MENU PLAN MONDAY 11/26

The Thanksgiving feast went well! I prepared all the dishes and it wasn't too stressful as I did do a bunch ahead of time. Which was a good thing since I got a cold and was miserable on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I woke up feeling somewhat better, but my head was still messed up so I couldn't taste very well! I did have a bunch of leftovers this weekend and they were so good. Too bad I couldn't taste them the first time around! Em kept exclaiming how she just "loves Thanksgiving," all day long which was cute.

This week is back to the routine of school and work. I like the routine, though it's nice to break out of it every once in a while.

Monday: Mexicalli Pie (from the freezer), Tortilla Chips, Celery Sticks, Peanut Butter Cookies

Tuesday: Deluxe Baked Potato Bar w/ Bacon, Split Pea Soup, Winter Squash Muffins

Wednesday: Spaghetti w/ Meatballs (from the freezer), Salad, Garlic Bread

Thursday: Honey Rosemary Chicken, Herbed Swirl Bread, Baked Spinach

Friday: Pepper Rice, Peach Cobbler

Have a wonderful week and go visit I'm an Organizing Junkie's blog for more menu plan madness!

Pics from Children's Museum

On our recent trip to Omaha, we visited the Children's Museum with Uncle J, Aunt M and Cousin C.

Here's Kabe's playing with a puzzle in the baby area.


Cousin C. in the baby area. There's so much to choose from!

DH kept trying to take pictures of me the whole trip. I used to get annoyed at him for this and give him dirty looks that he would try to capture on film. However, I have switched tactics and always give a cheesy and toothy smile every time. So far my new plan is working and he has had to resort to doctoring the pictures of me after they are taken. He added stubble to this one, which I will not be showing online. He did show the altered pic to my brothers, much to their delight.

Nate with the play dough.

More Nate:

Nate says: "Help! My pants won't stay up!"

Playing with some cool animals.

"I'm having so much fun!"

Fun with a big ball.

"My pants are falling off again!"

Overcoming obstacles.

Em with two little guys.

I-guy having fun with water.

Uncle J and Cousin C- what a cute smile!

Curly hair.

"Forget the toys. I'm trying to remove my sock!" (as usual)
Peek a boo!

Cousins- they are only 6 weeks apart.

There aren't many pictures of Em and I-guy because they went off with Aunt M and Uncle J while DH and I stayed mostly in the baby room with the younger two. Our boys really warmed up to Uncle J. and I-guy would climb up into his lap and hang around him. Kabe's gave Aunt M a snuggle on our last day there that was very sweet! And Em had a special time each evening playing with only Aunt M. They played Polly Pockets and made some crafts. Em can't wait to go back!

Classic K.B. Look

MENU PLAN MONDAY 11/5

Well I was finally able to bring myself to use the crazy yellow happy face menu plan banner from the Organizing Junkie! I'm a pretty conservative gal and it took a little while to get used to this one! :) But my menu plan for this week is rather ambitious, so I will need all the exuberance I can get to stick to it! :)


Monday: Balsamic Raspberry Chicken, Rice, Sesame Broccoli or Garlic Broccoli (I think I'm going to use elements from both these recipes and come up with a new one)

Tuesday: Herbed Pot Roast, Rolls, Double Chocolate Pudding

Wednesday: Homemade Pizza, Fresh Veg Tray w/ dip

Thursday: Cashew Chicken, Gingerbread Cupcakes w/ Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

Friday: Penne a la Betsy w/ Shrimp

I also want to try making homemade whole-wheat pita bread since we LOVE eating pitas stuffed with scrambled eggs, ham, veggies, etc. I love to eat a toasted pita filled with fresh veggies, sprouts and a little mayo or ranch dressing. Healthy! Lunches:
1-Pitas
2-Fried Rice
3-
4-
5-

Snacks:
1-

Adventures in Once A Month Cooking (OAMC) August 2007

The freezer-cooking marathon is done! I've done freezer cooking sessions before, but had never planned to do so much in one day. Things didn't go quite as planned, but I learned a lot. My husband had one Friday off of work and I was supposed to have that day to myself to do the bulk of the cooking. But the plan changed last minute, and my husband was away for most of that day. So I had to do most of it during an evening, which didn't work too well. I think in the future I will plan to do mini-sessions here and there instead of a whole day marathon.

A couple of my meals didn't work so well in the freezer, so I won't be putting the recipes on here. The enchiladas turned out soggy and the veggies in the chicken veggie packets turned out rubbery and undercooked. So I will only be including the recipes for things that I've had success with.

It's handy to have an empty trash-can nearby for easy clean-up:

I enjoyed chopping the onions and green peppers in my new chopper contraption:

A couple of helpers sped things along (yeah, right! Oh well, they were cute and had nice helpful attitudes so I didn't want to discourage that! In the original plan my DH was supposed to have the kids. I didn't make much progress in between changing a yucky diaper... then washing my hands for five minutes and making sure they didn't dump the whole salt shaker out!)

