Meal Planning : week 1

This year one of the things I wanted to be better at was meal planning, I wanted to have a plan for everyday of the week.
I didn't want to hear "there is nothing to eat" or run to get fast food at 8 pm because I didn't have anything to make.

I decided I would plan for the whole month at the beginning of each month. This would make it easier to put together my grocery list and help minimize the number of times we ate the same thing.

Some of my friends said they were interested in meal planning but didn't have the time, it is consuming but worth it! I thought it would be a good idea to post each week what is on our menu and give you the links or recipes so you would have 7 options right at your finger tips.

sunday- brisket tacos
monday- Chicken enchiladas (recipe found on can of Old El Paso enchilada sauce)
tuesday- beef stroganoff
wednesday- Chicken Alfredo
                    chicken breast, mushrooms, 2 tbsp butter, 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, 1 1/2 cup heavy cream, garlic salt,  pepper, pasta. 
 cook and drain pasta. brown chicken and mushrooms in butter. add garlic salt and pepper to taste. add heavy cream and stir until thickened. add parmesan and serve over noodles
thursday-sweddish meatballs
friday- south of the border pasta
             1/2 can corn, 4-6 tbsp cream cheese, 1 cup salsa, 2 chicken breast, pasta
cook and drain pasta. Cube and cook chicken. add cream cheese, salsa and corn. cover and simmer over med-low heat until cream cheese is melted stirring occasionally. mix in pasta.
saturday- chili
                 1 lb ground beef, 1 can rotel, 1 can diced green chili, 1 can kidney beans, 1 can chili beans, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder.
brown beef, add all ingredients. cover and simmer at least 45 minutes.

I hope this helps some of you out there looking for ideas! I will try to post my meals each week

365-week 1

i decided to post my photos weekly on this blog instead of daily on my 365 blog, 2 blogs was too much and I don't always have time to post daily.
also i am linking up with  Between the Lines




here is week one

day 1 light

 forgot about this one till it was too dark to take a picture of anything but the lamp inside

day 2 tall

 

day 3 craft

 More times than not there is a half finished craft laying around my house

day 4 switch

day 5 leftovers

 this boy never leaves leftovers!

day 6 up

 Mason always looks up to me so I strive to be a good role model and mother

day 7 clear

Our week in phone photos

Just some images from our week captured by the less than adequate camera on the ol' blackberry

this boy can eat!

when i first started Mason on solids he acted like he had eaten them everyday of his life.
He loves to eat.

I like to feed him, he makes this "mmmmm" noise after every bite
Very cute.

His favorites foods are oatmeal  in the morning and sweet potatoes and squash during the day.

I am worried I might be feeding him too much solids... today he barely nursed when offered but ate almost 7 cubes of food... is this normal for a 7 month old.

That aside he always finishes a meal
=)

side note- I do not let him feed himself yet nor does he usually get to lick the bowl, he got a little crazy when i was trying to take a few pictures.

small review *homemade bathroom cleaner*

I have been trying out homemade cleaners around the house. So far I have found a laundry soap recipe and a kitchen cleaner recipe i like. I found one for bathroom cleaner that I decided to try out yesterday.

It was easy to make and only involved using baking soda and dawn dish soup. all you have to do is pour however much baking soda you need in a tupperwear and add enough dawn to make it paste like.

I used about 3/4 c. baking soda and 1/4 c. Dawn.

I used a scrubbing sponge to clean the sink, bathtub, and toilet. Here is my review.

Things I liked about it....
Easy to make, all ingredients on hand

Worked as well as store bought cleaner both generic and brand name. Many reviews I read said it worked so much better than any other bought cleaner. Although I liked the way it cleaned, I would say it was just as good but not better than store bought.

It has a nice clean smell thanks to the Dawn dish soup
It wasn't harsh . I hate how bad store bought tub cleaner smells, it is potent and always makes me cough/gag.

Things I didn't like....
There really isn't anything I didn't like about this cleaner

Other notes.....
After using it on the sink I added a little water to my mixture to make it less paste like and more like a thick glue. I liked this because it was easier to rinse and removed the sand paper film the baking soda leaves.

All in all I really liked this cleaning method. It was easy, convinent, quick, worked well, and didn't have harsh chemical smells.
That being said, go try it !!

7 months

Mason isn't technically 7 months till next week but my sister was over today so i decided while i had the help i better take his photos.

He is a little rascal when the camera comes out. He is always on the move!

He weights 17.5 lbs and is 26.5 inches

He likes eating sweet potatoes and squash, he is unsure of eating anything green

He is happy for the most part and loves to jump!

His sleeping varies. Some nights he will go all night and others he is up 3 times

He likes to talk and sing, bath time, eating time, jumping, pulling daddy's bread and mama's hair, watching football and looking outside.
He doesn't have many things he doesn't like right now
He is getting his hair back and starting to look less and less like a baby =(

future gamer

austin has done a lot of his usual gaming doing break. 

This year he has a little buddy helping him

He likes to point out the bad guys for daddy

and when daddy isn't doing it just right, he says "just let me do it"

His favorite move is throwing grenades