From the Mouths of Babes...

I just had to post a funny little snippet from our morning. We're all just hanging out in Momma and Daddy's bedroom this morning and the girls are playing on the floor. Out of nowhere Avery sings, "Red Robin...". We were just waiting for the "Yum..." part! It was just so out of the blue and so funny! Someone's seen too many Red Robin commercials! :)

What About Lunch?

I've been a fan of a lot of bento/lunch blogs like Another Lunch and What's for Lunch at Our House this past year. I'm really excited about packing Hannah fun and healthy lunches when she starts Junior Kindergarten in the Fall. Both of these sites (and many others I visit frequently) have such great ideas and most try to be as Green as possible. We've been trying to use less individually packaged items and things like ziploc bags. I also love the site Green My LunchBox. They feature great green lunch items and I've actually won some great things from their Facebook page! I can't wait to start packing for Hannah!

This is the Goodbyn lunchbox we're waiting to get in the mail right now.

(Picture Courtesy of Goodbyn.com!)

We've also received reusable snack bags from lunchskins and some great sandwich cutters from lunchpunch.

(Pictures Courtesy of lunchskins and lunchpunch!)

Lunches are getting fun around here!

And speaking of lunches, I thought we'd have a little theme lunch today.

An Octopus hotdog with ketchup "squid ink" (Hannah insisted! I said it was water...), Carrot fish, a pretzel stick raft (at least for Avery...Hannah said it's a dock...), celery boats with cherry tomato "people". :) Hannah's super picky so hers had a few more carrot fish and no celery or tomato...

Check back during the school year for posts about Hannah's lunch adventures!

Recipe: Turkey Tacos

A few years ago when I wasn't working, I started getting really into trying new recipes. Before that our meals pretty much consisted of baked chicken (Shake N Bake or Marinaded), white rice and bread...not healthy and not very interesting. When I started looking for recipes and making them frequently, I realized I was pretty good at picking recipes that we would like or that I could tweak to meet our tastes. There have been very few recipe failures. Now I have some great go-to recipes in my recipe binder! (Though it's time to look for some new ones!)

My favorite find was for Taco Seasoning. I wasn't too fond of the taco seasoning packets we always used and I thought we could make our own with spices we had instead. So I found this recipe: Taco Seasoning 1. I found that it was too spicy while I was cooking it the first time and added some Tomato Sauce. I'm still not sure what made me think of that since I'd never used it except in chili. I now have a ton on hand at all times! It made this recipe perfect! (Still spicy though! Just warning ya!)

Turkey Tacos
1 1/4 lb Ground Turkey (You could use beef if you prefer.)
Taco Seasoning 1 (I use the entire amount made in the recipe above.)
Tomato Sauce (About 1/2 cup...pretty much just to your taste)
1 Onion diced
Minced Garlic

1. Saute the minced garlic and onions in olive oil until soft.
2. Add ground turkey. Cook until browned thoroughly.
3. Add Taco Seasoning and Tomato Sauce. Simmer or about 10 min. Add extra tomato sauce or a bit of water if too dry.

Serve in anyway you like your Taco Meat! We originally added a scoop in a white corn tortilla with a small amount of cheese and the pan fried until crisp. They are AMAZING that way but obviously not very good for you. We now switched to just having the meat in a heated white corn tortilla with a bit of cheese and some sour cream (or salsa for the hubby). The meat is so flavorful that it still tastes awesome!

Simple but so good! And it freezes well. I made 3 batches for the freezer before we had the baby and it was so fast to thaw one over night and just microwave when we were ready for dinner.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Next Recipe: Spanish Rice!

Menu Plan...Wednesday 7/28/10

I swore I was going to post more when I started blogging again...but it's been 10 days since my last one! Oops! Need to start joining more daily memes. I got up early one morning (and only the once!) before the girls or hubby were up and thoroughly enjoyed my quiet time with the boy and even took him out for a walk before they were awake. I'm determined to start doing that consistantly. It's such a relaxing way to start the day! It'll just have to be a bit earlier when DH starts work again in a week and a half...




Here's our menu for the week!

Monday 7/26: Frozen Pizza...DH was sick and told me to just make something easy...LoL

Tuesday 7/27: Chicken Stroganoff, Green Beans, Salad

Wednesday 7/28: Boneless Buffalo Wings, Mac & Cheese, Salad

Thursday 7/29: Tacos, Spanish Rice, Corn (Recipes will be posted tomorrow! LOVE THEM!)

Friday 7/30: Chicken Parm, Spaghetti, Salad

Saturday 7/31: Date Night!

Sunday 8/1: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans

Head over to OrgJunkie for more menu plans!

*~*~*1 Month Old!!*~*~*

Our little boy is 1 month old today!

Time is flying by and I'm trying to enjoy every second. Noah might be our last baby and I don't want to miss anything! He's doing great and sleeping longer periods at night (and wreaking havoc on my milk supply!). The Newborn clothes are getting packed away since he's gotten so tall already!

