My New Best Friend

If you have read this blog at all, you know that I love lists, calendars and planning.  Well, I came across a blog called Magenta and Lime and was reading about 15 days to a Simpler Home.  Low and behold she talked about something called Google Calendars and it almost blew my mind. 

I'm able to plug in my daily chores, monthly chores and even the quarterly chores and have them self-populate so I only have to do it once.  I actually have several calendars including a blog calendar, financial calendar, Homeschool calendar and a monthly menu.  I can look at the entire month or bring it back to the day and then fill in the hourly schedule AND print it!  It is so awesome.  One of the main things that I love is the fact that I can have everything in one place as a master calendar then make my lists needed. 

I'm still "dissecting" Magenta and Lime's full concept on having a more simplified home but for now this calendar concept is fantastic!

Homeschool Corner

I think I changed the name again; I'm not sure HA!  To keep it real, we haven't done much schooling lately.  With my husband off work right now it seems hard to get into the mix added to that has been birthdays, doctors appointments  and nice weather.  I have a few fun Halloween crafts I want to get done this week and I'd like to get some lessons in but, again, this week we have a CAT scan scheduled on Tuesday, Haircuts, Halloween, Friday school, and a doctor's appointment all this week.  So, right now, I'm hoping to hit school hard the first week of November and do 6 strong weeks which will take us into Mid December when we can take a break again until after the first of the year. 

So .. . no photos this week!

Look Who's Five!

 We had a small party for Josh on Saturday, the 19th, with Papa and Nana and three cousins - Breadon, Seth and Kate.  I let Josh pick what he wanted for dinner and he picked Tacos!  I added Bean Dip and Finger Jell-O.  

 Gifts are always such a big deal!  Josh loved his gifts . . .and so did Nate :-)

 I put together a fun little Halloween Cake - Josh Loved the eyeballs :-) 

Then, on the 22nd, Josh's actual birthday, We had a fun day with just the family.

 The boys made paper Cupcakes.

 And played Pin the tail on the Donkey.

 And decorated cookies.

 And gave me a HUGE smile :-)

 Then came the gifts!!!

And we ended the day with cupcakes!

Things my Kids Say

* At Josh's birthday party, Nate got all excited when he saw Josh's gifts.  I told him that they were for his brother for his birthday . . .to which Josh replied, "Mom, I will share my gifts with Nate because I love him. I love him SOOOO much!".  How cute is that?

* One morning I asked Josh if he wanted a poptart for breakfast (He had actually gotten out his own cup of chocolate milk).  He said, "No, I already ate breakfast."  I asked him what he ate . .. he pointed to the candy pumpkin and said, "I just ate one of the treats."  Guess what?  He did.  Only one treat - that was his breakfast HA!

* We recently purchased Nate a new carseat.  In doing so, I'm putting the straps back into his old one to use with the princess I babysit.  Nate pulled the straps out of the bag and said, "Look mom, this is my wiener seatbelt."  So, of course, I asked, "What is a wiener seatbelt?" .  He proceeded to tell me that it is the seatbelt part that comes up between his legs to hook the rest of the pieces too, "You know mom, the one that comes in front of my wiener." hahahaha  That kid never stops thinking!

Food Friday - Without the Food

I haven't been doing any real cooking lately.  Due to my husband's back injury, his appitite is pretty slim or he just wants really mild foods due to the injury making him feel sick all of the time.  So, cooking is really not a lot of fun since I'm the only one that heats most of it.  Josh eats it but only the amount a 5 year old eats, which isn't much, and Nate only eats the bread.  Instead I'm picking stuff that I know the kids love - Mac and Cheese, Hot Dogs and grabbing a $5.00 pizza.  Obviously, because of that I haven't been trying anything new or even cooking old recipes that I haven't posted!  I do have one new recipe on board for lunch next week and actually, a couple for my breakfast and lunch so hopefully I'll have some new things to share, assuming those recipes are good! 

