::Dinner Plans #26::

Another week, another meal plan. I really do find a large amount of joy in coming up with a meal plan and doing the planning/shopping/preparing/cooking. The part I don't like? The cleaning! The cleaning is the worst part. I should be honest, though. I only have to do the cleaning up from dinner on the few nights that my husband isn't home. Like I said, though, that doesn't happen all to often.

Monday: Crock Pot Chicken Tortilla Stew. I realized that, during my pregnancy, I made quite the stock pile of freezer meals. This is one that we eat pretty often--it looks kinda gross, but it tastes good and the kids love it!
Tuesday: Instant Pot Deconstructed Egg Rolls. My mother-in-law made this a few weeks ago, and we loved them. Even my picky five-year-old gobbled them up.
Wednesday: Lasagna! It's another one of those freezer meals. Unfortunately for our meals, the weather has turned and we have a lot of "winter" meals left to eat. I will gladly deal with "winter" meals in the nice weather...as long as the nice weather stays! We definitely put in our time this year--snowiest April on record for Minnesota!
Thursday: Summer Vegetable & Chicken Soup. I haven't tried this one yet; hopefully everyone likes it!
Friday: Homemade Pizza. If the weather cooperates, we will have grill pizza and eat outside. My kids love to eat outside. It isn't my favorite thing, but I do it anyway.
Saturday: Grilled Kebabs & Vegetables.

::Dinner Plans #25::

I've started to do my meal planning and grocery shopping on Mondays (well, sometimes the shopping doesn't happen until Tuesday) and it has been wonderful. The grocery stores are far less crowded--I used to tackle Costco and Aldi on Saturdays. Yikes. That's all I'll say about that.

Here are our plans for the week:

Monday: Sheet Pan Cashew Chicken OH EM GEE. We had this a couple of weeks ago, and it was delicious. I almost followed the recipe to a T, though I left out the sugar. While I had to pick around a few things for the picky kid (the big one doesn't care for peppers), this recipe was a hit and will definitely be added to the rotation.

Tuesday: Instant Pot Roast. I use this recipe because I don't really care for the recipes that use onion soup mix (I did leave out the A1 steak sauce). Don't get me wrong. I love the onion soup mix in sour cream as a chip dip. It just isn't my favorite for a roast!

Wednesday: Shrimp Alfredo -- easy peasy, from a jar. Simple, oh so simple. We cook shrimp, cook noodles, throw a jar of alfredo sauce over to top. When I'm super organized, I have a salad all set to go. But that doesn't always happen.

Thursday: Sheet Pan Fajitas. Apparently I'm on a sheet pan fix. They're so easy. Easy clean-up, low prep (usually), and fairly quick cooking times. I've found myself figuring out which recipes I can prep ahead of time to make the preparations go even faster when I'm back to work (man, that's going to come far to soon!). I'll be making instant pot rice as a side.

Friday: Beef Lo Mein. I just realized that I've provided a link for almost all of the meals. Yikes. I'm not doing super fancy recipes all the time. Most of these aren't so fancy-I am just still in the recipe following stage. I promise. Most of them are easy recipes.

Saturday: Chicken Noodle Soup & Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Another super-simple go-to meal we have every couple of weeks. Especially in the winter. And for some reason, winter hung around for a long time this year.

I intentionally leave Sunday open, as we usually end up at a family dinner at least once each week.

Perfect Little Family

My life has been flipped upside down for a third time.

That's right. We had another kiddo. M joined the family in quite the rush in early March, and we couldn't be more pleased (or tired). She's a beauty. Her older sister, H, and older brother, G, are loving every minute of sibling-hood (yes, I know that is not a word).

With that perfect-family sounding paragraph, let's take a moment to get real. M is awesome. That is not joke. She sleeps, she eats, she poops. She is just a few weeks old and is slowly becoming more alert. She's tracking us with her eyes, she turns toward sounds. Her newborn clothes are getting close to being too small--hard to believe!

The big man on campus, G, is loving his newest sister. It is so fun to see him interact with her and love her. He loves the middle kid, too, but it is great to watch him as a big guy. When H was born, he didn't have a huge interest in her. He was intrigued by her sounds, but didn't want to "play" with her much. With M, he is so excited to "read" her stories, to talk to her, to love on her. He's a sweet, sweet boy to his sisters.

And the baby-no-more? She's enjoying her role as middle child, though she is a bit more precocious than your average middle child. H wants to run the show, be in control, and be little Miss Mom to M. I love, love, love it. H wants to shower the newest addition with hugs and kisses, and sometimes forgets what "gentle" means. But what three year old doesn't forget that!?

My adorable little family has grown from four to five (six according to G because we always include the puppy). In the course of the last month, I've loved on a newborn, a newly three-year-old, and a newly five-year-old. FIVE! I have a five-year-old and it is SO hard to believe.

2018, Here We Go

We are starting 2018, expecting #3 to arrive in just a couple of months. That's right. Number Three is on her way, expected to arrive at the end of March. Hubs and I are so excited! The big kids? Also very excited, though it took the oldest a few weeks to adjust to the idea of having another sister. And the other one? Well, she's just excited to be older than someone!

Our Airstream is not going to get as much love this year as it did last summer. We will still be taking a few trips, I just didn't want to venture as far with an infant. There are a couple of minor projects we having coming down the pipes, too. Nothing major...you know, like replacing a floor, building a table, building some beds. This year's projects will be smaller-and more quickly to be finished! And I hope to bring the blog along for the ride.