Monday, April 20, 2009

Menu Plan Monday



Sheesh...looks like I slacked off blogging again..not one post last week! Let's see if I can get back on track here, starting out with our menu for this week.
I never got around to posting last week's menu, I was late getting it planned. My favorite two meals (because I can't pick just one!) were Mexican Lasagna and Italian Nachos....YUM!

Here's what's up for this week:

Monday: Taco Mac & Cheese

Tuesday: Quesadillas

Wednesday: Pizza Spaghetti Casserole, Salad

Thursday: Hot Dogs or Leftovers

Friday: Carbonara, Salad

Saturday: We will be eating at an outing we are going to.

Sunday:

For more menu ideas, be sure to stop by Laura's!



Saturday, April 11, 2009

Coloring Fun

We had some fun coloring eggs this evening. Ruthi had been looking forward to it all day. She was very excited. When CJ saw the eggs, he got a little excited too. That sort of surprised me - I really didn't think he had any interest in coloring eggs anymore. I was wrong! So he got in on the fun and colored a few as well.

I posted these pictures on Facebook, minus the ones of CJ. He didn't want them on there, and I honored his request since his friends are on Facebook too. However, his friends don't read my blog, so I'm posting them here!

Ruthi loved dropping the eggs in the cups and fishing them out. When they were dry, she added stickers them. She was very proud of her creations.

The little color kit I bought this time didn't come with a white crayon. That's the first thing CJ looked for! So he raided Ruthi's crayons for one so he could draw pictures and add messages to eggs.

They both had fun. I loved watching Ruthi's excitement. I also enjoyed seeing that my son, who thinks he's all grown up most days, have fun doing something so simple as coloring eggs! It reminded me of watching him when he was Ruthi's age doing this!

Here are some pictures!





















Now I'm off to iron our clothes for in the morning, and then to bed.

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Easter!

Monday, April 06, 2009

Tackle it Tuesday



I missed last week's tackle post. I planned to do it, had pictures ready and everything. But I was so tired at the end of the day, I just never got it up.
So...the refrigerator part of this post is what WOULD have been posted last week.

My refrigerator was pretty bad - it had gotten so stuffed full that I was afraid stuff was going to fall out when I opened the door. Actually, I think stuff did fall out a time or two.

And the outside was a pretty big mess as well. My daughter is constantly coloring something new and sticking it on there. Plus, since we homeschool, the side of the fridge is used as a place to showcase her latest creations.

But it was time to clean it up - inside and out.

Here are some before pictures:








And after:

(Please ignore all the wires - they are annoying but thankfully only temporary!)





As a bonus - I even cleaned under it! I didn't really plan to, but I had to move it to unplug the phone that was plugged up back there. The phone was old and needed to be tossed, and I had to get it unplugged. What amazed me was how dirty it was under there. We had new floors put in the end of November, so it was clean then. And it was filthy under there! So, I'm glad that phone needed to be unplugged!

Ok, what else did I tackle? Not as much as I had hoped to get done. But I DID clean my living room from top to bottom and corner to corner. I moved the furniture and vaccuumed under it and removed all the couch/chair cushions and vaccuumed them out. I didn't take any pictures though, because since most of it wasn't surface stuff, there wouldn't be an obvious difference.

Next, I tackled some food. No - I didn't EAT it! (Well, not all of it anyway!) I'm trying to stock my freezer with quick and easy breakfasts and lunches. I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to, I have a long list still, but here's what I did manage to get done.

24 bagel pizzas made and packaged for the freezer. I had done some of these before and learned a little something. Before I prepared them like I prepare any pizza I'm about to bake. Sauce, cheese, then pepperoni. I put them in the freezer to flash freeze then bagged them up. What I found was that the cheese and pepperoni would fall off the bagel.

So this time I added the sauce, then the pepperoni and the cheese on top of that. Then I popped them in the oven for about 5 minutes - just long enough to melt the cheese so it would act like "glue" to hold it all together. This worked MUCH better! 10 minutes or so in the toaster oven and we have lunch!

Here's one pan, cooling from the oven.


And all bagged up!


I made a batch of banana-chocolate-chip muffins.


And I made oatmeal cream pies! YUM!


Then I made some refried beans. I soaked my pintos in my crockpot overnight. Then I drained them the next day and cooked them most of the day. When they were ready, I put them in a pan, mashed them up, added some sautéed onion, some red sauce and some cheese.


