Menu Plan for the week of Feb 28th, 2011

Here's what we will be eating this week:

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs,whole wheat banana muffins (yum!), baked oatmeal, lazy granola, and lots of cold cereal.

Lunches/snacks: leftovers (2 pizzas!), sandwiches, soup

Dinners:

Monday: Crockpot creation: leftover red sauce, turkey kielbasa links, spinach & celery along with a can of italian tomatoes. Will serve over whole grain noodles & steamed broccoli

Tuesday: Taco Soup, chips, salad

Wednesday: Steak, Potatoes, peas

Thursday: Tuna Casserole (make one for the freezer??)

Friday: Easy Peanut Butter Chicken in the crockpot

Saturday: Cheesburger Macaroni, green beans

Sunday: Clean out fridge/leftovers and then grilled cheese/tomato soup (share with small group?)

What's on your menu this week?

Menu for the rest of the week (in need of food ideas!)

We are back from a week and a half in Indiana! It was a great time, but we are glad to be back in our "semi-home"(meaning we live with my folks right now as we prepare to go overseas so its not really our home here either!). We were sick on the way over to Indy (Liv threw up twice in the car on the way to the airport!) and the girls caught a second round of yuck halfway through the trip. We enjoyed our visit though and it was great to re-connect with family and the church there.

So...back to this time zone and our (somewhat) normal life here. Here's what we'll be eating the rest of the week:

Tonight: Homemade whole wheat/oat pizza, green beans, carrots

Friday: Penne with marked down Jenni-O sausage/fried cabbage (hubby's request)
Side note: totally scored with mark-downs at Albies today. I had a $10 catalina from the Con-Agra promo from before I left to use today and I got 4 packs of good bacon, 1package of Kielbasa Sausage, 2 packages of nitrite free beef hotdogs and 1 package lunch meat ham, 4 cans of veggies/tomatoes all for $0.42 after catalina! Yay for markdowns!

Saturday: Lasagne, french bread, salad. Game Night w/ the fam!

Sunday: Taco Soup


The part I need help on is sugar free desserts (especially ones that don't use expensive sugar substitutes!) I am going to be white sugar/white flour free for the rest of the pregnancy but I still need need me some treats!

Hello from Indiana!

We are halfway through our trip here in Indiana now. It has been a stretching time for all of us with the girls being sick most of the time (first recovery from the flu, now they have ugly colds).

We're visiting family and friends and Daniel's parents' church (where he grew up) that is one of our supporting churches.

Tomorrow we're sharing in two Sunday School classes and then attending a family get-together with Daniel's family after church.

Heading home on a night-flight Tuesday night so I'll start posting again regularly on Thursday!

Loves me some grocery bargains Feb 9th, 2011

All the stores in town have their good points and bad points, but recently it has been a real love/hate kind of relationship. Take Safeway for instance. The deals were amazing last week especially with coupons and the Joy of Football coupon book, but half the Joy of Football coupons failed to come off my order everytime I used them!

Exhibit A: Safeway about $20 (too lazy to grab receipts as usual). Around $15 of that was the steak, so $5 for 4 tostitos, 2 Safeway Salsas, 2 packages all Beef Hebrew National hotdogs (reg. $4.99 each!), and gold n soft light butter. BUT, I had to get the receipt adjusted to that by customer service, which was okay, but he looked skeptical as I explained what had happened!

Walgreens: Spent about $2 oop and used $2 more in RR than I left with so all this "cost" about $4. Love this haircolor, so amazing deal overall.

Albertson's: Too complicated to explain, but I used my raincheck for oats from last week's sale to get my last 20 Quaker oats for less than $5 total. The rest of what is pictured here was less than $1 after doubles and coupons.