Fully assembled Noodle Heaven:

Cooking the chopped up onions and peppers for Mexicalli Pie:

Add the browned ground beef:

Next comes the cheese:

Two fully assembled Mexicalli Pies:

The marinade for 2 large batches of Grilled Marinated Pork Chops:

The Grilled Marinated Pork Chops after the raw chops have been added in. I freeze it at this point. When I'm ready to cook them, I thaw and broil them like the original recipe says:

My progress so far:

On to the chicken recipes. Here's the Cashew Chicken base. This is the only part I cook and freeze as I stir-fry the veggies fresh when serving for better results.

Pan-frying the coated chicken nuggets in some olive oil:

The Chicken Nuggets are done! These heat up so quick and well in the oven later on and are WAY better for you than fast-food nuggets!

I forgot to take pictures of the meatballs, meatloaf and a couple of other things since I had to finish them up later due to the change in plans.

Here are the recipes:

1) Noodle Heaven (x 4)

2) Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole (x2)

3) Mexicalli Pie (x2)

4) Meatballs x2

5) Chicken Nuggets (x2)

6) Cashew Chicken Base (x2)

7) Turkey Meatloaf w/ Mashed Potatoes (x2- doubled recipe can be split into 3 parts)

8) Grilled Marinated Pork Chops (x2)

Misc.

1) Cooked Sliced Chicken for Salads

2) Cooked Crumbled Bacon for Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad

Links of Interest to me

I have a bunch of links that I've bookmarked that I want to get off of my desk-top. So I'm going to be posting them on my blog so I won't lose track of them.

A Low Impact Woodland Home

21 Tips on Keeping a Simple Home w/ Kids

Planning Days

Holistic Asthma Treatment

Headache Home Remedies

Cough-Variant Asthma

Case Report: Cough Variant Asthma

How to do Time-Outs Correctly

Audio Stories for Kids

StoryNory

Candlelight Stories

Green Cleaning Resources

Clean & Green

Make-Your-Own Non-toxic Cleaning Kit

How to Make Green Household Cleaners

MENU PLAN MONDAY 8/27

The next week or so is going to be pretty crazy as school has started, relatives are coming to visit, and we have to go to the city 2 hours away for some medical stuff. DH has a four-day weekend coming up and we've agreed that I can have Friday as my freezer-cooking day.

I'm going to prepare a month's worth of meals for the freezer. I will be spending the week doing as much shopping and prepping for this as I can to make the actual day a bit easier. Come back next week to check, because I plan on posting my recipes, grocery lists and pictures.

Today, I did manage to get my grocery list together for all of this and go to the Commissary to stock up. Nate, my 2-year-old, "helped" me unload. I was sitting in front of the fridge loading milks into it when Nut started tossing whole bags of noodles clear across the kitchen and into the vicinity in front of me. I guess he was giving them to me so I could put them in the fridge!

Then he got ahold of a couple of packages of cream cheese and tore off the cardboard. "Look Mommy, bee-yoo-tee-ful," he exclaimed in awe about the foil-covered brick beneath.

He then got ahold of a box of peanut butter crackers and asked me if I could open them. I told him not now, but in a little bit. Well he decided to take matters into his own hands and proceeded to tear the top off of the box, revealing the opaque plastic bag inside. "Holy cow!" he uttered, surprised that he was able to accomplish this.

Finally he pulled an opened box of spaghetti noodles out of the pantry and most of the pasta fell out, much to both Nate and Kabe's delight. They both scrambled to pick up and crunch noodles in their mouths. Sillies!

The thing is that my Nutty is so charming, cute and crazy that I have trouble getting upset with him when he does these kinds of things!

There's the little stinker on the right:

For this week I'm still making some regular meals, though I will be making extra of some to freeze. I'm also planning out thru Tuesday as that's when the company leaves.

Monday: Porcupine Meatballs (didn't get to last week)

Tuesday: Crockpot Italian Beef w/ Bread and Horseradish

Wednesday: 40-Clove Garlic Chicken

Thursday: Deluxe Baked Potato Bar

Friday: LO's

Saturday: Soup Bar - Meatball Soup, Popeye was Right Soup, Chicken Rice Soup

Sunday: Chicken Veggie Packets, Peach Cobbler

Monday: Homemade Pizza, High-Enzyme Salad, Stuffed Strawberries

Tuesday: OUT

This picture has nothing to do with MPM, but I just wanted to put it on so I could look at it all week. I plan on posting more pictures of food in the future, but for now I'll just have to shamelessly put up pictures of my babies! Oh well!!

