New Food, New Table

Monday was a busy afternoon and evening in the kitchen!  I was trying to whip up a roast chicken and needed a good distraction for the boys.  While there are about a million fun things for them to do down in the family room and playroom, they insist on playing in the kitchen - so I gave them another large container of play food I had been saving for such an occasion.  It's not like we didn't already have enough...and it also isn't in my favor that the boys' favorite thing to do is dump it out, spread it all over the floor (sometimes a falling hazard for me!), and then usually end by throwing most of the play food down into the family room.  But it worked for that 20-30 minutes I needed focus on getting a new recipe right.  And even though tricycles are not allowed in the kitchen, one ended up there.

Part II:  After the boys went to bed, Ryan and I got to work on installing new booster seats to the chairs of our new (to us), gem of a craigslist find, family kitchen table!  That's right - bye bye high chairs!!  It's been a great 2 years with those things...but I have been getting tired of cleaning trays, seats, and cushions with so many cracks and creases for peas and other food to hide 3 times a day, in addition to their dishes.  We also decided that it's time we start incorporating more "family style" meals.  Our new table has enough chairs for all of us to sit comfortably and eat, and the twins just love sitting at the "big boy" table.  They came down this morning and climbed right into the booster seats by themselves and started working on putting on their own straps.  They still don't really grasp the fact that doing this actually confines them to lock down until Mommy lets them out (or until they figure out how to release the straps).  For now, I'm happy they like getting in the chairs and strapped in, and that I no longer have to lift them in and out of high chairs!  Next order of business is to work on the "no feet on table" rule :)