No Smore Smores, Mama!

Ah yes, the random stuff you get to read when I am too tired to write anything of any sort of intelligence...  Although I feel like I could put my poor family and the dinners I've been feeding them in the same category...stuff I make them eat when I am too tired to cook and plan.  If only I had gotten into this whole batch cooking mess BEFORE I had gone and gotten myself pregnant, we would have a freezer full of wonderful meals.  But no...now, I only daydream about what I would cook if I had the energy and then take a quick snooze on the couch. 

Good thing we have lunch meat...  mmmm, sandwiches...  

Anyway, Scott and I had a ridiculous idea a couple weekends ago that it would be fun to build a little fire and make s'mores with our two little children.  It all comes from staying up too late, watching the Food Network feature some restaurant that specializes in s'mores and being pregnant and laying in bed afterwards in Homer Simpson mode...

MMMMM...S'mores....*drool*

Anyway, it worked out that it had started getting cooler in the evening and we had a pretty good pile of scrap wood that was beginning to make my husband, the minimalist, feel a little claustrophobic in our very substantial backyard.  So a evening fire was on our to-do list.

The girls had never had s'mores and I'm not really sure they had seen that many fires, but they were so excited for the prospect of doing something different that they were actually compliant as we strolled through the grocery store aisles to get what we needed.

Now, let me pause here and ask you if you have priced graham crackers lately?  Holy Moly...the not-on-sale-of-course-because-we-needed-them Honey Maids were $5 a box!!  Which caused a conflict between my taste buds and wallet because graham crackers are on that list of things that I hate generic and have pledged never to buy off-brand again...    The cheapo won out and I am happy to report that Harris Teeter's brand was not utterly horrible and stand up quite well in the whole scheme of s'mores.

Anyway, that Saturday night, we ate dinner early, bribed the girls in picking up the house, and  marched out into the backyard to have our adventure.  Scott had stacked the wood and pulled out the fire pit and arranged our chairs around in a semi circle.  He had even found a couple perfect sticks and see them aside, just waiting for marshmallows. 

Really, it looked like a perfect evening...for us.

And that is when I saw two small children turn around and look at me with the expression, "This is it?  We cleaned the house over this?  Why are the deck chairs on the grass?"

They gave it the once over and then sprinted to the playground.

After the 50th trip down the slide, they were ready to give s'mores a try, so we gathered around the campfire, Scott and I excited for this family experience.  He showed Elizabeth how to put the marshmallow on the stick and put it in the fire, then blow it out (suddenly, I have Sandlot running through my head...first you take the mallow...).  I put together the first s'more in my lap, so proud of how pretty it looked, all smooshed together and handed it to my first born.

She licked it.  No, I'm not kidding.

"I don't yike smores, Mama."

So then I tried giving it to Rachel...which erupted in a fit and sprint to her daddy.

So to make a long story short, Scott and I ate s'mores and I ate most of them.  The girls ate graham crackers and chocolate...as in separately...turning into piles of chocolatey grossness rather quickly and then raced back to the playground to get their little paw marks over everything.

What?  Is there something in my hair?  I just rubbed that gooey white thing all over it...

Um, I just want that piece of chocolate please.  I don't yike s'mores...

Blowing this Popsicle stand...

Probably too dark for you to see that my husband has an entire s'more in his mouth...this is his "oh well, more for us" pose.

We ended up going inside and directly to the bathtub shortly thereafter and Scott and I ventured back out and enjoyed burning up the rest of the firewood after the girls were asleep.  It was a cool evening and the quiet was so nice against the crack of the fire - plus, I had the rest of those s'mores to finish up...  What a wonderful kickoff to Fall!