Then I made flour tortillas. These are good, but they are really difficult to get thin enough. I did these because I was out of store bought ones. I don’t know how often I’ll make them myself, because I also found them harder to work with, but they work fine if I’m out of the others!


And with that, I made bean burritos for the freezer.


And I made a batch of granola. This is one of CJ's favorite things, and he's been asking me to make it for a while. So I finally got some made!


And I think that pretty much covers it for this week. I’m a bit disappointed in myself because I lost my momentum and didn’t get half the stuff completed that I wanted to! Oh well…I’ll keep trying to get those things done!

To see what everyone else is tackling this week, be sure to visit 5 Minutes for Mom!

Menu Plan Monday



It's another simple food week here. I'm just not feeling very adventurous.
I have two carry-over meals from last week. There were a few changes, so two meals didn't get made. One was what we ate tonight and the other will be tomorrow.

Monday: Spinach Rice Casserole, Rolls
I actually altered the recipe a bit. I browned a pound of ground turkey and added it along with a few more seasonings. It was very good!

Tuesday: Mini Cheddar Meat Loaves, Green Beans

Wednesday: Hot Dogs, Mac & Cheese

Thursday: Homemade Chicken, Spinach Alfredo Pizza

Friday: Mexican Lasagna

Saturday: Leftovers

Sunday: We will be celebrating Easter at my parents' house and eating with them.


For more menu ideas, be sure to stop by Laura's!




Sunday, April 05, 2009

Fiber One Gift Basket Giveway

Erin over at $5 Dinners is hosting a Fiber One giveaway. I really want to win this mostly because I want that food scale! If you want a chance to win, be sure to go enter!





Thursday, April 02, 2009

This, That, and the Other

So, can you tell this is going to be a very random post?

I've been meaning to blog all week, but I only managed my menu on Monday. I had pictures ready for a Tackle it Tuesday post, but just never made the time to get it posted. I'll save it for next Tuesday.

Hey, I was busy! Really!
Well, at least Monday and Tuesday. I kept busy all day. Then Wednesday came and I kind of lost my momentum. And it didn't come back today. I'm hoping my productivity picks back up tomorrow, because I certainly have plenty to do!

So....I DID IT!!! I ran my 5K on Saturday! And I must say, I was pretty proud of myself. It rained the entire time, but it didn't bother me at all. I was thankful it was just rain, and not a bad storm. I was really worried the race would get cancelled. Thankfully, it didn't!

Before Saturday, the fastest I had completed 3.1 miles was 40 minutes. But on Saturday, I did it in 36 1/2 minutes! I was very happy. Especially considering just a few months ago, I NEVER thought I'd EVER be running! The girl who's been allergic to exercise all her life RAN A 5K!!!!!!!

Here are a couple of pictures.


This was taken right before we took off. That's my running partner Suzanne on the left. On the right are two other friends, Caleb and his dad, Al, who I didn't even know were going to be there. Very cool to see them there. Al's daughter was also running, not sure how she didn't make it in the picture. I also had another friend running, and she didn't make it into the picture either. But Chip got there right before it began (he had just gotten off work) and didn't have much time to get a picture, or we would have made sure no one got left out.


This is my friend (who is my neighbor) Denise and Ruthi. They were there just in time to wave to me as I ran by!


And here I am crossing the finish line. I was so happy to be there!

I felt amazing! I'm so glad I did it, and now I'm ready to get prepared for another one. I want to run FASTER next time!

On Sunday...I totally rested. I planned to go to church, but when I got up, I could hardly walk! I was a little surprised as to how sore I was. I guess I really pushed myself a little harder, and I definitely felt it!

Ruthi kept asking me, "Mommy, do your cabs still hurt?" So adorable...and yes I had very sore calves!!!

Let's see...Monday I did lots of cleaning. Tuesday I did more cleaning and a bit of baking. I planned to continue baking on Wednesday, but like I mentioned, I lost my momentum. So I'm planning on lots of baking tomorrow.

Today, I've been pretty lazy. It's been the perfect day for it...cold and rainy. So I've been trying to catch up on email and blog reading and facebook and such.

But for the last little bit, I've been playing...with this:

My picture order came today, so I've been putting everything in place and having fun. I have a lot of journaling to get caught up on! But I'm having fun with this...I'm so glad it finally came!

So, I think I'm going to get off here and play some more. And pray the weather doesn't get worse. We are under a tornado watch until 3 am, so I don't know how much sleep I'll be getting since the hubster is on duty. I hate this about spring. And I hate it even more when my hunny isn't home to keep me calm! Hopefully the night will be uneventful!




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