The Stuff that Winter is Made Of

Let me tell you, the best way to avoid cabin fever is to spend three weeks of January in California. It's marvelous. You see, while everybody else is so incredibly sick of this ridiculous cold, I can handle some more of it. I was especially excited when it snowed over President's day weekend. The kids have been dying to make a snowman and/or snow fort and we finally got enough good snow to do it.

As much as I would have loved to be involved, I had to leave it to B-dawg and the kids. Anne and I chilled inside. I tell you what, not since the fort of 2005, has such a magnificent structure been erected.

January 2005

February 2011

After the completion of the fort it was time for the snowman. Brandon did most of the building while William and Marie played around him. They did give some assistance with the buttons and face and my contribution was the scarf and hat. Although I do believe they look better on me, the snowman doesn't look too bad either. 

Happy Snow Day!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

Menu Planning: Part Two

Do you want to know my fancy menu planning material? Whatever piece of paper I can find, my computer, and whatever cookbooks strike my fancy that week.

In short, my routine consists of three steps:

1) Evaluate last week’s menu.

2) Create this week’s menu.

3) Create a shopping list.

That is the short of it, but the darling is in the details, right? Details such as where to find recipes, choosing balanced meals, shopping the sales, dealing with leftovers, etc.? So, let’s get to those details.

Planning the Menu

• Menu planning is also my time to look over my week. What nights are busy? Is there a date night? What will the kids eat? Holiday? Special occasion? Meetings? Sports?
• To fill in the blanks, I start with the busy nights. The meals for those nights are either crockpot, quick and easy, or make ahead (such as a casserole).
• After I have filled those in I take inventory of the dishes I have chosen. Do I have one or two vegetarian dishes? What carbs do I have? I like to balance between rice, pasta, potatoes, and bread. Perhaps I want to include a specific ingredient from my pantry or fridge or I want to try a new ingredient. That would lead to the next category, choosing new recipes.

• My criteria for new recipes changes from week to week based on what I am looking for. Sometimes I want to try out a new website or new cookbook. Other times my new recipes will be centered around a specific ingredient.
• Here are my top ten favorite recipe resources and a description of why I would look there:

i. Allrecipes.com – I tend to frequent this site when I have a specific ingredient I want to use or a specific dish I like to make. I don’t just browse this site. Be sure to sort your search by rating and read the comments on the reviews.

ii. Rachael Ray – I confess that I am a Rachael Ray junkie. The woman is a genius for taking the same method and tweeking and adjusting it to make hundreds of meals. Don’t believe me? Take a look at her recipes and count how many start with a béchamel(white) sauce. I use her recipes almost weekly. I’m not very good at thinking about dinner earlier in the day, so I like that her meals come together quickly without an hour in the oven or something like that.

iii. Mel’s Kitchen Café – This is my first stop whenever I am looking for a bread recipe or a new side dish. She also has fantastic desserts and several skillet dinners that are delicious. One skillet meals should be the busy mom’s best friend.

iv. The Sisters Café – There is a great post here for freezer meal ideas. I usually visit this site when I am looking for a new recipe for entertaining or special occasions.

v. Food Network – I consider this my encyclopedia for cooking. It’s a place I stop at when I want to try a new ingredient and need recipes. For example, this summer I wanted to make homemade tomato soup. Food Network. Another time I decided to try my hand at Indian Cuisine. Food Network. When I want a professional’s point of view, this is the place.

vi. Eating Well – This is your one stop shop for healthy eating. Search by ingredient, cheap meals, kid-friendly meals, healthy breakfasts, etc. I love that each meal lists the nutrition facts at the bottom.

vii. Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook – This is my all-purpose cookbook for classic recipes.

viii. Facebook – Yes, facebook. This is especially helpful when I am trying a new ingredient. “Does anybody have a good recipe for quinoa?” It works like a charm.

ix. A Year of Slowcooking – Kind of self-explanatory right? Need a crockpot recipe, try these ones out.

x. Favorite Family Recipes – Don’t go here for healthy recipes. Erica is a master at mimicking restaurant dishes. Her recipe for Café Rio sweet pork salad is one of our favorites when we are entertaining.

• What is your criteria for choosing new recipes? Favorite websites?

Give yourself a night off every once in a while. There is nothing wrong with $5 pizza or the nearest drive-thru in moderation. If it’s on your menu than you can enjoy it guilt-free, even if that does mean that you have to run an extra mile the next morning.

Elaborate and perfect meals are not necessary. What you want is to be able to sit down with you family each night and enjoy dinner together. As you plan, you will find what works and what doesn’t. You will learn from your mistakes and eventually you’ll get into a groove. Just think seven little dinners and one trip to the grocery store.

