Menu Plan Monday (Tuesday)

I was all proud of myself because I did my menu for the week on Sunday morning while watching Cole's swimming lesson, and then made my grocery list, and then even figured out how much I'd spent out of each category of our biweekly budget already. Ok, so there wasn't much watching of the lesson. But Mike was in the pool with him, so there was parental attention.

Here goes:

Monday - Italian Crockpot Chicken, egg noodles, broccoli
Tuesday - Shepherd's Pie was on the menu, but I made pasta with jarred sauce since the kids were screaming starving and wouldn't hold over until Shepherd's Pie was ready.
Wednesday - Sweet and Sour Pork Chops, brown rice and carrots
Thursday - Breakfast. Maybe I'll do omelettes. I have lots of cheese, peppers and ham.
Friday - BBQ Chicken Pizza. I've made it before. We love it.
Saturday - Chicken Stirfry
Sunday - Beef Roast

I won!!!

Thanks to Terri at Fresh Cut Flours, I just won $75 to spend at CSN! I'll be spending it on the Fiestaware 16 piece Shamrock dinnerware set.

And check out Terri's cookies! They're amazing!!

Menu Plan Monday (on Wednesday)

It's way late. It's Wednesday, and if you want to be technical, it's Thursday, actually.

But here goes:

Monday - McD's. Skating didn't go well as mentioned previously, and the mention of "Dodonalds" (Cole speak for McDonald's) visibly cheered him up.

Tuesday - Chicken strips and yam fries. I just cut up the yam (I think it's really a sweet potato. It's orange, not yellow and big like a football) into wedges and toss in Mrs Dash and olive oil and bake. Easy. Mike worked really late and didn't get home until 10:30, so it was easy to do our dinner and then toss his in the oven later.

Wednesday - Jambalaya. I had chorizo to use up and a Zatarain's mix, so that was an easy decision. Cole was actually eating the chorizo before anything else. Weird kid. And I know it should be andouille but try to find that here.

Thursday - Que Pasta Mexican Mac and Cheese. Sounds weird, but it's really tasty. And is there an avocado shortage I don't know about? Safeway didn't even have an empty spot where they should be. It's another Mike works late night, so pasta keeps well.

Friday - Tacos. We skipped them last week because Cole requested "sizza" aka pizza. I had two pizzas in the freezer, so pizza it was.

Saturday - Hot and Sweet Drumsticks, mashed yellow nugget potatoes and asparagus.

Sunday - Pork loin roast in the crockpot, roast potatoes and carrots. We're planning on going to the Apple Barn that day.

Found the post!!

This is what I want to do above my bed!!!

Also, if anyone can tell me where I saw the footboard turned into a chalk board and coat hooks, I would love you forever!

First Skating Lesson and Thrift Shopping

Cole had his first skating lesson last night. They're half an hour long and start at 6:15. We were back in the van by 6:45. He fought it the whole time, hated that he couldn't just stand and walk, his feet were constantly kicking, and he came off the ice in tears. Mike, on the other hand, came off soaked in sweat from trying to help him. Poor little guy had no idea what he was supposed to be trying to do. It was a disaster. And the arena. OMG, the arena. Being that Cole is our first and just entering the world of parks and rec, we had no idea what to expect. What a gong show! 4 different levels of skating lessons on one rink, a hockey team practicing on the other, plus all the parents for everyone. INSANE. Trust Cole to hunt out the snack bar and vending machines right away though. We did take him to the other rink where a team of boys about 12 years old were practicing and showed him that's what he was going to learn to be doing. Ok, so he won't be learning to skate backwards and skid to a stop (my technical term for that thing where you turn to the side and stop) this session. But, once he hits Tot Hockey at 4 or 5, yes, he will.

Honestly, as far as sports go, we'd rather he played hockey. Neither of us really played team sports as kids, but feel it is valuable. And let's be honest, this is Vancouver. Soccer in the rain? No thanks. At least at the arena you always know it's going to be cold and dry. Sure, he can try t-ball in the spring. But, for the fall and winter, it's hockey.

Sunday is Mike's one day off a week right now. He's working crazy hours between his old store and making sure the new manager keeps it functioning at the level he got it to, and getting his new store up to par, or at least clean. I've been dying to go and check out some of our thrift stores, and Sunday would be the day to do it, since taking the boys to those stores would be insane. Only one was open. What a let down.

