Menu Plan Monday- June 28th

Last week was crazy. And I'm so glad it's over. We've had lots of strong storms blow through. Which has meant alot of yard clean up with fallen branches as well as busy days for Mark at work. Seems like the storms keep knocking out internet, power surges taking down computers that sort of thing on top of normal calls. In fact Mark had to replace our battery backup on our computer because of a surge. At least that's easier than replacing the whole computer. And it meant we didn't lose any of our data. :) Needless to say we didn't get to everything on the menu last week. I never did get to grill like I was hoping. Early softball games also caused me to change around meals in order to have food ready by the time Mark got home so that he could be at 6pm games. This week games are at 8pm, so hopefully I won't feel as rushed. But with later games it means that I will be home by myself in the evenings b/c it's too late to go with the boys. Oh well it just means Mark will owe me another night out. :) Friday last week I left Mark to feed the boys while I went out with Rachel and some of her friends from college. It was a great night out. I didn't realize how much I was needing a girls night out till I was out with them. I felts very refreshed after. :) Ok I'll stop rambling now. Here is the menu for this week. I'm getting excited about all the summer veggies at the farmer's market so I'm trying to find new ways to use fresh veggies.

Monday: Pasta with Sugar Snap Peas and bacon

Tuesday: Trish's Zucchini Mousaka

Wednesday: Chicken, roasted potatoes and summer veggies

Thursday: Great Green Vegetable Pasta

Friday: Burrito Bowl

Saturday: Leftovers

Sunday: Tomato basil mozzarella pasta

As always be sure to make a stop over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Night at the Softball Field

Softball and baseball have quite quickly come a big part of the our lives this summer. Mark and Uncle Tex play in a church softball league for Uncle Tex's church. The boys all love going to watch the game when we can.

In addition to watching softball, we have been playing alot of baseball at home and at grandparent's house. Last summer Grandma Cindy brought back a soft baseball bat and ball from a Toledo Mudhens game (my uncle lives in Toledo). While it got played with some last summer, this summer it has been the most popular of our outside toys. After several nights of constant baseball we decided to get Ian his own mitt, along with a baseball tee. Both have been great additions. The boys love them, and I'm sorta kicking myself for not getting Cai a mitt as well. Even more fun is watching Ian and his cousin Josiah play ball. Currently Ian likes to pitch and Josiah likes to bat. This works well and the boys will spend hours playing together this way. In fact last night they did just that. Last night we went to watch Mark play ball. Aunt Rachel (Mark's sister) and I sat on blankets while the boys played ball almost the entire time, which was two hours. To be honest I think it was more fun to watch the boys play ball than to watch Mark. :) Either way it was a great summer evening of ball.

Menu Plan Monday- June 21st

Monday again? Gosh the weekend seemed to fly past. Even so it was a great weekend. Saturday we had a cookout out at Mark's folks house. Mark's great aunt was visiting so we were all getting together to hang out with her. My father-in-law grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and the rest of us brought side dishes. I brought this wonderful pesto potato salad I read about on Maya Made's blog. In my haste to make it I forgot to add the dill, but no one seemed to mind. We all really enjoyed it. Yesterday I made crepes with fresh fruit toppings for Mark for Father's Day. Cai helped me cut strawberries and apples, although I think he ate more than he helped. :) We also had crushed mulberries.

It was a great brunch. We than went out to eat to celebrate as well for supper. So this week I have lots of fresh veggies from the Farmer's Market to use. Here is the menu.

Monday: Spaghetti with zucchini

Tuesday: Confetti Meatloaf, bake potatoes and peas

Wednesday: Grilled chicken legs and veggies

Thursday: Asian Peanut Chicken wraps

Friday: leftovers for the family, I'm going out with my sister-in-law Rach :)

Saturday: Salmon Quesadillas

Sunday: Sausage Asparagus Skillet

Organizing Junkie has more menu to browse for more ideas. Go check it out!

Hair Cut!!!

It has been over a year and half since I have had a hair cut. And thus as you can imagine it was getting long, especially since it was long to begin with. Top that with the fact that my hair normally grows fast and it was almost to the small of my back. So today I went and got my hair cut. I had decided a while back that not only did I need a trim but since it was so long I should donate it. Knowing that I needed to cut at least 10 inches to donate, and not knowing exactly how long that is, I had decided to cut it shoulder length. I figured this would be short enough to provide enough hair to donate, long enough to allow me to still wear it in a ponytail and short enough to provide some relief in the hot summer weather. When I got in and the stylist was measuring it she told me that 10 inches was just above the middle of my back. However, having already planned on a shoulder length hair style I decided to go ahead and cut it more than the required 10 inches.

