Ice Cream for Dinner

Since the day after Leo was born, we have been treated to one of the very best gifts a newly-expanded family could ever receive: homemade dinners delivered, hot and ready-to-eat, 3-4 nights a week. Our friends organized a "casserole brigade" for us in honor of Leo's birth, and we have been dining on the most delicious feasts imaginable; our friends are not only incredibly generous, they're also exceptionally talented cooks! We've been so spoiled by this royal treatment that on our nights "off," (i.e. the nights when we are responsible for providing our own meal, like regular people), we often forget until the last minute when we end up throwing some hot dogs or hamburgers on the grill. It really is hard to find the time and energy to prepare anything especially wholesome or well-rounded when you have a new baby in your midst.

Tonight was no exception to our new pattern of lack of dinner inspiration (after the most amazing delivery of a falafel and tabouli meal last night), and we were feeling equally disenchanted by some oppressive heat and humidity (not only have we been spoiled dinner-wise by our friends as of late, but we've also been spoiled weather-wise by one of the coolest, least-humid summers we can remember . . . meaning that we are totally intolerant when we wake up to a more typical hot & humid day). Since all we wanted to do was to lie naked in front of our fans, we couldn't imagine mustering the motivation to eat anything at all, let alone cook it first.

So. We bustled all four of our children out to the car, restrained each of them in a five-point harness, turned the AC on full blast (usually we're anti-AC kinda people--we don't have AC in the house--but sometimes it's pure heaven), and drove 20 minutes west to the closest furthest road-side soft serve stand we could think of (thus maximizing our time with four well-contained children in an artifically cooled environment), and we had ice cream for dinner.

"This is mine dinner?
This big, big, big ice cream? OK!"

Lukas held Zeben's ice cream for him while he took a break,
and "helped him out with the drips."

Sometimes even when you get the same flavor,
you still need to swap licks.

My happy, happy post-ice cream wife
(Leo knows all about having ice cream for dinner
since we think breastmilk tastes a lot like melted ice cream).

After ice cream (well, and during, actually), the kids played on the ice cream stand's funky, falling-apart, and rather sweet playground equipment, and then I took some great photos of the four brothers (some of which you may have already noticed around here . . . more to come, soon) before we loaded back into the air-conditioned minivan and headed home. Just in time for a cool bath and bedtime (I had planned on serving everyone "broccoli for dessert," but the kids felt plenty full and like there was no need to top of their bellies after all).

Zeben and I both fell in love with this vintage elephant slide.

Can't wait to see (and eat!) what shows up for dinner tomorrow! Thanks again to all of you who have been feeding us so well during this crazy, wonderful time!