I'm so in love with my little guy!

Menu Plan Monday~ 7/12/10

We ended up not going to my sister's last week because the weather wasn't great for a beach trip. So we rescheduled for this week. Lunches were hit or miss last week because we kept going to the waterpark etc. Hopefully we can plan better this week!

Monday 7/12- B: Egg/Cheese/Turkey Sausage Burritos, Oranges
L: Sandwiches, Fruit, Veggies
D: Chicken Taquitos, Spanish Rice, Refried Beans

Tuesday 7/13- B: Ham/Cheese Eggs, Toast, Yogurt
L: Grilled Cheese, Soup
D: Turkey Sloppy Joes, Fries, Green Beans

Wednesday 7/14- B: Oatmeal
L: Hotdogs, Mac & Cheese, Fruit
D: Tacos, Spanish Rice

Thursday 7/15- B: Pancakes, Bacon, Fruit
L: Sandwiches, Pretzels, Fruit (At the Beach!)
D: At my sister's

Friday 7/16- B: Cereal/Grits
L: Take Out (Dr Appt)
D: Ham, Stuffing, Broccoli

Saturday 7/17- B: Eggs, Bacon, Toast
L: Leftovers
D: Steak, Grilled Onion/Potatoes, Salad (Girls at Nana's!)

Head over to OrgJunkie for more weekly menus!

Wordless Wednesday~ 7/7/10

Self Portrait of My Then 3 Year Old. :)

Summer Time!

This is our first official summer vacation. This was the girls' first year of school and they have the summer off. Plus Jason and I are both on leaves of absence. So we've been staying up late and taking are time getting up in the morning. It's actually pretty strange! I haven't had a summer vacation since highschool!

We're spending a lot of our time at the local water park. The girls love it and I can't wait for Noah to be big enough to go in the water too!

Menu Plan Monday~ 7/5/10

We haven't been sticking to a menu plan in a long time...especially since the baby was born. Which has lead to a lot of random grocery trips and wasted food! Plus too much takeout! So we're going to do a full plan for a while since the hubby and kids are all home. Here's a meals for the week!

Sunday 7/4- D: Ribs, Chicken, Mac & Cheese, Baked Beans, Ice Cream

Monday 7/5- B: Blueberry Pancakes, Sausage
L: Mac & Cheese with Hotdogs, Fruit
D: Spaghetti, Salad, Bread

Tuesday 7/6- B: Ham/Cheese Eggs, Toast, Yogurt
L: Out to Lunch (Dr Appt)
D: Crockpot Enchilada Bake, Chips/Salsa

Wednesday 7/7- B: Oatmeal
L: Sandwiches, Chips, Fruit
D: Chicken Stroganoff, Broccoli, Bread

Thursday 7/8- B: Cereal, Toast, Fruit
L: Leftovers
D: Sloppy Joes, Mac & Cheese, Green Beans

Friday 7/9- B: Eggs, Sausage, Toast
L: At my sister, Jill’s
D: At my sister, Jill’s

Saturday 7/10- B: Eggs, Bacon, Toast
L: Take Out
D: Cousin Katie’s Birthday Party

And We're BACK!

I haven't blogged in almost a year! What happened? Well, I got pregnant! And was very tired...and working alot...and had two kiddos in school...but we're back!

How about a little update?

So a baby huh? Yup! Just 6 weeks after we miscarried last year, we were pregnant again! I had a very healthy pregnancy (though I gained WAY too much weight...again!) and we now have a very healthy, happy baby BOY! I finally have my boy and I'm so in love! Noah Gryphon Lindsey was born on June 18th, 2010 at 5:22pm at 8lbs 3oz and 21 inches. He looks just like his big sisters and is a wonderful baby.

Meet Mr. No-No:

Now for the big kids...Hannah will be 5 in November and is acting like a preteen! :) She had a great year at preschool and will be starting Kindergarten in the Fall. Both girls are home for the summer while I'm on maternity leave and they're having a bit of trouble adjusting to being home so much. I'm definately looking forward to school starting in September! Hannah's working on sight words and can sound out quite a few smaller words on her own. She'll be reading in no time! She also wants to start cheerleading in the Fall. We'll see how our shy girl does with that!

Miss Avery will be 3 in September. She's definately in the midst of the Terrible 2s. She's even more stubborn then her sister! Our little TomBoy is infatuated with Spiderman and keeps telling us she wants a Spiderman cake for her birthday. :) She had a great year in the 2's preschool class and we're hoping we can send her a few days a week in the Fall. We're just working on the potty training so she can move up to the 3's!

Jason and I are doing well. I'm still trying to finish my prereqs for the nursing program. It's tough to get into the classes which is becoming a frustrating set back. Jason is home for 2 months to bond with the baby. FMLA is a wonderful thing. We're trying to spend as much quality time as we can with the kids since we might not have this amount of time together again. (Maybe in 3 years or so if I can convince him to have another baby!)