Making Dinner

I decided to grab a few shots of Garrison and Daddy peeling spuds for dinner tonight.

A few things...

First off Garrison would like to show you the new use he has for undies, they make great hats! And I'm very excited to say that we are now officially done with diapers. Over Christmas break Garrison decided he was done with them. We were worried about him going to daycare because if he has a single accident there they will put him right back in pullups. He's been there a whole week now and hasn't come home in different clothes a single day. We still put a pull up on him at night, but most mornings even those are dry. I'm sad to see him grow up, but glad that the struggle of this stage is over.





We had a death recently at our house. The steam mop I got for my birthday last year died. It was a sad thing. Justen being who he is decided he would "fix" it. Well, since you can't buy parts, that isn't possible. But I had to take some pictures of Justen, steam mop surgeon. After much debate we decided to replace it. We just love our steam mop, and when we got it Justen started doing the mopping. When I was going to get a regular old mop Justen was less than enthusiastic, which translates into I will have to do all the mopping again. So, we did a little research and decided to buy another one, a little different model. We had a bissel, the new one we bought is the Eureka Envirosteamer. I can't speak to it's longevity, but it is SO MUCH BETTER than our old mop in terms of performance, and we thought the old one was great.

January Meal Plan

Here is the menu I did for my latest once a month cooking (OAMC). I have to say, I love this way of thinking!! I make a huge mess in my kitchen and I'm totally exhausted when I'm done. BUT, I only have to deep clean the kitchen once. The whole rest of the month it's just wiping counters, and one or two loads of dishes A WEEK!! I put in links for recipes I found online. Many of the recipes are just my own normal ones that I've figured out the best way to freeze. This month's goal was to use up the already cooked turkey I put in the freezer at Thanksgiving, and the left over Christmas ham, as well as a huge banana squash I had in the basement. It went pretty well but I certainly couldn't have done it without Justen's help. The numbers after each meal like x2 mean how many of that meal is in the freezer. If it says +1GF that means I made an additional one gluten free for a certain somebody whose baby is due soon. If I counted correctly I made 46 meals or major portions of meals to put in the freezer. 41 of them are for us, which means this months cooking day should actually last us until the end of February at the rate we normally use them. Since I do still tend to cook on weekends, and some night s we are gone or eat left overs we only use 4-5 of the meals a week. This should almost get me to spring break when I have time to do another big day.

*Farmer’s Casserole (+1GF) (x2)

*Linguine Ala Anne (x2)

*Linguine Marinara (x1)

*Lentil Soup (+1GF) (x2)

*Meat Loaf (+1GF) (x2)- also made loaded spuds to go with these.

*Spinach, Cheese, and sausage stuffed shells (x3) - these are incredible! I doubled the recipe and ended up with three 8x8pans to freeze and a 9x13 we ate that night.

*Baked Ziti (x2)

*Hobo Casserole (x2)

*Lasagna (+1 GF) (x2)

*Light Turkey Tetrazzini (x2)

* Sicilian Supper (x1)

*Turkey Chunk Casserole (x2) -This is like turkey enchiladas except layered instead of rolled up

* Turkey & Wild Rice Soup (x2)

*Squash, Bacon & Leek Chowder (x2)

*French Bread Pizzas (X2)

*Chicken Fajita Kits(+1GF) (x2)

*Basil and Balsamic Pork Chops (x1)

*Citrus Pork Chops (x2)

*Taco Meat (x2) -To make tacos, burritos, or taco soup

*Armour Meat Balls (x4) Precooked-Ideas: Swedish gravy & noodles, mac & cheese, Soup, BBQ meatballs, Heat and serve.

*Spaghetti meat sauce (X1)

Christmas

The pictures are totally in reverse order. We started out at home and did our family gift exchange on Christmas eve. Garrison loves ripping wrapping paper off, and this year he actually played with the toys inside instead of just the paper and empty boxes. Then we headed up to Nanny's for the night. He LOVES playing with his nanny and he dressed up in her frosty the snowman outfit. In the morning he got his stocking. Justen managed to find a pair of mini safety glasses to put in it. Now Garrison can be just like Daddy when they work. There was also a pillow pet under the tree with his name on the tag. We told him to figure out what under the tree had his name on it. He was so busy trying to find his name he totally missed what it was. He likes his puppy and laid on it while watching a movie. On the way to Grandma's he got kind of upset at us because we left his new puppy at Nanny's. Next, we went over to Grandma Raine's and Grandpa Chris's house. But mommy forgot to get out the camera. Finally, we headed over to Great Grandma and Grandpa Selman's where he unwrapped his new fire truck. He drove it all over their house. He loved giving everyone their gifts, but I think he especially enjoyed Grandpa Selman's because Grandpa let him help unwrap them. He really likes ripping paper off things, even if he doesn't get the gift inside. So here we are, back at Nanny's for nap time. I figured I had better get these pictures up while I"m thinking about it or it may never happen. If I get around to it, I'll try and get some from Nanny's party up tonight, we'll see.

