Menu Monday

This weeks menu is ...

Sloppy Joes, with watermelon
Hot Pockets (soccer night)
Spaghetti with corn and french bread
Hot Pockets (soccer night)
Turkey Wraps
Pizza for the kids/Parents go on dinner date
Hamburgers and Hot dogs on the grill with corn on the cob and fruit

What are y'all having this week???

Works for Me Wednesday - Milk and Produce Delivery

I find that having milk and produce delivered once a week saves me a TON of money. I was finding myself going to the store for just milk and leaving $50 later with a ton of groceries we did not need. Same happens with produce, I go in to get a few things and end up with 1/2 a car of foods we did not need, nor did we budget for. After doing this for many years I started looking into having our milk and produce delivered and found two AMAZING companies.

Many places have milk delivery and many families have no idea. When we moved to Washington in March I got right on google and found a farm that does home delivery. Our milk man comes to see us once a week with milk from cows not treated with hormones and you really can taste a difference. So a HUGE thanks to Smith Brothers Farms for the amazing moo juice delivered right to our door!

The produce delivery happened to be a little harder to find, but when we did find it it just fell into our laps. I was driving the girls to school one day and saw the delivery van parked at the girls school and wrote the name down and came home and googled (boy do I LOVE google!). We started produce delivery a couple of months ago and I LOVE it, I love the fresh fruits and veggies that land on our door step once a week, and the option to add and subtract each week if we choose. So another HUGE thanks to Klesick Family Farms for our amazing fresh produce delivered right to our door. And did I mention this is all ORGANIC!!! And affordable.

I just hope to be able to find these options when we do our next military move!

Works for Me Wednesday - Scheduling

As you can imagine as the mom of four I have TONS of appointments. Between 10 dental cleanings and 5 annual health check ups there are always the eye visits, sick kids, ortho, hair and 1 million other things that need to be scheduled. So how do I keep it all together you ask...

Yep that is right Ical! What a life saver. Typically when I am making an appointment of any kind I have my MacBook Pro in my lap or my iphone close by, because they sync with each other, all my appointments land in both places. This has saved me from missed appointments sooooooooo many times. Not only do I use it for scheduling appointments for myself and the kiddos it reminds me which night is trash night, which week is recycling week and when I have deadlines for work. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this calendar!

Oh and why does it say Jul 17th you ask??? Apparently that is the say it was introduced to the public by Apple, I learned that today too, when I googled for an image!

Menu Monday

Starting today I am going to put up each weeks menu for our household. Not every week will be stick to the menu completely but this is what we have planned for this week.

Monday - Coke Roast (recipes to follow later this week)

Tuesday - Homemade hot pockets

Wednesday - Vegetable Beef Soup from Coke Roast Left Overs

Thursday - Homemade hot pockets

Friday - Chipotle Chicken Cubes (this is Ky Guy's recipe I will have to ask him if I can share)

Saturday - Order Pizza (we have a sitter)

Sunday - BBQ Ribs with corn on the cob and watermelon

Why hot pockets 2x in one week you ask? Because my girls have soccer on Tues/Thurs and I prefer not to eat at a drive in 2x a week for the next 3 months.

What is on your menu this week?

Reaping what we sow.....

Remember this post?

Well this week it looks like this:

And we are seeing a lot of this:

I can't wait til the tomatoes are ripe so we can make tons of SALSA! YUM!

Taking Creative Liberties

So this weekend I went to the bridal shower and was given this basket below to fix up for the wedding to be the flower girls basket.

At first the plan was to line it with the same fabric as the bubbles basket below.

But I took some creative liberties to make it match the ring bearer pillow.

And this is what I came up with....

I really hope the bride is ok with me taking the creative liberty of trying something different. I think it turned out really cute and will go well with the pillow. There will be another pink bow on the other side but it needs some touch up paint before it is completely done. What do you all think??

PS: Hey Bride, if you still want it line I can do it but I thought you might like this better.....

Works for Me Wednesday - Menu Planning

Each pay period I sit down and make a 15-16 day meal plan and make my grocery list. I think stick the menu plan up on the wall in the kitchen so we will know what we have available for meals for the next two weeks. I never ever set this meal plan in stone as I learned long ago sometimes we just aren't in the mood for what was written on the calendar for a particular night so we or I decide what is for dinner in the morning by picking from the list and get out the meat from the freezer or put the ingredients into the crock pot so that I will be prepared that evening.

