Balloon Festival

I have been wanting to take Jameson to this balloon festival since he was in utero and last year we were in Cali…. so this year was the year! After raining all week I was a little worried that the whole thing would just be cancelled this year. But alas! a break in the raining, though not in the clouds, allowed the balloon glow to continue! Here are a few of J’s first encounter with the big balloons!

Two years ago.

Box Walls

I did some organizing tonight. I had to de-clutter and rearrange a bit in J’s room as I think about adding another bed, removing the loveseat and possibly moving in a new dresser. We plan on doing all of this in November, but the urge to do some things was strong today. Up until this point I have been storing smaller baby clothes in the random boxes that we come across and marking them, eventually tossing them into the closet. Some sizes had three-four boxes that were small and randomized. So today I went and purchased a few different plastic containers and vacuum bags for storing the clothes in a more organized, every-item-of-each-size-together, fashion. Well, it left a lot of boxes in its wake so the boys had some fun with them. Here’s a few snap shots put together… and the walls, came tumbling down!

J and Fireworks

 

Davids school had it’s 150th birthday party the other night. We all had a good time!

Mealtime Consistancy

So, it’s Tuesday again… Kroger doesn’t have any big specials on stuff we buy so I guess that is not going to effect the shopping list much this week. I was able to stock up on frozen veggies and potatoes last week, and we’re still definitely eating meat from our “cow” that filled our freezer  couple of week’s ago…

I’d say that last week went well. We ate at home every meal that was planned other than Sunday, when we went out for a friend’s birthday dinner that we had not necessarily planned for. We had guests for dinner twice, ugh, I feel like I’m still doing the dishes but I would never stop having dinner friends on account of dishes… if ever gets to that point we’ll use paper and plastic. And, since we went out one extra night and I did a sort of useupleftoversspurofthemomentidea type dinner tonight, we still have everything we need to have the whole roasted chicken and beef spinach curry dishes this week for dinners. We also tried some Banana, Blueberry and PB smoothies this morning for breakfast because my bananas are ripening far sooner than I thought they would. 

Since I am doing my shopping tomorrow and not much is on sale at Kroger, I will probably shop with a little more lean towards my recipe choices instead of the deals directing the recipe choices. With that said, and knowing what’s in our pantry and freezer, here’s this week’s line-up.

Breakfasts:

Eggs, Toast & Bacon; Homemade EggSausageCheese McMuffin’s; Cereal and Fruit; BB&PB Smoothies; French Toast (no brainer); Oatmeal 

Lunches:

Left Overs, Spaghetti & Salad, Grilled Cheese & Fruit, Homemade Pizza, Anything that sounds good and can use up the leftover chicken!

Dinners:

Beef Spinach Curry, Whole Roasted Chicken, Chicken and Rice Soup (with my own stock from the whole chicken), Crab Cakes ($1 each at Kroger, husband says we can’t pass it up), Beef Enchiladas, Burgers, Saturday afternoon and night we have a wedding (so we’ll eat out for lunch and get a yummy wedding meal for dinner!)

Sides:

Potatoes, Salad, corn, peas, green beans (did I mention this is J’s favorite side?), carrots, bread, fruit.

Organized? What’s that?

I have a small person in my house who has no comprehension of the term organization. I know I know, some of you are thinking, “Well, Leslie, he is your son.” I’m choosing to overlook that. 

This little person walks around my house looking for things that actually are organized and proceeds to put them in disarray. Books on a shelf? All over the floor. Laundry in its basket? All over the floor. Papers in a neat stack? All over the floor. Contents in any basket? All over the floor. Folders lined up? All over the floor. Underwear in my drawers? All over the floor! I’m sure you’ve noticed the trend. THE FLOOR is where everything belongs.

Drool Worthy

and David did a fine job blogging about the day’s events, so just check it out there, http://dbpblog.wordpress.com/.

Mealtime Consistancy

I’d like to think that I’m pretty good about feeding our family. I mean the actualized feeding of our family, God feeds us most literally and David earns the bones needed to buy the food, but the rest is my job. Before I got pregnant this time, I was really getting on a roll about trying to be a better bargain hunter, coupon clipper and meal manipulator… excuse the alliteration… BUT since I have been pregnant everything has gone out the window. My early pregnancies so far have basically banned all food from within nose range, trying to plan meals, let alone cook them, is torturous. So I gave in to eating out a lot and convenient foods, which are expensive and unhealthy. I desperately need to get back on track now that I’m out of the nausea stage.

