Menu Plan Monday: July 12-18

This is a sad little menu plan this week. Will is traveling some and my mom is coming to help out and the kids and I are going to VBS (I am helping and they are attending). Plus I have a couple of other things at night this week. We have a crazy weekend too so there will lots of eating on the go.

Highlights from last week ... the squash casserole recipe I used was really good. Next time, I will use a little more squash and mash it up less. You can't go wrong with Paula Deen. The Garlic pork tenderloin was good too. This was a new recipe for me and it was easy breezy. I did have to cook it a little longer than the recipe said to get the meat to a safe temp.

Monday: homemade pizza. Publix has the best pizza dough in their bakery section. (It is a ball of dough in a plastic bag and it costs like $2.79. When it's on sale, I buy it and freeze it.)

Tuesday: Kids' night at Chick-Fil-A.

Wednesday: hot dogs, tater tots, coleslaw

Thursday: I have bookclub. The kids will probably eat mac & cheese.

Friday: VBS family night at church. We will probably eat somewhere with a coupon before.

Check out other menu plans here.

Our July 4th Weekend

We headed down the Alabama for the weekend of July 4th for a little help with the kids from Will's parents. We were due a visit too!

Friday night: Will's parents had some of our close friends over for dinner and grilled steak and chicken. We had quite a feast and a total of seven kids (ages newborn to 8) in the house. We enjoyed getting to visit with our friends and family and love of sweet baby Coston. He is precious and it made me really excited about our on little bundle of joy due to arrive in September. The kids had fun too and stayed up until 10am playing DiDi's new Wii.

Claire and David outside before dinner (wearing their July 4th outfits).

Will and his dad chillin' and grillin'.

Saturday: Will's parents took my kids and their other two grandkids to a local park and splash pad with a side of McDonald's for lunch. Will played golf with his friend Courtney. I stayed at the house alone a got a ton of stuff done. I ordered fabric for the baby's diaper bag and car seat cover. I order about 400+ pictures for David's baby book. (Yes, I said David, my two year old.) And, I even painted my toe nails. All while watching HGTV all day long! I was in paradise. We had yummy catfish for dinner (at my request) and hung out at the house the rest of the night.

David & RiRi looking for birds outside their new sunroom.

Claire showing me her donut lips. RiRi always has powdered donuts for the kids. And I sneak a few too.

David ate a few (hundred) donuts over the weekend too. Well, mainly he just liked to carry them around and take a bite then put them back in the container.

Sunday: We went to church with Will's parents, had a huge lunch of roast and fresh veggies (our favorite meal that Will's mom makes) and banana pudding for dessert. We were stuffed again.

(It sounds like all we did was eat this weekend.)

Family photo from Sunday afternoon.

The kids were a little under the weather and very tired by Sunday night, so we stayed home from our local fireworks show and were all in bed by 10pm. I was sad to not see any fireworks on the 4th, but after a long, busy weekend, we needed to rest.

Thanks to Will's parents for a great weekend (as always).

Digital Art Canvas

So the pregnancy insomnia has really set in and the past two nights I have woken up in the wee hours of the morning because I am (1) starving, (2) hot and (3) have to go to the bathroom.

On the plus side, I have gotten to play around with Photoshop and make some projects I've wanted to do for a while. These are for Claire's new room. I got the idea here. I will hang them in a set of 4.

Now I need to make four "boy" prints for David's side of the room. And I need to print them and get them mounted on canvas (8x8 or 6x6 size). I am notoriously bad about printing things like pictures, etc.

All of the products used to make this art (except the photos) came from http://www.theshabbyshoppe.com/.

Sewing List Progress

Remember when I listed my summer sewing goals here? Well, I am glad to say I can mark three things off my list. And, I finished some other projects that were not on the list too.

(1) Pirate shorts are hemmed.

(2) The Miss Mary dress is complete. My mom went on and on about what a cute dress this is (as she was sewing the hook & eye on for me ... I recruited a little help), but I'm not sure I will make it again. On a difficulty scale of 1-10, it was probably a 5, so not too difficult for a cute result.

(3) I finished the round neck dress except for buttons, which I don't have yet. It was really easy to make and I will definitely make this again pattern again. The yoke was a little tricky, but the pattern had great instructions and I finished it without having to use my seam ripper one time.

I am so loving this fabric too. I decided not to make a maternity top out of this fabric because (1) I don't have enough extra, and (2) I made the top out of some cheap fabric from Wal-Mart and Will said it looked "homemade". So I guess I can mark a fourth thing off my list.

I also made the kids matching shorts to wear with their July 4th tee-shirts. I purchased the shirts here for $12 each, making the total cost of these outfits about $17 each. Not too shabby.

Lastly, I finally got around to putting appliques on these two tops for Claire to match shorts I bought on clearance at Target earlier in the summer. I really wish I didn't have to drive all the way to my mom's house to use her embroidery machine, but it's nice to have a little help with the kiddos when I go.

