Cookies!!

Yesterday, the cookie paddles that I ordered for our mixer arrived. Needless to say, we were anxious to try them out!! They were very tasty. So tasty, that I completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product!!

Dad....

Happy birthday, Dad. Love and miss you lots!

3 Little Pigs

Lucas is completely obsessed with the 3 little pigs!  Tonight I was at Target and saw a 3 little pigs shirt that I just HAD to get for him.  I wish I would have had the camera out when I showed it to him.  He was soooo excited.  It's so fun watching him be excited.  :-)  Here is a video of him reciting his favorite part of the book.

Baking night....

Tonight I baked some lemon blueberry muffins.  They are really, really yummy.  I used this recipe with a few changes.  I used light sour cream and only 1 cup of blueberries because that is all I had on hand.

I also baked bread.  Tonight's batch was the best so far!  So, so yummy!  Last time I baked it, I got the gluten right, but then let it over rise and it collapsed while baking.  I'm hoping I am figuring this out because I want a repeat of tonight's bread!

Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, forafterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Cleaning out the closet....

My house looks pretty clean if you just walk in, but I know what is behind the closet doors and I JUST.CAN'T.TAKE.IT.ANYMORE!!  We have been working on cleaning out closets in the house and an overall de-cluttering.  Recently we cleaned the master bedroom closet.  There were still 3 boxes that remained unpacked from the 5+ years ago that we moved in here!!

5x7 Folded Card

I ordered these cards from Shutterfly. I took this picture last summer at Yellowstone and it is still one of my favorite!

Picture In Landscape 5x7 folded card

Create fun Halloween photo cards with Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

A Day at the Park

Before the heat wave hit us, we had a rather mild day of highs in the low 80s.  We decided to take advantage of it and went to a local park to play and ride the carousel and train!!

This little guy was watching everyone get on the train.

My crew!

Daddy's lap is more comfortable!

These geese were crossing and the train had to stop for them!

Look, Daddy, there's the tunnel!

The kids scream in the tunnel.  Lucas isn't too sure about that!

Logan finds it annoying!

Daddy isn't too sure of the screaming, either.

Obligatory picture by the engine!

Waiting for the carousel to start and spied Daddy taking a picture.

Here we go!

Hi, Daddy!

Logan enjoying the carousel, too!

My boy pointing out Daddy.  

July 4th pictures!

We seem to be making a tradition of going into DC to see the fireworks each year. The boys look forward to it every year! Lucas starts the count down on July 5th! :-) Here are a few pictures from this year:

Meals...Using What We Have

I'm just going to list some meals not sure what order we'll have stuff in yet. This is using the stuff in our freezer and I will still add in some things that we just really enjoy (like the kale salad). This is using up pretty much everything in the freezer except for the 16 pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts....I'm only using those in three meals in this plan. There may be a few things left that there is enough for more than one meal, but I figured I'd make all this and then take inventory and start again. It will be pretty empty after this, though!

I'll just keep this list for us to choose our meals from and add to for the week if there is something we're really wanting. I just wanted to plan out what we have to use it all up.
 --steak gorgonzola frozen meal, dinner rolls
--kale salad
--French bread pizza (Italian sausage from freezer, sweet peppers, onion, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese
--spaghetti (from leftover sausage and sauce from pizza), green beans, carrots
--breakfast burritos
--fish sticks, pasta roni, green beans
--chicken noodle casserole, steamed broccoli
--sweet and spicy wings, fire roasted veggies, potato wedges, onion rings, seasoned fries (using up the little bits of stuff that isn't enough for one meal alone....LOL!)
--butternut squash pasta
--baked chicken (using a Kraft kit in the fridge), black eyed peas, carrots
--chicken fried tuna steak with jalapeno cream gravy, rice medley (frozen side dish from Trader Joes), fire roasted veggies, broccoli
--smokey bbq chicken, beans (using ham hock in freezer), corn bread, corn on the cob
--pasta with meatballs, salad
--chicken caesar salad
--turkey/dressing casserole (using turkey, corn bread cubes and bread cubes in freezer-->making homemade dressing and omitting cranberry sauce), green beans--->the turkey was bad, so we didn't have this meal
--stroganoff pasta with meatless meatballs
--lemon chicken, pasta roni, steamed veggies
--fajitas (using steaks in freezer)
--stir fry (meatless chicken tenders, sugar snap peas, stir fry veggies), brown rice, wontons
--buffalo chicken meatballs, mac and cheese, broccoli
--patty melts (using h.b. patties in freezer), chips, fruit
--tilapia parmesan, sauteed veggies

ETA:  Looking back at my blog, I noticed that sometimes I would give a review of a new recipe that I tried (usually it was on Menu Plan Monday).  I really liked that looking back, I had an idea of if we cared for the meal.  :)  So, I decided to try to update when we try a new recipe!  


The chicken noodle casserole was very good!  We made it with Reames frozen egg noodles.  They didn't taste very good plain, but were really good in the casserole.


The buffalo meatballs were good!  I put celery in them as well as the onion and skipped out on serving them with any dressing, just the buffalo sauce.  I put a little of the hot sauce into the meatball mix, too, and put them under the broiler to brown them up a bit.