Eating is just so great.

Sigh.

All for a Spoon

This little spoon is so enticing. In fact, when it is just out of reach it is that much more important that it gets in my hand right this instant. Especially when it is precariously perched on top of a glass of strawberry milkshake mom made for me.



Who me?



HANDS!



But I don't like being messy!



On an unrelated note, I stumbled upon a trick that has really helped the boys learn how to feed themselves. And, get ready for it, it involves oats. [Who's shocked? Raise your hand.] I would put banana chunks and mango chunks and even steamed carrot chunks in front of the boys for them to grab and feed themselves with. Gray would try so hard but the food would just slide around and he would get frustrated, give up, and just gape his mouth open and whine until I came and fed him. This morning, I threw a handful of oats in the magic bullet, blended them up and used them to coat the fruit pieces.



Stress free eating.



Gray is a happy man. I absolutely love watching them figure things out. I try to let them think and solve the problem for themselves and only act when I know they have given it a good try and genuinely need my help with something. I am constantly blown away by how smart and capable they are if I just give them the chance.

Home Management Binder: The Kitchen

If you missed it, the first post in this series is here!

This idea came to me while in the shower. It may be my best idea yet.

Seriously.

About a year ago, I set to work planning a year's worth of meal plans and shopping lists after seeing this pin. I re-designed the cover to fit my style and printed out all the calendars and shopping lists I needed. I even filled out a few months and figured out the shopping lists. And I was overwhelmed. There was no freedom! I don't KNOW what my family wants to eat on a wednesday night in May. I don't KNOW if that day will be rainy or sunny or if we'll have a baseball game we want to go to. I don't KNOW if there will be a family we need to take dinner to. I don't know. I felt stifled. What if I want to try a new recipe? Do I have to schedule that MONTHS in advance? For real? Who plans like that?! And it wasn't reasonable.

So, I went to the other extreme. Which was back to my pick the meals, make the list, do the shopping, etc. And it made me crazy because I was putting SO much brain power into creative menus each and every time. I was re-doing things that didn't need to be re-done.

And then that beautiful day in a hot shower came. And I was at my mother's house. And I was stealing my little sister's awesome Bath and Body Works body wash because heaven knows we can't afford that fancy stuff. And I was thinking about how awesome Photoshop actions are. What a genius idea to RECORD THE PROCESSES WE DO OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO MAKE THEM HAPPEN SO FAST, WITH JUST THE CLICK OF A MOUSE. Did you catch that?

And I have no idea how, but it clicked. I am going to make my kitchen management into a set of Photoshop actions, so to speak. And so I did.

I started by making lists of ten dinners and side dishes. I ended up with 8 sets of ten. I decided on ten instead of fourteen, because without fail, we have leftovers once a week and then we either go on a date or meet up with friends or have breakfast for dinner, or whatever for the others. When I plan fourteen meals, we always end up wasting food. When making them, I kept to a loose guideline of 4 chicken meals, 3 ground beef, 3 other. It made for variety and it's what my family eats. It also ensures that each meal plan costs about the same in groceries. Also, mentally, when making the menus I would try to keep a good balance of time-intensive meals, quick meals and crock pot meals. I didn't stress out about this. Looking at the menu, you can pretty much tell [whoa, that's a lot. That can't go on the same menu. Or, well...those are all pretty easy, so I'm sure we'll want a fancy meal in there somewhere...etc.]

And then I made the menu pages cute. Because my next big problem AFTER going shopping was I had my dinner plans and my grocery list on the same piece of paper and I would take it to the store and then shove it in a grocery sack and it would get mixed up with all the other clutter in my car and then I would have no idea what dinners I even had stuff for. Now that it's cute, once I go shopping, I put it up on my fridge. The shopping list is still on the same page, but I swear, the cuteness keeps me from losing it in the clutter. I've done 4 menus so far and haven't lost a single one. Magic.



