Monday, November 14, 2011
Yellow Dello
I couldn't help but take a picture of the gorgeous view out the kids' bedroom window this afternoon. We are certainly blessed with some BEAUTIFUL trees on our property. The picture as usual, does NOT do the breathtaking colors of this tree justice. Nonetheless, I wanted to share a little view into our world.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Bookin-it
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
"Soup"vember
Let me start by saying that I am a meal planner. I just have to. If I don't, I end up being totally unmotivated to fix dinner for my family. Which means that we either eat last-minute something or Andy has to deal with the pressure of fixing dinner after he's been at work all day. Neither of those scenarios are ones that I like to deal with on a daily basis. (Don't get me wrong, Andy is an awesome cook, I just don't think it's fair to him to get home from a long day of work and then deal with having to come up with/thaw out/prepare a meal.)
Therefore, I have to plan our meals. We are "weird" and only go grocery shopping once a month (except to pick up eggs, apples, etc. that we run out of), so at the beginning of each month, I sit down with either a recipe book or a cooking magazine and plan out 15-20 meals.
It works well for us on many levels. First off, it takes care of the perpetual "what's for dinner?" question. Secondly, it allows me to know what we need grocery-wise for the entire month. And lastly (and perhaps most importantly), it is a major budget-saver. #1 it seems like the more we go to the grocery store, the more we spend, so the once a month thing helps with that, #2 it allows me to plan a variety of meals, some with more-expensive ingredients and some with less-expensive ingredients all while staying within our overall monthly budget. Does that make sense?
Well, this month, the cupboards and the freezer were looking pretty bare, and I knew if we stocked up on everything we needed that we would go way over our grocery budget for the month. So, I decided that I would plan only soups for dinner this month (Dinner, by the way is the only meal I plan. Breakfast is usually cold cereal, oatmeal, or toast, and Lunch is usually sandwiches for the boys and leftovers for us girls.)
Soups are just economical in so many ways. Typically, you can use less and less-expensive meats, or even no meat at all, in which case you can use beans to meet your protein needs. You can also use a lot of canned/frozen vegetables, which are not only healthy, but a bargain as well!
So we're seeing a lot of this at our house lately:
Therefore, I have to plan our meals. We are "weird" and only go grocery shopping once a month (except to pick up eggs, apples, etc. that we run out of), so at the beginning of each month, I sit down with either a recipe book or a cooking magazine and plan out 15-20 meals.
It works well for us on many levels. First off, it takes care of the perpetual "what's for dinner?" question. Secondly, it allows me to know what we need grocery-wise for the entire month. And lastly (and perhaps most importantly), it is a major budget-saver. #1 it seems like the more we go to the grocery store, the more we spend, so the once a month thing helps with that, #2 it allows me to plan a variety of meals, some with more-expensive ingredients and some with less-expensive ingredients all while staying within our overall monthly budget. Does that make sense?
Well, this month, the cupboards and the freezer were looking pretty bare, and I knew if we stocked up on everything we needed that we would go way over our grocery budget for the month. So, I decided that I would plan only soups for dinner this month (Dinner, by the way is the only meal I plan. Breakfast is usually cold cereal, oatmeal, or toast, and Lunch is usually sandwiches for the boys and leftovers for us girls.)
Soups are just economical in so many ways. Typically, you can use less and less-expensive meats, or even no meat at all, in which case you can use beans to meet your protein needs. You can also use a lot of canned/frozen vegetables, which are not only healthy, but a bargain as well!
So we're seeing a lot of this at our house lately:
And quite honestly, it's been AWESOME to be able to get dinner ready in the morning and have minimal work to do in the evening during the dreaded "witching hour." You fellow moms know what I'm talking about... that last hour before daddy gets home... aaarrrggghhh
And just in case you were curious, here's our line-up of soups for the month. Let me know if you'd like me to share any of the recipes!
Lentil Soup
Mother's Nurturing Chicken Soup
Deb's Potato Vegetable Soup
Linda's Spicy Chicken Soup
Barley Beef Soup
Hamburger Vegetable Soup
Cream of Broccoli Soup
Meatball Soup
Split Pea Soup
Jambalaya
French Onion Soup
Minestrone
Cabbage Patch Stew
New England Clam Chowder
Mom's White Chicken Chili
Happy "Soup"vember!
Monday, November 7, 2011
All Hallows Eve, a week late
Goodness, it's been awhile since I blogged! I do have an excuse though!
It all started when we got a note from school saying that Ira would need a saint costume for the All Saints Day party at school. Being the over-achiever, can't-ever-do-anything-halfway type that I am, I decided I would make him a cassock for his St. John Baptist de la Salle costume. He also wanted me to make him a ghost costume for Halloween, which I thought would be easy enough... unless you're me who has to complicate everything...
