Menu Plan for the week of 3/8/10

Here's what we'll be eating this week:

Breakfasts: cranberry bean bread (thanks Karen!), cold cereal (lots and lots of $1 cheerios!), bananas, oatmeal, eggs in a window

Lunches: sandwiches, leftovers, Yakisoba meals (free at HT after coupon!)

Dinners:

Monday: Ground Beef Stroganoff X2 over rice or pasta

Tuesday: White Bean Chicken (Turkey) Chili (need some recipes for this!) and cornbread X2

Wednesday: Sour Cream Turkey and White Bean Enchiladas and rice X 2

Thursday: Italian Pasta Bake X 2

Friday: Homemade pepperoni Pizza

Saturday:Turkey Tetrazzini X 2

Sunday: Leftovers and packed snacks for our long morning of church and grocery shopping in Charolotte. Dinner will be Tuna melts and soup
*X2 =doubling for friend

Later on today I will post the shopping trip for this menu!

What's on your menu this week?

Three under three (and no we're not expecting!)

Our friends here at JAARS (they are also aviation and going to Cameroon!) are having baby number two--most likely today! So we have their daughter who is almost 2 over. It has been a lot of fun to have a constant playmate for the girls! We are praying that the rest of this mommy's labor is smooth, she's been at it all night long already.

Daniel trying (only moderately successfully) to get some Bible reading in with 3 littles around him:)Oh and notice the foot biting going on there too:

Liv and the ole "poke yer eye out when mommy is taking a picture" move.

BFF's:

Liv, trying to get a piece of the mommy action (always):

Always checking out eachother's sippies:

We're praying for baby A to come out quickly and safely! But in the meantime we're having fun with our friend:)

Lots of creative cooking (bean cookies) and time to myself

Back in our home country of the Puget Sound, Daniel and I shared our little Honda. I took him to work once a week for ladies' Bible study and some grocery/drugstore shopping. I think between that and a 2 hour shopping trip either alone or with just one little on on Saturday I was very content to stay home most of the time. Here, its a little different. We rent a car on the weekend, but the nearest stores are a decent ways away (and we pay for gas + mileage so it needs to be very planned). So during the week and on Saturdays I stay home. Cabin fever might get to me a little bit more while here I think;). Anyway, Daniel suggested (okay strongly encouraged) me to take the littles to the MK station for childcare this morning so I could get some time to myself. There wasn't room for Liv, so M went by herself. You've never seen a happier little clam going to "school"! She's a social one you better believe it:)

While Liv is napping and M is at "school" I thought I would post this fun recipe.

Thanks to my lovely mother-in-law for the recipe and the already pureed beans!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Daily Bean by Suzanne Caciola White

1-15.5 oz can great northern beans, drained and rinsed

2 Tbs water

1 Tbs plus 2 tsp vanilla, divided

1 ¾ cups flour

¾ tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

2 sticks butter (I used one stick and then 1/2 cup oil/applesauce mixture)

1 ½ cups brown sugar

2 large eggs

3 ½ cups old fashioned rolled oats

6 oz bag chocolate chips (1 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place beans, water, and 1 Tbs vanilla into food processor and process until smooth. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and blend until creamy. Mix in the bean mixture. Add butter and bean mix to the flour and stir until well mixed. Add the oatmeal and chocolate chips. Drop the dough by heaping Tbs onto a greased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 6-9 minutes or until light golden brown.

This makes a huge batch! And they are very filling with all that fiber/protein so you might not eat as many as you would with other cookies;)

More pictures of our JAARS diggs

More of the pretty campus:

M by the apartment sign"

Pretty girl:

Our large bedroom-you can walk around and even has a walk-in closet! I think our whole house could fit in this room pratically!;)

Some of the pictures I took didn't show up for some reason, but those are a few. One of the perks of no car and sick kids (no center activities like library, boutique, etc.) is that I have a cleaner house than usual! Laundry is all done too-well for today that is:)

Meal plan for the first "real" week in NC!