I thought I would take care of business in this post instead.  1) I recently cleaned up my blog lists - the lists of blogs I read - and the buttons on the side of the page.  I've found the buttons do me no good so instead I added the ones I read all of the time into the correct list and deleted most of the buttons.  I also removed any blog on my reader list that was older than about a month (well all but one because I'm keeping it for teaching ideas) and also a bunch that I've added over the year that I just never read.  Some I had found through pinterest and thought they had great ideas on them but then . . well, the fizzled.  2) I'm trying to update the recipe section on the blog.  There are more tabs on the top of the blog - I'm trying to divide the recipes I post into the right category so you can easily chose what you need.  I'm also continuing to clean out the recipes by not re-posting the ones we have never tried again OR tried again and didn't like :-) 

That's about it around here.  It's hard to believe we are going into the last week of October.  We actually had some light snow showers here on Thursday and more are expected.  My husband finally caved in and turned on the eat one night after I had gone to bed HA  I'm hoping for one 60 degree day mid-November so I can hang up Christmas lights but otherwise, I'm ready for a good solid winter!!

Weekly Menu

Did you miss me? It's been a busy week and I spent my evenings grocery shopping, wrapping gifts and getting ready for a special 5 year old's birthday.  Writing blog posts just didn't seem to fit into the schedule! So I'm trying to pick back up with the weekly menu and have my plan written .  . .we'll see how things go!

Friday - My in-laws are coming over to celebrate Josh's birthday (it just keeps going HA) and my MIL offered to provide dinner - who am I to say no to that?? :-)  So, I'm not sure what we are having yet.

Saturday - Taco's (since we didn't have them on Friday).  I actually have left over Meat from thebirthday party in the freezer so it will be an easy meal.

Sunday - Chili Dogs and Fries (we didn't have these last week) and then Pot Pies for dinner (again, we didn't eat those on Sunday night - we all ate left overs from the weekend.

Monday - Balsamic Slow Roasted Pork Loin, Crash Potatoes, green beans and bread

Tuesday - Lemon Chicken, Savory Rice, Corn, and bread

Wednesday -Amish Breakfast Casserole, Fruit and Pancakes (more for the kids)

Thursday - It's Halloween!  Pizza it is!  I like serving pizza on a night like tonight - we can eat early and then head out to get free candy :-)

Weekly Menu

I think, maybe, cooler weather is really here to stay.  I'm so thankful because some of my favorite things to cook are "winter" meals like Chicken and Dumplings, Lasagna, all kinds of soups and things that simmer on the stove like "Beef Drip" and Root Beer Pulled Pork, just to name a few.  I enjoy cooking so much more during the cool (and cold!) time of year verses the summer.  Nothing makes a house smell better than a roast that has slow cooked in the oven for hours - that is something you just don't want going on in the summer when the kitchen is already 3 million degrees ;-)

Here's the plan for this week!

Friday -  Beef Strogneoff w/Noodles and Salad.  This is a carry over from last week that we just didn't get to eat.

Saturday - Today we are having a small birthday party with my family for Josh who is turning 5. I asked him what he wanted and he said Taco's so I guess we'll have Taco's!  I'll make up some fresh Pico de Gallo and Guacamole w/lots of toppings.  I'll probably also make a Mexican Dip to go with chips and possibly some finger Jell-O (because he loves Jell-O) and, of course, Cake and Ice Cream.  It will be a chocolate cake (Josh said, "Mom ask me if I want chocolate or banana cake."  So I did and he said, "Chocolate of course because that is my favorite . .. color??" hahaha ) Oh, and Josh said Nate can have a hot dog because that is what he likes . .. .good thing I have hot dogs on hand!

Sunday - Lunch after church will be Roast, Potatoes and Carrots - it is that time of year after all :-)  Then for dinner we'll have Pot Pies and the kids will have Mac and Cheese.

Monday - Biscuits and Gravy, Fried Potatoes, and roasted Veggies.  Again, a carry over from last week. 

Tuesday - Today is Josh's 5th birthday so we are going to have Spaghetti with Mushrooms and Garlic Bread.  It might seem like an odd meal  for a birthday but it is one of his all time favorite meals.

Wednesday -My in-laws are coming over today to celebrate Josh's birthday so we will have Amish Breakfast casserole with Pancakes (because my kids love them), muffins of some sort and nice bowl of "Ken's Fruit Salad". 

Thursday -Chili Dogs.  I have left over chili from a few weeks ago, in the freezer so we'll add that to good old hot dogs and some fries or tater tots.  Tonight is also our town's harvest fest.  I'm not sure if we will go yet - it includes a lot of walking and my husband is still healing from his back injury and walking is not on the top of his list as of yet.  We'll see!!