Weekly Menu - The one that REALLY has Labor Day

Boom.  It's here.  The end of summer.  For real.  Just last week I went through my recipe book and looked at all of those well loved recipes for those fall/winter foods like Lasagna, Chicken and Dumplings, Soups, and more.  I'm working on putting together my "simple" menu planning but for now, we are still dealing with some really HOT days!

Here's the plan for the coming week!

Saturday - We are allowing my mom to cook for the entire weekend ;-) LOL

Sunday - My Mom is in charge of meals :-)

Monday - Still hanging with the parents.  We'll head home after an early dinner - I'm sure my dad will grill out.

Tuesday - It's the first day of school so, as is our tradition from last year, we'll eat at Applebees - the Kids eat for $0.99 so it makes it a cheap dinner!

Wednesday - AWANA kickoff is tonight at church with Hotdogs for dinner.

Thursday - You mean I have to cook?? LOL  Ready?  Spaghetti and Meatballs.  Not even good meatballs either - I have a bag of frozen meatballs to use up in the freezer so I'll throw those in.

Friday - Tacos!!

"Flight School" - A New Book Release

I love to read, as you all may know so periodically I get the opportunity to share new books with you!  "Flight School" is a new release - check it out below!

New Novel From Christian Author Jason McIntire - "Flight School: One Summer, Many Choices"

If you've read The Sparrow Found A House by Jason McIntire (Elisha Press, 2013), you'll already know his style: Real-life situations addressed with equal parts humor and biblical wisdom. It's a combination reviewers find powerful. They've used the words intriguing, believable, captivating, and unique - among many others - to describe his writing. The Sparrow Found A House (which is available as a free Kindle download from Elisha Press) was also endorsed by Exodus Mandate, the prominent homeschooling action group. It tells the story of the Rivera-Sparrows, a newly-blended and newly-homeschooling family facing opposition from without and within.
Today Elisha Press is announcing the release of a sequel to The Sparrow Found A House - and to celebrate, they're giving away signed copies to four randomly-selected winners. You can enter the giveaway here, or go ahead and order the book on Amazon. It's $2.99 for the Kindle version, or $9.99 for the 256-page print edition.
Flight School follows the Rivera kids as they meet new friends, explore careers, and encounter the challenges and choices that come with adult life. As a homeschool graduate himself, Jason knows the things that matter most to homeschoolers, and how to write about those things in a way that will edify, resonate, and entertain.
"If you like Flight School," Jason says, "thank God. If you don't like it, blame me."
Enter the giveaway, or buy a copy now.

What We are Eating - Scalloped Potatoes and Ham in the Crock Pot

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham in the Crock Pot
adapted from Allrecipes.com

A few weeks ago, I cooked a ham I had in the freezer in order to use up some things that were getting closer to being "old".  The ham was good but then I used it in some other recipes and one of those was this recipe for Scalloped Potatoes and Ham in the Slow Cooker.  I wasn't 100% sure how this would turn out but sometimes you just have to try and, in Darryl's words, "I don't know why you would make this any other way.".  It really was good and super easy.  

Ingredients

 

• 3 pounds potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped cooked ham (I did not shred the ham - I just laid ham slices among the potatoes) 
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Add all ingredients to list

Directions

1. Place sliced potatoes in slow cooker. In a medium bowl, mix together shredded cheese, onion and ham. Mix with potatoes in slow cooker. Using the same bowl, mix together condensed soup and water. Season to taste with garlic powder, salt and pepper. Pour evenly over the potato mixture.
2. Cover, and cook on High for 4 hours.

 

Teaching Tuesday

One Week.  That's all.  I've read through the boys first week of lessons to try and get a grasp on what we do; we've had phone calls from the boys teachers; the boys still don't get that they have a "teacher" even though I'm their "teacher".  I miss actually knowing my whole year plan and instead am at the mercy of someone else planning. 

Next Tuesday we start! 

Make It Monday - September Goals

September means the official end of Summer, time for School to begin, and time to focus on finishing out the year strong with my goals.  It usually means cooler weather so I can get more done even though this coming week is being forcasted as "the hottest week of the summer".  Yikes! 

Anyway - this is what is on my radar for the coming month:

1.  Sell My Stuff.  I mentioned in a previous post that I've given myself until the end of September to get the stuff I sorted out of the basement sold or it goes to Good Will.  I have about 6 bins of stuff plus about 5-8 bigger items to try and sell. 

2. Do the finishing clean-up in the basement.  This will get accomplished by doing #1 above, purchasing the last shelf I need to store bins (which I have the $ for thanks to selling some other stuff), and getting the last of the rubber floor mats for the boys room (again, I've already sold stuff so I have the $ for these as well! Whoo whoo!)

3. Shelf by Shelf - This project I also mentioned previously.  It's so much easier to tackle one/two shelves a day.  I can clean the area (or empty the bin) and make sure everything either gets donated, trashed, or put in its rightful home in a matter of about 15 minutes.  It always amazes me how quickly things get cleaned out. A "shelf" doesn't really mean just a shelf - it's a drawer, cupboard, bin, etc.  I tend to "stash and dash" when I'm doing huge cleaning jobs like I did this summer with the basement so when I have random things, I pile them on a shelf (or shelves) and now, I can go through all of those items.

4. Scrapbooking - It's time to really focus on one thing.  Getting current.  I will be ordering digital pages, working on current photos and making sure that I am 100% current ASAP.  I'm not even setting a specific goal for September at this point - more like I need to plan during the first week on how I'm going to do this and then just do it every day.