Well-Balanced Meals

• My rule for meals is 1 carb/1 protein/unlimited fruits and veggies
• Blend spinach and/or green peppers in with your spaghetti sauce
• Smoothies are my favorite “go-to” nutritional boost for everything from breakfast for dinner to soup and sandwiches.
  • Blend 1 cup of milk with two big handfuls of fresh spinach. Add 1-2 bananas, 1 cup of yogurt and blend again. If the bananas aren’t quite ripe you may want to add a tablespoon or two of a sweetener of your choice. Add a cup of frozen berries if you don’t like the green color and to boost the nutritional value.

• Fruit salad is a favorite in our family. We put whatever fruits we have on hand, canned or fresh, into a bowl, and mix it with a cup of yogurt.
• Plan your meal around the vegetables, rather than adding them as an afterthought.

What is your favorite “vegetable centered” dish?

Organizing Your Recipes

• Before writing down my new menu I always evaluate the previous week’s menu. If I have used any new recipes and want to try them again I put them in an Excel spreadsheet. It isn’t anything fancy. I have never formatted it or made it pretty. All I do is type the name of the recipe in one column and where I can find it in the next column. I could organize it by category, or alphabetically. I haven’t, but I could.
• Any recipes that I have torn from magazines or that I have printed from the internet I keep in an accordion folder, organized alphabetically.
• I don’t have a system for recipes that I want to try. Do you?

Back-up Plans

• Life happens. Allow your menu to shift and adjust as needed. Our favorite back-up plan meal is breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, omelets, one-eyed jacks, etc, all accompanied with a green smoothie.
• Every one has a handful of recipes that they always have the ingredients for. Take a moment and write down the first three that come to mind. Share them with your neighbor. Who wants to share theirs?

Make It a Habit

• Repeat after me,

"I, [state your name], hereby promise not to visit the supermarket again until I've made a menu plan!"

• I dread grocery shopping each week. I love planning the menu, but the actual trip to the store? Bleh. I do it though because then I know that in one day, one hour even, it is all taken care of and I don’t have to worry about it again for another week. If only I could keep that same attitude with laundry …
• Pick a day, time, and place that you will plan your menus and do it.
• Just be forewarned that it’s addicting. Once you do make it a habit you will never be able to go to the grocery store without a list again.

I know that we are all here because we believe in our roles as nurturers. We all want to do what is best for our family. It is my testimony that as you take the time to plan meals for your family those mealtimes will become cherished memories. You will draw your family closer to each other and closer to Heavenly Father.

Menu Planning: Part One

My class on menu planning came and went. I’ll call it a success. For those that asked and for my own records, I am going to post the notes from what I taught that night. This is just what I said. Unfortunately, I do not have notes for all the wonderful tips and tricks that were shared by the women of my ward. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments. Happy reading!

 

Since I have been married I have always been a menu planner. The joy of cooking is what originally led me to it. I have always loved cooking and having somebody to cook for that appreciated my efforts made it even more fun for me. Finding and creating delicious recipes became a hobby of mine that I still love to this day.

Over the past 6 years my menus have evolved and changed and adapted to the needs of my family. The elaborate meals of our “married single” days are rare now. Often, just getting something into my finicky and wiggly kids is the only goal I have. Our week nights, like most families, are busy and a can be frantic. Without a plan those frantic nights would result in a $5 pizza, the nearest drive-thru, or a desperate search for some recipe that I have all the ingredients for. In the meantime, the opportunity for time as a family around the table has all but escaped. And that is what it really comes down to, isn’t it? If we have failed to sit down as a family, does it matter what goes into their bellies? As Robert D. Hales said, “It is not the food, but the family interaction that nourishes the soul.”

The Family: A Proclamation to the World, states that, “Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” In her article Powerful Nurturing, Julie B. Beck shares , “A good nurturer carries power and influence. The Latin word nutrire, from which the English word nurture originates, means “to suckle or nourish,” or, in the full interpretation, “to feed, foster, care for, or rear.” True power is found in the hands of a worthy nurturer, especially at mealtimes.”

How has family mealtime benefited you in your own life?

“I thought I was just cooking casseroles and soup. But I had created the venue, the reason to gather. Because I prepared a meal to share with my family, something special happened. It was a simple process, and our style changed with the ages of our children. When they were young we could discuss a picture from the Gospel Art Picture Kit or memorize a scripture. When they were older we asked more questions and shared experiences. Over the years our children grew and matured, and we loved each other. Mothers, who are “primarily responsible for the nurture of their children,” can be a powerful force for strengthening families when they use meal times to gather loved ones. They follow example of the Savior to calm, teach, and help their families remember important things as they feed, cultivate, and rear at the consecrated tables in their homes.”

It is my testimony that meal and menu planning isn’t just about saving money or good nutrition, it is about saving lives.

