Menu Plan Monday

Wow, it has been an loooong time since I have menu planned! I need to get back into the swing of things!

Monday - We had steak hogies and Asparagus Risotto

Tuesday - Coach and I are having a date night.. Monkey will have salmon (YUCK! but we discovered he loved it when we were in LA!) Sweet girl will prob have ham and cheese and yogurt.

Wednesday - Lasagna Toss

Thursday - Tacos

Friday - Probably McDonalds - Coach has a game at 530

Saturday - Leftovers

Sunday - Slow Cooker Sweet Aromatic Chicken

Trip Report!

We had so much fun at Disney and at the GG Christmas Party. Pics are uploading now - all 200 of them... so grab a cup of coffee! The time change really messed up monkey, he was up at 4-5 am each morning and asleep by 5-6 everynight! But he was a trooper, no naps for that kid! He loved getting all the characters autographs - coach made him a really cute autograph book before we went. He made up a song and sang it to Mickey - it was so cute. We didn't get it on video b/c we didn't know he was going to do it! It went something like "My name is ...., I am 4 yrs old and I have mickey ears" - priceless! He rode all the roller coasters in DL even Space Mountain. He says that was his favorite ride but when it was over, he said "I loved that but I never want to ride it again!!" We didn't get to ride the Dumbo ride or another one that you went into a whales mouth so we will save that for the next trip. The lines werent too bad at all so that was great! Sweet girl did great with my mom but I think she wiped my mom out!

The GG party was a blast yet again. Bounce house, pony rides, reptile show, strolling cowboy (the theme this year was a hoedown), scotch and cigar tasting, visit from santa and food food food! Monkey got roller skates, elbow and knee pads and we got a gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond. Fun fun fun!

Yahoo!!

It's almost time to go!! We are about half packed - this is a huge feat for me! Packing all of my pump stuff and schlepping it all over Disney is not going to be fun but I am not giving sweet girl formula at this point! We picked up my mom today and hopefully, she and sweet girl will have a nice 4 days together! Everyone is pumped up and ready to go! Weather looks great, monkey's eczema is clearning up and the pkg for him arrived at the hotel yesterday. I have been collecting him a bunch of Disney/Mickey things for him and arranged them all in a basket that will be sitting in our room when we arrive. There are t-shirts in it for him to wear every day also! Yesterday, we went to the 'piggy bank' aka 5/3 and changed in his 'monies' for dollars - he saved $60 in 2 months! He is pretty pumped to buy a Mickey hat! Can't wait to share all the pics

Saturday is the GG christmas party complete with pony rides, reptile show, petting zoo and visit from santa! This is what they are getting him as a present (we got to give ideas) - i think he will love them!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving! Coach's dad, mom, brother, sister, brother in law and 2 nephews were all here. It was a full house but a lot of fun! Monkey had such a great time playing with the 'twins' (his cousins are in 4th and 8th grade.... but he kept calling them the twins!). Everytime sweet girl met someone new, she would put her head on someones shoulder and be shy - it was really cute! Coach's mom, sis and I got up at 4:45 am Friday to go shopping! We always go shopping but usually go at 9 so this was a new experience! We found everything we were looking for at Kohl's and waited about 45 mins in line to check out. One person would wait while the others were shopping and then trade. Then we hit up Target, Meijer, Walmart and dropped Jen off and Beth and I went to the mall. We only got to Macy's where of course everything we bought we couldn't use our coupons on:( We had lunch at 10 am!! We arrived home exhauisted but we think we will go out early again next year!!

And now 4 days till Disney!!! My mom comes Tues to watch sweet girl while we are gone!

Birthday report!

FYI - I have no idea what happened to my background!

