Coffee, Cookies, and Calendar

Today is a (pretty much) stay at home day. Except for a quick oil change after dropping off my son at school, I will be staying home to bake, cook, update my planner, and get ready for tonight's Prayer and Praise night with my church.

I needed some cute Christmas stickers, so I found these great ones online.
Christmas planner stickers from Laughing and Losing It

I also found some specifically for Christmas Week on her site:
Nativity Stickers from Laughing and Losing It

They are super cute, and I just printed them out on sticker sheets I found online at Amazon:
Pres-A-Ply sticker sheets

I've got pork roast and veggies in a crockpot for dinner tonight, leftover roasted chicken in the stockpot with water for soup for the weekend, and cookies baking in the oven. It smells heavenly here today.

What's on your agenda today? Pull up a chair, grab a cup of coffee, and send me a note! I would love to meet you!

Holiday Planning

Do you need help planning for the holidays? Here's a free planner to print out!
Organizing Junkie - Holiday Planner

Menu Plan Monday

It's been a long while, but I thought I would post my menu plan here today. We have busy schedules right now with the kids doing football, soccer and basketball. But I always try to have homemade meals ready - either to eat around the table, or take with us. I make exceptions on early football game nights - it's much easier (and the kids love it!) to grab pizza and eat it in the stadium on those nights.

Monday - Chicken Stuffing Bake - I picked up some inexpensive pre-seasoned chicken drumsticks the other day, so those will go in the crockpot for the day while I am subbing at the kids' middle school. Then when I get home at 3:30 I will take the meat off the bones and put the casserole together. Yummy and easy!

Tuesday - Take-out Pizza - my oldest has his last 7th grade football game of the season at 4 pm, so we will enjoy hot pizza sitting in the stands watching him play. Go Spikes!

Wednesday - Grilled Pork Chops with homemade chunky applesauce and Crockpot Mac-n-Cheese - with BSF leader training in the morning and errands to run in the afternoon, I need something easy today.

Thursday - Crockpot Roast with Vegetables - this sounded so good when I read it from Organizing Junkie that I decided to add it to my plan for the week. This will be great since we will be eating in shifts today - soccer, basketball, homework and bible study for the evening.

Friday - Chicken Parmesan with Garlic Bread and Salad - one last football game tonight, this time the high school team, but since the game doesn't start until 7 pm, we will eat at home first. There are usually no leftovers when I serve this meal!

Saturday - Waffles or Pancakes with Bacon - the whole family likes a big breakfast for dinner, and I usually make enough to have leftovers for the school week for the kids. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone!

Sunday - Family Birthday Dinner at my sister's house. We will be celebrating both my husband's birthday and my mom's birthday this month, and since my sister just moved into a new house, she wanted to host it there. So I may have to bring something simple, but the meal is on her! Woo Hoo!

For links to lots more menus, head over to Organizing Junkie - there are lots of ideas!

Blessings!
Meegan

Family Meals

I picked up a few new cookbooks at the library a while ago - I love cookbooks and getting new inspirations for meals. One of them was Rachael Ray's "My Year in Meals".  The recipes in the book were a little beyond me - swordfish, anchovies and homemade pasta - but the format was inspiring.  She and her husband John recorded a year's worth of meals in journals, and then turned it into a cookbook. Very cool!

Daniel and Gretchen - and maybe soon Austin - have been experimenting more and more in the kitchen lately.

And so, I've decided to document our family's year in meals, just to see how a year goes. Our favorites, our not-so-favorites, recipes, pictures and more.  Hopefully it will be a fun trip down memory lane for future reading!

I will say, though, this is a very busy season for us. Daniel and Gretchen are both in basketball, so they each have two practices a week, and of course on different days! Austin is on his math team, so he has practice once a week. All three are in scouts, and Gretchen is in dance. Combine that with church, doctor and dentist appointments, and various and sundry other things, and lately meal times have been crazy. But we will work hard to having dinners together as much as possible!

Breakfast - the kids are used to making their own breakfast most mornings. Anything from sausage sandwiches to cold cereal, toast and peanut butter to fruit.  So, for the most part, I will only share our breakfasts if we have something special.

Lunch - our year will mostly be made up of school lunches, or run-of-the-mill sandwiches at home.  Again, I will only share lunches if we make something out-of-the-ordinary.

Dinner - this is where we like to mix it up a bit.  We have our family favorites and we also have new additions we like to try out.  this will be what I share the most.

So, let's see where this path leads us. First step - what shall we have for dinner tonight.......hmmmmmm.

Halloween

We celebrated Mom and James' birthdays today at Mom and Dad's house. We had the kids bring their costumes so we could get some photos together. I didn't have Gretchen's Elsa costume finished, so she wore her second costume instead.

Fall Family Photos

Today we went up to Greenbluff in between soccer games to take some family photos. I had seen a beautiful country lane used as a backdrop in lots of family photos, and I was determined to find it. After driving around the Greenbluff area for a little while, I spotted it. A beautiful gravel lane lined with trees, right next to (or maybe part of) the property belonging to Serena Thompson of Farm Chicks fame. Even though it was a bit of a battle - the kids were not being very cooperative getting changed from soccer clothes to photo shoot clothes - the pictures turned out great!

