Meal Planning

I keep reading about how meal planning is key for many mommies and many mommies budgets so I feel it is something I should give the ole college try.  I'm not only doing this for the budget purpose but for the health aspect of it, we need to eat more whole foods around here and less pre made and processed foods.  We also need to eat more meals at home and not at restaurants which would work towards boths goals!  (GO US!) 

I'm not going to start off reading recipes and go to the grocery store and getting everything first though, I'm going to try something a little different.

My issue here is not only lack of ideas, it's that I buy a ton of stuff with the full intention of making some great masterpiece,  but then life with a toddler comes in and I'm either to tired or lazy to make it or I stare in the pantry like the little girl from Poltergeist waiting for something to jump out at me.  (It doesn't happen).  So right now I have a pretty well stocked pantry, just a pretty lazy attitude.  We have been spending money like crazy here sue to the new lake condo purchase (more on that later) and quite frankly we need to chill, or the money well (I wish) is gonna go dry.

My first week of meal planning started Monday.  I did go to the grocery store Sunday and got some fruits and veggies (because that is something we never have around here) and I am ready to roll. The goal is to make it to Friday through lunch (because all bets are off on the weekend baby!)  without having to go shopping or out to eat just using what we already have here.  Monday we had tacos and finished off a bag of cheese that was bound to go bad, Tuesday we had this chicken feta dish that a friend of mine posted on facebook.  I was excited about this one and it turned out ok, but I think I should have used the full fat feta for more flavor.  Maybe next time.   As for tonight I am making Chicken Tortilla Soup (that I found here )in the crockpot and I have to round up something for Thursday and Friday.  Wish me luck!

Superfood Smoothie

Superfood according to wikipedia: Term sometimes used to describe food with high phytonutrient content that may confer health benefits as a result.

I follow a lot of blogs and I get the best ideas from them.  One of them was for a  green smoothie.  I am totally not into fruit at all, and I don't know why because every time I end up eating it I think it's great.  I think because it's quite the hassle to clean, cut and then it goes bad before I decide I want to do all that work to eat it.  Kind of like crab legs, which I don't really like either but I digress...

I made a commitment to myself to lose some weight as well as make healthier choices for my family.  For instance, I don't allow Max to have anything that has high fructose corn syrup in it, aspartame, artificial colors and I try to limit bleached flour.  Also no sports drinks, soda, lunch meat unless its the kind free of nitrates, and no white bread.  I am in no way a health nut (I would eat chocolate for every meal if it didn't make me fat) but I just feel like these are obvious health choices that are easy to make for my family.  The less processed food I expose him to the better, and the better his eating habits will be as he grows up.

Anyway back to the superfood smoothie.  I still cannot bring myself to sit down with a bowl of fruit for a snack nor to I have the energy to cut it up for breakfast every morning, so for a mid morning snack (for Max, breakfast for me) I try and make smoothies.  I usually just do strawberry banana but I had some other fruit in the pantry from my shopping trip Monday so I thought I would mix it up and try another combo.  This is the absolute best one yet and it will be a staple for a few weeks I'm sure. 

Here are the ingredients:

5 large strawberries (organic is best)
1/2  banana
1/4 cup blueberries
somewhere between a 1/4 and 1/2 cup of Activia vanilla yogurt
handful of spinach (organic is best)
some organic 2% milk, add to your desired smoothie consistency

Put in your food processor and viola, a superfood smoothie. Spinach is a superfood, as are blueberries and yogurt.  Yogurt has been a cure all for me for years, I had a few health issues and my doc suggested yogurt and it has been amazing the difference it's made!  I swear by yogurt.

Normally I would have snapped a pic but Max and I slurped that down so fast I forgot!  So here's an old pic of a strawberry/banana smoothie I made awhile back.

Oh, and don't be scared of the spinach I swear you can't taste it! 

