Menu Plan Monthly!

It's SEPTEMBER!  Fall is in the air...Kinda. I have been waking up to 70* temps outside and that is very nice.  I can't wait for it to cool off more so I can wear my robe again in the mornings and light a fire in the fireplace. 

For this month I went ahead and planned a monthly menu and did my grocery shopping all at once. I got lots of questions from the check out clerk. Do you have a large family? Do you live way out of town? Is it like a vacation when you go home? WHAT? A vacation? Don't I wish. Such a strange question. She was really nice just couldn't wrap her mind around why I would shop once for the month.  I planned out 20 meals and there will be 4 family dinners, throw in a few leftover nights and quick meals that I have on hand we should be good for the month other than maybe stopping for milk and some fruit. So, here is the big plan:

• BBQ Chicken in the oven, mashed potatoes and veggies
• Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and green beans
• Chicken pot pie with rice
• Pork steaks w/ scalloped potatoes and a veg
• Crock pot chicken teriyaki with rice
• Green Chile Stew
• Lentil Tacos
• Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas
• Italian Wedding Soup
• Swiss Steak
• Homemade Pizza
• Fish tacos (Mahi-Mahi)
• Israeli Cous-Cous Mac & Cheese & Pork Chops
• Garlic Herb Roasted Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and veg
• Chicken & dumplings (using leftover chicken)
• Cheeseburger Soup
• Salisbury Steak (in the crock pot--this is a new recipe)
• Eggplant Parm w/ Pasta and Salad

Did you notice the green chile stew and the enchiladas?  It is green chile time here in New Mexico.  The smell of the roasting chile is almost intoxicating. We will be eating lots of Quesadillas for lunch and putting chile in anything else we can think of.  Anyway, some of the meals are carryovers from last month that I never made, like the poor fish tacos, they are so good I don't know why I haven't made them yet. It's not like they are a lot of work or anything. We have decided to start doing family dinners on Sunday nights from now on, it will probably be more like early afternoon since its a school night and all. We plan those meals weekly so I will be going back to the store for meals, if I need to. I am going to try to do some grocery haul videos to post as I go. 

I am going to try to do better with making breakfasts for the family and not buying so much cereal. I made some granola and the family LOVED it so that will be on our breakfast menu often, along with yogurt, fruit, pancakes, waffles and eggs in various ways. 

I hope your September is getting off to a great start! 

Jen

Homeschool, Food and Other Stuff

We started our homeschool year on August 3rd, so we are almost a month in. I am loving this year. This is my second year homeschooling the twins and they are in the third grade. They aren't loving it so much yet because it is a little more challenging than second grade. This year they have a lot more memorization type work and they have a lot of writing to do. Compositions and book reports. They are not liking that.One of them is more hesitant than the other to write when she has to make up a story on her own. I just encourage her the best I can and she has been doing pretty well with it and each time she writes a story she is so proud of herself for doing it and that is so good to see. And they are not a fans of learning cursive. I try to talk it up and show them how pretty cursive writing can be, but its yet to change their minds. I haven't decided how hard I am going to push it. I think they need to learn it but, we'll see it's too early to give up on it yet anyway. 

I homeschooled our son Nick from fifth grade until he graduated, with the exception of the eight grade, and I have never been this excited to teach before. I am not sure what the change is. I'm 12 years older than when I first started, could that be it? I don't know, I am just glad I am excited about it. It makes the days a lot better. 

So, I didn't do a great job keeping you posted on my menu plan for August. August was another month that I just blinked and it was gone. Just like that! Homeschool took up most of my time and I had several out of town appointments, you know how it goes. 

Here is a list of a few things I made:

Chorizo and Potato burritos (Mexican style chorizo)

Homemade Spaghetti Sause (My Grandma's recipe) A huge pot. Froze a bunch of it.

Spaghetti and Rotini with the sauce.

Pazole with pork (One of my favorite meals eva) 

A big pot of Chili Mac ( a new Pintrest recipe) It was a hit, it made so much it almost lasted too long. I froze the rest. 

And my husband was out of town for a week and I don't know about you but when the husband isn't home I do as little cooking as possible! While he was gone we ate one of those Viola frozen dinner meals, Beef Lo Mien one. The girls loved it, me not so much. I didn't like the texture of the meat. Anyway, I made another chinese frozen meal, cause I like Chinese food, the girls opted for PB&j's which was fine with me. We even had macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner one night. 