I went in looking for frames to do a frame arrangement over a bed of empty frames spray painted. Mike says absolutely nothing heavy above the bed in case of earthquake. Ok, then. Chances we'll be in bed when it hits...1 in 4 (we only sleep about 6 hours a night). And even if we are, a picture with glass falling on us is the least of our worries. Because if the picture falls off the wall, we need to get to our kids, and get out of the house, because that's a strong one. With the emergency kit we still haven't put together. Anyways, back to the frame arrangement. It adds colour. It's lightweight for my paranoid husband. And I can't find the blog it was on to save my life. I absolutely hate that. It was in green. And in the same post as a memo board that was a frame with a message about her boys keeping their hands out of their pants. *sigh*

My Value Village has lots of frames it turns out, all less than $7.99. Yay! I was checking out furniture as well. It's great if you're looking for a tv cabinet from the 80's in oak with the brass stripping. The part that made me really upset is that my Salvation Army (which will be referred to as the Sally Ann on from now on here) had an occasional chair I loved the style of that some new fabric would have made wonderful. My bedroom is a blank slate (well, not totally blank it's a weird tan) that has had nothing done to it.

Anyways, I'm off to try and find the blog post with the frames. I loved the green. I actually have linens in that green. Wish me luck. And meal plan! Crap! No wonder I'm lost at 5 every night.

Giveaway Alert!!!

Jen at Tatertots and Jello is giving away 3 Hallowe'en block craft kits. They're super cute, and her blog is full of fun stuff!! Go check it out. If you don't win, you can also buy the kits through her blog.

Good luck!

Potato Ham Bake

We had this two nights ago. Mike called it "Easter dinner soup". I doubled it because I don't know what family the recipe author is feeding, but that would not feed six as a main course casserole in my house. So maybe something went wrong in the doubling, I'm not sure. But it was soupy. Mike and Cole actually used spoons. I got by with just a fork, though.

One of the things that had me skeptical of this recipe as I was making it is that I realized it was essentially scalloped potatoes and ham in a casserole together. Mike hates ham and scalloped potato dinner. I love it, which is why this probably appealed to me. He admitted that he did enjoy this though, and would eat it again. Apparently one of the things he doesn't like about ham for dinner is it gets cold so fast. This way it stayed hot. My only caution is that prep is only 10 mins if you have ham chopped up (I used a ham steak), and your potatoes peeled and sliced.

So, I liked it, Mike liked it, Cole even ate all his dinner, and Carson was ecstatic at the sight of potatoes and mixed veggies. A hit all around. It can safely be added to the rotation for when I need a long cooking dinner.

Potato Ham Bake

My first "I HAVE to make that!!" for Hallowe'en

I like to decorate my yard for Hallowe'en. Being that we live in a townhouse, the amount of space we have is not huge. It's tiny, really. This was last year. I picked up a gravestone on clearance at Joann's last November for something ridiculous like $3 to add to the ground breaker skeleton for this year. I would also like to say this is the only holiday we have an inflatable for. And it will continue to be the only holiday we have an inflatable for. I will not have a giant blow up snow globe on my lawn, thankyouverymuch.

Then, I saw this spider over at Family Fun. It's so going between that little shed thing on the right, and the end of my carport. Yay! I can hardly wait.

And if you're starting to get Halloween crafty, check out the blog eighteen25, where it's a whole month of Halloween crafts from guest bloggers. I should be putting out my fall decor, changing the sheets on my bed while my babies sleep, vacuuming, etc, but these guest bloggers a day features get me sucked into the blogging world and you just keep clicking and reading and then all of a sudden kids are awake, nothing is done and it's time to make dinner. I'll feel better if I get two things done out of that list. And really, Cole likes to watch a movie when he wakes up. And Carson loves his jumperoo. I have plenty of time before dinner.

Have a good one!

Corn Cracker

That was supposed to be cornbread.

I haven't had many kitchen mishaps. I can count on one hand the number of times dinner was inedible. Usually the recipe was just awful. I used a Jiffy mix for this. I realize the Southerners are reaching for their smelling salts right now, but cornbread really isn't a mainstay in Canada. I read online about chili and cornbread, and thought it sounded good and happened to have a few boxes of Jiffy mix in the cupboard. Perfect. Except they were stamped with 09/09/09 as a "Best If Used by" date. Ok, so the baking powder was probably not as effective. They weren't actually bad. I called my mom and she said the same thing, and told me to add 1/4 tsp of baking powder. Not even close to enough. This stuff is like 1/2" thick. Total fail. I threw the other two boxes out, grated some cheddar, tossed it on the tops of hamburger buns that needed to get used up and stuck them under the broiler. Instant (well about 15 mins, including grating) cheese buns. Much better. And much more edible.

