Project 365–Day 110

I know I’ve posted this kind of picture before, but I just loved this one!  Emmaline is such a great big sis!

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Project 365–Day 109

Working on the dollhouse flooring… didn’t make much progress.

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Menu for the week

We have a very easy schedule for this week, not much running around.  Which is wonderful so that I can try and catch up on some of the millions (it feels like!) of things that I’m so behind in.  Plus it’s just awesome to not have to be constantly going, going, going.  I’m more of a homebody so I love these weeks when we get to stay home more!

The meals on the menu this week are:

* Baked Chicken, asparagus (I’ve never made it before, any suggestions on how to cook it?), and a fruit salad

* Strawberry Salmon, Steamed Garlic Green Beans, and Fruit Salad

* Egg Salad Sandwiches, Cut up Vegies (Carrots, Celery, Cucumber, Green Pepper)

* Roast Chicken, Potatoes, and Carrots, Cut up Fruit (watermelon?  If I get to the store to get some, yum!)

* Homemade Pizza, Green Salad

* Homemade Mac N’ Cheese, tater tots, Cut up fruit and vegies

* Snacky Dinner – crackers, cheese, leftover cut up fruit and vegies from the week

That’s how it lays out for this week.  I’m so excited to be entering the spring/summer season with more fresh produce!  It makes my mouth water just to think of it all!  Yum, Yum, Yum!

How about ya’ll, what’s on your menu for this week?

Project 365–Day 108

Painting ceramic animals at a friends birthday party, such a fun activity!

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Project 365–Day 107

Every one of the kids brought me a dandelion after playing outside.  :-)  “Aren’t they so pretty Mommy?”

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Project 365–Day 106

I washed all the sheets today.  I don’t really like to make beds, but I LOVE how neat and tidy the bedrooms look on the day that I wash sheets since I remake all the beds!

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Transformers Party

Josiah celebrated his birthday with a Transformers Party!  As usual, we celebrated as a family during the early part of the day and the party was later on that same day.  Josiah opened his gifts from us.  The kids all got him a small gift, and we got him a small play pistol, and a pair of rollerblades.  Here he is trying them out for the very first time…

Josiah asked for games for his party so I did some internet searching and came up with a few ideas.  For the first game I hung up a picture of one of the deception transformers (the “bad guys”) with a target on his chest that I made.  I printed out some stars for the kids to pin on the target to try and see who could “kill” him.  My original thought was to print out bullet hole clip art but I thought that might not go over well with other familys so we stuck with the safer stars.  This game was so much fun for the kids!

Then we played “Deception Bowling”, an idea that I found on the internet.  Prior to the party we bought bottles of Gatorade and had the kids drink them.  Once empty I washed them and removed the labels.  Then I printed up coloring pages of deceptions from the internet, had the kids color them, and taped them onto the bottles.  At the party we had the kids take turns bowling, keeping track of everybody’s scores.  This game was also great for the kids, they LOVED it and just wanted to keep playing!

When all the games were over I let the winners from each game pick a prize, and then I let all the kids pick one more prize so that everyone ended up with at least one prize. 

We served dinner for all our guests, Lasagna, a Green Salad, and French Bread.  I set up a table for the kids in the family room.  I had juice boxes for everyone, which I opened prior to the party starting and placed on a tray in the family room.  I also put extra forks and napkins on the kids table, so that anyone who forgot those things was covered.  :-) 

Then it was on to the gifts!  This ended up being a mostly family only party, because of various reasons friends couldn’t come, so the amount of gifts was small and very manageable.  There was a definite theme to his gifts, he got almost all guns!

We finished up the party with cake and ice cream.  I bought cupcake toppers from etsy.  Josiah picked strawberry cupcakes and buttercream frosting, very easy.  I served all the ice cream ahead of time in cupcake liners and froze them, so serving everyone was a breeze!

After all the guests left, Josiah spent the evening with Mark and I, shooting his new guns.  Ha!  On their birthdays we let the kids stay up later than normal, and sleep in our room, such a special treat for them.  Josiah was pretty wiped out from his big day, he only stayed up till 9:30…

This was a great day for him!

