Project 365–Day 81

We’ve had some sickness going through the house, coughs and runny noses.  Whenever Elijah gets sick he always gets these blisters above his mouth.  This time around was really bad.  Poor guy!

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Project 365–Day 80

We celebrated my birthday today!  The older kids all bought me gifts, they love birthdays!

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Project 365–Day 79

When the kids are too quiet it’s time to check on them!  Jeremiah and Micah had great fun unmaking beds and throwing toys, books, and stuffed animals all over the room!  This took awhile to clean up!

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Project 365–Day 78

Mark built an itty bitty model airplane and I couldn’t resist setting it in the dollhouse and snapping a picture!  It looks so cute, and just perfectly to scale for a model airplane for my imaginary dollhouse family!

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Kitchen Organization Project

This month I’ve been working on getting my kitchen reorganized in order to waste less steps.  I became convinced of the need to do this after reading this book.  It’s been an interesting process so far!  I never realized how much time I spent running around my kitchen till I read the book.  I’m not done yet, but I thought you all might like to see some before shots.
Here’s my pantry.  It has been getting more and more messy, especially since Malachi was born.  I also have a pantry in the garage for my stock pile of good deals.  I have quite a few things that we don’t use anymore that are just taking up space and I really think I could make better use of this space.
 
Here are my upper cabinets.  (Yes, this is all of them, my kitchen is small!)  These are not that messy, but again, I think I could do better as far as making my organization make sense.  Letter supplies, cold medicine, and cake pans all in the same cabinet?  What was I thinking?!  :-)

Lower cabinets.  This is where most of the mess and disorganization is.  I really need to figure out some good place for all of this stuff!

Finally, my drawers.  There are a couple more but I forgot to get pictures of them.  But, you’re not missing much, it’s more of the same.  Stuff, stuff, and More stuff.  It’s time to do something about all of this junk!

Keep checking back, I’ll be posting updates as I get things organized!  My goal is to finish this up by the end of April!

To see my first progress, click here. 

Project 365–Day 77

Malachi, snoozing in his crib!  We’re making progress, he sleeps in here during the day but still has trouble staying in the crib at night and always ends up in the basinet in our room.  That’s okay for now, but the basinet is getting awfully small for him, he has only about an inch of extra space length wise!

 

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My Birthday 2013

We celebrated my birthday this past week.  It was a very relaxing day full of time with family and lots of relaxing.  Originally I had wanted to do some things outside but the morning of dawned cold and snowy, so we changed plans mid stream.  It all worked out perfectly all the same!  The only pictures that were taken were of me opening gifts… ah well, maybe next year I’ll do better!

 

Project 365–Day 76

Emmaline loves to carry Malachi around and take care of him.  She is such a good helper and can always be counted on to keep Malachi occupied.  :-)

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Meal Plan for the week

It worked out well that last week was pretty quiet because all of us (me included) got sick! Yuck! It’s a good thing my meals were so simple! Everyone is on the upward slope now, hopefully no more sickness will hit around here for awhile!

This week is busier than last week, but not terribly so.  I have company coming over 2 days, we’ll be gone one evening, and I’m also planning to spend a few days at the shop taking care of some things.  Beyond that it’s just the regular stuff like school, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Here’s the meal plan:

~ Chicken Noodle Soup, Biscuits, Pie

~  Italian Shredded Beef Sandwiches

~ Dinner Out!  This is the first time our family has been out to eat since this trip to Del Taco.  Obviously we don’t get out to eat much!  We are going out this week because the kids don’t have Awana and we wanted to do something special with them.

~  Homemade Pizza, Green Salad.  I’m trying to get back in the habit of making our own pizza.

~ Homemade Mac N’ Cheese, always a hit!

~ Tea, snacky stuff (vegie sticks, fruit), and scones

What’s on your menu this week?

Project 365–Day 75

Captain America!  Josiah’s favorite super hero is Captain America, and he loves to dress up like him!

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Project 365–Day 74

National Pi (3.14) day!  To celebrate I made a homemade blueberry pie, yum! 

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Project 365–Day 73

The view from our backyard is so beautiful!  I love seeing all the snow on the mountains!

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Project 365–Day 72

Malachi has been doing so well eating baby food!  He loves eating!

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Project 365–Day 71

The kids had a blast taking turns “sledding” down our stairs on a flattened box!  Emmy was by far the best at it, she really could pick up some speed!

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Meal Plan for the Week

 

One of my recent blog finds is Life as Mom.  I love her menu plans! I love to see what she is serving for HER family of 8!  Since that is one of my all time favorite posts from her I thought you all might enjoy the same from me.  :-)

I like to plan my meals about a week in advance.  I have done as far ahead as a month, but in my current life stage planning a month ahead just feels impossible!

 

I plan my meals in 3 steps:

1. Check the fridge for foods that need to be used up.

2. Check the pantry and freezer for foods on hand.

3. Check my lists of meals for ideas and make a list of meals for the week.

Pretty simple really.  I usually use what ever I have on hand, I don’t like to have to buy ingredients special for a meal.  The hardest part for me is thinking about side dishes!