I didn't measure the strains nor did I think to get a picture of my hair prior to cutting. But my guess would be I cut off around 12 to 13 inches at least. It feels weird to have shorter hair. But I already like the new look. Plus it's just so much lighter :)

Menu Plan Monday- June 14th

Another Monday already? In my attempts to finally get organized I seemed to have lost track of time. Oh well. Here we go. Last weeks meals all works out well. The Mushroom, Mozzarella and Spinach Pasta was a huge success with the boys. Mark missed out because he had evening training for work. But I think he'll like it as well. Although I might decrease the spinach or puree it or something because Ian was not too found it. In fact he told me that he liked fresh spinach but not cooked. The new chicken recipe was pretty good. But I never made it to the farmers market so we didn't get to enjoy the three pea stir-fry. It's going to make an appearance on this weeks menu. Finally yesterday Mark invited an old high school buddy over for dinner. He moved back to town a few month before us. It was fun watching the two catch up. I think it'll be good for Mark to reestablish their friendship. I made Rhubarb Soda for the first time this season. I've been kicking myself for weeks not for not making it sooner. It turned out really well. Last spring I think I was too light on syrup and they were lacking alittle in taste. But last night I got it perfect and all three of us adults got to enjoy the refreshing drink. :) I want to try SouleMama's Ruby June but I don't have any tequilla. It will probably have to wait till next season. Something tells me I'm just not going to get around to it this year. Ok enough rambling. Here is what I'm planning on cooking this week.

Monday: Peanut butter noodles (requested by Ian)

Tuesday: Black bean, zucchini, and tomato quesadillas

Wednesday: Lemon baked chicken, 3 Pea stir fry, potato salad

Thursday: quiche

Friday: Hamburger Helper

Saturday: leftovers

Sunday: Salmon Quesadillas

So what's on your menu this week? As always go over to Organizing Junkie for more menus to browse.

Garage sale finds!!!

I'm so excited, I just had to share. Yesterday we spend the morning garage saleing. And while I didn't stumble upon alot of great finds, I did get 1 Great one. Check it out. A fire house with all it's accessories. Bunk beds, kitchen, bathroom, dispatch center, living room, firetruck, warning cones, fire hydrant and 4 firefighters to live and work among it all. And here is the great part, I paid $10. Yep! Did I say I was excited? Because I am. And so is Ian. He loves it, and spend about half the world cup game yesterday afternoon playing. And now that we're home from church he is playing again. Putting out fires and such. It's wonderful to watch. Makes my heart smile. My other finds were the Game of Life. The same old version I play when I visit my Dad's folks. A couple of books: a search and find and a removable sticker digger book. Both have made their way to the center box of the van between the boys. (sorry no pic, I'm too lazy to go out to the garage to get one) And a cloth doll that I'm going to fix up for Aiden. There are already fits over the doll I got Ian when Cai was born. So I figure it's time to get another one. Hopefully less fights will accrue with more than one to play with. Than again, it didn't work with me and my brother. He just want to annoy me by taken mine. And I'm well aware the same could be true of my children. :) But I'm hoping for the best. I hope everyone is enjoying this garage sale season. Any great finds?

Establishing routines- The Dishes

Mark and I have never been good at keeping up with dishes. The sad part is we have a dishwasher. And yet in the past we weren't always good at getting it unloaded and loaded back up in a timely manner. And thus dishes would be stacked on top so high that we did finailly start loading there wasn't room for them all. :( It's sad but true. And hand wash dishes are worse. However, my new kitchen is very small in comparison to the one in KS. My dishwasher has to either sit in my laundry room or my dining room b/c there is no place for it in the kitchen when it's not running (it's a portable dishwasher). Currently I've got it in the dining room, which I think is where it will stay. But I don't want to have to look at dirty dishes on top all day long. So in attempting to organize my house and my life and establish new routines in our new place, I have started making dish duty a regular part of life. Every morning I unload the dishwasher.

Cai has been really excited about helping with this job. He pulls out silverware and plates and brings them to me to put away. Things like plastic containers I let him put up in the cupboards b/c they are stored in the lower ones. Ian helps too on occasion. But I haven't started making this a requirement. YET I'm thinking in the new future it might be. I'm wanting to start some basic chores for the kids. Things that I know they are capable of and such. Simply having them help starts the idea.
Anyway, so after we get the dishwasher unloaded, I roll it into the dining room so we can load dishes through-out the day. Here I also get the boys help. After snack, lunch and dinner I have them load up their plates and silverware. Things such as bowls and cups that go in the top rack I load b/c it's harder for them to reach and I don't want things to drop and break. But after about four days of this I think it's working. It's becoming ingrained in my memory and routine. And I feel much better about the dishes. I've also started cleaning as I go while cooking. And making sure to run the dishwasher every evening after supper. What are your kitchen cleaning routines? My next goal is establishing toy clean up. Wish me luck. :)