Monkey had a great birthday - I will post pictures later. He LOVED his motorcycle and wants he and coach to take a motorcycle ride together. He is so cute on it. When we took it out the first time, all the neighbors came out to take a peek and tell him how cool he was. It was pretty cute! He decided he wanted to go to Red Robin for dinner for his bday and Red Robin himself was there. Monkey loved him, sweet girl was terrified! They came out and sang happy bday to him and he got a sundae so he thought he was hot stuff! We had his pirate party on Sunday and it was a success! We had 16 kids and around 32 adults. That was the only time I have been thankful we weren't in our old house. The weather was beautiful and we actually had a lot of the party outside - a rarity for November for sure. Monkey had so much fun with his friends and it was great to catch up with old friends. He got so many wonderful gifts and we have been playing Hungry Hungry Hippo, Uno Moo and Lite Brite non-stop! He also got a Leapster and thinks he is cool like the big boys with his own video game! It will be great to have on our 5 hr plane trip to LA! Coach made the cake and it turned out great!

Menu Plan Monday

See last week, I didn't make one thing:( So I will be repeating last weeks menu. At least I already have all the stuff to make everything!!

Happy Birthday!

Can't believe my baby boy is 4 yrs old today! Happy birthday monkey!

Menu Plan Monday

I am going to try something new with Menu Planning. Each week, I am going to get all of my recipes from one source..cookbooks, blogs, websites, etc. I think this will make organizing a little easier:) This week is Kraft Foods

Monday - Chicken Stew
Tuesday - Lasagne Toss
Wednesday - Slow Cooker Chicken Curry
Thursday - Gourmet Club - Boys will have leftover buffet. I will be making Cheesy Green Bean Casserole
Friday - Angel Chicken
Saturday - Creamy Pasta Primavera

My Best Shopping Trip Ever!!

Kroger last week and this week is having a Mega event - You buy 10 things and get $5 off your order. Here is a picture of one of my shopping trips last week. Missing from it are 5 pks of butter, 1 pk of yogurt smoothies and 2 pks of cookie dough. This has been my best savings week EVER since I started couponing!! I planned to go multiple times this week but getting sick has put a wrench in my plans! So... here is my $133 shopping trip for

wait for it.....

wait for it....

$13!!!!!

Menu Plan Monday (on Tuesday!)

Monday - We had frozen pizza because coach was playing golf

Tuesday - Turkey tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green beans

Wednesday - Dinner at church

Thursday - Coach's cross country banquet/dinner

Friday - Taking dinner to The Rapp's. I will make Angel's Delight, Garlic Bread and salad

Saturday - Black Bean Quesadillas

Sunday - Maple glazed pork chops

Menu Plan Monday

Last week was a crazy one and I forgot MPM! So here is the schedule for the week!!

Monday - Coach has his last meet - YAY! Chicken Rice Crockpot meal
Tuesday - Chicken Enchiladas
Wednesday - Crockpot Ravioli. This could change. It is family night at monkey's preschool and we will do pumpkin carvings so we have limited time between swim lessons and this... could turn into a drive though somewhere. His 2 friends are eating and playing at Chick-Fil-A and invited us.. but the thought of germs and H1N1 makes me stay away from places like that right now!!
Thursday - Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup on my new Pottery Barn Soup/Sandwich plates. Got these in April and have only used them once - they are super cute!!
Friday - Hommade Pizza
Saturday - Leftover buffet
Sunday - Boneless Turkey roast and all the trimmings:)

It's been a long time!

I haven't posted in a while!! Things have been winding down with Cross Country - yay! Coach has the last meet of the year on Monday and then he works on the video for 2 weeks. Not gonna lie, I get pretty sick of the video because I 'get' to see it at least 100 times! Carey and I are teaching a coupon class on Friday for a staff development day for the Kenton County Libraries. Should be fun. We are even preparing a powerpoint presentation. Not bad for 2 moms! I am so ready for fall weather... right now, we have skipped fall and gone right to winter:( I have these cute outfits for monkey and sweet girl for our outdoor fall pics but can't find a nice day to do them! That's about all from here. Sweet girl has started waving and clapping and we even heard her say bye bye and hi! Cutie... I will try to get a video but she doesn't usually preform on command!

Yo Momma's a Liar!