Side note, the only reason I was able to do so many transactions with doubles was because my mom was awesome and got a ton of ads from the highschool she works at. They kept bringing her more and more ads...so if you are in the area and the doubles end up in the ads themselves talk to me and I can probably hook you up:)

Side note #2, this of course isn't all the shopping I did, just the best deals. We also bought milk products and produce at another time, including a huge bag of spinach and two huge jars of pickles my dad bought at Costco. Good pregnant lady foods:)

Freezer meals for post-baby update

Done!:
Chicken Divan
Pigs in a blanket X2
Dinner Rolls (made with pigs in a blanket rolls recipe) X1
Hearty Bean Casserole X2
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls (1 batch)

Yet to be made:
Tator Tot Casserole (cheap frozen broc at Albies this week!)
Lasagna or Italian Casserole

Baby Boy Clothes Blessing!

Occasionally I like to look on Craigslist for various things. This time it seemed to be a blessing straight from our Heavenly Father! I was so excited to see that a local coffee shop (blocks away from my parents' house) was hosting a baby/toddler clothing swap! We had more than enough tiny baby girl clothes to get rid of some excess (we have plenty left even if baby boy turns out to be a girl!)

The cool thing was everyone else at the swap was looking for other sizes so they let me keep coming back (and encouraging me to do so) for another round! I probably got 50+items, all in amazing condition and much nicer stuff than I could afford otherwise. What a blessing!

My big helper is below posing with the clothes. There were so many I couldn't fit them all in one picture!

Menu Plan for the week of Feb 7th, 2011

Last week was quite a week with sick toddler #2 getting sick or whining constantly. A few hours after she started getting better toddler #1 came down with it. Life with littles is never boring, right!?

I'll try to keep adding to my list of freezer meals/food that is for post-baby. Here's the little bit I have so far:
2 Chicken Divans
1 batch of frozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookie balls
(making today) 1 Hearty Bean Casserole (to serve with hotdogs or with cornbread)

Here's what we will be eating this week:

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, baked oatmeal, lazy granola, and lots of cold cereal. Easy easy for mornings with sick kiddo

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches, soup

Dinners:

Monday: Hearty Bean Casserole (doubling for baby freezer stash), hot dogs, green beans

Tuesday: Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, yeast rolls

Wednesday: Beef Stroganoff, leftover yeast rolls, spinach

Thursday: Chimichangas and Taco Soup w/ Chips & Guac

Friday: Steak, potatoes, spinach salad

Saturday: On the road then plane to Indiana!

Sunday: In Indy!

What's on your menu this week?

My cheap kitchen help

Yesterday we had fun in the kitchen together. Which is a good thing since today was all about survival mode. My little one (Liv) has the flu and we spent most of the night and day cleaning up after the badness.

My little taste-tester...making a frittata with leftover hotdog buns, eggs, cheese, milk, pepperoni, peas and spices.

Morning glory muffins. I was thankful some of the dry ingredients stayed in the bowl long enough to be made into muffins!

Two little helper-bums, side by side. Very intent on their task!

Menu Plan for first week of Feb. 2011

*Someone* is turning really really old this week. Like major milestone birthday...but I'm not tellin' who:)

Last week I made a triple batch of Chicken Divan so we could have two for the freezer for after baby. Its a favorite here and we could've easily eaten two of the batches, but I made extra whole grain pasta to put under it and stretch it out:)

Here's what we will be eating this week:

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, baked oatmeal, lazy granola, morning glory muffins (using the huge bag of organic carrots from Costco!)

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches, soup

Dinners:

Monday: Frozen pizza. NOT on the original plan but mom, grandma Pat and I tried out a ZUMBA class at Curves and I got home much later than planned!

Tuesday: Dumplings (marked down won ton wrappers at FM), brown rice, mixed veggies and leftover egg/cheese frittata from today's lunch

Wednesday: Lasagna, cauliflower, leftover bread

Thursday: Roast or Chicken in the crockpot w/carrots over penne

Friday: Pigs in a blanket (homemade blankets...didn't get to this last week), sweet potato fries

Saturday: Papa Murphy's pizza (really yummy veggie kind) or possibly out celebrating with the husband (any Wenatchee area readers have suggestions for a nice meal out...not crazy expensive, but not Denny's either:)?

Sunday: Super Bowl! We'll have company so hot dogs, baked beans (both in respective crockpots) and chips/popcorn. I'll probably make a big batch of chocolate oatmeal cookies.

What's on your menu this week?