why the pan is always so hard to wash after he cooks eggs.)

From one of the blueberry muffin-eating children there has also been a complaint that I put too much sugar on top of the muffin. (Too much sugar?) I explained that if that particular child did not want to eat something sweet for breakfast, they were welcome to have a piece of toast. Child then explained that they wanted the muffin, they would simply scrape all the sugar off the top. Which somehow seems sacrilegious.

11am

After breaking up approximately 27 fights, I have now banished all children to their rooms.

11:30am

I have put on an educational movie about the jungle. All the children complained, because it was educational and not animated.

11:40am

Children are calling me into the room to come see the amazing flying snake that flattens itself and then glides through the air. Hurray for educational movies.

12pm

I could cook some rice and open some cans of beans for lunch. Or I could gather up the last remnants of our bread and try and make some sandwiches. Or I could run down the road five minutes to Kroger and get a big box of corndogs.

12:30pm

I’m at Kroger. Oh look, strawberries are on sale. Strawberries and Corndogs. That’s a well-rounded meal right?

1:30pm

All the children have been fed. Dining room has been cleaned up. Rain has stopped. Children have been banished to the outdoors. They are all playing a game which involves chasing each other from one end of our playset to the other without letting their feet touch the ground. When I question the wisdom of tightrope walking across the beam that holds up the swings, they all assure me that they would never fall, accidents never happen, and they are in fact, invincible.

3pm

The two year old has been fussing all day. He has a bad cold and has not been coping well. He thought it would be funny to smack me in the face. I did not think it was funny. I swatted his behind. He did not think that was funny. He is now crying for his daddy. Which is his new method of foul-play. Every time I do something he doesn’t like, he starts crying for his daddy. Like I am no longer the parent of choice, I have fallen out of favor. I have never had a child do this. It’s quite lowering to the moral. I suddenly have a lot more compassion for my husband who has had all his other children cry for mama at some point in time when he was alone with them.

5pm

Time to make supper. What is the easiest, quickest thing I can make??? After wandering through my kitchen, I have decided to make burritos. Heat up the tortillas, open some cans of beans, cook up some beef. Add cheese and salsa. Presto. Supper. I ask one of my teenagers to help heat up the tortillas on the skillet. She keeps burning them. Smoke fills the kitchen. I complain that she is not doing it right. She says I gave her the wrong job. She has asthma, she shouldn’t be around smoke. I point out that creating smoke is not part of the job.

6pm

A wave of despair. Tonight is my husband’s night off. We have figured out that if he can have a night to himself to work at his shop and if I can have a night off to get out of the house, and we can both have one night when we go out together…We are mentally healthier. But it means that tonight I am parenting solo.

We watch the movie Rio which I rented from the library. Personally, I think the voice of the main character is something akin to fingernails scraping a chalkboard. But, there is some fun music.

9pm

Bible stories have been read, prayers have been prayed. Teeth brushed. Lights out. It’s time to clock out. Day is over etc. Except the two year old took an “unauthorized nap” somewhere around 4pm and he is now energized and ready to go.

It’s been a long day.

Good thing these babies are cute.

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