Perspective

After about the tenth time sending my kids down to the storage room for something and them coming back empty handed, I figured it was time to give a little TLC to our food storage and a little less focus on trips and parties.  We were out of peanut butter, oats (Justin was nearly freaking out), ketchup, hot cocoa (how would we ever survive winter!), chili (a must for our weekly baked potatoes), salsa, and the last straw was the bare naked shelf designated for ramen noodles.

A little budgety research helped me decide between the Broulims case lot sale and the everyday prices at Super Walmart and after two trips my list was nearly complete.  The boys loved parking the van on the front porch and hauling the stuff downstairs (I'm glad my love of food storage shopping has rubbed off onto them) and as we stood back admiring our full buckets and shelves I announced that I was ready for winter hibernation.

Derek's pretty sure we are ready for the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.

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I tried a new Italian Chicken Penne recipe which got quite mixed reviews.  The "red things" and "flecks" (diced tomatoes and herbs) left Derek and Justin a little hesitant, LeRoy scarfed down a few bites before leaving for a meeting and didn't really taste it, Levi declared it was the best meal he has has in months (I don't know if I should take that as an insult or compliment) and Nathan ate it up with a little persuasion.

Hyrum, on the other hand, would not even pick up his fork.

I knew if I could get him to at least try it he would eat the whole thing.  It was right up his appetite alley.  He kept insisting he wasn't hungry and I let him get down from the table reminding him that he wouldn't be able to eat anything else until he tried at least two bites.  He went and played cheerfully.  I put a lid over his plate.

When it was time to get pajamas on he whined that he was hungry.  I reminded him of his dinner and he willingly agreed to eat two bites.  I reheated it, left him at the table and turned my back to get him a drink.  He took his two bites, stood up on his chair and stated emphatically, "you're right mom, this is yummy!  It just looks disgusting".

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We can proudly say that Hyrum now knows his alphabet.  And by his alphabet, I mean HIS alphabet.  He is capable of singing the alphabet song the right way but he prefers to sing it with the letters all jumbled.  I'm pretty sure he still gets most of them in there and there are only a few duplicates.  When he sings it the right way he sings the end "now I know your ABC's . . . " and when he sings it his way he ends with "now I know my ABC's".