Valentine's

Our Valentine's celebrations this year were pretty low-key.  Christopher had a party at preschool the Thursday before.  I was in charge of it with Stephanie, another mom.  It was fun to put together, and I think the kids had a good time.  We did a little craft with a foam picture frame and foam hearts and letters.  They got to decorate sugar cookies, and play a few games.  It's always fun to get to be in Chris's class with him.  I didn't get any pictures (of course! :D) - it didn't work out with keeping track of Naomi, and keeping up with the parts of the party I was in charge of.   The kids all had fun, though, and that's what's important.

Our Sunday was pretty typical of most of our Sundays.  We got ready for church, went to church, came home, relaxed, spent time together, had dinner, put the kids to bed.  Naomi has been done with mandatory afternoon naps for a few weeks now.  She was having a hard time going to bed at night, so she's started having quiet time instead of nap time.  It does take a bit of adjustment, though, to drop that nap.  Things had been quiet in her room for a while, so I went in to check on her.  It doesn't look very comfortable to me, but she had a pretty good nap in that chair.

This year I got the kids two new board games for Valentines.  I've been wanting to get some new games for them, so this was a good excuse.  Dave made steak and pasta with a mushroom sauce for us for dinner.  It was delish!

The Saturday after, Dave's parents watched the kids for us.  We dropped them off at 5, and they got to spend the night.  They had a blast!  Chris didn't want to come home the next morning.  We took advantage of being kid free, and got some Panera.  We took it to the park, and ate while watching the lake.  We took a stroll around the lake at a very leisurely pace.  I can't remember the last time we walked somewhere together slowly.  It was peaceful and fun.  We went and saw a movie after that.  It was so fun to get to spend the whole evening together, uninterrupted. 

Menu Plan Monday

I have been planning a weekly menu since I first left home to go to college.  It's something my mom has always done, as far as I can remember.  I can't imagine making dinner without planning a weekly menu first!  I don't necessarily stick to the order I arrange the dinners in, and I don't always follow my menu completely.  Some days I wimp out and do something quick and easy.  But, with a menu planned out for the week, I know I have the ingredients to cook healthy, delicious meals for my family until I the next time I go grocery shopping.  I also keep some staples constantly stocked, which makes it easier on the nights when I'm improvising, which usually because what's on the menu just doesn't sound good that night.  When that happens, I usually just move that meal on to the next week, since I know I already have all the ingredients for it.

I follow this site called "I'm an Organizing Junkie", where she lists her menu for the week.  Everyone who participates links up, and then you can see what everyone's menu is for the week.  Kind of fun.  I have been, in my lurker fashion, just reading without linking.  But, I've been wanting to have a way of documenting my menus to keep track of what I've been cooking.  It seems like it will be easier to keep track of the recipes that work, so I can use them again.  For this reason, I have decided to start participating in Menu Plan Monday.  Here's my menu for this week:

Monday: Clam & Potato Chowder (from one of my low cholesterol cookbooks - I'll let you know how it is), leftover homemade bread, green salad

Tuesday: Crockpot Chicken (whatever strikes my fancy - bbq sauce or potatoes or orange sauce), Crash Hot Potatoes, green salad, green beans

Wednesday: Beef Stroganoff, green salad, roasted acorn squash

Thursday: Chicken tacos

Friday: Spaghetti and Meatballs, spinach salad, squash (Naomi loves squash!), garlic bread

Saturday: Leftovers or something easy

Sunday: Dave cooks - aren't I lucky??  He likes to cook, and always makes really yummy dinners for us.  Yesterday he made Bunny Chow (Indian food that he used to have in South Africa) with homemade bread.  Yum!

Monday: (I go shopping on Tuesday, so I always plan Monday's dinner too) Pan seared chicken, rice, green salad, green beans

Baking List: Thick, Chewy Granola Bars

this week

this week has been busy and productive.  we've been pluggin along - planning birthdays, family visits, summer vacations, organizing, shuffling around when to get to the gym, sports for chris, and all that normal family life stuff.  this is my kind of week.  i've enjoyed the busy days - like the one where i was out of the house for a solid 5 hours (not my normal m.o.), and also the more relaxed ones where we stayed home and cleaned and organized and played all day.  i'm trying to take advantage of my last bits of time before chris starts kindergarten in the fall.  we are all excited for him to go, but it will still be sad to not have him around during the day.

i do have to say that i'm pretty excited about some of the things going on.  my *little sis is coming to visit us during her spring break at college (*i have to call her little when i can - i got the short genes, and she didn't.  but she's still 8 years younger than me :D), and my parents are coming the week after during my dad's spring break (he's an institute teacher).  i'm stoked!  i'm having fun planning all the fun things we'll do while they're here.  i'm figuring that amy will want to take a few days to detox from early morning classes and homework, so we'll take it easy with her the first few days.  we'll be livin' it up with the folks, though.  they're party animals - like me!  he, he.  leave some ideas for me in the comments about what we could do! 

i also completed a little organizing project this week, which always feels like a breath of fresh air to me.  i love to organize.  our coat closet doubles as my craft storage, which made it really hard to hang up the coats properly.  there's not really enough space to have the coats be able to hang down and move along the rack freely.  plus, the kids can't reach that high, and i like them to be able to take care of as much of their own things as possible.  so, my solution was to pick up two wood, unfinished coat hooks from home depot.  i spray painted them, then hung them in the little walkway in our garage.  it's where we already keep our shoes and gloves and such anyway, so it was the perfect place.  i hung one at kid-height, and one at adult height.  now the kids get out of the car, take off their shoes and put them away, and put their coats away too.  ideally none of that ever even comes inside.  (i did say ideally :)  now, i can get to my craft supplies, and the coats get hung up nicely.  there's even a bit of room left in the coat closet for our really heavy winter coats - ones that might be too heavy for the coat hooks drilled into the wall.  nice and tidy and usable.  perfect!

hope everyone has a fabulous week!