Wordless Wednesday: Me and My Boys

Survived 1st week of school & Menu Plan Monday

Well, we successfully survived the first week of school. Well, sort of, not sure it counts since Brendan's school let out early 4 of the 5 days last week due to the heat. But, he is still loving 1st grade. Adam is still doing great at his new preschool. He's a little clingy and cries some mornings when I drop him off, but the rest of the day he has a great time.

Somehow Adam managed to get a whole line of chigger bites on the under side of his legs this weekend, right along his Pull Ups line. It looks just horrible. All red and irritated, and when he walks, his Pull Ups rub right on it making it worse. He's been walking around with his legs spread out real far, which would be hilarious looking if it wasn't for knowing he's in pain :(

Today Brendan brought home a notice from school about joining Cub Scouts. The joining meeting is this Wednesday night, and he is all excited about joining this year. They had a joining meeting at the end of last year, but at the time he didn't want to join and we didn't force the issue. But now, he is SUPER excited about it, so I guess in a few days we will be the proud parents of a Cub Scout. I'm already a little worried about all the driving around I will be doing this fall, between swim lessons, Tae Kwon Do, and now Cub Scouts too. Hopefully it doesn't get to be too much of a hassle. Luckily there aren't sports games mixed in too (yet).

I've been trying to get back on the menu planning habit. I was going good for awhile, but the last couple months I haven't done it. So, this weekend I sat down and planned out the dinner menu for this week, and all of Sept and October. It's so much easier for me to just do a bunch in advance, because it's the sitting down to plan that I always seem to neglect. And, I have certain meats or kinds of meals assigned to each day so that I'm sure to work in a variety...otherwise I'll fall into a rut of pasta all the time. lol

So, here's the basic plan I follow:

Monday= Beef
Tuesday= Chicken
Wednesday= Soup/Salad/Sandwich or Seafood
Thursday= leftovers
Friday= Pizza (family night)
Saturday= Pork
Sunday= Chicken or Turkey

Having a basic idea like that to always start with is a big help to me, and then I just fill in the meals we like on printed calendar pages for a couple months at a time. I've seen on some other blogs that people do something called "Menu Plan Monday" or something like that...maybe I should look into that and join in. Hmmm.

Okay, I talked myself into it. lol I just searched and tracked down the originator of Menu Plan Monday (OrgJunkie) and even though Monday is basically over now, I'll just jump in anyway. LOL







Here's our menu plan for this week...

Monday: Goulash
Tuesday: Joe's microwave chicken/potato/carrot dish
Wednesday: BLT wraps
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Pizza (family night)
Saturday: Pork Stir Fry
Sunday: Oven "fried" (baked) chicken

End of Summer & 1st Day of School

Well, the boys are officially back in school now. Brendan started 1st grade Monday and Adam started preschool. Both boys did fine, and had a lot of fun yesterday.

Going backwards a little...Joe made it back safely from his Iowa/South Dakota trip for work. He got back Friday just in time to see the skit/awards night at the end of Brendan's summer camp. Brendan won about 5 awards, which were made of circles of wood and rope. To which he said he had "cedar bling". I died laughing. I'm guessing that must have been the joke among the counselors to call it that. heehee.

The weekend before that (I forgot to post about) we did a visiting trip. We have been so busy all summer that we had not seen any of the boys' grandparents for a long time. We knew that it would be difficult once school started, so we took the day to go visit all 3 sets of grandparents. None of them live by us, but luckily they all live fairly close together.

We started at my Mom's house where the boys had fun playing games and with all the toys in her basement. We ate an early lunch while we were there, and had a nice visit with mom and her boyfriend.

Next we headed to my dad's house to visit with him and his wife. They have a pool in their neighborhood, so the boys had a blast playing in the pool. They also had a ton of fun playing with all the toys in their basement.

After that we headed to Joe's parents' house, and most of his brothers and sisters came by too to see the boys and visit. We had dinner, hung out, visited, and the boys played outside for part of the time too. Adam kept going from aunt to aunt asking them to take him outside. (he has 4 aunts on that side, 3 were there). So one of them would take him out for awhile, come back in, and then he'd go to the next. It was cute. Each time he came back with tomatoes from the garden, so he was helping in the garden while he was out there too.

Then we drove the 2-1/2 hours home, and got to bed pretty late, but it was worth it for the boys to get to see all of the grandparents and some of the aunts and uncles. They had so much fun!

So, now summer is over (even though it is still so HOT) and school has begun. We will have one last hurrah for the summer next Friday though. Brendan's school is off that day, and we still have tickets to a nearby waterpark to use up, so we'll go there next Friday. Then, it's on to my favorite season, FALL!

Hope you all had a great summer!

"Traffic" on My Morning Commute

Ahh, yes, the morning commute to work. You city slickers have to deal with rush hour traffic, road rage, idiots cutting you off, stop and go traffic, etc. Me...well, normally I have very little traffic, if any, but this morning I did have to slow down on my morning commute for a different kind of traffic...

