Sunday Songs, Scripture and Sayings

Our Week in Photos #20

It was a pretty quiet week!

 Nate loves to play games so he pulled this favorite out. 

 They had choir practice on Thursday night.  (That's Josh with his hood on and Nate in the red striped shirt) 

 Lots of school work happened this week.  I have a goal of being ahead enough that we can take the week before Christmas off.  I love really long Christmas breaks :-) 

 Today was our last day of Friday School this semester.  Josh and another girl decorated this cake in their Cake Decorating class. 

 The boys made this fabulous tarts in their cooking class.  

Nate got to write about his favorite animal that they studied in his Animal class. 

As I'm sitting here on a Friday evening, I'm realizing that this is the first quiet Friday night we've had in awhile.  We got home from Friday school and I put on my Pj's, got my favorite blanket, a great cup of coffee (from Bigby!), my book and snuggled with my cat. HA!  What exciting lives we live around here :-) 

Weekly Menu

We jumped into a new and better routine this week but with doing that, I haven't had the creative mind to write this week so the blog took a back seat.  I also didn't make a single meal that I planned :-)  I totally forgot to take that Ham out of the freezer so instead we had Tacos, Spaghetti and Meatloaf since I had ground beef in the fridge already!  Here's the tentitive plan for the coming week.  Why is it tentitive?  Because I haven't gone to the store yet this week so anything can change HA!

Friday - It's the last day of Friday school.  I'm tired already (and I'm writing this on Thursday!) so I know I won't want to cook.  Maybe we will meet Darryl at Wendy's for dinner to keep it easy.

Saturday - Josh is participating in a special choir so we will be eating lunch out with my mom afterwards.  Since we will have a big lunch, and I still have to go to the store on Saturday afternoon, dinner will be something simple like Chicken Nuggets or Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup.

Sunday - Slow Cooker Pork Chops with caramelized onions and peas, mashed potatoes, and Mac and Cheese (for my sweet Nate - it's his favorite food so sometimes I just make it because I love him so much!)

Monday - Slow Cooker Zuppa Toscana and Garlic Sticks (Ok, my kids aren't soup eaters so I'll probably provide them with something they actually like . . .like chicken nuggets)

Tuesday - Baked Ziti and Garlic Biscuits and green beans

Wednesday - The boys and I will grab something to eat before AWANA.

Thursday - Poor man's hamburger steaks, buttered noodles, and peas and carrots. 

That's the plan - I'll let you know how it plays out next week . . which, in case you didn't realize it, will include Thanksgivings menu as well!  (WOW!)

Sunday Scripture, Songs and Sayings

Our week in photos #19

We had a great week.  It started with a weekend away for me and, well, ended with a trip away for me.  Throw in a little Halloween fun and it was a pretty good week of fun!

 I, of course, enjoyed a great weekend away scrapbooking and chatting with friends. 

 Josh's pumpkin - an Enderman.

 Nate's pumpkin - a three headed Wither (from Minecraft also) This picture shows two of the three "heads".

 We also got our first snow!

 And yes, Josh is outside without a shirt.  Before you judge . . this is tradition.  I think there is a photo from almost every year where, on the first snow, Josh runs outside without a shirt.  It's almost like a right of passage HA!

 This photo was not planned.  Our two friends showed up in these Halloween shirts and the boys have the same ones so we had to get a photo with all four kids.  Such a cute photo!

 Halloween night really was a great night if it was a little chillier than we would have liked. 

 We ended the night at our church for their indoor "trunk or treat" so the weather did not really matter.  Josh's face is just killin' me HA!

 I ended the week at a birthday party for an old family friend - Alice (she's the one sitting).  She turned 90.  It brought together some dear friends.  Jeanne Turk (back left), my mom (middle), and Mrs. Basler (Back right).  All pretty special people in my book.

 Finally, Darryl took the boys to Friday school today since I was gone and I'm so glad he did.  When I got home Josh said, "Mom, I made you a pie".  This is the pie he made today in his baking class.  I love that he's learning to bake!

I didn't get to share this last week - but the rhino and turtle on the left are both projects that Nate has made recently in his class.  I love all of the experiences they get at Friday school!

Weekly Menu

Last weeks menu ended up being a menu made of leftovers.  We had left over chicken and noodles from Sunday and then leftover Roast, Potatoes and Carrots.  It made cooking easy :-) Here's the plan for the coming week

Friday - I'm going to be out of town so I'm leaving Darryl in charge of dinner.  I'm thinking he's grab some McDonald's.

Saturday - Spaghetti/Ravili w/meatsauce and garlic butter biscuits.

Sunday - Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, and Green Beans

Monday - Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup with soft rolls

Tuesday - Cheesy Leftover Ham and Rice Casserole with Broccoli and crescent Rolls

Wednesday - Sandwiches between the Library and AWANA

Thursday - LEFTOVERS!  Yes, I'm cooking a big ham on Sunday which means using the ham in some meals throughout the week.  Tonight, we will 'clean out the fridge' with what was served all week!

Blue Apron - My Thoughts

Unless you are living in another country (that's for my brother, Kel), you have most likely heard of Blue Apron.  Blue Apron is a meal delivery service.  Yep, you read that right - you can have meals delivered to your home weekly.  Recently, a friend had some free "trials" to give away and I was able to get one so I thought I'd share the good, bad and ugly :-)

 When you set up your account, you can choose your delivery date (I picked Wednesday).  The box arrives and it is all pretty and fun looking!

 Inside the box are two beautiful recipe cards (well, 2 in my case because I only got 2 meals for 4 people with the free trial).

 The food is enclosed in this insulated bag inside the box with dry ice in the bottom.

 All the ingredients are packaged and labeled for easy use.

Each paper bag is labeled for the meal that it goes with and the meat is well packaged also.

 This is meal one - BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with cole slaw and roasted potatoes.

 The beautiful recipe card.

 This is what was inside the bag.  They supply everything you need except olive oil and salt and pepper.  All of the ingredients are premeasured which makes it even easier to cook dinner.

This was the final dinner.  All in all, it was pretty good. 

Now, here are my opinions:
1) Over all, Blue Apron does a great job with packaging, directions and overall ease of use of their product.  The fact that you get all of the ingredients premeasured is a bonus.
2) They use a high quality of ingredients but not necessarily the best cuts.  For example, for the BBQ chicken meal, it was boneless, skinless chicken thighs, not breasts.  I personally find the boneless thighs kind of slimy (I like bone-in thighs but they are "dryer". 
3) The price point is a killer.  The two meals that we received "retail" at about $72.00.  So that is two meals for a family of four.  Blue Apron says you feed each person for about $8.99 a piece.  Well, honestly, I can feed my whole family 3 times a day for $8.99 a piece, not just one meal.  It is not designed for a family who lives on a super tight budget.
4) So would I ever use it again?  I might at some point just for fun - maybe with a coupon :-)

Now, here's my little disclaimer.  If Darryl and I were "DINKS" (Double Income, No Kids) I would totally take advantage of a program like this.  In order meals for 2, you can get 4 meals for about $60.00.  That would mean 4 meals totally ready to cook when I walk in the door and no shopping.  (We'd eat out the other three HA!) I'd also use this if I was single.  Why?  Ordering 4 meals for 2 people means that I would either have 8 dinners or 4 dinners plus lunch the next day.  Talk about making life easy! 

Overall it was a good experience, it just doesn't fit into our budget or life right now. 

You might notice I only talked about one meal.  Well, the second meal sent to us was Salmon and Kale.  Neither item is a food that either Darryl or I like so I didn't end up cooking it.