To my precious almost 4 yr old monkey:

I hate to break it to you, but your Mommy's a liar.

The neighbor boys do not always have homework.

The neighbor boys do not take naps.

Eating vegetables will not give you big muscles like Benny.

Dr. Arar's special candy is in fact, medicine.

Your happy meal toys aren't lost, they are in the garbage.

You won't have to get a straw at the hospital everytime you do something dangerous.

We are not always going to be late to school if you don't hurry up.

When daddy and I say we are going to boring meetings, sometimes we are actually doing something fun.

Just because we say it has eggs in it doesn't mean it really does.

Even when you get really big, you will not be allowed to have a Spiderman birthday party.

But I do not lie when I tell you you are the best son anyone could have and I love you more than you could ever know.

Who needs toys?

So sweet girl has decided the heat register and the fireplace are her two favorite toys. And man, is fast! She can get across the living room, to the fireplace and the stuff in the fireplace into her mouth in no time!

Triple coupons

Yesterday, I went to Biggs as they were having Triple Coupons! I went in June also and it went pretty well! I had intentions of taking a picture of all my loot but after the events of yesterday, that did not happen! All I have is my long receipt! Here are my totals..... Total before coupons - $138.86.. total after coupons $52.42... Savings of $84.44! Not too bad but not as well as I have done before - only about a 61% savings !

Monkey's battle scar

Before Stitches

After Stitches

Monkey fell jumping off the couch at the babysitter's today:( He hit his head on their chair rail and had to get 5 stitches! He was so brave and thinks his Scooby Doo Band-Aids are pretty cool!

Menu Plan Monday

Monday - Sausage Rice Casserole. As I write this, it is cooking in the oven and monkey and I are eating pb&j!

Tuesday - Tortilla Soup, cornbread

Wednesday - Eat at Church

Thursday - Gourmet club - the boys will have a leftover buffet!

Friday - White Chicken Chili

Saturday - Mandarin Orange Chicken Wrap

Sunday - Olympia chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans

Swim Lessons

Sweet girl is loving swim lessons!! We sing songs, splash and learn the safe way to enter the pool. She pretty much just dives head first in the water. She squeals the whole time and drinks the water like a dog! The air and water in the swim area are pretty warm but once we go to the locker room, it is freezing!

Menu Plan Monday

Monday - We went out for my 29th bday! Ok, maybe I am a few more than 29 but a girl can dream, right?!

Tuesday - Cranberry Chicken. Didn't get to this last week!

Wednesday - Monkey starts M.A.D. for Jesus (music, art, drama) so we will eat at church

Thursday - Angel's Delight, salad,bread

Friday - Pizza

Saturday - Leftovers or sandwiches, Coach is playing at the Taste of the Levee

Sunday - Chicken Tortilla Soup, cornbread with Egg Replacer for Monkey

And She's off!

First Day of Preschool

Monkey had a great first week of preschool! He likes teacher (I'm not sold on her yet!) and has 3 friends from his class last year in his class this year. He had show and tell last week and had to bring in something yellow - he picked a drumstick...surprise, surprise!!

Sweet girl and I are taking swimming lessons with Erin, Ella, Liz and Maggie when he is at school!

Menu Plan Monday

My mom is coming tomorrow! YAY! My dad is coming Friday - so between Tues and Fri, we will be eating the meals she loves that my dad doesn't!

Monday - Stuffed Burgers, pasta salad
Tuesday - Tacos, spanish rice
Wednesday - Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread
Thursday - Oriental Chicken Wraps, fruit
Friday - Nordstrom opens - YAHOO! Not that I have money to buy anything, but I am still excited for it.. Mom and I will be attending the opening sans children:) K, back to Meals....Creme Brulee French Toast, sausage
Saturday - Order pizza - NOT LaRosas!
Sunday - Cranberry Chicken, green beans

Cool Website

Erin found this site and I thought it was pretty cool so I thought I would pass it along! Better Homes and Gardens used to have something similar but I can't find it anymore....this is great for those 'what in the world am i going to fix for dinner' nights! Enjoy:)

SuperCook

Success!

