Family Game Night

I've said this before, we love games. Seriously, we play a lot of games together as a family. So what do we do for Memorial Day Weekend? We play games. Lots of games...and snacks. Nothing goes better with family game night than a big bowl of cheese puffs and strawberry sodas.



These are my children:



These are my children hopped up on cheese puffs and strawberry soda. Any questions?



Jeremiah is a Personal Space Invader. He's just so touchy.





Matchmaker matchmaker make me a match. Find me a find. Catch me a catch.



Daddy's head was lucky this night.



Joshua and I smiling the same smile.





Flat Stanley was visiting us from Germany. He got Yahtzee!!! Lucky duck!

Bucket Garden progress

It's coming along nicely. Some of the plants are growing very slowly. I can see buds on the pepper plant.



The bucket to the left is my herb garden. I have oregano, rosemary, dill, and more basil here.

Leon found this wood box. Working for the wine merchant has it's perks. The stores often change their displays and throw away the old ones. This box from a display from Whole Foods that they were throwing away. He thought it would be perfect for my veggie plants, and it is! I think the deck will be better off with the plants lifted off. Now I just need something for the blue bucket and we'll be all set.

Hot Dog Spaghetti

Ingredients for the cheese sauce: 2tbsp butter, 2tbs flour, 2 cups half/half, 1 whisked egg, salt, pepper, 1 tsp ground mustard, and sharp cheddar cheese.

I started with sticking uncooked thin spaghetti noodles into pieces of hot dogs and then boiled them.

Before:


After:


While the noodles/hotdogs were boiling I made my cheese sauce. I made a normal amount of cheese sauce because I'm also making a side dish of macaroni and cheese for dinner. I'm sure you could reduce the ingredients by half and still have plenty for your Hot Dog Spaghetti.

I started with a rue.

Melt the butter in a pan. Whisk in the flour until thoroughly combined. Whisk in the half/half (you can use milk instead) and heat to almost boiling.


Then add salt, pepper, ground mustard and cheese.


My kids would probably have eaten this plain like this. But it looks so lonely without cheese.




That's MUCH better.

Any food they can play with is going to be a big success.






They want to have it for lunch again tomorrow. :D

***Disclaimer:

This is part of the meal I made for my kids a year and a half ago. We were experimenting with the concept. If you don't like it, you don't have to make it. My kids have no trouble eating whole grains and veggies; so a rare meal of hot dogs and noodles, for fun, doesn't hurt anyone.