Here is a sample of one of our menus

1. Meatballs and Rice w/salad
2. Beer Can Chicken, asparagus and potatoes
3. Steak with potatoes and broccoli
4. Pork tenderloin with mushroom peas and fruit
5. Spaghetti with corn and bread
6. Shepherds Pie
7. Chicken Pot Pie
8. Chicken parmesan
9. Chicken Alfredo with broccoli
10. Pizza (order out)
11. Tri tip with potatoes and squash
12. Left overs
13. Tacos
14. Roast with veggies
15. Chili
16. SOS (using left over roast)
17. Turkey wraps and fruit salad

Usually the list has one day on there that is dinner out and one or two days of leftovers so that we make sure to use things up! What do you do for meal planning????? Please share below.

Nine Months in the Making...

And no I didn't just have a baby, that would be a miracle 3 weeks after a hysterectomy! What I did do was finish this adorable sweater, hat and bootie set for my cousins beautiful baby girl. It is kind of ironic I finished it on her 9 month birthday!

The Hat

I designed the hat myself and it turned out pretty cute. The first go was umm well, lets just say I have a new hat!

The Mary Jane Skimmers

These adorable Mary Jane Skimmers were crocheted using a pattern by Sylver Designs.

The Seamless Kimono Sweater

I discovered this pattern right after my cousin requested that I knit a sweater for her baby while she was still pregnant. I worked on it for a long time but with 4 kids I kept having to put it down. I am so glad I finally get to send it out to her today!!

The Complete Set

And while I am exited to finally mail it, I will miss looking at it adoringly. I just hope I get a ton of adorable pictures of the sweet baby girl in it, that will make up for not having it here to look at. After all it will be much cuter with her smiling grin!

Extra Sinfully Delicious

What happens when you have a TON of left over Cake Batter French Toast???? You make Cake Batter French Toast Bread Pudding!!

The Soak

Right Out of the Oven

Cake Batter French Toast Bread Pudding

10 Slices of leftover cake batter french toast

3 cups of milk, scalding hot

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/2 tsp cinnamon

6 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut french toast into small cubes and place in 9X13 pan. Pour melted butter over it and sprinkle on cinnamon. Combine well. Beat together eggs, sugar and vanilla. Slowly add (temper) the milk into the egg mixture. If you add the hot milk to the egg mixture too quickly you will scramble the eggs. Once the all of the milk has been added to the egg mixture pour over the bread cubes in the pan and let soak for 5 minutes, pressing the bread down into the liquid for maximum soaking.

Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

The kids got up this morning and when they were told they could not have breakfast they thought I had lost my mind. It wasn't until I had pulled this out of the oven that they understood. They were impressed that mom made them breakfast on a Monday morning! I work from home so normally I am busy working during breakfast time and the Ky Guy (our resident chef) cooks something up for the kiddos. (He made the Cake Batter French Toast)

The original idea for Cake Batter French Toast was found HERE and I shared it with my friend who make it with the confetti cake batter, we will never do plain again!

Works for Me Wednesday - Back to school edition!

I recently stumbled across we are THAT family and "works for me Wednesday" where people share tips and trick that work for them. With the new school year just around the corner (silently jumps for joy) I thought I would share a couple tips that work for us.

I am a work at home mom so I get up extra early before the sun and children rise to get a jump start on my day at work. When the alarms start going off I am well into my work day and have to continue working while the kids get ready for school. Each day an alarm goes off down in the kitchen to let us know that we have 10 mins left until we need to be out the door for school. The kids are then allowed it hit the "snooze" button so it will go off again when it is time to head out.

Another tip I find that helps our family out is that lunches are prepared the day before and placed in the fridge where the kids can just grab and go. One of the chore cards for each day is "make lunch". In order for each child to have what he/she likes in their own lunch I allow them to make it themselves with some basic rules for a healthy meal. It works great for our family!

Hope you have enjoyed my tips, check out more back to school themed tips here.

New Items in my Etsy Store

I received some new goodies in the mail this past week and couldn't to share. I have seven new pacifier clips in my Etsy store.

Rock Stars

Giddy Up! Cowboys and Cowgirls

Monkey See, Monkey Do!

Lovebug

Chugga Chugga, CHOO CHOO

Hope you enjoy!!!!

EWWW Gross, That's Yummy!

The other day I stumbled across My Plum Pudding and while reading through I saw these and my first thought was EEEEEEEWWWWWWW, but then I thought about how fun it would be to serve to the kids for lunch since we had both items on hand. So I showed the kids the post and at first they all said EWWWWWWW, but then quickly said "can we have that for lunch today". When I said "of course" they looked at me like I was nuts, but were super excited to help make them up.

Here is how ours turned out!









By the way the kids LOVED them! Definitely something we will do again. So yes it may look gross but the kids thought it was oh so good!