Meals - Week 23

It was a routine meal week this week – everything was good, but nothing was ‘outstanding’. Oh well, some weeks are going to be like that. And since life seems to be getting faster and faster, good is . . . good enough.

Sunday: Veggie pasta with homemade cream sauce

Monday: BBQ burgers

Tuesday: BBQ pork chops with mashed potatoes

Wednesday: leftover pasta from Monday

Thursday: Chicken with rice and veggies

Friday: spaghetti and meatballs

Saturday: BBQ hot dogs

As you can see, we BBQ a lot when it’s nice out – summer seems to last a very short time around here, so we take advantage of it while we can J

Cheers! Kim

For a Good Cause - Head Shaving

This is what my oldest son Aidan looked like about a month ago: 

I’m biased, but isn’t he a good looking almost-teenager? J Other than the mop that lived on the top of his head – he and his brother have super thick hair, which is also slightly curly. Aidan’s been growing his hair for months now, in anticipation of this.

He took head-shave pledges for the Kids Cancer Care Foundation here in Calgary. This organization ensures kids dealing with cancer (and their siblings) get the chance to go to camp – it’s a great cause and definitely makes you realize how lucky you are – well, it makes me realize that anyway.

Aidan and 60 other kids (!) at school raised money and on June 9^th, they came home looking like this: 

What a difference!

Here’s a side by side of the before and after pictures so you can see the extreme change: 

I’m a proud Mom – Aidan raised more than $1000 for Kids Cancer Care, and overall, their school raised more than $30,000! Woohoo! Way to go everyone! J

Cheers!

Kim

Meals - Week 22 - and a shredded carrots recipe

Another week of successful meal planning – yahoo!

My goal at the beginning of the year was to eat a different dinner every night for three months - and while not every meal has been new and different, about 80% of the meals we’re making are different. And I did have a bump in my planning, but it's June - so I say I've officially accomplished my goal! J

That’s a huge accomplishment! It’s fun to pick new recipes – and everyone helps out where they can, so it makes dinner a bit more special.

Here’s our menu plan for the week:

Sunday: BBQ – sausages and baked potatoes. We use the BBQ a lot in the summer because the kitchen gets really hot. This is one of our go-to meals.

Monday:  Takeout Swiss Chalet. Mr. E was out of town so the boys and I ordered in. J

Tuesday: Crockpot Chicken with Olives – the boys and I prepped this before we left in the morning, and it was so nice to come home to an already cooked meal. We added some mashed potatoes and that was it!

Wednesday: Leftover French onion soup – we made this last Saturday and re-heated it today.

Thursday: Pork chops with shredded carrots – Mr. E BBQ’d (again! J) and I made a carrot side dish. There was a lot of cilantro in it and the boys weren’t big fans, but they sure got their veggies! J

Image and recipe from Fine Cooking

Friday: Takeout pizza – I know I’ve said this before, but by the time Friday rolls around, we’re just exhausted and need something super simple for dinner. Takeout pizza isn’t the healthiest choice, but every once in a while is okay.

Saturday: BBQ burgers and hot dogs. Like I said, we BBQ a lot in the summer J

Enjoy your week!

Cheers,

Kim

Meals - Week 21 and Two recipes (!)

So, a while back I talked about my meal planning challenges - mostly because of the kitchen being unusable (you can see that here and here), and partly because life was so busy I ccouldn't seem to find ten minutes to plan.

Well, neither of those things have changed, unfortunately, but I have planned our meals for the past few weeks. And somehow that is helping make life seem less chaotic. J

The kitchen is slowly moving ahead – the next time I think I can take on a fairly extensive project while working full time and trying to keep the kids on time for after-school activities, can someone please remind me about this? (gently, please J) Trying to be Superwoman isn’t helping anyone at home. Seriously. I'll show you how it's going later this week.

Okay, back to food – here is the recap of what we ate a few weeks ago (week 21, according to the title).

Monday: super simple pasta dinner – noodles and sauce.

Tuesday: Chicken fajitas – using home-made fajita seasoning. Eating with your hands is always a hit with kids J

Wednesday: Citrus Pork Chops with mashed potatoes

Thursday: Cheesy Baked Shells and Broccoli. This recipe comes from Real Simple and turned out really well. Next time, I’ll add some chicken since there was no protein and that isn’t a good thing for growing 12 year olds.

Image and recipe from Real Simple

Friday: Wendy’s take out – after a long week at work and at home, this was a quick and easy meal. I wish I could say I had a baked potato and chili, but I can’t. L

Saturday: French Onion Soup – this was our evening with no kids, so we had one of our go-to ‘adult’ meals. We don’t order French onion soup when we go out for dinner anymore because nothing compares to this version. It must be the white wine J

image and recipe from Fine Cooking

So, it was a good dinner week J It really does make the week feel less rushed and busy, which is always a good thing.

Cheers! Kim

Spring is Here!

Pretty much, anyway.

On Monday I showed you the flowers that bloomed for me on Mother’s Day: 

I thought I’d take a few more pictures and show you what spring looks like for us right now:

My lupins are growing like crazy

And my rhubarb is too (it’s already about 4 inches taller than that – it’s growing a few inches a day J).

And spring in our house wouldn’t be complete without nerf guns everywhere. The kids have ‘battles’ with each other and the kids next door. Mr. E has to be REALLY careful when he cuts the grass, so he doesn’t chew up any bullets. Thankfully they’re orange J

It’s tough living in a cold climate – my tulips are almost ready and they’ve been blooming in other parts of Canada for weeks now. My Mom has already had rhubarb desserts, but mine won’t be ready for another three weeks, at least. It looks like a few of my plants didn’t survive the winter, and it was a mild one. L

And . . .

The weather channel is calling for snow tonight – yup, snow. Planting anything outside before the May long weekend is definitely tempting fate here.

It takes so long for spring to arrive here, and fall shows up way too fast.

I may have to visit the garden centre on Monday though, just to pick up a few new plants to try out. I have some plans for our front entrance – I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out.

Have a great long weekend!

Cheers! Kim

Meals and Planning – an Update

Meal planning is such an amazing time saving concept – but it’s tough to execute when you feel stretched and overly busy.

And, you need a usable kitchen to cook in J

Our kitchen update is ongoing, and taking longer than I thought, so the kitchen has been a mess and pretty much unusable. 

I’ve fixed that by moving the cupboard doors to the garage where I’ll continue to paint them. (more details about the project that here). So, we now have our counter space and table back.

Anyway, back to bad meal planning . . .

I haven’t done it in weeks. I talked about how I fell off the planning wagon back in March, and I really haven’t done it since. I do plan on changing that – maybe next week J

The plan of having a new meal every night just isn’t going to happen – not with a full time job and a full time commute and being a full time mom and full time wife and sometimes DIY’er. So, I’m going to have to be more flexible.

We have frozen pizzas in the house now, and frozen meatballs for spaghetti night.

And that’s okay.

Cheers! Kim

Mother's Day

We had an absolutely beautiful Mother’s Day. The weather was glorious – not a cloud in the sky, but it got a bit breezy later in the day. We set up the patio furniture and enjoyed a glass of wine on the deck, in style. J

Mother Nature gave me these for Mother’s Day:

Both my daffodils and prairie crocuses bloomed for the first time on Sunday – the perfect bouquet.

And the boys gave me lots of nail polish. They picked the colour that they wanted me to wear to work on Monday:

I know it’s a day late, but Happy Mother’s Day to everyone.

Cheers! Kim