Menu Plan for the week of June 28th, 2010

I'm using a hot plate, crockpot, microwave and electric skillet to cook for the next 3 weeks. A little creative cooking never hurt anyone!

Here's what we'll be eating this week
Breakfasts: cracked wheat hot cereal (tried this morning, not bad!), oatmeal, cold cereal, eggs

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, green smoothies, fruit, cereal,

Dinners:

Monday: Having dinner with our old fellowship group from our home church (oops...already started beans in the crockpot for dinner!)

Tuesday: Chili in the crockpot

Wednesday: Hamburger Helper (got 6lbs of ground beef for $6 and have a tiny freezer...lots of ground beef meals this week!), carrots and bell pepper sticks

Thursday: Spagetti w/ marinara and meat sauce, broccoli

Friday: Hot Dogs, pork n beans, Kettle Chips, raw veggies

Saturday: Mexican egg scramble (veggies mixed in) with refried beans on side

Sunday: Bringing baked spaghetti to 4th of july picnic!

What's on your menu this week?

Weekend Menu Plan and more shopping...

...plus a deal!

$17 approx for all the below...Safeway, QFC and the milk was free at Walgreens with Renu overage.

Here's the deal if you have a QFC nearby and like Grape Nuts: they are on sale for $1 this week and there are coupons printed inside marked packages for $0.75/1! So after buying an inital box with the $1/2 coupon, I got a second box for only $0.25! That's a great deal on Grape Nuts if you ask me:)

Also picked up a whole chicken at $0.79/lb, grapes at $0.99/lb, bananas, green peppers 2/$1, more cocoa pebbles for $0.50/box (dessert!), organic whole wheat pasta for $0.25, cranberry juice coctail for $0.50 each after coupon found in cereal box last year!, 2 lbs cheddar $3.45 after real california dairy coupon and sale, cheeze nips $0.99, spinach $0.99, diced tomatoes $0.89, whole milk $1.99 (Walgreens).

I plan on buying icecream, hot dogs, Sweet Baby Rays, and a couple other very unhealthy things at Albertsons for close to free tomorrow:)

Here's what we are eating this weekend:

Breakfasts: cereal, oatmeal, eggs, milk

Dinner:

Friday: Lentil Veggie Stir fry (the girls ate mac n cheese...not proud of that but oh well....)

Saturday: Taco Mac (going to cook ground beef with some onions, cook up some whole grain pasta and mix all that with pinto beans, salsa, cheese and a little sour cream. Sounds yummy in my head at least! We'll have a large green salad on the side.

Sunday: whole chicken in the crockpot, leftover pasta, asparagus, leftovers for lunch.

Shopping trip, dinner and kitchen

We are back in the sunny (not!) Puget Sound again. Some wonderful friends of ours have fixed us up a place in their upstairs...very private with our own bathroom, kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen is MUCH better than what I was working with the first few months of our tiny house (the one we bought and remodeled) but it reminds me of those times cooking out of a crockpot only for many months. Here I have a little fridge, microwave, crockpot and hot plate, which is more than sufficient for any cooking I need to do. And no oven, to make my in-laws (*hi*!;) proud of my no-oven summer cooking. But a lovely sink makes it leap years more convenient than my bathroom sink dish-doing days. Here's a picture:

This was dinner, a yummy stir fry with fresh veg from the CSA goods my parents got along with a few other random veg, lentils, ground beef and satay sauce. Yum. And if you are reading Tami or Sharon, there are garlic shoots in there!! Remember those nummies from our trip to SE Asia?!? Wish I knew how to prepare them like that!


Here is what I bought at QFC for $26.xx yesterday:

I brought two little boxes of non-perishables plus some veggies from my parents' house but needed quite a bit to start out here (we'll be here almost a month if things take as long as we think!). Great deals on Post cereal ($0.50/box), Mac N Cheese (5pack for $2.99 plus free Capri Sun), fresh broc ($.99/lb), Kettle Chips ($.67), eggs and sour cream for $1.00 each, La Victoria Salsa for $1.67 plus $1.00 off the ground beef I bought,marked down Fresh Express salad mix for $1.00, Ronzoni Smart taste for $0.75 after blinkie coupon,peaches, organic carrots, fleishmans' olive oil spread, angel soft tp, pork N beans, chocolate milk for coffee and marinara sauce round out the trip. Pretty good for $26!

What did you buy this week?

Stress and pounds

Post stressful transition-filled June/May, I gained almost 5 of the 8 pounds I lost while in NC! Ugh. Slices of icecream cake, wedding cake and my aunt's de-lish chicken salad plus a lack of consistent workout time made that happen far too easily.

Just having weaned my 13 month old (happy 13 months Liv!) is throwing me off too. So with the nice(r) weather I am determined to get back into exercise consistently (especially now that the girls both enjoy stroller rides) and to cut back on the sweets and high calorie treats.