Things I want to get done before it gets cold outisde

1. Garage sale
2. Kitchen walls painted, pin boards hung and blue strip of tile back splash painted
3. Photo albums organized (yes, I still print my photos, I absolutely love looking at old photos of my family and if I ever have a girl, she may want to do this.  I hear boys have no interest in photos)
4. House power washed (i happen to like power washing stuff).
5. Pillows made for the condo
6. Accessorize the condo with pics (it is a massive sea of brown right now, it needs some blue and yellow badly!)
7. Make some of the yummy desserts I have found on Pinterest
8. Make a cake from scratch
9. Come to terms with my current obsession with all things yellow.

New I.E.

So I downloaded the new Internet Explorer and my favorites bar disappeared and now I forget to update my blog.  I wish they hadn't moved it over to the side under a pull down menu.  With Pinterest hogging most of my computer time unless it right in my face reminding me, I will forget to do it.  So this is a post to update you on my I haven't been posting.  Very riveting stuff folks.

As a totally unrelated side note:  it's amazing how much Kate Gosselin has changed since her first special on TLC years ago

Photography class

So today I took a photography class and overall...I'm still super confused!  I would love to have learned how (in one day) to take these stunning photos I see on blogs and facebook everywhere but alas, that did not happen.  I did learn some things like how to take neat pictures of still things like flowers and landscapes, but when I got home I practiced on Max and it appears I have learned nada in the portrait category.  I really would like to get into this so I need more classes, and reading the owners manual on my camera might help too.  If Maxsen suddenly turns into a flower then we're good, but until then I shall practice, practice, practice.  Here are a few shots from today

Kitchen updated

Ever since we bought this house back in 2004, we have hated the kitchen.  The cabinets are oak (standard builder grade), the counter tops and floor are laminate, and the appliances were white.  We have done some things over the past few years to try and make it better and until now, we had succeeded.  But lo and behold the addition of Pinterest to my life, that has all changed.  Now I need to redo it again.  Well not really redo but make some more adult changes.  That site has more ideas than I know what to do with, it's overwhelming!

As mentioned we have already done some things which included installing wood floors and we painted the cabinets Navajo White.  We also added brushed nickel hardware to the cabinets and changed all the appliances to stainless steel.  The kitchen looks nice but we've never had any curtains and the art work (ha! if you can call it that) came from the $5 walmart rack. So what I'm doing is I'm actually going to make, yes that's right, make curtains and the new artwork.  I've already started and I am super excited.  My mom is coming over to help (she's like a sewing Queen) and make sure I don't screw it up too bad. 
I also plan on painting (which I totally hate and would have hired someone to do it but were trying to buckle down on the frivolous spending, boo) 
The counter tops will still need to be done but that another project for another day.  Oh and I forgot to mention that I need to find tile paint and paint that strip of blue on the backsplash a different color.

  

This is the window where I will install my home made curtains!

  

This is the art wall!  See ya chefs!
















 

Paint samples.  For now we like the one in the middle




















 

the one in the middle



July 4th

Every outside holiday is usually hosted at our house because we have a great outdoor area for entertaining as well as a swimming pool.  This year was no different, but held a little more "specialness" because Max is older and I thought he would really be able to have a good time with his cousins outside and just get to run around and be a crazy little boy for a while.  Mother nature, however, had other plans for our outside party this year. 
 Of course, if you were in St. Louis that Sunday you would know it was stormy and rainy (as a side note here: Mother Nature has had it out for my parties all year so far.  On Maxsen's first birthday she decided to make it snow, almost cancelling the party) so the party was moved inside.  Not the ideal situation, but we coped and Hubby BBQ'd in the rain.  My house has never reached the decibel level that was achieved on Sunday July 3rd and there were only 3 kids with ages in the single digits. WOW is all I can say.  Here are some pictures



Saw this on a blog and decided it was a must for my party.  Super easy to make!



Max and his cousin who is about a year older




Max and Grandma




uh-oh! Kissing cousins!




My mom is really into making cake pops!  They are delish.  These were carrot cake





When we went outside for fireworks, this is what the sky looked like