5.  Birthday's and Christmas - With two birthdays and Christmas coming so close together I have to plan now.  I need to order the boys birthday shirts this month.  Plan what we will do for their birthdays, make gift lists for both birthday and Christmas and plan ahead for all things.  There are always Christmas activities we would like to do so I want to make sure that i plan then now so our family takes priority over other things!

6 The Outside.  Our yard has been neglected this year.  Right now, the grass is long because we have a huge underground wasp nest we are dealing with.  Darryl got swarmed not long ago while mowing and ended up with a pretty severe infection in both legs from the stings so he isn't too keen on mowing until the wasps are gone.  Planting new flowers wasn't high on my list because there were other things I wanted to spend our money on (like camping) but, it's time to weed and trim stuff back to get ready for fall.  This will happen closer to the end of the month but it still needs done.  Also, the pool will come down this month and we plan to do a small fire "pit" in the pool area since the grass is dead anyway (we did that this past spring too).  I might also try to get some bulbs to plant this fall - we planted some tulips last fall and it was fun watching them come up this spring. 

7.  The windows.  Yep they get their own category HA!  Darryl and I work together on this project since I'm not tall enough to wash the outside windows even wtih a ladder.  He does the outside while I clean the insides and spray down the screens.  It really doesn't take that long, it is just a pain to do.  We'll also pull the A/C units out sometime this month and store those away. 

8.  Family Activities - I'd like to get to a zoo with the kids.  Nate requested this early this year but I like to wait until fall to avoid the heat!  We are also planning to camp one last time near the end of the month. 

9. Planning - I've also started planning about what I want my theme word/focus to be next year.  It seems early, but it isn't.  I have an idea and want to research ways to actually implement the concept not only in my own life but that of our family too.  I have some other planning to do too - just taking time to write down some things/ideas/plans that I would like to accomplish not only for me but for/with the family too. 

10.  Financial goals - I'll be honest, the "no spend" concept in August didn't go as well.  I let it slide a few times and once it starts to slide it keeps sliding.  So, for September, I'm back to planning out our budget and not spending where we don't need to spend.  August was a much better month but we didn't end quite where we wanted to so I'm hopeful that September will put us back in the right spot.  I'm also doing lots of researching on ways to make just a little more income from home as the Munchkin will be in school full time. 

I think that's all for the month.  Now to take this list and break it down into some daily tasks that can be accomplished around school :-)

Family Fun - Safety Seminiar

This fall I'm slowly re-introducing the boys into our homeschool group (wow, that sounds deep HA).  Really, I just decided to try and take advantage of some opportunities that fit our schedule instead of trying to make the Co-Op schedule work for us.  The group recently hosted a Safety seminar of sorts where the kids got to see all kinds of safety people from Detectives to a K-9 Unit to Life EMS.  Needless to say, they had a lot of fun!

 These three boys!  They have been buddies for 5 years.  They fight like brothers but would defend each other to any one else.  I'm glad the Munchkin was able to come with us to this event too!

 Nervous habits are hard to break.  The kids were broken into groups by age so Josh was without his buddies.  He ended up in a group with all girls except for one very shy, quiet boy.  Poor kid HA!

 Nate listening to the Detective.  Nate kept trying to tell the guy he was going to be just like him when he grows up but the Detective wasn't that great with 4-5 year olds :-) 

 The K-9 Unit was a big hit.  The dog was awesome - such a beauty!

 The officer let the kids turn on the siren and talk in the walkie talkie too.  He was really awesome.

 The EMS guy was the best guy there.  He had this dry sense of humor that only the adults got but he was so fabulous with the kids.  There was no way Nate was going to get strapped into anything but he loved watching the princess get strapped in (and she loved it too!)

 Josh, on the other hand, loved it all.

They all got to shoot the firehose too.  What boy wouldn't love holding onto that huge hose and soaking everything in sight? 

Weekly Menu - It's the end of Summer

Wow.  Where did the summer go.  I can't complain - it has been an awesome summer.  The weather has been better than average for the cooler weather loving girl.  We've been on four awesome camping trips (and are hoping to get one more in this fall!).  We've done some fun activities as a family . The boys have been to Vacation Bible School, Stayed with grandparents, gone swimming and played. Lots.  I love fall, though.  The smells, tastes, cooler temps, colors - I love it all.  Not to mention Football :-)  Yeah!

**On a funny side note, I originally wrote this post a week ago and did it thinking that this weekend was Labor Day Weekend and School starts on Tuesday.  Guess what - I'm a whole week ahead HA!  This is the "last official week of summer" HA! 

Here's the plan for this coming week:

Saturday: Darryl is working today after having several days off for our camping trip.  So, he's bringing dinner home. 

Sunday: Darryl's working today due to taking extra days off because of being sick so, honestly, I'm pretty sure the boys and I will grab something after church.  Cooking for just the three of us is more work than it is worth ;-)  For dinner, Double Crunch Orange Chicken and Fried Rice sounds good!

Monday: Darryl has PT and I have practice so we are two ships passing in the night.  (well, not really night, just . . .evening HA).  Pancakes and Sausage make everyone happy and it is super easy.

Tuesday: Chick-Fil-Lay Nuggets and Fries.

Wednesday.Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes (in the crock!), Fried Zucchini and Rolls

Thursday: Chicken Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy and Biscuits

Friday - What else?  tacos!