Saturday, January 28, 2012

How I plan our menu

I honestly don't know how people can do dinner every night without a menu plan! It may just be me. I have to have a plan and recipe for almost everything I cook. My husband Kyle can just open up the pantry and refrigerator and whip up a 3 course gourmet meal. It's annoying but at the same time awesome! I do wish I could provide 'made from scratch' meals like that for my family but God did not bless me with cooking skills!
Here's how I plan our meals:
I use these cute menu planning sheets to write everything out. Since we homeschool, I try to plan breakfast, lunch and dinner. (I am also not a mom that does hot breakfast. I stay up late waiting for Kyle to get home from work so we sleep in in the morning! The boys must fend for themselves most mornings.) I also try and plan snacks. With 4 boys, someone is always hungry!


I use several sources for recipes. One of my new favorites is Pinterest. SO many great food ideas! Several of the dinner and lunch ideas I have in the photo are from Pinterest. My favorite this month are the pizza rolls (so awesome with homemade ranch!). I also use several blogs, such as Heavenly Homemakers, which has lots of healthy-ish and organic recipes. (I am not an organic mom by any means, but I try here and there to buy less processed food and make more things from scratch). I also like Pioneer Womans website for recipe ideas, like the Marlboro Man Sandwich (which we call Cowboy sandwiches).  I also have several cookbooks I'll refer to every once in a while.
I'll just make my grocery list from the recipes listed on the planner and then I am ready to go! I make little checkmarks in the boxes after I have made sure I have written down all the ingredients for that dinner. Menu planning Works for Me!

Thanks for stopping by and checking things out! Check out other great tips at Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Aidan's 8th Birthday!

Being Silly!

Birthday boy!

A video camera!

Aidan had been asking us for this crazy notebook for months!

He really is excited about this shirt, I promise. (And don't worry, I did not pay $25 for this shirt, I got it on sale!)

That's our crazy little Boo!

Aidan wanted the nastiest Spongebob cupcakes from Sam's. I don't even know if he ate one!

It is a tradition be pinned with money on your birthday here in the Big Easy! Aidan made about $14 this way : )

Blowing out his candle!

He loved all of his gifts!

I thought this was a cute way to give money as a gift!

Aidan had a great time. He and his friends went to the movies with Kyle to see Tin Tin and then came back to the house for pizza and cake!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Zoo Visit before and afters

I love playing around with PSE. Here are a few pics from the zoo that I played around with. Kyle took the first two and I took the last two...
Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After