I’ve decided to use the blog for accountability. I think that if I have some sort of pressure to post my planned meals, hopefully it will get me back into the routine. So here goes the next 6weeks of being consistent! I guess Tuesday is the lucky day of the week… at least this week it is… so Tuesdays it is. I’ll be posting the meals we will be having for the week. The meals are based on what we have in the pantry, what is one sale at the grocery store, the week’s plan and what we receive in our veggie co-op box. This is not a grand attempt at being a coupon mom, I don’t think I’m there yet… just today after researching, printing coupons and then planning the meals I still got half way through the grocery before I realized that I had forgotten the coupons… SO what this is is simple accountability and me getting on track so that I am a better steward of all things given to me.

This Week’s Meals:

Breakfasts: French Toast x3 (really digging the french toast lately, call it a prego craving); Eggs, Toast & Bacon x2; Cereal, Yogurt & Fruit x2.

Lunches: Quesadillas, Left Overs, Grilled Pepper Jacks w/ Tomatoes, Spaghetti

Dinners: The OJ chicken and Rice Recipe, Saag Chicken, Tacos, Beef Spinach Curry, Whole Roasted Chicken, Eating Out at Huber Farm Restaurant Saturday after Apple picking!!!!! (I’m not excited at all ) (It’s also partly a Rosh Hashanah celebration)

Sides: Peas, Corn, Potatoes mashed/baked, Green beans, Rice, Carrots, Fruit canned/fresh

Every meal I make is generally enough to feed four, so that 1) We can almost always be prepared to have last minute dinner guests 2) We have easy Left Overs for lunches 3) I don’t have to make a ton of recipe modifications, they’re usually written how its made best, why mess with that? Also, I mostly pick dishes that take under and hour, start to finish. I never mind putting in the effort to have tasty meals! Also, with dishes like a whole chicken, I know that next week we will have chicken and rice soup from scratch!, just trying to look ahead… That’s all for this boring post, bear with me, I’ll post something cute of Jaymer soon…

#2’s Gender

I am very excited to say that we are expecting another son in early February! I’ve had that same intuition this time as I did when I was prego with Jameson that the baby was a boy and I’m happy to discover it still checks out. I’d hate to go doubting my “mama know’s best” ability with another kiddo on the way… The anticipation of having two boys seriously brings joy to my heart. We have a pretty good idea of which name we’re gonna go with, but of course nothing is in stone. The ultrasound pics are cute and hopefully we can get one or two up soon. I think this boy already looks differently than his brother, Jameson, did in utero. 

Who knows, maybe we’ll get a kid that looks like us this time…

Color Learning

Ya know, when you spend several hours with a child each and every day, you come up with games that can sometimes take the least effort but still teach a great lesson. This game is one of my favorites, I like to think that it is teaching Jameson his colors, observation skills, fine motor skills, discernment, concentration, tongue protrusion skills, discrimination, aerobic exercise, retrieval skills, listening skills, verbal skills, and the list goes on and on… As you can tell, it takes a great effort on my part to contribute to this game which can sometimes be waring, but when you love a kid, you just do what you have to….

Prego Dreams

I tend to have very vivid and strange dreams when I am pregnant. I have had quite a few funny ones this time a round, but last night’s dream was the craziest. 

I went to the doctor (even thought this time around we’re using a midwife) and he said that we needed to do an emergency c-section immediately. Totally taken by surprise, I consented without even calling David!  So the surgery takes place, and it was so detailed it was as if I had really had one before… too many “A baby Story” shows for me… So, the baby is born, totally fine, a girl and looking like David. (every other pregnancy dream I’ve had this time around the baby has been a boy, so this was also new) Then it hits me, I’m only 18wks prego! There is no way the baby would have survived if it was born then, and like immediately, the baby shrinks into the palm of my hand and dies! Unbelievable! So, now I’m mad and I’m asking everyone why I had to have the emergency c-section and no one can tell me why. I find the doctor and he tells me this; The baby somehow had gotten out of my uterus and was floating around in my intestines. It was all tangled up and that is what was causing my heartburn and gas pains…

So, yeah, totally strange. Just thought I’d share the adventures of my nighttime rest with you all!