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!

New Year's Eve

We haven't had a whole lot going on this month.  I sure enjoy January in Texas.  It's nice to take it easy, and get back into the routine of life after the craziness of December and the holidays.  The weather has been typical Texas - 65 degrees for a couple days, and 35 degrees the day after.  The warm days have been awesome, and we've utilized them by playing outside.  The cold days have also been enjoyed with hot chocolate and warm blankets.  It's been a good month to rejuvenate and relax a bit.

Before the month is completely over, though, I do want to blog our New Year's Eve.  We had such a fun night!  This is the first year of our married lives that we've actually done something for New Year's Eve.  Yah, we're party animals :)  This year I was planning out what I would make for dinner that night, and realized that it would be fun for the kids to have a party.  And, and much fun as parents are :), I didn't think that the four of us would constitute a party.  We had over our good friends, Holly and Joey, and their kids.  It was perfect - my kids adore theirs, and the grown ups get along pretty darn well too.  Or, at least Joey and Holly are good actors. :)  We had pizza and sparkling fruit drinks, deliciously decadent (and probably the reason for gaining a good five pounds) cheesecake, played board games and Rockband, and made some noise and wore some hats. 

They left at about 9pm, and we got our kids to bed.  I'm a little crazy about sleep.  I have a really hard time dealing with tired, cranky, whiny kids, so I hardly ever let them stay up late.  Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there!  When we do party, we go all out!

Okay, so maybe it's not all that, but it was perfect for us.  I like entertaining and having people over.  Dave doesn't enjoy parties too much.  He enjoys smaller settings with just a few people.  So, we compromised by inviting over Jonathan and Katie for a party.  My family has a tradition of having fondue on New Year's Eve, and it's one of my favorite traditions.  Something about being able to stick my fork in a pot without getting scolded was always exciting as a kid.  I also liked getting to choose the fondue fork with the coolest color on the end.  Simple pleasures. :) So, I made up a traditional swiss cheese fondue with yummy bread and veggies to dip.  We ate, played Rockband (our new addiction), then ended with chocolate fondue.  Yum! 

 

(We did actually get quite a few more pictures.  The sparkling cider must have been spiked or something, though :)  All the rest of them are not at all post-worthy!  Crazy faces, blurry shots, double chins.  Ahh!)

In salute to our boring selves, we didn't even watch the ball drop or anything.  But, we did have the exactly right kind of night for us.  Thanks you guys, for celebrating with us.  You made it a great evening, and a fun way to welcome in 2010!  Here's to a great year in store for us!

THREE snow falls in december?!

The Tuesday after Christmas, we had ANOTHER snow fall!  It sure was crazy, but a lot of fun.  The kids asked to go play in it after dinner.  I was sure they'd only last a few minutes, since it was dark and cold, but they toughed it out and we even built a snowman.  I think it's the first one either of them have ever built.  What a fun Christmas vacation!

Christmas!

Christmas day was great fun!  We enjoyed opening presents together, and having a nice relaxing morning.  The kids enjoyed getting gifts, but also enjoyed watching us open the ones from them.  We all had fun enjoying everyone's presents together.  We spent some time talking with my family via web cam, playing Beatles Rockband, Mario Kart, building Hot Wheels tracks, and playing dollhouse.  A fun morning.  We even had snow the night before, which is a first in 20 years or something like that.  The kids, on the way home, said, "Look!  It's Christmas!"

 

 

We made it over to Jonathan and Katie's at a leisurely pace, after scraping the ice off the windshield.  We had "brunch", which was more like lunch, but still tasty. :)  After that, we just continued on in enjoying the day in a very low-key way.  We have a tradition of Dave cooking Christmas dinner.  He barbecues up a bunch of different meat, and I make a few salads for side dishes.  It's a throw back to South African Christmas's he grew up with.  A very nice day!

Last of the Christmas Advent

Well, it looks like I'm back to playing catch-up. :)  Oh well!

Monday the 14th we had a special Christmas Family Home Evening.  We learned about the birth of the Savior, and talked about what we could do to be more like Him.  Tuesday, we read a few extra Christmas stories before bedtime.  I love reading, and I love reading to my kids.  The seem to really enjoy books, too.  Wednesday, we wrote letter to Santa.  Chris asked for cowboy boots, Mario Kart Wii, Lego Star Wars for the Wii, and dry erase markers.  Naomi asked for pink princess (her words :D), and a pencil.  She's easy to please!  Thursday was Christopher's Christmas program at preschool.  He did a great job singing all the songs, and doing the motions.  It was a lot of fun to watch him, and we were very proud of him.

  Friday the 18th... I can't remember!  All I know is that it wasn't what I had planned on.  I know it was something fun, but we didn't take pictures (surprise!), and I didn't write it down.  Oops!  This is why I shouldn't get behind!

Saturday we had a lot of fun going to an ice skating show.  It was really fun to watch.  Naomi was mesmerized the whole time by the spins and jumps.  We might have a future ice skater on our hands.  The best part (according to me, anyway) was that it was free.  We had a great time.  Sunday we watched a short video of the Nativity together as a family.  It's set to Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven", and I love it.

The next Monday after that we did another Christmas Family Home Evening.  Tuesday we went to this really neat place, all set up for Christmas.  It's a fire safety town, with building all to kid scale.  They had a fire engine to drive, Santa, reindeer noses, story time, candy canes, and other fun things.  The kids had a great time at that, and the grown ups enjoyed the warm weather that night.  Wednesday we sat and snuggled with the lights on while reading books.  Thursday was Christmas Eve.  We went over to Jonathan and Katie's for some yummy food.  She made cornish pasties, which is something the guys had in South Africa, and yummy soup.  We did the usual Christmas Eve program, then brought the kids home to put out cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer.  The kids went to bed in their new Christmas pajamas that I made.  I did the jammy tops too, and I am kind of proud of myself for doing buttonholes for the first time.  It was something I had been nervous about, so it's nice to have conquered that one.

And, that's the end of the Advent we did this last year.  It was a lot of fun - a new tradition, I think!