I joked with Rab that I was going to be as lazy as possible while he is gone. I really was planning on weeding the front yard because it was horribly grown over with weeds from all the rain. The morning he left I went to turn on our evaporative cooler and it just made a noise and would not turn on. It was 105* that day. My wonderful brother and stepdad came over and fixed it for me. Then I was doing some cleaning and had my phone on the back of the recliner and when I was done cleaning I sat in said recliner and reclined. Yes, I did. I seriously cracked my phone. Long story short and 3 long trips to Walmart I have a brand spanking new phone that took no less than 12 hours to get working. It was a mess. Then the cooler wouldn't turn on again. My poor brother had to come over every day and get it going for me. Some other random chaotic stuff happened that I won't bore you with but I will say that I will never say I plan to be as lazy as I can when my husband goes out of town, again. Seriously, things are so much better when he is home. And when he got home he weeded the front yard because I never got around to it. 

Jen

A Weekend Getaway!

All by ourselves. No kids. No work. No dogs. No cat. No goats. No chickens. Just me and my husband. It has been years since we have gotten away together, just the two of us, on purpose. It wasn't a work trip or some meeting we had to go to that we try to squeeze at least a dinner in. We made reservations people. My mom offered to take the kids for 4 days and 3 nights. A late anniversary gift to us.  I got on the phone immediately to make the reservations. I wasted NO time.  AT ALL. 

We used to try to get away once a year, usually around our anniversary. We would go to a quaint little cabin in the forrest. Really cute, rustic cabins and when we were talking about where to go we immediately thought of those cabins. Then played with the idea of going to Bisbee, Arizona. Then I remembered the Georgetown Cabins.  And we settled on that. It was a pretty quick decision. Bisbee would have been nice too, but we haven't gotten away together for a long time and the idea of just us and a cabin sounded really nice. 

Since we have never been to these cabins before we didn't really know what to expect. They are on private property in the Gila National Forrest. When we were trying to find them we weren't really sure we were going the right way. We decided we would travel another mile and if we didn't find it we would turn around, thinking maybe we missed a turn or something. Then there was a turn in the road and we look up and there they were! I cannot explain how gorgeous it was and the picture really doesn't do it justice at all. But it was a gorgeous site! It's like a little village in the middle of the forrest! There are six cabins total, the one we stayed in was the one at the top right.   

                                                                                            

Here are some closer shots of it. 

It was way better than what we expected. It really was nice! They have a full kitchen, it didn't have an oven but the grill could be used as one, there were plates, glasses and even foil in the kitchen drawers. There was a lovely little porch area with a grill and table. They also have a solar heated soaking tub that has dead see salts in it. Amazing! Another plus to these cabins was the free wifi and directv. They even had a dvd collection and books to read. The owners did a great job with these cabins! They thought of the little details that really make your stay nice. Oh and there was a sitting area with a gas fire pit outside and this was our view.

We had a great time just hanging out together. We went on a little outing, we talked, cooked together, watched movies and played cards. Canasta. 

We had to bring all our own food. For lunch one day we had canned Hormel Tamales. Classy, I know. Rab used to eat them when he was a bachelor and was craving them. It's been 15 years since he has had them and will probably be another 15 till he has them again, they were that good. 

 For dinner we we decided to step up the class a little and grilled some really nice NY Strip steaks. They were so good. 

It rained everyday that we were there. That was nice and refreshing. The clouds would build up over the mountains around the same time everyday. We even got to see the super moon up there.  

It was a great getaway, we loved every minute of it! But it was nice to come home to the kids, the dogs, the cat, the goats, and the chickens. Work...ah not so much. 

Jen

Cinnamon-Raisin Graham Bread

Anyway, today I was staring into my pantry to find something to make and I saw the Graham flour and decided to make the recipe on the back of the bag. It just passed the sell by date so I have to use it up....I have 3 bags of it. I have raisin bread on my grocery list so I am thinking that this Cinnamon-Raisin Graham Bread will fix my craving. Raisin bread reminds me of my Granny. The first time I ever had it was during one of the summers spent with her down the shore. I miss those carefree summer days that seemed to last forever, the suntans, beach hair, hanging out with the Jersey family, getting into trouble with my favorite cousin, but most of all hanging with Granny. She was a sweet but tough lady that is very missed. So, about twice a year I get a craving for some raisin bread toast and it has to be the raisin bread in the red bag.

This recipe was pretty easy to make and it smelled amazing even before it was being baked, there is just something about the smell of warm molasses.  

In mixer bowl simply mix:

2-21/2 cups of unbleached white flour

1 package Active Dry yeast

 2 tsp. ground cinnamon

 1/4 ts. ground ginger

 In a small saucepan combine, 1 c. milk

3/4 c. water

1/4 c. molasses

1/2 c. salt

3 Tbsp. butter

Heat and stir until warm, around 115*F

 Add mixture to flour. Mix for 3 minutes. Stir in 3 c. Graham Flour and 1 c. Raisins, mix to combine.  

 Then change to a dough hook and knead for 5 minutes.

 

Put in a greased bowl, cover and let rise for one hour in a warm place.