So, please, if you have a fail proof cornbread recipe, pass it along. And I need measurements. I've been told things like "you just mix together corn meal, flour, baking powder and milk". Excellent, but how much?

Menu Plan Monday

Yes, I know it's Tuesday. I got a little sidetracked. Anyways, here we go. There are a few reappearances from last week since we didn't have them last week. Instead of Chicken Spaghetti last Thursday we had McD's. And the chili did get cancelled out on Sunday, so it's here this week.

Here we go:

Monday: PW's Chicken Spaghetti. Another tip: I use half a rotisserie chicken from the deli instead of all the boiling my own, etc. Just add some chicken broth to the spaghetti water. Use the other half of the chicken for something like quick quesadillas.

Tuesday: Chili and cornbread. My house smells so yummy right now.

Wednesday: Potato Ham Bake. Another trial for skating lesson nights. It takes a good hour to cook and lessons are half an hour. Perfect. Lets hope it actually tastes decent.

Thursday: Perogies. They're a main dish in our house. I serve them with fried bacon and onion. And I boil them, then fry them in the bacon grease. Can you feel your arteries hardening?

Friday: Tacos a la Old El Paso.

Saturday: Another crockpot debut: Sweet n Sour Pork Chops. No idea what we're having with them though.

Sunday: Baked Potato Soup, and some sort of bread product I decide to bake.

Not bad for having a very limited grocery budget this week.

Where We're Coming From aka This is My Family

Mike and I met almost 7 years ago at a New Year's Eve party and started dating just short of six months later. We've barely been apart since. We were married two years and 6 days after our first date, pregnant a year later and then we had Cole in February 2008.

Cole was a rough pregnancy and I think I had almost every complication known to man. I threw up non-stop and ended up on prescription medication for it. Then I developed an irritable uterus that caused contractions strong enough to wake me up at 21 weeks. Then there was the insulin dependent gestational diabetes. Finally at 30 weeks, I developed pre-eclampsia and wasn't really allowed to leave my couch or bed, let alone my home. After all that, he was born 5 weeks early, hypoglycemic and was admitted to the NICU to stabilize his blood sugars, plus being on pins and needles waiting to see if he'd brady or desat, since there were some issues there as well. Finally got to take him home and he developed colic and reflux. He cried. He screamed. I wondered what the hell we were thinking. Mike swore we were good with one. No more babies. I think because my delivery did not go well, he was terrified he'd lose me if I tried again. Cole is now 2.5 and you'd never know how much trouble he gave us at the beginning. He still gives us trouble, but well, he's 2.5. And from what I hear it doesn't get much better until around 4. Yay.

I managed to convince Mike that another would be good. So we tried again. And two years and two weeks later to the day, Carson was born. I actually joked to Mike that it was a good thing their birthdays are in different pay periods when I was in labour. My epidural must have been in by then. The only grief my pregnancy with Carson gave me was the standard first trimester morning sickness and another round of insulin dependent GD. I expected that though. Oh, and a really long, drawn out labour and being thisclose to being classed as failure to progress. I made it though. We're done with kids now. I'm kinda over jabbing myself 4 times a day for insulin. We're out of bedrooms. We're exhausted with the two we have. And they're perfect and the best thing we ever did. He's 6 months, has the best smiles and crawls all over the house.

When I met Mike he was unemployed and living at his parents at 24. Hot catch, huh? He had nice eyes that were kind, made me laugh, and I wanted to talk to him forever and it was easy. I went in from our first date knowing that I would be with him a very long time. And here we are. So we started dating and he figured he better get a job, and be responsible, etc. So he got a job stocking shelves at a drugstore. 6 years later and he's been managing stores for almost 4 of them and is now going to different low performing stores, turning them around and then moving on to the next one. It's a lot of long hours, but a good career move on his part. He created a career doing this. I am so insanely proud of him.

I'm on maternity leave still. I don't have a job to go back to since my office will close before my leave ends. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it's up. I'll get my severance then, but other than that, who knows. I'm really enjoying this stay at home gig. It's busy. It's exhausting. I'm more exhausted and stressed out now than I was as a full time working mom. I'm also trying to deal with postpartum depression, that everyone (my dr's) is kind of nervous might turn into postpartum psychosis. I am bipolar. I had to go off my meds to get pregnant with Cole. I had not had an episode since 2002. I stayed pretty much stable all that time, even off meds. Mike says I started to slip a little at the beginning of my pregnancy with Carson. Now, here I am, back on all the meds I got off of, seeing a reproductive psychiatrist and a therapist a couple times a month, trying to get my head together and stay sane. My kids need me. I have to stay healthy.