That, sisters, is really truly why I menu plan. I hate the 5 o’clock what-the-heck-are-we-going-to-have-for-dinner frenzy. I hate mad dashes to the grocery store. I hate giving in and just buying a pizza. I hate it because it doesn’t allow me to then sit down and peacefully enjoy a meal with my family. There is something to be said for the calm of routine and menu planning allows for it.

{this moment}

Kindergarten Registration

We received William's registration in the mail yesterday. It was all I could do not to sit down and cry. Knowing that this time is looming over our heads I have been wrestling in my mind what I want to do (Home school? Charter school? Public school?). I always want to make sure that the decisions I make for my children are based on thorough research and divine inspiration. So I have been researching and praying. Brandon and I have been discussing and debating. We want  the education we choose for our children to be the right option, not the convenient option or the easy option.

That being said, I have one quote I want to share today. Perhaps at a later date I will wrestle through all of my thoughts on the matter, perhaps not, but this quote is one of the many reasons that I am currently leaning more towards public education.

Public education has a particular value to our society because it has the unique potential to become the center of a diverse community.  When I observe my students in class each day, I see hope for the future.  They not only learn skills and curriculum, but they learn how much they have in common with peers of different social, ethnic, or religious backgrounds.  They learn to participate in a civil discussion where opinions diverge and controversies arise.  When we have events for parents and community members, we bring together dozens of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, recent immigrants with long-settled families, entry-level workers, CEOs and former professional athletes.


*Edited to add: You can link to the article by clicking on the quote itself.

Happy {Heart} Day

Valentine’s Day is our half year anniversary. We would be quite remiss not to celebrate it each year. I have always felt, however, that focusing on the many people we are blessed to love in our lives is much more fun than making it a romantic mushy gushy holiday between couples. That being said, we do some celebrating as a couple and some celebrating as a family.

I.

In the mushy gushy department, Brandon is 7 for 7 on sending me a bouquet of flowers. It is so refreshing and wonderful to get flowers in February. I love them every year but never manage to capture their beauty through a photograph, so this year I didn’t even try. Just imagine a beautiful red vase filled with white and purple gerber type daisies, white roses, and little red carnations.

For our celebration, we went out to dinner at Olive Garden. Yum. After dinner we came home and watched the Jazz game. What can I say, it was a big game (first game without Sloan as a coach) and I love my husband. For the record, I suggested that we watch it. I’m sure he would have grudgingly willingly watched “Sleepless in Seattle” or some such nonsense, had I batted my eyes enough.

  The happy couple of 6.5 years.

II.

The kids are both in Joy School now and were thrilled to share the love with their classmates.

We picked out their Valentine’s about three weeks ago when I was feeling cabin fever and needed some reason to get out of the house. Hello Kitty from Marie and Batman from William. I was so proud that both kids could sit and write their names on their cards.

The treat was per William’s request. He wanted to give caramel popcorn. We compromised with something much easier, white chocolate popcorn.  I packaged it up in paper cones, adorned the kids in Valentine’s attire, and sent them on their merry way. Not after one, or two, or twenty pictures, of course. Then it was time for me to hang out with this little love bug. I can’t get enough of those gorgeous eyes!

III.

An impromptu lunch became one of my favorite memories from this holiday. Lunch after Joy School is always a bit crazy because Anne is tired but I am trying to hold her off until I put the kids down. Consequently, I throw together whatever I can one-handed and then sit down to nurse Anne while attempting to referee the other two rascals in the other room. This day wasn’t any different in the need to throw together a lunch so I pulled out some crackers, ham, and cheese and had the brilliant idea to cut the meat and cheese into hearts. The kids loved it and Anne was happy enough that I could stand at the counter with them and chat while they ate. I sure do love these precious times with my little ones!

IV.

The actual big day, February 14th, we planned a joint dinner and FHE with some of our favorite friends. Fondue was on the menu complete with cheese sauce, pizza sauce, chocolate sauce, potstickers, meatballs, chicken, steak, little smokies, homemade artisan bread, pretzels, bananas, pound cake, oreos, veggies, pitas … every bit of it was delicious, delightful, and delectable. If you’ve never had the joy of partaking in fondue before, I have a fondue pot. I would love to introduce you to this wonderful world of yumminess. Just don’t expect me to take any pictures, I will be way too busy eating.

Following the fabulous fondue feast (hehehe) we settled our stomachs with a bit of Just Dance for Kids. Good times were had by all and I think I might have burned the calories from one bite of dinner. Maybe.

And there you have it. Happy Valentine’s Day and 6.5 anniversary to us!

A Big Month for the Anne Girl

She made it to 6 months (and will be 7 months tomorrow!). *big sigh of relief*

Whilst in California, my Mom and I frequently commented on how noticeably Anne was changing. She went from infant to baby in those three weeks. It felt like it was practically overnight. She started sitting up, she started babbling, she started eating 2-3 meals a day of solids. She continued to nurse like a champ (I've always wanted to be able to say that about one of my babies, third times the charm, I guess!).