Project 365–Day 105

All the kids sat on the couch the day after Josiah’s birthday to open their goody bags.  They just barely fit!

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Project 365–Day 104

Josiah celebrated his birthday this week.  We bought him this pair of rollerblades, and he LOVES them!

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Project 365–Day 103

Elijah is so helpful these days, he loves to help me as much as possible!  When I got ready to scrub the floor he was right there offering to help, so he did all the scrubbing for me!

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Project 365–Day 102

Josiah decided to help me out by getting Malachi dressed for the day(without being asked)!  He even changed his diaper!  I was so proud of him!

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Weekly Menu

For some reason, when I sat down to make my menu this week I was seriously lacking in inspiration.  Fortunately I had planned ahead for situations like that by making a list of possible meals so all I had to do was choose meals from my list that I had all the ingredients for.

Here are this weeks meals.

Monday – Pancakes, Fruit

Tuesday – Spaghetti, Garlic Bread, Green Salad 

Wednesday – Sub Sandwiches, Apple Slices (This is our portable meal to eat between Ballet Lessons and Awana)

Thursday – Crockpot Lasagna, French Bread, Green Salad

Friday – Pizza, Green Salad

Saturday – Baked Chicken, Steamed Vegies, Fruit Salad

Sunday – Roast Crockpot Chicken, Roast Potatoes and Carrots

 

So those are my meals for the week.  What do you have planned for this week?

Project 365–Day 101

Hanging out at a cousins birthday party!  The theme was monster trucks and everyone was watching a monster truck video.

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Project 365–Day 100

While Mark worked on the fence, the kids and I had a picnic out back and watched him work.  It was a beautiful day, and such a nice treat to eat outside!

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Project 365–Day 99

Malachi!  What a cutie!!!

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Project 365–Day 98

We now have Emmy’s Ballet lessons right before Awana so I have had to be creative and come up with meals to make that we can eat in the car in between activities.  Here, I set up a sub sandwich assembly line and whipped out a whole bunch of them for the fam.  I wrapped the sandwiches in wax paper and labeled them with each persons name, then put them in a bag with a bag of chips and a napkin.  It worked really well!

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Project 365–Day 97

Micah, my little man, hanging out on the counter and helping me make lunch.  Such a cutie!

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Project 365–Day 96

We had 30-50 mph winds over night and when we got up this morning this is what we saw, our fence blown down into the neighbors yard.  Yuck!  Guess we know what we will be doing this weekend, fixing  the fence!

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Spring Tea

My Mom put together a lovely tea for some friends!  It was a wonderful time of fellowship and fun, and the kids got to come along too, so much fun for them!

Project 365–Day 95

 

Where is the picture???  Well, the long and short of it is, I forgot to take one this day.  :-(  So sorry about that.  It somehow slipped through the cracks on my to do list.  BUT, I promise there will be one tomorrow!  So stay tuned, more to come!

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Weekly Meal Plan

Hi all!  How was your week last week?  Ours was pretty crazy, I’m sooo ready to be done with April!  It’s one of the busiest months of the year in our house. 

This week is yet again busy, with 3 different birthday parties (one of them one of ours, so there is all that prep to do!), and lots of catch up from the previous busy weeks (you can read about them here, and here) including cleaning the shop, sorting the toys, and making a LONG overdue trip to the library.  Someday I hope to feel like I’m not drowning in my To Do list, but until then… the goal is to keep things as easy as possible!

We had a fair amount of leftovers in the fridge when I planned this weeks menu, and our meal choices reflect that.  I always try to use everything up and hardly ever throw away food.  Here are our dinners for this week:

*Polish Sausage and Peppers sauted together in olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, and served over rice, Green Salad

* Lasagna, French Bread, Green Salad, Cupcakes, and Ice Cream (Birthday Meal)

* Meat and Cheese Sandwiches, Vegie sticks

* Leftovers Soup, French Bread, maybe a Green Salad?