Separate dough into two

pieces, form each into 

a ball and let rest for 10 minutes. Prepare two pie pans and add balls of dough to each pan and press down to form a 6 inch diameter. Let rise another 30 minutes. Then bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. 

       Then enjoy with lots of butter! 

Oh! And today the girls made a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the freezer. A whole loafs worth. They were so happy and probably a bit surprised that I let them do it all by themselves, but I did.  I saw this idea on Jamerrill Stewart's vlog. It's just like uncrustables with the crust. These will be great for quick lunches. 

Jen

White Sands National Monument

In July we took a trip to White Sands National Monument. It is part of a 275 square miles field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, smack dab in the middle of the desert and it is absolutely beautiful! We have gone several times and spent the day sledding down the dunes but this time we got to spend the night! It was a campout! It was a whole process to be able to camp there. You have to be part of an organization, they don't just let families camp there. This was a work trip for me. I work with the New Mexico FIESTA Project as a Family Contact. As a Family Contact I provide training and support groups for foster and adoptive parents, and we do family activities too. Creating community for families formed through adoption, like mine. 

We had a blast! Several families from the different areas we serve came and we chatted while the kids wore themselves out sliding down the dunes over and over and over again. They didn't even want to stop for S'mores... S'MORES people! They were just having too much fun! When it got too dark to sled anymore we all went to our respective campsites and called it a night. Well, there was quite the lightning storm going on so my husband and I took a blanket up to the top of the dune and watched the lightning. It was nice. The girls ended up coming up there too for a little bit. I could of slept up there if I wasn't so scared of scorpions. So, we went to our tent. 

Then the storm got closer. And closer. And closer. Our tent was blowing over, the wind was not letting up. There we were at 1 AM taking down our tent, hoping not to wake the baby in the camp next to us. So, with the girls moved to the van and the tent down. And down for good because the poles snapped. We tried to get comfortable in the van. We made it in just before the rain came. After it stopped Rab slept outside the van door on my cot. I slept or tried to sleep in a very tight space on the floor of the van, I quickly gave up on that and moved to the passenger seat. The dark haired child slept under one of the back seats while the blonde one got one of the whole seats to herself to sleep on. She was unmovable. When we woke up at the crack of dawn she said, "That was a very restful sleep." Say what?? She was the only one. 

We had pop tarts for breakfast, visited with the other families and headed out around 9 AM. We stopped at BK for an early lunch and came home and had a very lazy day! 

As I am writing this it dawned on me that every single time we have gone camping it has rained. And I'm not talking a slight drizzle, there has been times where it has been hail and a torrential downpour! 

Menu Plan Confessional

I only made 6 things on my menu plan for July. I know. I made the black beans, Glug, Coconut Lime Chicken, Chick Pea Curry, Meatloaf and baked Ziti. July kinda turned in to a crazy month. A good one but crazy.

It started off with some great friends visiting. They brought us a smoked brisket that was absolutely amazing. Then a camping trip with our son and his girlfriend and the amazing brisket. The twin's birthday.  Then our daughter, her boyfreind and grandson visited. Mix in a little work, a few days out of town and another camping trip. I have been to the store and Little Caesar's way more than I'd like to admit. 

August is going to be another month that may be a little crazy and unpredictable so I am going to plan by the week this month. That means at least 4 trips to the store...UGH. Such is life. 

For the first week in August I am going to carry over some meals that I planned in July. So this week I will make:

Smoked sausage and potato hash
Sesame Chicken (one of my favorite recipes eva)
Lentil tacos
BBQ Pork Chops and Rice Pilaf
Fish tacos

We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

Jen

Update on Baby.

No, not a real human baby, our goat named Baby. She came with that name. So, I had talked about how she was getting not so calm when I would milk her in my post The Day She Threw the Cat. Well, it never got better, it only got worse. We no longer could just feed her sweet feed and pet her head while we were milking. She was getting pretty rough and she is horned so that can be a problem. We started to halter and leash her to be able to lead her to the stand that we moved out of the goat pen. The leash was helpful because we could restrain her a little with it. As far as we can tell there isn't a problem physically she is just a grumpy, grumpy goat. She is a mixed breed definitely has some nubian in her but not sure what else. She just doesn't have a good temperament.

When we first got her she would kick when we milked. We lost several buckets of milk from that. I broke that habit by squeezing her tendon on the bend of her leg. It only took a few times and she stopped for the most part. And then she did really well for a while. Then she started getting antsy and just not having it. We would have to pull her out of the pen. She knew the routine but didn't want to do it. I really don't know when she kidded. Kidded? Is that right? I am so not a farm girl. Anyway, I don't know how long she has been in milk so we decided to stop milking her. I read about the best ways to do it and there is some controversy on the subject, seems there is no one right way to go about it. Here's what we did. We started to milk every other day for a week then went to every third day and then stopped. We are going to breed her in the fall with our Billy Goat Danny. So, she deserves the rest. 