I finally found a fruit sweet girl likes - mangoes! I think they are pretty nasty but she seemed to like them! They are not super sweet so maybe that helps. Today, I went to get some frozen squash from the freezer trays and they were all broken:( Now, I have my eye on these...2 oz, silicone and bpa free! I definatly like the 2 oz size. They seem to have really good reviews. They are a little pricy but with the $ I'm saving making the food, I think its ok! On another note. sweet girl has 4! teeth coming in on the top! Yikes! She doesn't seem to be in much pain though so that is good.

Menu Plan Monday

Here is the plan for the week - and I spent less than $25.00 to get everything!! This even included pears and mangos for sweet girl!

Monday - Spicy Beef Noodle Bowl
Tuesday - Monkey and I will be having Chicken Spaghetti (didn't get to this last week!) Coach has a XC meet
Wednesday - Garlic Clove Chicken
Thursday - Lentils and Rice with Fried Onions (Mujadarrah)
Friday - Supper Club - Dewey's!
Saturday - Leftovers (TFB is playing a wedding)
Sunday - Chicken with Apricots

Sweet Girl

Solid's

Sweet girl has been loving eating!! She is defiantly a veggie lover and a fruit hater! It's pretty funny. So far, I have made: sweet potatoes, squash, peas, green beans and applesauce. She has also had mashed bananas and avocado. She squeals until I get more veggies in her mouth and shudders when she has fruit! She also likes puffs and Baby Mum Mum's! When I was in Denver, I realized that they blender was much easier to use to puree and pour food into the trays! Here are the only three things I use to make the food - so easy!

Menu Plan Monday

Here's the plan for the week! We have a busy week this week. School, Swimming lessons for monkey and sweet girl and soccer all start! Whew, it's going to be a crazy week!

Monday - Glazed Pork Chops, rosemary potatoes and green beans - DELISH!

Tuesday - Sour Cream Enchiladas, Corn, Rice

Wednesday - Apple Chicken Quesadillas - These weren't that great.... no taste

Thursday - Leftover buffet

Friday - Quick 'n Easy Stromboli

Saturday - Friend's Bday party

Sunday - Grilled Sandwiches and Broccoli Cheese Soup

Disneyland!

When we go to LA in December for the GG Christmas party, we are going to go to Disneyland for 2 days! Monkey is super excited and I have to admit, I am also! Last night, I made a little DVD on their site of things to do there and he and I watched it this morning. There are going to be so many fun things to do! He will be tall enough to ride most of the rides. We are staying at the Sheraton Park (free with points!). We have a balcony that overlooks the park so we can watch the fireworks from our room every night! It looks like food is pretty $$ there so we will try to eat a lot of our free breakfast each morning. I think we will do dinner on Thursday night at Goofy's Kitchen. I can make priority reservations 60 days in advance and even request egg-free meals! That is all I have planned so far. We can get a few $ off our tickets with a teacher discount. I am going to buy monkey a few things ahead of time at the Disney Store and wrap them in Mickey paper so he can have a few things to open each morning. He can get an autograph book and ears at the park!

Lacation Cookies

Carey and her kids are coming tomorrow so I am going to make us Lactation Cookies as a treat! I am so proud of her for breastfeeding Colin! She and I had very similar problems with our first kids breastfeeding and I know how wonderful I feel being able to nurse sweet girl. I know she is really enjoying nursing Colin too. We keep saying to each other how amazing it is that our bodies produce the perfect food for our babies! Here is the recipe for the cookies - they really do boost supply and are YUMMO!! The secret is the brewers yeast, oatmeal and flax seed.

Lactation Cookies

2/3 cup butter
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 cups ground flax seeds
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups whole grain wheat flour
3 cups rolled oats
4 tablespoons brewer's yeast
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter, oil and sugar.
Mix in eggs and vanilla, add flaxseed.
Stir in flour, brewers yeast and oats.
Add choc chips.
If mixture is too dry add a little more olive oil.
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.