And then, the doozy. I made the shopping list. WITH the intention of using it again. That's a big deal. Before I was RECORDING MY ACTIONS, I would go through each recipe and only write down the ingredients I needed. Mentally I would check off "well, I have that, and that, and that, so all I need for this recipe is tilapia!" And it made for a shorter list, but that list was useless to me later on. I would never be able to use the information I spent so much time gathering again. So, I made each shopping list for ten meals as if I needed to buy every, single, little, thing in every, single recipe. This means my lists include cornstarch, measurements of milk, butter, eggs, spices, etc. [The side dishes are noted with an item x1 or x3 depending on how many times we'll be eating that side dish during the next 14 days.] And so, when I'm needing to go grocery shopping, I pick a list and shop from my cupboards first, crossing off anything we have already. And then I head to the store. So much faster. And less time pouring over recipes. More time for more fun things!

And then I made them cute.

I have eight menu plans. Four of them have shopping lists done. We have eaten our way through menu plans 1, 3, 6 & 7. Some menus lend themselves to summer months. Others have more hearty meals for winter months. All of them are delicious. And just flipping through the menus I can easily see what sounds good for that time of year without stressing about it. I can also ask Cam what sounds good and pick the meal plan that includes. It's the best thing. And it has helped me so SO much, so how could I not share?

Here is meal plan #1.

I realize these are for OUR family. These are meals that we love and I have made before. I could never use someone else's meal plan because our favorites would get lost. Which is why I went into so much detail about how I came up with each of our menus. Also, we are humans. We eat relatively healthy. And quite frankly, if you are eating home cooked food instead of fast food, you're already two steps up in my book. However, we are not vegan. We are not uber granola people. We are humans. So we like pizza. And burgers. And breaded chicken. And [heaven forbid] a cream of something soup sometimes. [Though my mom turned me on to a DIY cream of something soup. And it doesn't have any MSG in it, so I'm pretty pumped to try it. PLUS, it's cheaper. So yeah, I might be swapping that out.]

If you click on the image above, you can print out the menu and shopping list. And the recipes are linked below. But I would highly recommend sitting down and making lists of ten. Plan the sides too, so you don't end up with a bunch of extra salad that goes bad. It is effort in the beginning, but it is so worth it. Seriously. I print 3 pages front and back, and end up with six copies of each meal plan in my binder. I am halfway done making my shopping lists and once I finish that, I can have a huge variety of meals for 2 years before having to think about it again! And if I want to try a new recipe? Well, I only have 10 recipes each time, so I can go right ahead! And if I find a keeper? All I have to do is make a new meal plan, or swap it out for a recipe we don't like as much from one of the existing meal plans. There is so much flexibility, it just makes my heart sing.

I am happy to make your menus cute if you so desire. I will even lay them out with your shopping lists on the back. I charge $5 to customize any of my printables [text changes only].

Menus for Humans. I like that. I'll post the other menus if you're interested? Comment and let me know! [No, commenting on FB doesn't count. :)]

Anyhow, the other part of my kitchen section is the freezer tally.

(Click picture to download printable.)

With everything that I make and freeze, I [used] to forget about a lot of stuff in there and then when the time came to clean it out, I had wasted so much food that I was putting away for later. Now, I keep one of these sheets on the door of our freezer and jot down stuff as it goes in and cross stuff off when it comes out. So great! Like the night I didn't want to cook and had made a double batch of pizza rolls? yep, we ate so good that night! And the other night when we had inside-out springroll salad and I didn't know if Cam would like the dressing, but I knew he LOVED my mom's wonton sauce? It was in the freezer, and I had actually forgotten about it until I was halfway through making dinner. A quick defrost, and now I HAVE to share that recipe with you. Because it was a total cheap veggie meal that Cam actually requested a huge bowl of in his lunch the next day. ["Just give me a huge bowl of this. That's all I want tomorrow."<--those words actually came out of his mouth. Nuts.]

Anyhow, this seriously is the best thing in my little organizational world right now. I love the kitchen section! And it helps to have extra copies, because when I'm filling out my daily docket, I know exactly what's on the menu plan. It's all right there in my binder. I love it.

