D is for Dinner (Blogging Through the Alphabet)

For week 4 of Blogging the Alphabet, we're blogging the letter D.  Since I'm blogging things about our family, I figured the best D word I could come up with is D is for dinner.  If your not familiar with the Blogging through the alphabet, it's a fun, weekly blog hop sponsored by the blogs A Net in Time and Hopkins Homeschool.  Each week, participants are invited to blog about any family friendly subject using a weekly letter.

Dinners are typically homecooked, although yeah, we occasionally have frozen pizzas. I love trying out new recipes, especially recipes from other countries.  Some nights, the kids even get to come into the kitchen and help prepare the meals.  This is important to me because when I was growing up, I was never allowed into the kitchen and my step mother never taught me how to cook.  I had a "crash course" in cooking when I got married, burning my way though many meals, and I don't want to see the kids, including Garrett, to be clueless in the kitchen.   Thankfully Pinterest makes it so easy to find recipes that are easy for the kids to make.

Dinner is such an important time for our family because it allows all of us to sit together, without any electronics and spend uninterrupted time chatting and laughing.  We're one of the few families that we know that actually cook dinner almost every night and then sit together at the table with no telephones or tv going.  After Alyssa has been at school all day and the kids have been doing their own school work, eating dinner together is a great way to unwind, touch base with each other and found out how everyone's day went.

Our only wish is that dad could join us more often.  Since he works mid-shift, he is often at work during dinner time and so he isn't able to sit at the table with us and has to eat his meals when he comes home that night. But on weekends, it's nice to have the entire family together.