Dinner tonight - or last night.

Good idea. Between Alicia and Alex Martin requesting pizza and mac and cheese, some salad beforehand is wise.

Maybe they'll like beets. hehehe.

Do each of the kids get their choice once a week?

Chicken gizzards and steamed broccoli. Lots of Sriracha (or however it's spelled).

Yep, they get to choose once a week, and then daddies get to choose. The other two nights we have dinner out. Tonight the Puerto Rican is making chicken piccata with rice and sautéed Spanish with pine nuts. We will see how the Spanish goes over.

Today I picked up another pie, this one is a mango key lime pie. Sounds delicious, but it won’t be served until after dinner and the plates are cleaned!

That mango key lime looks delicious. Adopt me too!!!

So how is Antonio doing with two new kids in the house? Does he like it? Is he jealous?

He has not shown any jealousy at all, he loves both of them. He adores his little sister and is a big help with both of them.

Little Alex Martin looks up to him, Antonio helps us get him bathed and ready for bed. He’s taken him under is wing so to speak.

I never had any siblings and neither did Antonio until now. He’s had to make a few adjustments just as we have but he doesn’t complain.

I see you like Crystal Hot Sauce.

Good on smoked oysters and crackers.

Spot on, give them a role and they're too protective to feel any jealously.

You're doing a real bang up job there mate.

Allow me to again congratulate you all on not just the new adoptions...but in general. I commend both of you (and your oldest) at the roles and responsibilities you've all taken on. In this day and age where people seem to be less responsible than ever and avoid civil responsiveness, you guys are doing such a great job with your commitments.

Thinking of what you're doing with the tortoise and that critter family is a small example of how consistent you guys are with your beliefs.

That's so important to take children out for meals on a regular basis, so they get to use in public the manners they are learning at home.

I've never understood why some people think it's so horrible to insist their kids behave maturely in restaurants. It not only makes the dining experience more pleasurable for the other customers, but also for the kids and the parents themselves.

Unbelievably, even small children can have fun in a public place without screeching, throwing things or getting up from the table and wandering around. They get the pleasure of not being told what to do every 15 seconds, which some kids largely ignore.
I can't say I entirely blame a child who seems to be deaf to parents repeating over and over "Johnny sit down" Johnny has learned long ago that there's no consequence for not sitting down, even if the parent keeps saying there is.

I loved going out to eat as a child. There were 5 children and 2 adults. You better believe if someone said, "stop banging that fork" you stopped. Somehow, we didn't need an explanation as to why either.

I don't think "children should be seen and not heard" , but that doesn't mean "children should be allowed to scream and act like a herd of wild horses"

It sure has been a challenge with two more kids in the house. Not so much with Alicia but the three year old? OMG constant adult supervision. You can’t take your eyes off him for a minute but it does get a little easier each day as he falls into our daily routine.

We all just got home from having lunch out. Of course the kids wanted bacon cheeseburgers, we ordered them with the cucumber salad instead of fries and they actually liked it! The bacon cheeseburgers were so big Alicia and Alex Martin had to split one.

We ordered an appetizer of fried green beans with a mayonnaise wasabi sauce and they liked that as well.

Of course daddies had the trout.

Now for Sunday dinner I’m making pan fried tilapia with rice pilaf and steamed green beans.

I can imagine how challenging 3 kids can be. Are they all going to school/preschool and when do they get home?

You're teaching them good eating habits, that's so important. My daughter to this day will prefer water/mineral water over coke. I never had it in the house and she rarely was allowed to drink it, so she got into the habit of drinking something else.

Hi Jane!

Alicia and Antonio are in school. We take turns dropping them off and picking them up.

I work remotely from home three days a week, the other two days we have someone in the home take care of Alex Martin, she was recommended to us by the adoption attorney we hired.

He didn’t want to go to daycare so we didn’t push it just yet but this coming September he will be going.

I’m getting ready to fry up two lbs. of tilapia filets.

I dont like cichlyds.

Try coating some whole (smalleie ) bass, head on

Then stir fry to make a crispy whol fish. Serve with a Bankok Padang or a home made version of sesame/peanut and hot pepper sauce

The fish hold together and the kids l have un scraping the meat off the bones


WAIT--how old did you say the kids are?

3, 5 and 10

This fish doesn't have any bone, maybe it's been deboned or something before you buy it.

I've been using that fish coating mix as a breading I posted about it in the other thread. I also sprinkle a little parmesan cheese on it when its frying.

ok, never mind. I remember the first time one of ours started choking on a fish bone an both mama and I were in a state of panic.

Carry on, boneless fish good.
Thats why my mom served me fish sticks every goddam Friday (thats all we had in those days that was deboned)

We had the fish sticks too, but I actually liked them - and yes, we didn't like any fish with bones as kids. I still don't really.....I know how to filet a fish and mostly it's easy to get all bones out, especially when eating trout or salmon.

Well with salmon I use the tweezers beforehand and get all bones out....

Now I want fish sticks.

불고기...Bulgogi. I recommend it if you ever find yourself in a Korean restaurant:

https://www.google.co.kr/search?q=%EB%B6%88%EA%B3%A0%EA%B8%B0&newwindow=1&safe=off&biw=1024&bih=635&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3uQ-Vej2I-fimAX9l4HYDA&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

love Bulgogi

when I met with ceili a couple of years ago, we went to my favourite Korean diner and I had a Bulgogi burger

so good!

starving after dance class/es so I grilled up two small cheeseburgers and had the patties with a small side of Greek salad

I'm definitely feeling better now that I've had some protein