Menu Plan Monday

So it's Monday again and my menu is done. As always this is a basic outline of what we are
eating and it is flexible as changes do happen.

Monday - Spaghetti, green salad and french bread
Tuesday - Mac & Cheese and hotdogs ( I won't be home for dinner, I have a BeautiControl meeting in Stockton and the boys all love this dinner!)
Wednesday - Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn
Thursday- Sloppy Joes, scalloped potatoes and green beans
Friday - Dad's birthday -we are having Lasagna at the parents house!
Saturday - Valentines Day and baseball tournament out of town -we'll be eating out!
Sunday - meatballs and gravy, steamed potatoes all done in the crockpot as Steven's tournament continues...

We have made 2 new recipes that have been big hits in our house! I thought I would include the recipes here in case anyone is interested...

Pasta & Sausage Bake

2 link sausage sliced and cooked
1 jar pasta sauce (or homemade equivalent)
1 box whole wheat pasta (or regular I guess)
1/2 cup water
some shredded parmesan or mozzerella cheese about a cup.

Mix pasta, sausage and sauce. Put in casserole dish. pour water over the top and then sprinkle with cheese. I also added raw sliced green and red peppers, you could add mushrooms I guess. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375 for 45 minutes, then uncover and cook additional 10 minutes. Supper in 1 dish and super yummy!

Chicken and Noodles

1 can cream of chicken soup (I used reduced fat, low sodium)
1 chicken boullion cube
5 cups water
2 cups cooked chicken ( I boiled the breast pieces for 6 minutes, cooled and chopped them up)
1/2 of a chopped onion (med size)
pepper to taste
bag egg noodles

bring soup, water and boullion to a boil.. add chicken, onion and noodles...cook about 15 minutes until noodles are soft. Turn off heat and let sit about 10 minutes. Serve with peas and biscuits -a big hit!

They grow up so fast...

 

The other morning Steven and I headed to breakfast at IHOP. We both ordered the special all you can eat pancakes (knowing we would eat just what they bring the first time!) because you get 2 eggs, 4 sausage or bacon, hash browns and the pancakes for $6.99! Of course we had a BOGO coupon too -so we both ate breakfast for $9. sweet. Now I almost always order my eggs scrambled and then put ketchup on them -just like my daddy. But I do love poached eggs when I get Eggs Benedict. Our local diner (chain) makes Eggs Benedict and you can have it made with country sausage patties.. Steven tried it about a year ago and he loved it. He orders Eggs Benedict often when we go out.

So here is the growing up part of the story... he ordered his eggs poached! He really enjoyed them too. He ate them over his pancake and liked the gooeyness of them. Now he did have to send the first batch back -they were hard boiled it seemed, but the replacements he says were yummy!

Steven shares my love of breakfast out. It tastes better when someone else cooks it and it is my favorite meal to eat in a restaurant. Now we only eat out like 1x per month these days and if I can get it to be breakfast -I will! This month I am participating in the "no spend" challenge, but gift cards are excluded and I use a Visa gc I earned online to pay for this outing.

Free Throw Championship

 

 

 

 

So today was the District Free Throw Championship at church - sponsored by the Knights of Colombus. Steven has made it to this district level every year -and every year but this year he has been beat by the same kid -Brandon (see him standing in the picture next to Steven, this year he is the runner up!) This year he rocked it! He shot 17/25 and Brandon shot 10/25 and the 3rd kid only made 3 shots!

So next level here we come! It is the Regional and I believe is for all of Sacramento. The contest will be held in Lincoln on February 28th. I am bummed to say I won't be able to attend, as I will be in Dallas, Texas for my BeautiControl Leadership conference. I know he will do well and I hope my husband will video and upload it for my viewing pleasure... please?

The winners of the Regional contest will get to go to the State contest... so keep your fingers crossed for our boy! He is so excited to have beat Brandon and moved on to the next level!!!!

The pictures are from my phone, so I am not sure how the quality will be... imagine that I forgot my camera!! I took it out of my purse to download pictures and it was still on my desk when we left. I could hardly contain my horror at my mistake (LOL) while my son smiled and did a little dance that I was without the camera. go figure.

Swing Dance

 

So yesterday Steven's PE class participated in the annual Black Tie and Tennies dance contest. Steven and his dance partner won 3rd place in the Swing category. He was surprised since he was absent the first 2 days they learned the moves for the Swing.. This contest was among 5 classes or about 200 kids! He is very proud of himself and we are proud of him too!

Today has been slow moving. The boys are home from school as it is a teacher work day. We all slept in a bit and then had IHOP for breakfast. A quick trip to Sams club and we are back at home.. just hanging out until we have to take Sammy to training at 3p.m.