Menu Plan Monday

I really liked having this plan last week. For some reason, typing it out made me stick to it! Everything was great last week - I didn't try the boca brats but used chicken instead! Here is this week's plan!

Monday - Fiesta Taco Casserole, rice - This was great!
Tuesday - Chicken Salad, crossiants, fruit
Wednesday - Leftover Buffet!
Thursday - We are going to the Bengals game again so we will eat on our way there.
Friday - Ranch Ham Skillet, potatoes
Saturday - Fuss Free Ravioli and Cheese Bake, salad and homemade bread
Sunday - Neighborhood golf outing - I will make a Chinese Slaw to share!

Chinese Slaw

1 lb. bag of slaw mix
1 pkg. Oriental flavor Ramen noodles
1 C sunflower seeds
1 C sliced almonds
6 green onions, sliced

Dressing:
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup white vinegar
Flavor packet from Ramen noodles

Break up dry noodles into large salad bowl. Add sunflower seeds, almonds, green onions and slaw mix. Whisk together all dressing ingredients. Add dressing to slaw mixture just before serving. Toss well.

Serves 8-10

I will let you know how everything went!

Menu Plan Monday (or Tuesday!)

I am going to try to stick to my weekly menu planning. We definatly need to stop eating out!! So here is my plan for this week. I also want to try new recipes! Yum-O!

Monday - We made an impromptu trip to Kings Island and had dinner there!
Tuesday - Smokey Tomato Tortellini with homemade bread and corn from the farmers market
Wednesday - Tacos, tice
Thursday - Coach and I are going to the Bengals game and monkey will have Mac n Cheese. This is on sale for .88 a box at Whole Foods this week!
Friday - Spaghetti, bread and green beans
Saturday - Grill out something. We are having some people coach works with over for dinner
Sunday - Sausage Penne Pasta (I am going to substitute Boca Brats and see if coach notices! These were on sale for .50 a box a few weeks ago).

Monkey's Birthday Gift

Katherine and Ren came over for dinner last night and brought us this! Their neighbors were getting rid of it and snatched it for us! We decided it is too big to just give monkey so we put it in our neighbors basement and will clean it up and give it to him for his bday! Not something I would have bought but he will LOVE it! Coach drove it down the street - it is painfully slow but that will be good for monkey!!

We are back!

I know it has been a long time since my last post! For some reason, I feel like I always have to post pictures with my posts. But my camera is somewhere at the bottom of my still unpacked suitcase so this will have to do! We had a great time in Denver visiting with my parents. I survived the trip with the two by myself. Thank goodness for Frontier airlines and their Direct TV in every seat! Monkey loved watching Sponge Bob because he is never allowed to watch it at home! While we were there, we relaxed and spent a lot of time at the pool. Monkey took two private lessons and swam for a few seconds by himself with no life jacket! My parents and I saw Julie and Julia. It was cute - I would defiantly recommend it. We took sweet girl with it because she was not loving the babysitter!! She did a great job - it was her third movie!

Today, we went to the Heritage Festival and Parade in Mason. We decided this was the epitome of small town America! Monkey got enough candy to last him well into Christmas! They both loved it. We went with some friends and their two boys and finished up the day with a trip to Chicky Fries:)

Swimming

Last Thursday, monkey finished swimming lessons. This session, he took lessons at the outside pool. He did a great job and had a lot of fun. I waited until the end of summer to sign him up for outdoor lessons thinking it would be nice and warm every day. But until the last day, it was either cold or rainy every day! The good news is he finally passed level 1 ! YAY! But unfortunatly, he won't be able to take lessons with his two buddies from preschool as they are in level 1.

So on Thursday, I was pretty sure I had mastitis and coach and I were talking about it. Monkey piped up and said, "daddy, we do not talk about boobies" and after scoldeding us, he said, "wait, are you talking about miss lydia? (fyi - miss lydia was his swim teacher). she has big boobies" yep, that's my boy! And for your viewing pleasure - Miss Lydia!