* Pizza, Green Salad

*Salsa Verde Beef, Tortillas, Cheese, Sour Cream, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onions, Salsa, Cut up Fruit

* Quesadillas, Cut up Fruit, Vegie sticks

Quick, Simple, and Easy.  Just what I need for right now in my life!  How about you, what’s on YOUR menu this week?

Project 365–Day 94

After a long Sunday at church followed by a birthday party this is what our coffee table looked like.  Goody bags, snacks, papers from Sunday school, and all kinds of paraphernalia! 

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Project 365–Day 93

We bought this little table for the kids at a pawn shop for only $5!  It is an exact replica of our full size table.  The kids have had so much fun with it!  Here they were having tea together.

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Project 365–Day 92

Quiet Time! Emmaline decided to work on a craft project today for quiet time.

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Project 365–Day 91

Our littlest man snoozing in his car seat after a long afternoon of shopping!  Such a sweetheart!

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Project 365–Day 90

Sitting in the car and watching a movie while we waited for Emmaline’s ballet lesson to be done.  I read a book while the boys were occupied.  It was a nice break, good to be away from home so I could relax and just enjoy my book instead of getting tense about all I needed to do… :-)

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Kids Organizing–Coats

This is the first part of a series on organizing kids.  Kids have sooo much stuff, it can be overwhelming knowing what to do with it all.  So, I thought I would share with you all how I organize different kids items.  Please keep in mind that these are just ideas of how I do things, you need to find what works for you!

I feel funny writing a post about organizing kids coats, because I don’t really feel like I do much.  But I know that often it’s the simple ideas from others that help me the most, so with that in mind, I’ll share what we do.

We live in an interesting climate.  If you go out in the morning in spring, summer, or fall, you’ll need a light coat but if you go out in the afternoon you’ll need short sleeves, and shorts and in the evening it’s back to long sleeves and warm coats!  Even in the winter we need light coats depending on the day, some days can be really warm.  But, we also need winter coats about 8 months out of the year for those cold days, or when it decides to snow the day after it was 75 degrees!  Such fun!  ;-)

Each of the kids has at least one light coat/sweater coat.  Some of them have multiples.  I’m not much for limiting clothes, except for when we’re out of space!  No space means it’s time to pare down.  Each of the kids keeps their light coats hung up with their clothes in their closet section.  Because the rods are low all but the youngest ones can rehang their coats themselves. 

For winter coats I keep a box in the entry closet and the kids just throw their coats in it when they come home or come in from outside.  The winter coats are so big and puffy that I didn’t want to use the closet space in their closets.  I tried hooks on the wall of the entry closet and in their rooms but the kids hardly ever hung the coats up, and when they did the coats fell down more often than not!  This way putting away coats is quick and easy for them, always a very good thing!

So, that’s how we keep track of coats around here.  What about you, how do you keep track of your family’s coats?

Project 365–Day 89

My living room was looking so clean, neat, and peaceful this evening that I just had to take a picture!  After I took this picture I made myself a cup of tea, and sat down and read a book and enjoyed my tea.  It was sooo nice!  There’s nothing like peace and quiet with a good book and a cup of tea!

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Our Menu this Week

It’s another busy week here but not quite as much as last week.  We have basically the usual stuff: running the business, homeschool, and general life (cooking, cleaning, etc.) with a few things away from home (Awana, ballet, Mom’s night out, Tea at a Friends, Birthday party).  Our menu is simple, as always at this stage in my life! 

* Chilli, Cornbread (a double batch to have some for the next day), and a Green Salad

* BBQ Kielbasa over rice, Green Beans, and Cornbread

* Sub Sandwiches, Carrot Sticks, and Apple Slices

* Baked Chicken, Green Salad

* Pizza, Green Salad

* Mac N’ Cheese, Cut up fruit and vegies

* Snacky Dinner comprised of crackers, cut up vegies and fruit and possible smoothies

I will be away from home a fair amount this week so I went with a green salad for our side dish most days.  I will prep it all on Monday, then not have to worry about any prep the rest of the week, yay!  On Awana day we also now have Emmaline’s ballet lessons, so that will be the day we have the sub sandwiches since we will be eating in the car in between activities.  :-)

What about you, what’s on your menu this week?

