Boring.

I guess I'm kinda boring. I starting writing the menu planning posts because people were asking me about what we ate and what not. But other people complain about that stuff being on facebook so I thought I post it here. But it looks like the last 4-5 posts haven't been read by anyone, so I guess I'll stop wasting my time/energy on that.

Fall is in the air. I love all the changing colors of living up north. It's great having seasons. I grew up in AZ and never knew what I was missing out on. Hopefully we have a few more weeks of biking before the snow starts. DH will still be out in it all winter, but the boys and I just aren't equipped for it.

ODS decided not to do football this fall. His heart just wasn't in it anymore, and none of his friends were doing it. We didn't see the point in forcing him to do a sport with such a high injury rate. He's still staying active with his PE class, and opted to join the Key Club this year to stay involved at the school. I don't miss picking him up from practice, but I do miss going to the games to watch him play.

YDS is in preschool this fall and LOVING it. Except for the day they have gymnastics. He says he's not a fan of taking his shoes & socks off. Silly kid. He's learning new games, some spanish and sign language and how to sit and be a productive/active member of a class. Luckily we already had numbers/letters/colors/seasons etc down. He's doing really well with his reading. He can do the level one readers on his own,  Level 2 with minimal help, and level 3 with alternating pages. He can figure out most of the works, but gets overwhelmed with the quantity.

Nothing new for me so far this fall. At least not anything exciting. I'm staying active at the gym while YDS is at preschool trying to be healthier, I canned some tomatoes and I shredded/froze some zucc as new food to stock up on for the winter. A friend is coming over this week to see if we can master my new pressure canner for more tomatoes. The kitchen got really hot boiling the last batch for the 90 some odd minutes water bathing requires... Hoping to get started on applesauce soon too. I made a few batches, but kept giving them away as gifts...

And just cause everyone loves pictures. Here's one we got of YDS sleeping in his car bed. It's gone now and he's just loving being up so high in his IKEA KURA instead.

Menu Plan 9/15/14

Well.. I usually write the post over the weekend since I have more free time then, and schedule it to post Monday morning. It's 11 at night on Sunday and I just remembered. So it'll be a quick one because I need to get to bed. I failed to double check the calendar and woke myself up an hour earlier than I needed to. Not nice. It's been a lovely day. I'm just tired.

We celebrated YDS' birthday this week. He's 5. And growing like a weed. Just last night he was pointing out that he only has a few inches before his feet hit the bottom end of his toddler size race car bed. He had such an awesome bed we've been keeping him in it as long as we could. Hopefully we get at least a few more months.

Food wise I didn't make the best choices this week. It was busy. And I was being all emotional about the little guy growing up... 

We went out for burgers.
We had chicken nuggets and chips with baby carrots.
We had boxed mac n cheese (hey, at least it was the organic kind), with hot dogs and mixed veggies from the freezer (uh, these were not organic).
We tried another family friendly place out. Eh. It wasn't our favorite.
I pulled some of the leftover pizza from the birthday party out of the freezer. I added some crumbled bacon and cheddar cheese to the top and baked it. Baby carrots were served too.
We had fluffernutters (peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches) and mango.
We ate frozen waffles. 
We tried the new Taco Bell breakfasts. I actually ordered one of every item and we split them. YDS loved the bacon quesadilla. I loved the supreme burrito (I'm sure they call it something else) with sausage. I can't remember what DH or ODS liked. Or if they even told me. I'd skip the waffle taco though. It tasted ok, but WAY greasy.
We had chicken nuggets (and sweet potato fries and grapes and mixed veggies).
We had a beef roast with red potatoes, carrots and corn on the cob. Basic recipe. Brown meat and onion. Salt/pepper, 1/4c water, cover and roast at 350 for 80min. Add carrots/potoato. Continue roasting for 80 minutes. Tasty, but not exceptional. Could be I just don't have much experience cooking beef... 

So no great new recipes. Probably not even any good ideas. But thanks for stopping in to read.

Menu Plan 9/8/14

What a great week.

• ODS commented on Wednesday night that this was his favorite year of school yet. That he really looks forward to each day. We've always felt blessed that 99% of the time school wasn't a battle with him, but it's great that he's feeling it too. 
• Got all the paperwork filled out and turned in for YDS to start preschool today.
• They boys and I finished our round of dental cleanings and we're all part of the No Cavity Club for another 6 months. 
• Got to see my sister for another day. It flew by way to quick and she had to head home, but I'm so glad she had time to stop on her way to and from her visit to our brothers place. 
• YDS started swimming lessons. He's super confident in the water now. I know ODS was about his age when he tried to convince me we'd be safe if the bad guys came, because he could protect me. I was starting to imagine YDS using this same level of confidence to decide he could swim. Just because he wanted to. So now he's taking swimming lessons so I don't have to have nightmares. And so he can have more fun when we do get to real pools.
• Oh, and we had YDS' birthday party. 
• INSERT PICTURE HERE

Pretty relaxed week food wise. Trying to use up the massive amounts of veggies in the fridge. Did a lot of chopping & freezing too. 

Monday~ Holiday. We had the free hotel breakfast, then grabbed fast food on the way home. Dinner was an exciting meal of leftover pizza. We were all still in way lazy mode.

Tuesday~ My sister came back through town. To celebrate her birthday and YDS' birthday this month we went all out and rode our bikes to get Frozen Yogurt for dinner. She thought I meant for dessert after dinner. That didn't sound nearly as special/memory making to me. It was delicious, and super fun, and only a little guilty feeling since we rode bikes there.

Wednesday~ I forgot to take a picture of the cauliflower we got in our CSA a week or two ago. It was HUGE! Like the size of two or three that you would see in the grocery store. I decided to make a soup out of it for dinner. I very loosely followed this recipe. (loosely because I didn't really measure, and used actual animal by product. Including the cheese and turkey bacon I added when it was done.) YUM! Even YDS snarfed it down, and he took a good long time in the morning trying to convince me to make something else because he doesn't like cauliflower OR soup. Or rolls. I made Rolls too. Anyway. I only used about half the head of cauliflower on Wednesday.
Thursday~ Chicken stir fry. Gotta use up the bok choy and other yummy veg in my fridge.
Friday~ Crock Pot pork roast. I canned some pickled banana peppers the other week, so I threw a pint of them on top. DH had it on leftover rolls from Wednesday. YDS and I had it shredded on egg noodles. ODS was out with friends and said he wasn't hungry when he got home. 
Saturday~ FFYS. DH and YDS grabbed something on a short roadtrip in the morning. We had pizza at YDS' bday party for lunch. They boys snarfed leftover pizza for dinner. DH and I snuck out for a quick dinner date at an Indian food joint in the city.
Sunday~  Dh whipped up a batch of waffles for breakfast. It's nice to have some leftovers to feed the boys before school to break up the monotony of cold cereal they so enjoy. Lunch was FFYS. With some ??? to celebrate National Acorn Squash day for dinner.