mock chow mein on thursday

We had these cute brothers here for supper on a Thursday night.

When Jay heard a lot of people were coming for supper, he doubled the recipe.  It was about perfect, just about right for fifteen people, though some of the little ones don't eat very much, some of the big ones make up for that.  Still, there's a little leftover in the fridge right now.

But this is supper Jay loved from when he was a kid, so before he started cooking, he phoned his mother to make sure he had the recipe right.    He did, just not the exact amounts.

The guy in the orange shirt was really here mostly for the Yo-J.   They don't buy this nonsense product at his house.  In fact, the only reason we ever bought it in the first place was because I desperately had to wean Tim who was biting to the point of drawing blood and there was some screaming (his and mine,) and  I was pregnant with Julia couldn't go on.

(Some toddlers were civilized and nursed all the way through, so then I nursed a little baby and a toddler too.  It's fine. Sometimes it works out. These were people who did not BITE.)

Anyway, Tim  found Yo-J to be an acceptable substitute for breastmilk, thank GOD, which says a lot about it.

But then it became a staple of life around here.  At one point when Tim was about five we had to quit buying it entirely because he wouldn't even eat anything else. Nope, just swill that Yo-J.

A man can live on that.

 Here's that plush, luscious baby.  He's fast though. Try getting a picture of him.

 Here he's trying to grab the camera.

 And the smile was missed, but he's still pretty cute with his thinking face on.

 Here are a bunch of kids under the table, behind the bench, eating crackers and laughing a lot.  Those are Julia's long feet in the green and gray socks, and p.j. in the pink.  At one point even the baby was under there and all the dogs, including Kirsten's, were stalking the crackers.

Why would dogs be so interested in dry, plain crackers?  They totally were.

Oh, the keyboard.   See the guy in orange to the side?   He jumped on the couch, which he's too little to hurt, but his face--he hit his mouth on the little wire music rack and wow, I winced.  That definitely hurt.

He recovered amazingly fast.  I'd probably still be at moaning about my teeth.

 Aww, and here are two cute cousins eating popcorn.

 Here's the recipe for the casserole.

Mock Chow Mein
     a recipe from Jay's sweet mother, in a quantity to feed 15

2 pounds of hamburger, fried and drained
3 cups of rice
2 cups of chopped onion
2 cups of chopped celery
2 large cans of cream of chicken soup
1 large can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of water
1/2 cup of soy sauce

Spray a big roaster pan with non-stick spray and stir all this up in the pan.
Bake at 350 for at least 90 minutes or until the rice is cooked.

And that is the end of that.

Today is Lori's birthday, that beautiful sweetheart we will love forever.

And it was a very nice evening, spent with crazy squirrels and their parents.

Happy Thursday.   love you all so, Mom, and Dad too