And Here We Thought Hollywood Was To Blame For Our Body Issues...

I've been reading Little House In The Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my kids as a part of our school. Bella is loving it. Braden, well, not as much. There are some parts that he likes but since he's only three I do my best to try and make him involved in the story. For example, in the beginning chapters Laura's Pa shoots and kills a deer, butchers a pig and talks a great deal about hunting a bear. The book goes into great detail as to how they prepare the meat to eat.

At that point in the story my children realized that the meat we eat at meals comes from actual animals. To help them better grasp the whole deer is meat concept, I took them on an outing to a smokehouse a few minutes from my house. We picked up some venison salami and gobbled it up. It was about this time that I realized that Bella is not nor will she ever be a vegetarian. The words, "I love to eat animals," actually crossed her lips.

Last week we learned about how Laura's grandpa made maple syrup, maple sugar and maple candies. So back to the store we went in search of real maple syrup and candies. Two thousand dollars later (I might be exaggerating a bit there) we went home with our maple products in hand and ate pancakes for dinner.

In our story today Laura and her family went into town and while they were there, they had a picnic of bread, butter, hard boiled eggs and cookies for lunch. So easy. This is something I can put together without leaving the house. Awesome. Plus I'll get to make cookies with my kids making me seem like the coolest mom ever for at least the next 2.5 minutes.

Our Little House picnic minus the cookies. (They were in the oven)

Our picnic was indoors because it's November in New York and I didn't feel like dressing my kids up in coats and hats to butter some bread and eat. Some of you may be concerned about the authenticity of this picnic. Would Ma Ingalls have really used Smart Butter? No, she wouldn't have. Then again I'd be willing to bet that Ma Ingalls probably gave her kids whole milk instead of skim, so there.

Speaking of Ma Ingalls, as I was cleaning up our picnic I looked down and thought, "Gosh, that's a lot of carbs." I then wondered if perhaps Ma Ingalls was a little plump, but then I remembered this lovely little nugget from a chapter I read last week.

"Caroline says Charles could span her waist with his hands, when they were married." Caroline was Laura's Ma and when she heard this she felt proud.

As I reflected on this, I looked down on my exceedingly high carb lunch menu that Ma Ingalls had so graciously made for us and determined that one of two things must be true. Either Laura's Pa had grotesquely large hands, like The Hulk large or I hate Ma Ingalls.