Chocolate Orange Creams

Let me start out by saying I was pretty sure I hated orange and chocolate together. I think I actually hate fake orange and chocolate together. My mother in law made these and I tried one. So tasty! Hers had ginger in them as well. Mine don't because I forgot to look for it at the store. They're soft, slightly crumbly and the orange isn't overpowering. It's just fresh. And really good with the cream cheese.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

4 oz cream cheese

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp grated orange rind

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips

Cream butter, shortening and cream cheese, then cream in sugar. Beat in eggs and orange rind. Combine dry ingredients and blend into creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by the tablespoonful on cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 15 mins, until golden around edges.

Makes 5 dozen. I got just short of that (55) but would have had more if I'd been more uniform in sizing and not sampled the dough. I love cookie dough of any variety.

If you want to add the ginger: Add 1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger with the orange rind.

Easter Baskets and Advent Calendars

I know it's only September. And barely September at that. So you're probably thinking "hey crazy lady, can we get through all the other holidays first?". I'm not totally crazy. I promise. I'm more of a spring/summer toy in the Easter basket type of person, rather than a ton of candy. And it's all on clearance right now. Cheaper than cheap. When I was grocery shopping yesterday I got a box of 40 Crayola sidewalk chalk for .94. Toy Story bubble wands and bubbles for .49. A Toy Story floatie rider thing for the baby so he won't drown in the local wading pool for $1.94. The cashier was looking at all my stuff and said "there's some great deals there". And then she looked at me like I was crazy when I said they were for Easter baskets and I got a "well, aren't you organized". Nope, just cheap. I already have a Playdoh advent calendar for Cole that I got on clearance in January for $3.94.

We're big on advent calendars too. The Starbucks tree shaped one (that I'm determined to finally alter this year) with the drawers, the standard licensed chocolate one, we'll have the Playdoh one, and I'm debating between either Playmobil or Lego for the boys as well. And I would really like one of the nicer, more adult ones from Costco this year. I like the build up and anticipation. And I have a half-made Hallowe'en advent calendar that's a knock off of the Pottery Barn Kids one. Like this:

So, there you go. I'm an advent calendar freak. I need to come up with something for Easter which is harder because the date changes every year. Really, I'm a holiday freak in general. You'll see.

Why my food photography sucks

I have no natural light in my kitchen. We live in a townhouse and the kitchen is in the middle of the house. Add to that it has florescent lighting and it really sucks. And right it's with a 3 year old point and shoot. I have a Nikon dSLR. I got it for Christmas from Mike. Apparently it was missing the do-hickeys on the strap that keep the strap in place. It slipped off my neck camping. Like crashed to the ground, slipped off the strap. I cried in the middle of our hike. It seemed to be working ok, then I took off the lens. And there loose, was a cylinder inside the lens rattling around. So, now I get to drive out to Nikon Canada and hope against hope they'll cover it under warranty since my strap came defective out of the box, and it's my kit lens. So please, if you read this, do a warranty dance for me.

Two New Recipes

Both are Taste of Home recipes. I have good success with those, generally. I'm guessing because they are usually reader submissions and not just developed in a test kitchen under optimum conditions. They've been tried and true in someone else's home for their family. First off is Soy Garlic Chicken. I will absolutely make this again. All 3 of us loved it (the baby was sleeping). It was quick to prepare for the crockpot, and required ingredients pretty much everyone always has on hand. We actually ended up having smashed yellow nugget potatoes (skins and all) and broccoli with it.

Next up is Gooey Chocolate Cookies. Mike says they fall into the absolutely make them again category. He was originally disappointed I hadn't made my traditional chocolate chip cookies, and then quickly discovered that was ok. He actually suggested they would be good with vanilla ice cream, possibly for ice cream sandwiches. For those, I reversed the flavours, though. I had a white cake mix and chocolate cream cheese on hand. Still tasty. And I added some chocolate chips like reviewers suggested. If you read the reviews, there is complaints of the dough being sticky on your hands. That's not a big deal to me. I'm baking, it could get messy. Whatever. Do keep them on the small side, flatten slightly with your hand, and they'll turn out just fine.