 

Here is my meal plan for this week:

* Beans and Rice with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cheese, green peppers and sour cream for toppings.  Fruit Salad.

* Salsa Verde Beef served in tortillas with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and sour cream.  I don’t make side dishes with this kind of meal anymore because my family doesn’t eat them!

* BBQ Chicken, steamed vegies, cut fruit.

* Easy Manicotti (ie: recipe made up as I go!), green salad, fruit salad.

* Homemade Pizza, green salad.

*Snacky Dinner (bread, cheese, fruit, vegies) – A meal in one so to speak!

* Shrimp!  A special treat from the freezer that I forgot I had!  Green salad.  Or this might end up being smoothies, depending on how busy the day is, ha!

What’s on YOUR menu this week?

Project 365–Day 70

My sister-in-law brought over these small animals.  They are dropped in a cup of water and left overnight.  Then they get to be about 5 times as big!  The kids have had so much fun with them, my counter has been cluttered with cups filled with soaking animals for weeks!

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Project 365–Day 69

I cleaned things up in the dollhouse so it all looks beautiful, neat, and tidy again!

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Project 365–Day 68

Elijah had a good friend of his over for the weekend to spend the night for two nights, and 3 days.  They had so much fun together!  Here they are taking turns playing the Wii with one of our neighbor kids.

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Project 365–Day 67

Micah refused to sleep for his nap today, playing with toys instead.  About 5 p.m. he crashed on the stairs and didn’t wake up again till the next morning! (Never fear, I did put him in his bed though when it was bedtime, lol!)

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Project 365–Day 66

Here is what happens to the dollhouse when we have lots of kids over- it is a favorite toy, especially with the girls!  Not quite sure what they were trying to accomplish here…

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Project 365- Day 65

I am in the process of hanging up bulletin boards for each of the kids to keep all their special drawings and papers on.  This one is Elijah’s.  They are all so excited to have some place to keep their pictures!

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Project 365–Day 64

Each day we have a “quiet time”, where all the kids play alone for an hour.  The littlest guys sleep but the older ones play quietly.  Today Josiah decided to play with his legos.  Boy, he’s looking so grown up!

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Project 365–Day 63

Malachi has started on solid foods recently.  He doesn’t sit up real well yet so we prop him up with towels.  He loves his food though!

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Project 365–Day 62

Emmaline loves dancing!  Today she was twirling in the living room while the boys ran around her in circles…

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Project 365–Day 61

Our Happy face spilled milk!  Elijah was getting ready to wash off the table after lunch when he noticed this.  He ran to get me so that I could get a picture of it before he washed it off.  :-)

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Project 365–Day 60

Daddy and Daughter!  One with a real smart phone, and one “pretending”… bet you can’t guess which is which (not really)!  ;-)

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Project 365–Day 59

This has become a common sight at our house.  Right around the beginning of the year Mark’s back started causing him problems and he has been to so many doctors I’ve lost count, and tried so many different meds trying to manage his pain.  He has 2 bulging disks and sciatica, but the doctors are still determining his treatment options.  :-(

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Project 365–Day 58

What is that?!  That, is our celery in colored water experiment.  A completely unplanned experiment that got started when Elijah decided it would be fun to dip his celery stick in his smoothie!  At that point I pulled out the food coloring, put it in this cup and told him to stick his celery in here instead.  :-)  The celery didn’t end up changing color like I thought it would but it was clearly visible where it had sucked up the colored water.

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Project 365–Day 57

I spent some time today making homemade mixes.  I didn’t get a lot done, homemade instant oatmeal packets and homemade taco mix, but I was pleased with my progress.  Especially considering I got school done with everyone for the day too!

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Project 365–Day56

Malachi, looking so cute!

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Project 365–Day 56

At the completion of this school year Elijah will have to be tested according to our state law.  In preparation for that I bought a book of practice tests and Elijah has been working dilligently, learning how to take tests. 

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Project 365–Day 55

Mark, being the sweet husband that he is, brought home roses for me!  So Beautiful!

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Project 365–Day 54

Malachi has been a bit under the weather this week so he got to sleep on the couch next to me while I did school with the kids.  What a sweetheart!

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Project 365–Day 53

We had cousins over to spend the night this weekend.  3 girls and 1 boy added to our 5 boys and 1 girl made for a big crowd of kids!  My kids had so much fun with their cousins!!!

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Project 365–Day 52

At our recent Vision appointments we found out that Josiah needed reading glasses.  Here he is in them, looking so cute!

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Project 365–Day 51

Snow play!  I think it took longer to get everyone ready to go out then was actually spent outside playing!

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Project 365–Day 50

Brothers!

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Project 365–Day 49

Cold and icy!  We got stuck trying to go up this hill and Mark had to put on our chains!

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