Here are Menu Plan #1's recipes:

OMG Chicken with green beans
Olive Garden Alfredo with tomatoes + salad
Honey Sesame Chicken with best broccoli
Bacon Cheeseburger Chicken with mashed potatoes + salad
Italian Meatloaf with butterhorns + salad
Taco Burros + salad [a favorite from Cam's childhood. Taco meat, refried beans, tortillas, cheese, salsa]
Sunday Meal + salad [another favorite from Cam's childhood. I'll have to post the recipe!]
Tortellini Spinach Bake with watermelon + corn
Pizza Rolls + salad
Garlicky Baked Shrimp with green beans

4th of July

In my family, the 4th of July means a lot of things. Breakfast at a local family restaurant (Mike & Rhonda's) to start. Then, we generally go to a parade, eat watermelon, wear our patriotic shirts, set off fireworks [this one's just me + cam :)], watch the fireworks, etc. This year for 4th of July we were neither in Utah [where the BEST fireworks show is, period.] nor with my family. It was a dreary day. Overcast and kind of dreary. I had been up all night with Nash. He was a very unhappy little boy. I think I surprised Cam when I bounded down the stairs and said "Let's go out to breakfast!" Cam was mowing the lawn at the time, so he showered off and away we went.

We loaded up the boys and drove down to a local olive mill just up the road from Cam's parents' house for breakfast. We honestly had no idea what to expect. It did not disappoint. YUM. I got their fresh olive oil waffle with berries and cream and this genius syrup. If you are every in Queen Creek, figure out how to get yourself there one morning. It was delish. The boys were tired, but happy. I'm a firm believer that babies feed off of their mom & dad's energy. Cam and I were extremely happy. The boys could sense that.


The restaurant had a store attached to it where they sold every type of olive oil you could imagine. They recommended drizzling it over cheesecake or using it in baked goods to add a totally indulgent factor. Oh boy. I'm still kicking myself for not buying a bottle.

We barely got home, fed the boys, and Cam sent me off to see his cousin for a haircut and a red ombre dye. I am in love with it. I feel like it's subtle, but different. She's super talented at what she does. Country Cuts in Queen Creek - ask for Melissa. She rocks.



Cam got all young on me and asked me to go for a scooter ride with him while the boys were taking their mid-day nap. It still makes my heart freak out when he asks me to do fun things like that. Sometimes it's a good thing to act like a teenager once in a while.



We invited a bunch of our friends over for a pool party and barbecue. A few other couples from our ward in Utah have moved down to the valley, so to have them all over helped with some of the homesickness I was feeling. It was still overcast, but made for a great day for swimming. I wish I had more pictures!



This fantastic boy is Jameson. His hair is to-die-for. His mama and I became friends back up in Orem. We sure love them. They made moving to AZ a whole lot of fun. I don't have a picture of her husband, Steve, or Alison or Brian or Isaac. But man, friends sure make life sweeter.



Nash decided to rest up during the pool party part of the afternoon. He was exhausted from the night before and spent the pool party out cold in his carseat. Cute boy.

About half a mile from the house is a farm that puts on a fireworks show for the city of Queen Creek. We sat on the patio furniture and watched the fireworks with Nash and Gray on our laps. At this point in their little lives, focusing on anything was a majorly big deal. Gray really hadn't shown excitement about much before that night, but during the fireworks, he kept his eyes glued to the sky for 20 minutes straight and every now and again his little arms and legs would tense up in excitement. And then the boys started talking. Oh it did my heart good.

That night was its own kind of magic.

We are the luckiest.

Oats 2.0

Now, I like oats. My sister Jessica dubbed me the creator of the "oatpocalypse" when I was pregnant with the boys. I could eat oats every morning and love it. If there is oats in a recipe, I will always declare it a good idea. And so, introducing the boys to oatmeal for their first encounter with a spoon...well, I should've seen the reaction coming.


Ah, he is my baby. What a stud.

**P.S. don't forget to enter the giveaway!

How Real Men Make Dinner

I promise it is not my goal to make you all have a huge crush on Cameron. However, I can completely understand if that's what happens after this post. Husband of the year.