Menu Plan Monday: July 5-12

This is going up late today because we have been BUSY around the house on our holiday day off. We also managed to squeeze in a little water fun and grilling this afternoon too.

Highlights from last week ... baked pizza roll. I failed to attach the link to this recipe last week, but it is one of our favorites. We had the leftovers for lunch today and Will thinks we should have this at least once a week. It is that good. I serve it with marinara sauce for dipping and a salad.

Monday: BBQ chicken, squash casserole, green beans, rolls, homemade peach ice cream

[Note re: peach ice cream. You can find peach nectar in the juice aisle of your grocery store. Mine came in a 6-pack of small cans. Will spent a lot of time in Publix looking for this one night. It's a pretty touchy topic at our house.]

[Note re: squash casserole. If you read the recipe link/blog post, there was some confusion about how to cook the squash. I sliced my squash (5-6 small to medium) and put in a pot and covered with water, brought to a boil and boiled it for about 8-10 minutes. Drain it good and mash it.]

Tuesday: chicken quesadillas, Spanish rice, black beans

Wednesday: leftovers or sandwiches (VBS work night at church)

Thursday: leftover Shrimp and feta vermicelli, salad, french bread

Friday/Saturday: Garlic pork tenderloin, leftover squash casserole, lima beans, rolls

Friday/Saturday: eat out for 10-year anniversary

Sunday: grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, tater tots, coleslaw

Check out other menu plans here.

Father's Day Fun!

Okay ... I know that Father's Day was almost two weeks ago, but I am a little slow getting pictures off my camera here of late. We spent most of Father's Day here, much to Will's chagrin. I told him that sitting through a three hour ballet recital when you really want to be watching the U.S. Open at home on your couch is really what being a father is all about. He disagreed.

But, thanks to the ballet recital, we did get to see all of the special fathers in our lives. And Will got to watch golf on the DVR when we got home.

First there is Poppy (my dad). Here he is with Claire post-recital. This is a rare shot of him out from behind the video camera.

Then there is Daddy/Will and Didi (at our house for pizza after the recital). David, as always, was thrilled to be having his picture taken.

After all the recital hoopla was over and the grandparents had gone home, Will got to open his gifts. (He had already purchased for himself a lovely Nike belt.) So, that left the gifts from the kids. Thank you to our summer preschool programs for coordinating these projects!!

Claire gave Will this lovely paper where she drew a picture and "wrote" about her Daddy.

I laughed out loud when I first read this. I'm not sure that Claire understood that she was supposed to answer questions about her Daddy. My favorite is "my daddy likes to eat celery and carrots." I have never, ever seen Will put a piece a celery in his mouth. He even complains if I use cream of celery soup in a casserole or something. And we never eat celery at home. I don't know where she got this from.

A brief explanation of the picture. If you ask Claire what her favorite color is, she will say "rainbow". Like it's one single color. She loves rainbows and she colors everything in rainbow color.

She has also written her name on the bottom of the page too. See the C-L-A on the bottom and then the I-R-E going up the side of the page. I cannot get her to connect the top of the "A". We have practiced ... a LOT!! Nor can I get her to put only three lines on the "E". We work on this daily. I'm sure she'll learn it just in time to start kindergarten, where they will make her start writing in lowercase letters.

David fingerprint painted a coffee mug for Will. He is modeling it (aka "being silly") below.

It came in this lovely gift bag with David's sweet hand print.

28 weeks ... and counting

I have officially entered my third trimester now. At my doctor's appointment last week, I had gained 10 more pounds. I actually weighed myself three different times to make sure. I have officially gained 25 pounds so far this pregnancy, which is the total amount I gained with Claire and only five pounds less than I gained with David. See picture comparison below.

Yikes! I must be growing a giant baby!! I hope the weight gain will plateau soon!! According to babycenter.com, my baby is approximately 2-1/4 lbs. in weight and almost 15 inches long. I am guessing my baby weighs a little more than this.

Nothing too eventful at this doctor's visit. I got to hear the heartbeat and the baby kicked the Doppler several times and then moved away. I don't think he liked our intrusion very much. I did pass my glucose test, which is a good thing, but my iron is low so I will have to take an iron supplement. Maybe that is why I am so tired all the time. I also got my Rhogam shot since I have a negative blood type. I will now start seeing my doctor every two weeks for the next couple of months. I can see the end in sight!!

It is becoming harder and harder to climb the stairs, bend over and lug the other two kiddos around, but we are making it. And while I am clearly having no trouble eating enough, I am filling up much quicker and having to eat more frequent, smaller meals/snacks. But on a positive note, I am sleeping like a rock!

I still have a few small things to do to the nursery, but no major changes. All of this would be easier to do IF WE HAD A NAME, but we don't yet. I'll just add that to the list ...