Here we are in NC and I we still need to eat! So shopping and menu planning I go! Harris Teeter is my new BFF store (with up to 20 double coupons a day (up to $0.99...never noticed how many coupons are $1 before;)!). The almost free bread helps our budget quite a bit. I think we'll be eating more bread than we did before, that's for sure!

Here's what we'll be eating this week:

Breakfasts: toast, french toast, cold cereal (lots and lots of $1 cheerios!), bananas

Lunches: sandwiches, leftovers, Yakisoba meals (free at HT after coupon!)

Dinners:

Monday: Taco Soup, crusty whole grain bread

Tuesday: Pasta (whole grain) with marinara & cheese, green beans & garlic bread

Wednesday: Spinach and Brown Rice Casserole

Thursday: Tacos with Brown Rice on the side, peas

Friday: Homemade pepperoni Pizza, carrot sticks, ranch dip and Warm Delights for a dessert treat

Saturday: Tuna Melts and Vegetable soup (frozen from Saturday, I put it in the crockpot but by the evening we were all hugging toilets and garbage cans with the flu! so needless to say we didn't eat the soup then;)

Sunday: Leftovers and packed snacks for our long morning of church and grocery shopping in Charolotte.

Two things we'll be doing to save more money on our grocery budget while here are saving soda pop drinking for special occasions and eating dessert less. Its going to be hard, but since neither of those things do anything good nutritionally for us and we need to keep to a strict budget, this will be a good thing for us to do. I plan to have some lightly sweetened iced tea or lemonade in the fridge for those times when water just isn't doing it for us;).

What's on your menu this week?

Big weekly shopping trip (Harris Teeter, Food Lion & free bread!)

And here is what we bought for this week's meals. Keep in mind that this is an almost starting from scratch pantry (although my MIL brought/made/bought a lot of food when she was here!). I almost had a heart attack when I realized I spent over $90! But this will be the only trip like this where I have to get basics like flour, sugar, TP, oil and pretty much everything else all at the same time regardless of coupons/sales.
My trip to Harris Teeter, spent $28 (and need to go back for a $2 coupon overcharge) and Food Lion spent $62:

Almost free bread from JAARS (a missionary perk;) less than $2.00 for donation for all (yes those are Panera scones there!:


All total over $90. Hoping to keep it around $30/week after this week.

Our new digs @ JAARS

Here are a few pics of our new place here at JAARS. We have so much space! And the campus is really nice and spacious as well-quiet, with lots of nature to enjoy. I just hope I don't run into ALL the nature (read: snakes and spiders) that is here to enjoy:).

Our living room. Notice the toys along the back wall. Thank you gma and gmpa Crosby!

An outside picture of our apartment. Each on houses 8 families, and there are three of these buildings right near eachother. There are other housing units too.

Another view of the living room-the "office" area.

Here is our huge dining table. We were even able to borrow two highchairs for the girls from housekeeping! God has provided so many of our "wants" and "needs" already.

The girls playing and being adorable this morning.

Just a little update on us:
This weekend we got hit with the flu HARD. All 4 of us were hanging out by toilets or carrying around garbage cans (except Liv, who couldn't carry her own bucket;). And the fun continues...Daniel and I are starting to feel better and regain appetites but the girls are still runny nosed, feverish and not eating much. Liv thinks nursing around the clock while sick is a good idea (which it actually is pretty healthy for her I think) so I am exhausted.

Today was supposed to be a meeting for both Daniel and I with the aviation department all morning (and the girls were going to the MK station) but only Daniel went out. The girls didn't meet the "healthy" criteria for childcare so home we stayed. Its okay though because I have a year's worth of laundry, cleaning and other "partnership development" activites that I am so behind on!

A big bummer of being sick was that we couldn't attend church yesterday. So no news to report on that front. We made it to the grocery store and picked up our left-behind camera and that was it. Thank you those of you who are praying for us!