Not something you'd expect to see standing in the road, eh? I expect the deer shooting out in front of my car once in awhile, but I still laugh every time I come across a cow standing in the middle of the road. This is one of the roads I travel along on my way to work every morning. A few times per year a lone cow will get out of someone's fence and be *in* the road. This morning I think the whole herd was loose! Adam was in the car with me and thought the cows were great. "Put my window down, Mommy, I see cow" he kept saying. heehee. They were *right* by the window as we drove by. Who needs to pay money for a drive-thru zoo? If you're in the right place at the right time, we've got 'em for free out in the country :)

Oh yes, and once in awhile a free petting zoo too. A week or so ago I pulled up our driveway to find this standing in our yard...

And no, it's not ours. Brendan was with me that time, and he stayed outside for a long time watching and talking to the horse. He said something to the effect of "well we could keep him if the neighbors don't want him anymore". I tried to explain that I didn't think the neighbors knew that the horse was by our yard, and that it didn't mean they wanted to get rid of it. lol

First Overnight

Well, this morning I dropped Brendan off at camp for his first overnight. He's been having a BLAST at camp all week during the day, and tonight they stay over all night. It will feel strange to not pick him up and bring him home after work today. I'm sure he will have a great time. He has stayed overnight at the grandparents' houses before, but never overnight on his own with no relatives there. He is really excited about it. He looked so cute all loaded up with his backpack, sleeping bag and pillow. (that is the lady that runs the camp in the background of the photo).

I'm not worried at all about Brendan, it's Adam I'm worried about tonight. He and Brendan share a room, and tonight Brendan will not be there when he goes to bed. I hope Adam isn't too lonely or sad. He loves, looks up to, and follows Brendan everywhere. And, Joe has been out of the state all week for work, so he's missing daddy too. But, on the bright side, he won't have to fight over toys tonight.

The "meet the teacher" night is tonight at Brendan's school. Since he is at camp all night, I will just go up there without him and try to find out what all he needs to know. I'm anxious to find out which teacher he will have this year. He is starting 1st grade. Hopefully it will be a smoother start this year than last year. There is a new principal too, so I'm crossing my fingers that communication and such between the school and parents will improve this year! But considering I was not informed about the meet the teacher night (had to track down the date/time info myself) and still do not have a school supply list, it's not looking too hopeful for much change. But we'll see.

Wordless Wednesday: 1st Lost Tooth!

Feels Like Home?!

Perhaps I've been working at my job too long? I am way too comfortable, apparently. I just returned from my lunch break, walked into my office, kicked off my shoes, and...wait! What am I doing?! I kicked off my shoes completely out of habit without thinking, like I do when I walk in my front door at home. lol There is something seriously wrong if my office feels like home to me.

Good thing I didn't take off my bra...that's the 2nd thing to come off when I walk in the door at home! LOL

Heat, Wind, and Summer Camp

OMG how many days is this 100+ temperature going to last?! I am dying here. The humidity makes it so much worse too. Joe laughed at me because I said it was too hot to let the boys swim in our little backyard pool, but it's true! I'm sure as heck not gonna sit out there to watch them. They didn't even ask to go out, so I think they agree.

Last night we had terrible wind. I woke up around 11pm and laid there listening to the wind. It sounded really bad. I even got up for a few minutes to turn on the tv and make sure we weren't having a tornado! LOL (we can't hear sirens from our house, so we have to check ourselves). This morning our patio table was on its side, and a big limb had split off from one of our trees into our driveway. The huge antenna on top of our house had been blown off...I noticed as I was backing out this morning that part of it was dangling off the back of the house. I didn't have time to go look closer and see how bad it was, I'll have to do that when I get home tonight. But we could have had much worse! Joe was driving to Iowa/South Dakota yesterday and drove through the storm there, and they were hearing about cars being blown over on their sides and such. Luckily we didn't have that problem!

Brendan started another camp this morning. I spent about 1/2 hour waiting in a high school parking lot for the camp bus to pick him up...it never came. There was one other family there looking for it too, but we both decided to drive the kids to the camp (making me very late for work) to see what happened. Turned out that the info about the bus picking them up was accidentally left on the website from last year, and that there was no plan for a bus this year because they had fewer kids enroll. So, I will have to drive him to and from the camp every day this week. It's not too terribly far (about 40 minutes from our house but only about 20 from my office), but still a little inconvenient. Especially with Joe out of town and me having to drive Adam to and from the babysitter too. So, the mornings will be pretty hectic this week! I just hope Brendan has a lot of fun. This day camp is more like a "real" camp than the other one he's been going to for the last 5 weeks. They even stay overnight Thursday night. And wouldn't it just figure that Meet the Teacher Night at his school is Thursday night too! Ugh! Doesn't it just figure. So I guess he will have to meet his teacher the first day of school. Crazy that school starts next Monday! This summer has flown by! I'm sure he will be let out of school early the first week though if this 100+ temp continues!

Doing the Happy Dance!

Just got back from this week's weigh-in, and had to share that I have now lost 20 pounds since May! Yippee!!! 12 more pounds to go to reach the final WW goal for me (but I am going to try to keep losing a little more after I reach that too). I'm excited, so I just had to share. lol