Sunflower Field

 Every year a local farmer plants several sunflower fields. They are not always in the same place twice in a row - he rotates his sunflower and wheat fields quite often. This particular field was only a few miles down the road from our house. We drove out one evening during Golden Hour to take our annual Sunflower Field Family Photos. It's so fun to see the changes in our family year after year! This year again, my niece was staying with us so we got to include her in the photos.

  

Snow Family

The week before Thanksgiving our area was hit with a one day windstorm that resulted in near 70 mph winds. Power outages were huge and lasted up to 7 or 8 days - some even went without for 9 or 10 days. Hundreds of trees were lost in the winds - some uprooted completely and some broken off. It was incredible, and to top it all off, the temps were very, very cold.

Playing Games by lantern during our power outage

Thankfully, our home and land were spared, except for being out of power for 3 days. We lost only one small tree that we know of, and it didn't hit anything. We had several branches come off trees, but nothing major. We have a wood stove in our home, so we were always toasty warm - some days it even got up to 80 degrees in the house! And I was able to cook nice hot meals on the wood stove, and we used coolers on the porch to keep our refrigerator food cold, so we didn't lose a great deal of food. We fared quite well in the big windstorm.

           


A local university made good work of some of the many trees they lost on their campus. A few creative souls created this absolutely darling Snow Family out of trees. I love it, and now I am ready to cut down a few trees on our 10 acres to create a Snow Family of our own!

Snow Family at Whitworth University
Whitworth University FB page

Garden Fresh Produce

Love that the garden is still producing yummy goodies. These will be used in my dinner tonight. I've got some country pork ribs to put on the grill, and I'll roast up some potatoes, peppers and zucchini, and have fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in a salad, and I will use the big zucchini in some bread and brownies.

Canning Day

Today was a fabulous day. I got to spend 6 hours in the kitchen of a great lady and mentor from my church, where we worked together to can sweet pickles, peaches, and then finished up making peach jelly. The peaches were for her daughter, so I didn't bring any of those home, but I certainly brought home pickles and jelly!  17 pints of pickles and 9 pints of jelly. So fun!

What was really great was just spending the day with her and her daughter doing this. My kids are back in school now, so I had the day to myself, to do what I wanted, and I'm so glad that she invited me to her home to work together on this project. She has a garden to die for - beautiful, beautiful! I also came home with a bucketful of grapes from her vines - and they are so yummy and sweet. She is such an example of the Titus 2 woman of God.

I am blessed to have her in my life.

School Year Day 2

New School Year

Today was the first day of school for my kids. They are getting so big! We had a very fun summer, packed with lots of adventures and special days, but it was time to head back. The last two weeks of summer are always our hardest. The kids are tired of playing with each other so much and the sibling fights seem more frequent. They are ready for a regular school routine, and so is this mama! Here is to a great year, full of all sorts of new adventures in learning!

School Year Day 1

Independence Day

 Happy 4th of July from our family to yours! We are spending the weekend at our family lake place. Such fun coming here for the holiday. We have tons of fun swimming and fishing and watching all the great fireworks around the lake.

James and I being a little goofy!

My sweet family

Fishing with Daddy on the dock

Daniel's first fish of the weekend

All of us that came up to the lake

Love this picture with my hubby, mom, and daughter

College is not for sissies!

I took a big step of faith this fall and started back to school. I have decided to study nursing, and get my RN degree, but I have to get through some pre-requisites first. My first college degree was in Small Business Management, and I graduated with that in 1992, so you can imagine that nothing from that time in college transferred over!

This quarter I started out with Psych 100, Biology 160, and English 101. I soon realized that my superwoman cape was just not fitting right - trying to juggle 15 credits with three kids and a husband and a home and then trying to study and do homework for all three classes - yikes! I was not being very successful. So I decided to withdraw from English and just concentrate on Psych and Biology. It was a good choice, but I still feel every bit of my 43 years when it comes to learning all of this new stuff! I am finding that my 2 brain surgeries did affect a bit of my memory capability - trying to ingrain all this new stuff is hard!

But now I am only a couple of weeks away from the first quarter being over, and I'm still surviving! I have found that I can learn new things, it just takes me a bit longer. I have found some new friends in my classmates - and its been fun getting to know new people. I have found that God really does have a plan laid out for me, and just the fact that I am enrolled in school is a big testimony to what God can do. It's kind of an awesome story as to how I even got to this place, but I'll tell that one another time.

I am glad I took this step, and followed the quiet voice of God speaking into my ear. The next few years are not going to be easy, but I know they will be rewarding. And my family has been such a huge encouragement along the way, even though we have hit a few rocks in the path.

Now, if I can only keep meiosis and mitosis straight, and remember DNA replication, and gene expressions, and, and, and........

