Menu Plan for First week of Feb, 2010!

I will be cooking for 4 adults and one toddler for the next three weeks-I love it! I brought a ton of canned/dry goods over with me to offset the increased costs of living with my folks for the next bit and I plan to do most of our eating from the pantry.

My dad loves red meat so I have to have some of that in most meals so I am looking for deals there. Yesterday my dad and I swung by Safeway and found ground beef marked down for $1.50 for 3 lbs! $0.50/lb is amazing! So we bought two and left a dozen others for someone else (but those were marked $2.50 each for 3 lbs-still an amazing deal!)

Breakfasts:
cold cereal, pancakes, scrambled eggs with mix-ins, french toast, homemade donuts on Friday (for my birthday-anyone have a fool-proof homemade recipe?)

Lunches:Leftovers

Dinners:

Monday: Roast, acorn squash, carrots in the crockpot, bread & leftover salad

Tuesday: Leftovers, soup (parents at Bible study tonight)

Wednesday: Thai Peanut noodles with leftover roast on the side for dad, frozen broccoli

Thursday: Chili and Cornbread

Friday: Red Robin for my birthday (free birthday burger-yay!)

Saturday: Meatloaf from freezer, mac n cheese, peas

Sunday: Enchiladas, green beans

Visit Orgjunkie for more plans!

Home Renovation part 5: the living room

And the end! When you have a 586 square foot house, the tour is rather short:) So this is where it ends, the living room. I already miss this room because it was so pretty when we had it all set up and finished and we only were able to enjoy it this way for a couple days really.

Ah well, I am learning a lot about not holding onto treasures on earth these days:)

Before:


After:


You can see the whole series if you look under the label "home renovation".

Livvie girl

She is such a joy to us. And she FINALLY began sleeping through the night again, after many months of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And one night where we did the dreaded crying it out (sort of on accident-she was inconsolable anyway because of a cold so we just kept checking on her after we figured there was nothing else we could do for her:( Liv doesn't crawl, she scoots. On her tush. From the front she looks like she's crawling, but she's dragging a (what looks like) bum leg underneath her. It looks hilarious but it works for her. I guess eventually she'll either figure out how to move the leg out or will learn to walk instead!!

Have you signed up for SWAGBUCKS yet?

I signed up for Swagbucks way back when and promptly forgot about it. Well, lo and behold I signed in last night and have enough for $20 in amazon.com giftcards! Whoohoo!

So have you signed up yet? If you are thinking about it sign up HERE!



Its basically a mindless way to earn points towards fun stuff like amazon gift cards while doing google searches you would do anyway. I wasn't super sold on it until I found out that I had earned so many points (especially because of nice friends who signed up through my link earlier:) Anyway, I am excited because we can order a book or two while in NC since we can't pack much. Sweet!

Home Renovation part 4: the kitchen/dining room

Before:

Notice how low the ceilings are above-very dark and closed in as well as the carpets and layers of previous wall coverings.

After:



The space now feels very open and bright. The cabinets are the same to save money but they were all removed and put back in a different configuration to make better use of space. A new (when I say new I mean new to this house!) stove, microwave, sink, (brand new:) counters, floors, walls, lighting, wiring...etc. etc. etc.! We lived in this room (literally-we've even slept in here!) for 6 months. Daniel did a great job and had lots of help from friends at church to finish this room.

Home Renovation Part 3: the bathroom

Before:



After:


My favorite part of this redo is actually not pictured-behind the door are a bunch of great cabinets that match the bathroom vanity. The bathroom is my favorite room redo by far.

Menu Plan for the newly combined household

We are praying and crossing our fingers-we think we found renters! If our renters check out we'll need to be out by next week. The girls and I are already at my parents' house in snowy E. WA (where we stay until missionary training end of Feb) so that Daniel can get the final projects done on the house and pack/clean without little people running amok. So...most of our food made a long trip over the mountains last night and I am the official meal planner extraordinaire while staying here. Here's what I am thinking we'll eat on the days we're home this week:

Breakfasts:
cold cereal, oatmeal pancakes, eggs

Lunches:Leftovers

Dinners:

Monday: Taco Soup, fresh tortilla chips

Tuesday: Pasta with alfredo sauce, green beans

Wednesday: Taco Salad

Thursday: We'll be traveling to my grandmother's funeral this day (in Marysville)

Friday: Funeral today -we'll be eating at family's house/at the church

Saturday: Frozen pizza or something easy since we may travel over the mountains today

Sunday: Whole Roasted Chicken with potatoes or rice on the side, broccoli

Visit Orgjunkie for more plans!