My husband cooks these wonderful meals everyday.  But on Friday nights when our entire clan shows up, he really goes all out.  Take this past Friday for example.

This past Friday we celebrated Dale, our daughter-in-laws birthday.  On those celebrations the birthday person gets to choice whatever they want to eat including the desserts.  Dale wanted steaks on the grill, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese sauce, baked potatoes, and rolls.  For her cake she wanted red Velvet cake with lots of frosting.  (I didn’t say they had to eat healthy did I???)

Anyway…I realized how much work that he puts into both meals he prepares.  You see, there are seven children in addition to the eight adults that he cooks for.  The kids ate hot dogs, mac and cheese and cooked pudding in cute little cups for them.

Sounds easy enough right?  Eight steaks (check), taters in the oven (check), veggie in steamer (check)  cake baked and frosted (check). Hotdogs on grill (check) Mac and cheese (check)  STOP!!  Not so checked.

Lets start at the beginning.  Okay, cake needs to be baked.  Not so easy.  She wants cupcakes, not a cake.  So he makes individual cupcakes for her.  And he didn’t use a cake mix – heaven forbid!  He made it for her from scratch.  Okay, sifted flour, greased cupcake thingy, measured and whipped up into fluffy mass later, ready to bake.  This takes thirty-five minutes.  Then it has to cool for several hours to put on the frosting – and of course not from a can.  Two hours for the cake and viola!  Cupcakes!

Steaks.  Not so hard, throw them on the grill, flip them over and done.  Nope, not so fast.  Eight people, eight different areas of done-ness, from well done (ewww, no blood thank you very much), to rare.  And as you have already guessed, done to perfection to everyones taste.  Well of course…

Baked potatoes.  HA!  You’d think this was the easiest one of all, not so at our house.  Gotta have bacon – the real stuff, sour cream whipped up, butter and cheese.  All again to everyones taste.  He does let them put their potatoes together.

Veggies in the steamer.  Nothing frozen at this house.  The veggies had to be cleaned and separated into smaller florets and placed into the steamer.  Nice melted Velvetta with butter and a dollop of milk  to pour all over them when their served.  Yummy.

Dinner for eight adults.

Wait!  Me.  I don’t eat red meat.  I got a thigh and leg of chicken grilled until almost done then put into the oven smothered in BBQ sauce until the meat just simply falls off the bone.  Hmmmm, perfect.

The seven children, ranging from ages two to eight are having grilled hot dogs, soft fresh buns – no he didn’t make them, and please don’t suggest that he does, or he’ll be a week getting the recipe right, the length just perfect and the freshness down pat.  Mac and cheese that is made – yeah, fresh not from a box.  Their dessert is individual pudding cups with chocolate pudding on the bottom, crushed cooked in the middle, and vanilla pudding on top.  Then when served, another dollop of whipped extra creamy cool whip on the top.

Now here’s where the amazing thing comes into play.  Everything, and I mean everything, hot dogs, steaks, veggies, all of it is done at the exact  time and not one person has to wait on a single thing.  Timing is perfect!  Every week we all sit down together at the same time to the most perfect meal, delicious and succulent.  No one gets up from the table hungry, no one leaves the table to get anything extra – unless it’s a drink or someone forgot forks or something.  It’s perfect.  Just like him.

I love my husband.  I love him more everyday, more every hour, more every minute of every day.