Hope you are all having a great Friday!

Tagged

If you’re reading along with me, your instructions:
1. Find your sixth picture folder and in that folder, the sixth picture
2. Post it on your blog with some of the background of the picture
3. Tag four others and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they’ve been
tagged...

So I had to go to the sixth folder from the bottom.. the sixth folder from the top is from a week ago and only has 2 pictures in it.

This picture is bittersweet for me. It is the first picture taken of just my first family (mom, dad, brother and me) in probably 12 or so years... it was taken in New Jersey after my Gram's funeral. We all went together, leaving our kids and significant others at home since it was so last minute. At the lunch, I was walking around taking photo's of all my moms siblings and their kids, when my cousin Roger pointed out that we should do ours to. So this is what we got...

I am tagging.... Sharyn, Suzanne, Mimi and Teresa.

So as long as I am posting I want to say I had a crockpot success today! I cooked a beef roast with a can of coke cherry zero poured over the top of it, then sprinked with lemon pepper. I cut 5 big carrots and placed them on top of the roast. Then I peeled and quartered 6 potatoes and wrapped them in foil (2 potatoes per foil sheet) and placed them on top of the roast as well. Cooked on low for 8.5 hours it was delish! I did use the juices to make some quick gravy and I actually mashed the potatoes...with just a tiny bit of milk & butter. Super easy meal that was yummy and easy to clean up.

Thursdays are my creative day!

It's only 9:30 and I feel like the day is half over. So far today I have made lunches for everyone, made sure all the kids we at school by 8 (all 4 of them -last day for Josh & Justin their grandparents are back next week and there is no school tomorrow), taken the dogs to the park, put dinner in the crockpot, changed the laundry, finished my emails for work and personal, read the blogs in my reader...

Now I am getting ready to head out to scrapbook. 4 whole hours just for me! My mom isn't coming today as she agreed to work at Casa for someone who was injured, but my 2 friends are meeting me there! I have my lunch packed and I am ready to go. I really enjoy this creative time! I feel like I come out of it a more balanced person, with a much better attitude!

Tomorrow the kids have no school! Today they were discussing how they plan to sleep in -finally! This weekend we have not too much on the schedule, so I am looking forward to some relaxing, hanging out time with the family.

Hope you are all having a great week!

Why does it seem so late? It's only 6 pm!

I am not sure what happened to my Monday post --it seems to have been saved, but didn't publish... ??? I don't know. This post starts where that one left off...

Tuesday morning I worked in Jackson's class. First, I went with Justin and Jackson to Starbucks. Everyone had a hot beverage and it was nice on such a cold, windy morning. Then to Jackson's class (pictured above). I made some photo copies, filed their Monday folders, checked for signatures, put artwork up on the walls and was done in about an hour. I snapped this picture which looks a bit like controlled chaos --which is exactly what it was. I am excited that next week I will going with his class to visit the Crocker Art Ark!

Then I met my mother at Denny's to get our Free Grand Slams! Now, we waited in this line (picture #2) for about 32 minutes. Once seated it was another 30 minutes before we got our food. Luckily, I had gone to Starbucks and wasn't starving, as we didn't eat breakfast until 11 a.m.! It wasn't really free as I had an iced tea and mom had coffee --our bill was $4 something and we tipped $5 since we saw many people not tipping:( and I spilled my iced tea (shook the ketchup bottle into my glass..)-so I felt I should leave more since she was so quick to clean it up.
Then I went home and worked for a bit, took the dogs for a walk and then the kids came home. I supervised homework and made cupcakes for them. About 4, Josh & Justin's mom picked them & Steven up to go hit baseballs at the park --he was gone until dark. We had leftovers for dinner (ribs, tater tot casserole and pasta with sausage bake) and then Jackson decided to skip karate (unusual for him) because he was tired (class is at 7 pm!), his feet hurt and his wrists ached. So he headed upstairs for a hot bath and to read Twilight... I finished cleaning up and then headed up for a hot bath myself. I was in bed, asleep by 9:30! Which made for a much better morning for me, since I only got about 4-5 hours sleep the night before.

Today I spent most of the day cleaning. I moved furniture, cleaned baseboards, mopped, swept, purged, did laundry and dusted. The family room is clean and warm feeling and I liked the feeling of accomplishment! I also did some scheduling and such for work. Once Josh went home, we had dinner (fried chicken breasts, stuffing and corn) and sat down to watch the 3-D Chuck episode. I have to say that I could not wear the glasses (unlike the 2 you see pictured here) as with them on everything looked blue to me. I enjoyed the episode anyway. Steven was supposed to have basketball practice tonight, but we never heard back from the coach on the time, so for now we are all just hanging out. Homework is finished, chores are done so the boys are waiting on me to watch the Survivor preview show.. which we will do when I finish this post. A hot cup of caramel tea and watching the show --then I am headed to bed. I am tired. I feel like it should be 10 pm already, but it's only 6!!