Here's to getting back on the healthy bandwagon!

Loves me some WA grocery bargains!

Back to posting those shopping trips...I know there are a few of you who enjoy these (morbid curiousity or whatever;).

I went to Albertson's, Walgreens and Target while mom watched the girls at Coffee Cabin. Mom, you rock. I had a GREAT time all by my lonesome.


I spent $45 give or take a dollar and $15 of that was a hair straightener from WAGS. I am determined to not live the rest of my life with really awful looking hair (if I can help it:).

The cool part is that for next week I have $7.50 to spend at Walgreens, $5 for Target, and $5 for Albertson's.

Walgreens: Lots and lots of hair stuff, including 3 John Freida products for $2 after RR. Excited to try these! Plus 4 boxes of medium brown hair color for my mom and I, whole milk, more body wash (2 free!).

Target: Free Razor, several trial sized goodies and 10 SOBEs for $3.

Albies: Lots of yogurt, cheerios, Hamburger Helper, $0.38/lb bananas and market down lean ground turkey.

If you notice the lack of fruits/veggies, well that's because we have a CSA order of veggies coming tomorrow and a ton of fruits and veggies leftover from Jon's rehearsal dinner to use up still.

What did you buy this week?

Busy Girls

We are back in WA and enjoying ourselves at my parents' river casa. We're not exactly "relaxing" as we are in full time partnership development mode. Which means we are working on building our prayer and financial support team right now for our missions work in Cameroon (we are at 75% of our support now). But it has been nice to enjoy time outside and with the girls and family. As is our life, we'll be traveling again come thursday...this time to our home church in the Puget Sound for a few weeks while we re-roof and do some repairs to our rental home.

Grandpa Blake and the girls on the deck

Taking care of dolly

Taking a rest after hard work

Livvie girl in the stroller with her babies

Swing fun (got this for FREE last summer at a garage sale!)

goofy grin on the deck

pushing dolly on the swing!

Alice and the looking glass:)

They are getting so big!

Menu Plan for the week of June 21st, 2010

In the past two weeks the toddlers and I have traveled from NC to INdy, Indy to WA, been at two different churches, lived with both Daniel's and my family and celebrated my only little brothers wedding. Life has been busy! Things won't necessarily be settling down now (we'll be traveling to re-roof our rental house later this week and then going back to NC for a month and Indy for a couple weeks in August!) but we'll have a few days of "normal" here and there. Plus, we've been reunited with Daniel after mountain week...which always makes things a lot more manageable:).

Here's our partial menu for this week (until we travel to the Puget Sound on Thursday):

Breakfasts: M: oatmeal T: oatmeal pancakes and eggs W: oatmeal Th: muffins and eggs
Lunches/snacks: leftovers, green smoothies, fruit

Dinners:

Monday: Steak leftover from father's day, steamed broccoli, sausage pasta casserole, other leftover sides (potato salad and ??)

Tuesday: Taco Salad (using the lettuce from CSA, pinto beans, ground pork, salsa, tomatoes, sour cream

Wednesday: Roast turkey (leftover from rehearsal dinner) grilled sammies with leftover taco salad, and possibly another cooked veggie side w/veg from CSA order we'll get that day

Thursday: leftovers...we'll be on the road to Puget Sound and dinner will probably be a Caesars pizza until I have a chance to shop for groceries there.

Friday: TBD
Saturday: TBD
Sunday: TBD

What's on your menu this week?

Visit with the cousins

We went to visit Daniel's brother's family this week.





We are glad to have finally had the opportunity to spent time with them!

Wedding Reception in Indy with cousins

Its been almost 2 years since M has seen her cousins and Liv has never met them! High time we had a rendezvous.

Here are a few scenes, more later when the kiddos aren't being crazy!

Packing

Here I am finally down to the wire packing to leave JAARS. Our little home for the past almost 4 months will no longer be "home". So happy for the next steps yet realizing that each new "end" comes with some manner of grieving. I am not going to dwell on that now though...I need to make some lists! Here is what I am hoping to accomplish today (we are leaving tomorrow mid-afternoon).

#1 trial run on the checked baggage
#2 get dinner prepped
#3 clean out fridge and do preliminiary organization of cupboards (after #2 is done!)
#4 take another box of giveaways to "boutique"
#5 take final books to library
#6 write last few thankyous to people here
#7 sort and pack up our "office" and decide what Daniel will take, what I will take and what has to go

That should keep me busy for quite awhile!

Playmates

Although Liv and M fight ALL THE TIME, they also love to play together. Since Liv has ventured into the big world of walking, its even more so.

The choo-choo train.

Baskets and boxes are apparently way better than toys these days!