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Who knew? Who knew my kids would have a fondness for spinach? Certainly not me.

I did not try spinach until about five years ago. I was terrified of the stuff. Here is what I knew about spinach that prevented me from trying it:

When eaten your body would become grossly disfigured causing monstrous veiny muscles to spontaneously burst out upon your arms.

When cooked it would shrivel away into a slimy green paste that resembled nothing of its former self.

It is green.

So I stayed clear of spinach. No thank you. “Olive Oil go rescue yourself and stop being so annoying. And, no, I am not eating spinach. Especially to save you.” There I said it. Oh, you know you were thinking it.

But I tried it as a salad. I loved it. It is so velvety and mild. I thought perhaps my children would love it, too.

And they did.

And they do.

More than me.

More than my husband.

More than Pop…

No, not more than him. Their bodies don’t combust for the stuff.

Thank God.

I won’t make a salad unless it is easy. Dinner is all ready so time consuming. Here is how I always make my salad, 3-4 times a week. We never get tired of it.

Ingredients:

5 – 6 oz. of prewashed baby spinach (best flavor I have found is Safeway or Vons O Organic) or prewashed romaine lettuce
1/3 cup Italian dressing (whichever is cheapest)
1/3 cup feta cheese

Optional for the less lazy:

Chopped red bell pepper
Chopped sun-dried tomatoes

Directions:

Dump salad in a bowl. Sorry. Forgot to take a picture of it in the bowl. But here it is before that step. All innocent. It doesn’t even know what’s going to happen to it.

Measure feta. Dump feta in the bowl.

Measure Italian dressing. Dump the dressing in the bowl. Toss.

And try not use the word dump while you are cooking. Just a thought. A suggestion. Don’t take offense or poke my eye out! “A-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga!”

That’s it. Three ingredients. If this salad could talk it would say, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am. Or all that’s in me.”

You could also dump (Sorry. Couldn’t resist) in the optional ingredients at this point. But be warned that most kids don’t like the extra ingredients.

Now go ~~rescue Olive Oil~~ take a nap. Cause that was exhausting.

“A-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga!”

For those of you with children (or if you are planning on having children or know someone with kids who likes fun ideas), I wanted to share one of my favorite things in my home. For three years (it has actually been four. We accidentally skipped a year), my daughter has made me a self portrait during Christmas under the guidance of her wonderful art teacher Lisa Owen-Lynch. Both of my kids take private art lessons from her. She is so talented and patient. We are very lucky to have her in our lives. My son takes an hour lesson every other week. And my daughter, once a week (my daughter did my gnome on this blog).

I think it is such a fantastic skill to encourage. I love art. And I love looking around my home and admiring the works my children have done. On to their self portraits:

This was my daughter (age 11), year one.

This was my daughter (age 12), year two.

This was this year’s self portrait at age fourteen. Notice the Anthropologie fox shirt she is sporting. : )

I always get the paintings framed in spectacular large gold or silver frames, because I think the chunkiness of the frame makes the pieces feel all the more special. By the time both of my kids leave for college, I hope to have six-seven self portraits of each child in in my home. I cannot wait to see how they change.

My son started his first self portrait this year with one that he painted for me for Christmas. I plan on making a wall feature with just their self portraits on it when I have enough to cluster them.

I don’t post pictures of my children on this blog. I guess this will be the closest I come to it. I wanted to share what I think is such a neat project. And a really cool decoration for the home. If you have an art teacher near you, I highly recommend hiring them and having your child/children make you one (if not many over the years) of these self portraits. It is so interesting to see how your child views themselves and to log the ways they change over the years.

This Christmas, my kids also made one each for my mother. She loved them.

Have you done this? Do you have any other ideas for me on how to create lasting physical mementos of my children? I love a project!

P.S. I shared this on Savvy Southern Style.

And My Romantic Home.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

oil

The Lazy Mom’s Salad

My Children’s Self Portraits