Tucson Chicken and Mexican Rice

I didn't do a Meal Plan Monday this week - just too crazy of a weekend. I did, however, plan a menu - at least through Thursday! Still have yet to decide the weekend of meals, but I will get to that.  Tonight I pulled a pre-done meal out of the freezer. My friend Alyson and I spent a whole day back in September making freezer meals. They have been a lifesaver now that I have gone back to school! This morning I pulled out Tucson Chicken - one of Alyson's signature dishes!  It's a mexican dish, so I fixed my own recipe for Mexican Rice to go with it, along with some heated black and pinto beans, corn, and homemade salsa (from a friend) and chips for the side. It smells super yummy here right now, and as soon as hubby gets home from work (any minute now) we'll sit down to eat.

Here is a recipe for Alyson's Tucson Chicken

And for my Mexican Rice:

In a pan, mix together 2 cups cold water, 1 cup regular rice, 1 can petite diced tomatoes, 1 T dried red/green peppers, 1/2 t. chili powder, 1/2 t. cumin, 1/2 t. granulated onion, and some salt and pepper. Stir together. Turn on high, bring to a boil, then cover with a lid and simmer for 20 minutes.

After dinner, my job is to commit to memory Cell Respiration! Sounds fun, doesn't it?! I have a big Biology Test on Thursday, so my night's are filled with homework and studying. I lead such an eventful life!

Menu Plan Monday

It has been forever since I've participated in Menu Plan Monday! I used to use this link all the time, but life just got busy, and my blog evolved into more Facebook time than Blog time. But, I feel like starting my online journaling again, so here goes!

Menu planning is even more important to me now, since I started back to school this fall. I got my first degree back in 1992, in Small Business Management, and now I've decided to change paths completely and get a nursing degree. My goal is to be an RN specializing in either Pediatrics or Oncology. I should be done by 2019. And since I'm loading up on credits - 15 currently - and still have three kids and a hubby to take care of - menu planning is uber-important! And including my family in the planning stages is important too. We sit down on Sunday nights and plan out the week - find out what's going on in the evenings, and plan what is best for us. A lot of times I let the kids pick out their choice for a meal. It makes them feel more invested in what we are eating, and they like to help prepare the meal they have chosen. I also planned ahead before school started and spent an entire day preparing about a dozen meals ahead of time to put in my freezer. They are great to pull out when I don't have the time to cook!

So here is this week's menu.

Monday - Comfort Meatballs  Crash Hot Potatoes
Tuesday - Orange Chicken and Black Rice
Wednesday - Meatloaf (my mother-in-law's recipe) and mashed potatoes
Thursday - French Dip Sandwiches and French Fries
Friday - Pizza - we have our kids' Fall Carnival at school, and then the last home football game, so we need super easy and fast for tonight!
Saturday - Either Pork Roast or Beef Roast - not sure yet!
Sunday - Family Dinner at my parents' house - not sure what is planned yet!

I love The Pioneer Woman - and my kids love her recipes. Three of my dishes this week are from her website or TV. She always has such yummy, down-home, stick to your ribs meals!

 I'm an Organized Junkie hosts these Menu Plan Mondays. Head on over to her blog to take a look!

Thankfulness

* Listening to my boys play in the tree house we built this summer. Dream come true!

* Gretchen playing with arts and crafts in her bedroom. I love her creativity!

* spending family time together watching high school volleyball

* hubby helping with dishes and laundry when I am knee-deep in homework

* God opening so many doors for me to go to college again

* teacher friends that help my daughter when she is sad

* friends who encourage me when I have a bad day

* God providing the funds needed for a new school computer

* a day spent cooking with a good friend means great meals in my freezer - and a good day spent with a friend!

* encouraging and loving texts from my husband to keep me going when school is hard

* love notes from my daughter hidden in my backpack and left at my dinner seat

Baking Day

It's baking day at my house. Today is the day to turn in the culinary arts entries to our local fair. I'm excited to be entering baked goods for the very first time. I am hoping that everything turns out well, but what I'm really looking forward to is the feedback that the judges give.  Plus, my family loves it when I bake - I only have to turn in 3 cinnamon rolls and 3 brownies and 1 loaf of each bread, so we have lots of extras at the house to nibble on! This afternoon I have to make a batch of my Red, White & Blue cookies (dried cranberries, dried blueberries and white chocolate chips) and a pan of my Peanut Butter Finger bars, which is something my mom used to make all the time when we were kids.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Orange you glad it's almost summer!

This was the theme for the Teacher Appreciation Gifts I did this year. Of course, if it weren't for Pinterest, I would have no ideas at all! I saw a couple of samples of this theme on Pinterest, and decided to create my own basket of goodies.  It was actually lots of fun to create them, and I lucked out and was able to get almost everything at my local Dollar Tree store. And I was able to get name brand goodies too. Each basket cost me around $12.50, which I thought was a pretty decent price.

I put in a combination of school supplies and yummy treats.

I used a plastic tablecloth and just cut off the orange patterned strips on either side of the white center. Some went into each bucket, and some I cut into strips to tie bows.

               
I found the orange printable from Sun Scholars blog and I hand wrote the "almost".






After delivering all the gifts yesterday, I'm happy to say that the teachers loved them! Have fun creating your own Teacher Appreciation Gifts.