This month...

Garrison loves playing with Daddy's "guitar".


















And showing off his new train outfit from Oma.

Pillow Pets

Garrison has been very excited about something called a pillow pet lately. I'd never seen one myself, but Justen described it to me as a pillow with a stuffed animal head attached. Everyday for the last two weeks Garrison has been coming home from school telling me he wants a pillow pet like two of the girls have, and everyday I tell him his regular pillow works fine. Of course I was thinking this was just something silly and his focus on it will fade. It hasn't. Then the other day Justen and Garrison stopped at Walgreens to pick up my prescription and there they were. The often heard about but never seen pillow pets. Garrison was so excited to show them to Justen and tell him all about the ones the girls at school have, and how much he wants one. Justen thought about it for a minute, and luckily his common sense told him I'd kill him if he spent $25 on a silly stuffed animal. Now had it been a stuffed tractor pillow, he probably wouldn't have thought twice, but that's a story for another day. They came home and Garrison proceeded to tell me the account of how they saw them at the store, and how much he wanted one but Daddy said they were to expensive. As Justen described it, I got thinking, how hard can this be to make? So my quest today while I laid in the recliner (thank you crud that just doesn't want to leave me), was to find out what these things were and more importantly how to make them.
Here are the tutorials I've found out there in the blogosphere (seriously what did we do before the internet?)


Part 1
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-1.html

Part 2
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-2.html

And one about how to make one using a dollar store stick horse (I wouldn't use a unicorn like she did)
http://www.filthwizardry.com/2010/08/home-made-freaky-unicorn-pillow.html

I'm thinking about doing a brown puppy because I already have some brown fleece up in the cabinet. Or maybe a lady bug one because I have those colors of fleece too. Now, the real question... Will it actually happen in time for Christmas? I honestly don't know. We had planned on finishing the front landscape this weekend but now we're all sick. I had taken a day off last week in hopes of cleaning my house and all I managed to do was organize my fabric closet. So reality is it may not happen, but I figured I have a better chance of doing it if I post it here than if it's just one more idea running around in my head.


Edit to add: The other idea running around in my head... Could you put a zipper in it and use an actual pillow as stuffing? That way I could take the cover off and wash it. If anyone can figure out an easy way to do that please fill me in, because around here everything needs to be washable.

Our Anniversary

Last night was pretty fun and kind of funny so I thought I'd share. It was Justen and my anniversary. We've been married 8 years now. The sad part is we forgot. Nanny called at 4:30 and reminded us. Opps, but it's ok we're going out of town this weekend and already have plans and reservations made. But the funny part came when Justen tried to explain to Garrison what an anniversary was. He said it's the day we celebrate when mom and dad got married. Well, he made one big mistake, he said the word the word, celebrate. Garrison got really excited and proclaimed, "Celebrate! That means we go out to a restaurant! Lets go!" He is totally obsessed with eating at restaurants lately. Last night he decided the hamburger stroganoff we were eating was "fancy food" and that we were at a restaurant. Then when he cleared his plate (and scraped it in the trash) he told us that he was the bus boy at Mommy's restaurant. We didn't have the heart to tell him that we were going out alone this weekend (he knows we're going but we didn't discuss the going out to eat part). So we took him to burger king and used some coupons, I was proud of my coupon accomplishment. For $7 we got a meal to share with an extra burger for me, a happy meal for him, and three mini ice cream cones for dessert. What can I say, I love cheap! And Garrison got to play at the play land. It was a win-win. And after we went freezer shopping, and to home depot to pick some stuff up for the shed Justen is building. It was a really fun night.
Now as for what we have planned for our anniversary, we're both pretty excited. We realized a couple of weeks ago that we have not been anywhere that wasn't for work without Garrison since he was born. We haven't so much as gone to dinner or a movie in 2 1/2 years alone. We decided it was time to get out. So we're going down to Salt Lake for the weekend. We're excited to go see the SLC temple, we've never been to that one. We're excited to go see whatever new movie is showing in the Joseph Smith building. And we're going to go eat at two of my favorite restaurants, Ruby River and Olive Garden. YUM! And Justen really wants to take one of the horse drawn carriage rides around temple square, neither of us have ever done that so it should be fun. Oh, and a big thanks to Grandma, Nanny and Morgan who have it all worked out to take care of Garrison for the weekend so we can go! It's a long overdue vacation for us.