Project 365–Day 88

Easter Sunday!  Smile!  Jeremiah and Elijah are in the back row, Micah, Emmaline, and Josiah are in the front row, and Malachi is on Emmaline’s lap.

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April Fools

I had all kinds of big plans for April Fool’s Day pranks for the kids, courtesy of this website.  But life happened so I only ended up doing one prank.

For breakfast I made peaches and cream oatmeal.  Ahead of time I bought a package of plastic bugs from the dollar store and washed them well.  After the oatmeal was done I put one bug in the bottom of each kids bowl and covered it with oatmeal.  Then we all sat down for breakfast while I tried not to laugh in anticipation.  :-)  Elijah was the first to discover his bug, an enormous cockroach, and the look on his face was priceless! 

“EWW!  Where did we get this oatmeal from!?!”

Hahahaha!!!!

Everyone else picked up on the prank pretty quick, especially since I couldn’t stop laughing… :-)

Project 365–Day 87

Kitchen Project!  Amazingly all the stuff on the floor came out of that small cabinet with the door open!  Good thing I’m sorting it out!

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Project 365–Day 86

Good Friday celebration at my Parents.  My brothers and sister-in-law were enjoying a well deserved break after helping us put together a Easter Egg Hunt for the kiddos.

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Project 365–Day 85

Pizza night!  We did our pizza night on Thursday this week since we are celebrating Good Friday on Friday evening.  I was able to make homemade pizza, it was so good!

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Project 365–Day 84

We went out to eat this evening.  First to Burger King for dinner, then to McDonald’s for Ice Cream for dessert.  The kids wanted to go to McDonald’s because they love the play area.  :-)  It was a lot of fun for them, and a nice break for me from cooking.  

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Kitchen Project–One Lower Cabinet Started!

 

This past weekend I took some time to start sorting one of the lower kitchen cabinets.  I’ve been working right along on the upper cabinets, switching things up with relative ease, but I’ve been putting off the lower cabinets because they are such a mess… But, I decided to take the plunge and get started.  This is going to be my cooking center/sink center overflow area, that’s the goal anyway!

The first thing I did was haul everything out of the cabinet, sorting as I went into two piles:

1. Things I use all the time (every week or more often)

2. Things I use rarely.  These items were going to be moved to my kitchen overflow section in the crawlspace.

I had just a few things to get rid of, I added those to our overflowing pile of donations/garage sale stuff in the garage.

I was AMAZED at how much stuff was in this cabinet and how dirty it had gotten!  I can’t believe how much I had shoved in there!   Our often used items pile was pretty small: electric skillet, battery charger, toaster, blender, crockpot, pitchers, olive oil, and cooking spray.  They fit back into the cabinet with plenty of room to spare!

And our rarely used pile, things I still use but only a few times a year: stockpot, electric knife, tea tray, crystal serving bowl, cake stand, and a few corningware pans.  (Obviously the baby toys didn’t come out of the cabinets, ha!)

I’m still tweaking it up, but I’ll post before and after pics later, when the kitchen is done.  Something to look forward to!  :-)

Dollhouse Progress Update

                     March 2013

The dollhouse progress has been basically at a standstill since Christmas.  I overspent, by a lot, my budget for hobbies and I’m still trying to dig myself back out.  The lack of funds, couples with a lack of time, and many young visitors who think the dollhouse is the worlds best toy have made for some pretty messy rooms in the house.  Here are some pictures of how it is looking.

I’m in the process of making a template for the dining room floor to lay my tiles out on.  For me it will be easier to install the tiles on a sheet, then just set the sheet into the room.  In the meantime, all the tiles are stacked up by the wall, and all the kitchen furniture and accessories are cluttering up the living room and upper rooms.

Here’s a whole house shot.  It looks just a little messy!  For now the upstairs looks like it’s being used by little people to build model airplanes! ;-)

Project 365–Day 83

I bought these adorable baby dress shoes at a thrift store!  Sooo Cute, I just had to get a picture of them!

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