Here's Kabe's waving "goodbye" with drool dripping off of her chin. Have a wonderful week! :)

Irish Twins

A while ago, I was talking to a lady who jokingly referred to my two youngest babies as "Irish twins." I googled the phrase and found this definition:

"It refers to siblings born in the same calendar year, or otherwise less than twelve months apart. It’s clearly a deeply derogatory comment about the stereotypical fecundity (and lack of contraception) of Irish Catholic families."

Interesting. Mine are 12 months and 5 days apart, so I guess that's close enough. :)

Upon further googling I found a msn group for people with Irish twins. On it I found this funny list (at least funny to me and probably anyone else who has kids so close together!)

Top Reasons Why It's Great to Have Irish Twins! (my comments are in pink)

1. You don't have to worry about anyone kidnapping your children in the store while you're shopping...that double stroller is so hard to steer, they wouldn't get anywhere!

(ain't that the truth!) The other day I took Em to art camp and couldn't get my side-by-side double stroller through the door of the art museum! I had to hold K-Babe and let the Nut loose. Scary! At least when they are in the stroller, they are contained!

2. If you're staying home with your children until they're in school, you will have fewer non-paid years than if you space your kids out.

3. You get to hear the CUTEST things, like when the older IT calls the new baby a "kitty" because she doesn't know the difference.

4. You get to know your pediatrician REALLY well!

5. You don't have to drag all your baby gear and maternity clothes out of storage, because they are still in use!

6. It's just like having twin babies...except that one twin is big enough to squash the other one like a bug! (this one made me LOL b/c of how true it is!)

7. No one expects your house to be clean. (*sigh* and it isn't)

8. When you're in the grocery store and one of the kids needs a pacifier, you can just take the one out of the happy child's mouth and give it to the fussy one. (Yes, I actually did this today.)

I've done this with baba's (bottles)!

9. You will get extra financial aid for having two kids in college at the same time.

10. People hold doors for you a lot more. (both while you're pregnant and while the kids are young)

11. You can play a fun game with your husband when you go out in public...place bets on how many people will comment about how cute your kids are...or how many people will say "you have your hands full" (like you don't know that already). I get this all the time. They certainly draw looks, attention and comments! If I had a quarter for every time I've heard someone say I have may hands full...

12. You have an instant bond with other parents of ITs because only they can understand what your life is like.

13. There is NOTHING that can bring more joy than being a mother...so why not have twice the joy! (the other day we were out and and another little boy got interested in K-Babe. When the other little kid tried to play with her, Nate kept saying "my K-babe" while putting his arm protectively over her. It was so cute! He's already a protective big brother!)

14. How can you keep from smiling when you're watching older IT pile up a bunch of toys right on top of the new baby so she can "play" with him (even when she does accidentally hit him in the head with her big toy car and make him cry) ? (or when the older one thinks the other one is a "horsey" and tries to sit on her!)

15. Your kids have a BEST FRIEND for life! (I love hearing them interact together. K-babe will give out one of her cute baby squeals and Natey will reply with one of his own. They'll go through a whole series of them that just cracks both of them up!)

16. Life is NEVER boring at home!

MENU PLAN MONDAY 8/13

The babies welcome you to Menu Plan Monday!

I can't find my ususal menu banner so I thought I would just open with a couple of pictures of my two babies in their high-chairs. They're seated and ready to find out what's on the menu for this week!

Well, we moved into our new house last week, which explains my lack of posting. It was a rather disorganized and chaotic move, but we are settling in. We LOVE our new house. It is about 40 years newer, much bigger and a million times more convenient than our old house!

I really need to get back into the healthy menu planning so I'm glad to be posting again. I have barely eaten fruits or veggies for the last couple of weeks, so I'm planning on having a salad for lunch every day and a fruit smoothie for afternoon snack. I'm also going to try to eat 2 more fruit servings during the day and fix some raw veggies. Of course I'm going to try to get the kids to eat as much of this as possible as well! Here's a picture of one of the salads I made a couple of weeks ago- the Tuna-rrific Pasta Salad (no peas, of course). Who wouldn't want to eat this for lunch!

A little while back I found a great new food blog called MommyCooks and bookmarked a bunch of recipes to try. The one I have gotten a chance to make, Stuffed Strawberries, was a big hit! I took them to a backyard barbeque our neighbor hosted and the people were impressed. The fact that they were pretty easy to make remained my little secret!

Go to I'm an Organizing Junkie's blog to find other great menu plans. It's how I discovered the Mommy Cooks blog! :)

Monday: Baked Tilapia w/ Brown Rice

Tuesday: Grilled Marinated Pork Chops w/ Baked Potatoes

Wednesday: Tuna Noodle Casserole

Thursday: 40-Clove Garlic Chicken, Rice a Roni

Friday: Beef Burgundy Simplified

Saturday: Make-you-own Pizzas