The Keenan Family 411

So Much Cereal, So Little Time...

Owen has started a new breakfast craze for the Keenan household; combining multiple cereals into one bowl!

There have been many times when I've left for work in the morning, lamenting the fact that we haven't seen a lick of cereal for days, only to come home at night to find over a dozen glorious cereal boxes stacked high in the pantry.  Let's just say that after Amy breaks out the coupons at the supermarket, she can really clean house in the cereal aisle!

One morning after the most recent spike in our cereal supply, Owen was struggling mightily over the decision of which cereal to have for breakfast.  He eventually whittled the field down to four candidates, but he couldn't seem to narrow it down any further.

So Owen, being the out-of-the-box thinker that he is (no pun intended), saw no reason why he couldn't simply pick all of them.  The result, as pictured above, was a bowl of cornflakes / corn puffs / honey o's / Life cereal!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Cookie Experiment!

My intrepid wife decided to take a culinary leap this evening and baked some classic "candy cane cookies" for the first time. 

Well, they're a variation of the standard candy cane cookie; she couldn't get the red and white dough to twist around each other for some reason, so she just kinda mushed them together into round cookies instead.  So I guess they're not technically "candy cane cookies".  To be honest, we're not sure what the heck they are.

Anyway, she formally presented them to the household's cookie-tasting committee and here are the official results:

Cameron initially declared them an unmitigated success until they started making his upper teeth and lower teeth stick together, at which point he unceremoniously spit his cookie (or the pasty mess that was once his cookie) into the kitchen sink.

I ate about nine of them after soaking each one very thoroughly in vanilla yogurt.

Shane announced that the cookies were "bad, but warm" (they were fresh out of the oven).

Owen proclaimed them to be the absolute best Christmas cookies he's ever tasted.

Next up for Amy's Christmas baking...fruit cake!

Bedtime Snack!

Owen & Shane's favorite bedtime snack...cashews, pickles and warm milk.  Of course.

Late Breakfast. VERY Late.

As part of Amy's life-long effort to "mix things up a bit" she served up some breakfast for dinner last night!  That's right, we were inhaling omelettes, waffles, sausages and eggs at 7pm. 

Although "we" does not include Shane since he is apparently continuing his hunger strike.  NOT that Amy and I are bitter, of course.

Anyway, we spent much of the meal trying to decide what to call it.  "Brinner"?  "Dreakfast"?  "Dinfeast"?

Well, I don't care what you call it...it was delicious!

And now I'm pretty sure that I have a drinking problem.  Having a Long Trail Ale with breakfast is a bad sign, right?

 

 

Oktoberfest at Hyland Orchards!

One possible sign that the world is coming to an end is the fact that we all woke up this morning and discovered not a single soccer event on the calendar for the day, despite the fact it was a Sunday!

Before Hartwell Soccer could decide to quickly add an event to the calendar somehow, we hastily hopped in the Beast and journeyed north to Sturbridge, Massachusetts for Oktoberfest hosted by Hyman Orchard and Pioneer Brewery.

It wasn't quite what I pictured, and not nearly as well-attended as I expected, but we all had a blast and ended up spending the entire afternoon there despite the cool and overcast weather.  We enjoyed a live band (a really good one, by the way!), a big campfire, games of volleyball, horeshoes and football, and we finished off the visit with a long walk through the apple orchard, enjoying fresh-picked apples along the way.

Amy and I also enjoyed a good stretch of kid-free time.  As the boys explored some of the apple orchard we warmed up at the fire and sampled Pioneer's brews.  I liked all three; Pioneer Pale Ale, Pioneer Gold and their tasty Pioneer Blueberry Ale.  Amy didn't like any of them and, once again, I was thankful that my tastes aren't nearly as discerning and refined as hers!

Photo album is posted at the top of the left side bar...

Long Live Phil Collins!

Once again, Shanie has boycotted dinner despite the fact that dinner consists of pasta and chicken...formerly one of his favorite meals.  Amy and I are pretty sure that he's doing this just to bug us.

Being fed up (so to speak), I've decided to take a rather extreme measure.  I am now playing one of my favorite CD's rather loudly in the kitchen:  The Phil Collins'Big Band; A Hot Night in Paris.  And I've made it clear that the music ain't stoppin' til Shane finishes dinner!

Unfortunately, the other two kids and Amy are also being tortured.  Furthermore, the music seems to have nauseated Shane to the point that now he couldn't eat even if he wanted to.

As I'm typing this, Owen (the self-appointed mediator) is trying to work a deal.  "How about he eats just the chicken, no pasta, but then he doesn't get dessert?"  or "How about he eats no chicken, but extra pasta and no dessert?" and "Can't you just make him a bunch of carrots and apples instead?!"  As you can tell, the mediator's getting desperate. 

Meanwhile, Phil and his big band play on...

Grocery Shopping

Here's some random footage from a recent trip to Aldi's (great prices and a neat business model, by the way). 

In this short clip you'll see the essential elements of a Keenan Family grocery shopping trip; kids hanging on mommy, irrationally loud volumes and the boys putting things in the cart which momma had no intention of buying! 

Click here to watch.

Hibachi on Hallow's Eve!

The dilemma with Amy's birthday is that we can't really celebrate it properly on October 31st because we're rather caught up in other activities.  So, much to the kids' delight, we ended up celebrating it last night at a Hibachi joint.  It was the most entertaining meal we've had since the Disney character meals last year. 

The explosive wall of flame that sprung up no less than two feet from our dinner plates was particularly exciting!

Small photo album is on the right.  My apologies for the fuzzy pictures but, as the family's iFreaks (Amy and Tony) will gladly point out, the shots were taken with a Treo instead of an iPhone...

Owie's Pancake Experiment a Success!

Chef Owie is rather pleased to report that his two pancake experiments this morning were resounding successes.  We discovered that baking pancakes with butterscotch sundae topping makes for a yummy breakfast.  We also got a little fancy-schmancy this morning and tried adding crumbled Mint Milano cookies, which also elicited rave reviews.   

Table for Five?

Shane is doing a lot of amusing things these days.  The best recent example is a few nights ago when Amy and I were scrambling around putting dinner together.  All of a sudden, we looked up to find that five plastic kid-tray plates had been set up around the kitchen table.  Just as I was about to call out to Cameron and Owen and thank them for setting the table without being asked to, we heard silverware clanging around and looked down to find little Shaney digging around for a handful of forks to go with the plates that he just put out!