Brandon and I were counting down to 6 months old with great anticipation, knowing her fussiness would lessen and even better, knowing we could do the Ferber method so that we could all get some more sleep. We had no idea how right (and wrong) we were about the magic number of 6 months.

Anne turned 6 months old the day my mom, the kids, and I made the trek back here to Utah. Brandon and I braced ourselves for  a few rough nights because of the adjustment and discussed our plan of attack from there; now that she was officially old enough for us to let her cry it out. The first night was as expected with a few wake-ups, the second night home she slept from 8-4 and she hasn't looked back since.

This girl is incredible. She defied any sleep help book I read in those first 6 months. Nothing quite fit her personality or her needs. Anything I did try, didn't work. Then she just flipped a switch and started sleeping through the night all on her own, once again defying all of those blasted experts who think they know so much. Really, please find me a book that says, "The baby will sleep like crap for the first 6 months, nothing you do will help, just wait and at 6 months and 1 day it will get better." Yeah, it doesn't exist. Not that I am complaining. Mostly, I am just relearning that these little rascals in my home are the ones in charge. I'm just chauferring them through life.

Now we have been back from California for a month and besides sleeping, she has also perfected (mostly) the act of sitting up and playing with toys. She loves, loves, loves to have a toy to play with.

Also, add her first tooth to the list. So different from Marie, who got even fussier than normal when she was sick or teething, Anne becomes more mellow and calm. Finding her tooth last week came as a huge surprise to me. She did run a slight fever, but she had her 6 month shots and Marie was sick with a fever so I didn't even think about her getting a tooth.

Finally, the girl still loves to eat. Love is an understatement. She demands to eat, especially if we are eating. Thankfully, she does well with toast, otherwise I would be sitting in front of her booster seat spoon feeding her all day long. She also adores baby crack little crunchies. I was trying to avoid buying those things, thinking I could go make something for cheaper, but my first attempt at homemade teething biscuits was meh. Anybody have any good recipes out there?

Our little Anne has been such a wonderful addition to our lives. The last 6 months have been a blur of sleepless nights and darling smiles and I wouldn't have it any other way.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

William-ese

Last night Brandon went in to the kid’s room to respond to Marie crying out. William woke from his sleep and groggily said, “Daddy, I’m thinking crazy right now.” After Brandon talked to Marie and calmed her down William spoke up again,

“Daddy, I just invented a new word. Think-a-pation.

“Wow, William, that’s a really cool word. You’ll have to tell me the definition of it later.”

“I’m going to tell it to you now. It’s when you think of really craz… (he stops himself and reconsiders) really cool things.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s my boy. Always think-a-pating.

"Our perfect Father does not expect us to be perfect children yet. He had only one such Child. Meanwhile, therefore, sometimes with smudges on our cheeks, dirt on our hands, and shoes untied, stammeringly but smilingly we present God with a dandelion -- as if it were an orchid or a rose! If for now the dandelion is the best we have to offer, He receives it, knowing what we may later place on the alter."

Neal A. Maxwell

Marie-esque

I haven't done one of these in a while, not for lack of material though. This one has to be recorded. It is just so Marie.

I was cleaning up from dinner and asked Marie to push all the chairs under the table. She did it happy and willingly, but did express that it was hard for her. I showered her with the usual you-can-do-it encouragement and she pressed forward. Once she pushed the last chair under the table a huge smile spread across her face, she clapped, and said,

"Yay! Good job, me."

P.S.

Not to be outdone by his sisters, here is William at 6 months. He’s over on the sidebar, too, but I thought the little cutie pants deserved to be front and center after his rough day.

P.S.S. At 6 months, William was 15 pounds 5 ounces (9th percentile); Marie was 17 pounds 1 ounce (75 percentile); Anne is 16 pounds 1 ounce (37th percentile). Just a little info in case you ever play S Family Trivial Pursuit or, uh, something like that.

{this moment} -- ish

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (Inspired by SouleMama)

Or not, because the moment of the week is one which I only captured the image in my head. But imagine this would you….
Our entire family of five is at the doctor’s office crowded into one of those tiny exam rooms with the nurse.
I am holding Anne who has just received her 6 month immunization shots. Tears are still fresh on her cheeks and she is frantically sucking on her pacifier.
Marie is heading out the door sobbing, the thought of her siblings getting those yucky, ouchy shots just too much for her to bear.
William is on the exam table receiving his kindergarten shots, his face is pathetically scrunched up and his eyes echo the pain that he is feeling in his leg as the nurse proceeds to poke him three times.
Brandon is holding William’s hand, encouraging him to be brave.

Sisters, Sisters

Marie Noelle, April 2008

Anne Kinslee, January 2011