Initially, I thought I could make up my own cassock, but after looking at more pictures of them online, I decided they were actually kind of complicated and I might want to go off an actual pattern. Problem being, there's not much of a market out there for size 5 cassocks... who would've guessed? I did find a Butterick pattern for a men's cassock, however, and I knew with Andy's mad spatial skills that he would be able to modify the pattern down to Ira's size. So I bought the pattern and fabric the same day as our zoo trip and Andy set to modifying the pattern that night. When he finished, he let me take care of shortening the pattern pieces to Ira's height. Now mind you, the only things I have ever sewn have been for myself, and you can guess that the direction I need to go with patterns is not shortening...ever. I lengthen... shortening is a whole different ballgame, and I obviously missed something, because although I tried to make it so that I had 6" to take out at the bottom and 4" at the sleeves (you know, so I don't have to go through this rigamarole every year) it ended up such that it just fit him this year, and unless he doesn't grow at all, it will most likely not fit him next year... grrrr.... See, I do not have mad spatial skills like my hubs does. I'm just special...
Cutting it out wasn't too awful bad, it's just my least favorite part of sewing. I just like to sew. Laying out, cutting out, lining up, pinning, blech... I mean, I deal with it, because you can't really sew without doing those things (I've tried. It doesn't work.) I just don't like it, and there might have been some cursing involved... Sewing it together went pretty well actually, modifications and all (which is crazy because we and by we
I mean my husband had to take 10" out all the way around) Some things were literally lost in the translation (like a lot of the notches and markings) and it was tough because there were pleats, which I've never done before and they were tiny because they were for someone with a 20" waist, but all in all, I'd say it turned out really well. The pattern definitely left some questions as far as finishing the sleeves and the bottom hem, but I figured it out well enough to make it look good.
Needless to say, it took about 2 weeks of finding time here and there during the day and after the kids went to bed to finish, then it took about a week afterwards to catch everything that I'd let slide (like housework, laundry, etc.) back up. Finally this week we're starting fresh with a clean house and not much on the to-do list, so I thought I'd catch up the old bloggeroo. I'm hoping to get back to the Photo of the Day type posts because they're just less overwhelming to me, but what do you all think of them? Are they too boring/uninformative?
In the meantime, here are some pictures from All Hallows Eve!
It all started when we got a note from school saying that Ira would need a saint costume for the All Saints Day party at school. Being the over-achiever, can't-ever-do-anything-halfway type that I am, I decided I would make him a cassock for his St. John Baptist de la Salle costume. He also wanted me to make him a ghost costume for Halloween, which I thought would be easy enough... unless you're me who has to complicate everything...
Initially, I thought I could make up my own cassock, but after looking at more pictures of them online, I decided they were actually kind of complicated and I might want to go off an actual pattern. Problem being, there's not much of a market out there for size 5 cassocks... who would've guessed? I did find a Butterick pattern for a men's cassock, however, and I knew with Andy's mad spatial skills that he would be able to modify the pattern down to Ira's size. So I bought the pattern and fabric the same day as our zoo trip and Andy set to modifying the pattern that night. When he finished, he let me take care of shortening the pattern pieces to Ira's height. Now mind you, the only things I have ever sewn have been for myself, and you can guess that the direction I need to go with patterns is not shortening...ever. I lengthen... shortening is a whole different ballgame, and I obviously missed something, because although I tried to make it so that I had 6" to take out at the bottom and 4" at the sleeves (you know, so I don't have to go through this rigamarole every year) it ended up such that it just fit him this year, and unless he doesn't grow at all, it will most likely not fit him next year... grrrr.... See, I do not have mad spatial skills like my hubs does. I'm just special...
Cutting it out wasn't too awful bad, it's just my least favorite part of sewing. I just like to sew. Laying out, cutting out, lining up, pinning, blech... I mean, I deal with it, because you can't really sew without doing those things (I've tried. It doesn't work.) I just don't like it, and there might have been some cursing involved... Sewing it together went pretty well actually, modifications and all (which is crazy because we and by we
I mean my husband had to take 10" out all the way around) Some things were literally lost in the translation (like a lot of the notches and markings) and it was tough because there were pleats, which I've never done before and they were tiny because they were for someone with a 20" waist, but all in all, I'd say it turned out really well. The pattern definitely left some questions as far as finishing the sleeves and the bottom hem, but I figured it out well enough to make it look good.
Needless to say, it took about 2 weeks of finding time here and there during the day and after the kids went to bed to finish, then it took about a week afterwards to catch everything that I'd let slide (like housework, laundry, etc.) back up. Finally this week we're starting fresh with a clean house and not much on the to-do list, so I thought I'd catch up the old bloggeroo. I'm hoping to get back to the Photo of the Day type posts because they're just less overwhelming to me, but what do you all think of them? Are they too boring/uninformative?
In the meantime, here are some pictures from All Hallows Eve!
 |
| Okay, this one isn't from All Hallow's Eve, this is Andy modifying one of the 6 pattern pieces |
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| St. John Baptist de la Salle was not acting very saintly while I was trying to take this picture... |
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| A back view so that you can see the pleats on which I worked SO diligently! |
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| Classic Ruby face. Pardon the red-eye. I don't have photo software on my laptop and did NOT feel like turning on the beast just to blip out a couple red eyes. And in case you're wondering what the red streaks are all over our pumpkin, those are Ira's doing. He said he wanted to put chicken pox on our pumpkin... not sure why, but who am I to stop him?! |
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| Ira ghost and Ruby "lily bug" (as she says it.) Ready to go trick-or-treating. |
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