What a whirlwind weekend...

Edited to add... apparently this didn't post on Monday, just found it as a draft. Not sure what happened there...sorry! Might have had something to do with the missing pictures.

So this weekend flew by.. hardly any time to rest or relax.. so not my favorite kind:(

Friday I worked like crazy to finish my house chores before my spa that night. I had a couple people not show because they got sick -I felt bad for them, but happy they didn't bring their ick to my house! So it was a quiet, but fun spa and I feel like I got practice I needed talking about the products and keeping things moving. 2 people and I booked another spa and a personal spa appointment!!! So I am really glad I went ahead with it. The kids and Jonathan stayed upstairs watching tv/computer and having it at the house wasn't nearly as stressful as I thought it could be.. although the dogs were crazy and whiny when trapped in the boys rooms -they wanted to be where I was. Jackson and I also took Sammy to training... he loves the ride there, gets excited.. (see photo) I feel so bad for River, he is so sad when we leave to go...

Saturday I was stiff and sore. Probably from all the crazy cleaning I did on Friday. We got up, had breakfast, Jonathan and I watched Burn Notice (one of my favorite shows!) while drinking our coffee. We were ready to leave for Steven's basketball tournament about 10:20 a.m as he had a 11:10 game. Unfortunately, the guys came back in from getting my scrapbook stuff out of the van and Sammy got out while they were all standing by the door -he is a quick little guy. So Jack went out to try to lure him back in, while I looked like crazy for my shoes and keys.. usually if I drive by where Sammy has run, he will jump into the van... but I couldn't find the keys.. after a stressful 12 minutes, they had Sammy back and we were on our way. He had run out of the court and to the main street and he scared Jackson terribly as he got really close to the busy street several times. I was frustrated that my husband did not immediately try to help Jack get the dog back.. while he was still in our yard.

So then we were off.. 10 minutes behind schedule and we still needed to pick Josh up and get to the game. We got there just in the nick of time (4 minutes til game time) and the boys played 3 games over the next 5 hours. They played well and were competitive as a team in 2 of the 3 games. The middle game really opened my eyes to how much our team needs to have practice on their own. They currently practice 1x week with 4 other teams (same coach, each team is a different age group). The 2nd team was amazing.. they were jumping towards the ball, never waiting for it to come to them.. they really worked together as a team and that was made obvious by the 25 point difference after we ended the first quarter tied 17-17. The boys lost all 3 games, but are getting better each week -which is something to be proud of.

At the end of the last game we headed to Wonderful Chinese. This is one of those restaurants that after you discover it and mention it to friends and family -they all tell you they've eaten there forever! I was perplexed to find they all knew about it, yet no one mentioned it when Jonathan & I were contstantly complaining about the lack of good Chinese nearby.... well we love it! So we headed over there and my parents were able to join us as they were at that last game. We had a nice dinner full of yummy food (mine was for sure) and both my boys ordered shrimp dishes.. so I didn't get to taste theirs -but they both really liked them.

We headed home and pretty much crashed.. I don't really remember much except going up to take a hot bath at 7 p.m. (remember I started the day stiff & sore?) as sitting on bleachers all day didn't make me feel great. I am pretty sure I was asleep by 7:45!

Sunday morning there was a knock on my door at 6:23 a.m. It was Jackson, he wanted to say hi to the dogs... We said go back to bed -and he did... When I woke about 8:30 I found that Jon had gone to the donut store and that was a nice treat! I read my paper, while drinking coffee and eating my glazed donut. Steven had baseball practice at noon and I headed to Safeway for some 1 day sale groceries ($126 worth for $24.01!!)... then came the Superbowl.

Since I am not a football fan, I invited Ciera to go to the movies with me... my mom joined us and my friend Stephanie (whose kids are Josh & Justin) joined us too since her kids were watching the Superbowl at my house... we saw Bride Wars.. it was one of those cheesy chick flick movies that I would be willing to watch over and over (like Sweet Home Alabama or How to lose a guy in 10 days). It was fun. I ate more popcorn and junior mints than I should have and that may show in a few minutes when I have to weigh in.. but I take full responsibility for whatever happens.... I snapped this horrible photo of the kids when I got back from the movie (superbowl was over) and they were making a video.. the lighting was horrible, but I wanted the image anyway...






I have to go now -my meeting is in 20 minutes.. I will be back later today with menu monday!