I still have a lot of milk in my freezer that I still plan on making cheese with and maybe some lotion. I don't know. It has been a very busy summer and I haven't had the chance to get to that yet. Hopefully soon. 

Jen

Carnival Party!

I love to plan a party. And this one was fun to plan. There are so many great ideas on Pintrest and I used them!

My girls turned eight this month! Which is really hard to believe, they were just four like yesterday!  I gave them some ideas for birthday parties, Frozen, Dr. Seuss or a carnival party. I was hoping for the carnival party or Dr. Seuss, oh the places I could go with that...but they decided they wanted a carnival party. So the planning began.

I planned six games. There was the balloon burst, ring toss, lollipop pull, spray away, ping pong toss and knock down the cans game. I also had two quart size mason jars that had jelly beans and gum balls in them and everyone got to guess how many and the winner got the jar of goodies. I put clown noses in a clear glass vase, like a hurricane, and taped a clown what is different game to it and they all got to wear clown noses, that was cute. The kids were really having a great time. I ordered tickets to hand out as they played the games to get their "prizes." The prizes were dollar store items in little zip lock bags. I took a box that I had and put the wrong side of wrapping paper around the box, it was Christmas paper if you were wondering why I used it wrong sided. Then I took clothes pins and a dab of gorilla glue and attached them to the box and hung the prizes from them. You can kinda see it in the photo below between the garage doors. Those are the birthday girls in the photo.

balloon burst

 I did a photo booth with all kinds of different props. My favorite prop was the strong man dumb bell. Which unfortunately one side was popped by my blonde haired child at her first attempt to play balloon burst. My fault for having it so close. She still got tickets. To make the dumb bell I took an empty wrapping paper roll and two balloons, taped the balloons to the wrapping paper roll and spray painted it black. Cute huh?

There was also a concession stand, with bags of popcorn, whole pickles, cracker jacks, animal crackers and cotton candy. The kids got to "spend" their tickets on whatever they wanted.

The photo above was the center piece for the girls table. The wind kept blowing and knocking down the cracker jack boxes. Speaking of wind, everyone was having a great time and the winds started to really blow and then the rain came. It's monsoon season here in New Mexico and I thought it would be a great idea to have an outside party.....We were doing photo booth pictures and the wind started getting bad, as you can see..My poor photo booth. It got way worse but I won't post those pictures.

We had to pack it up and head inside in a hurry. I think I was more bummed than the kids because I had so much work put into it. This mama was tired!!! But they are so worth the work! We did get this shot of our family before the wind got bad.

The girls really are twins. They just look nothing alike! I love when people ask me questions like whats the age difference between them? And I get to say 2 minutes and then get a puzzled look form them. We started attending a new church so I have been getting those questions a lot lately.

We went inside and had corn dogs and little bags of chips. Then it was cake time and then they opened presents. I did cupcakes just because its easier to serve that way. I didn't serve ice cream this time and since it got moved inside I am kinda glad I didn't, last year I did and I portioned it out in muffin wrappers the night before and covered them with plastic wrap so when it was time for cake and ice cream you just put it on the plate with the cupcake and voila. So easy.

Even though our carnival party got rained out it was still a good time. One of the girls told me this was the best day of their life. Love that.

Jen

Camping Part 2

It was hot in the forest. I have to admit that we spent a lot of the time in the motor home. If we weren't out riding, walking the dogs or tossing the ball around, we were in the air conditioned motor home. I have to say it was nice to have the option! We played games and talked.

Some good friends of ours live close to where we were so they came and spent the afternoon with us. Got us to venture outside where the sun and fresh air was. So there we were sitting outside under the canopy visiting and it started pouring down rain and hailing. It was insane! Back inside we went. It rained for a long time. The wind caught our canopy and chairs and blew them all around. We still had a nice visit, just inside with the ac. No complaints here;)

Here is a shot of our dark haired girl. Think she was tired? 

They had such a blast running up and down hills, playing "hide & sneek" and looking for pine cones.  

We wonder why we don't do this more often. 

Jen

Camping part 1

Sleeping in a tent on the hard ground with pinecones making lasting indentions on my back is not my idea of a good time. Don't get me wrong I love to camp, I just like to be comfortable while doing it. Really comfortable. And port a potties are not my friend. 

This was our the first time taking the motor home on a trip. We went to our spot in the Gila Wilderness. It was Rab, the twins, my son Nick and his girlfriend and me. We loaded up supplies and the ATV and dirt bike and hit the road. 

We had a great time. Roasted GIANT marshmallows over the fire and made s'mores. You can't camp without s'mores. It got a bit messy. 

We Went on ATV rides. There are a thousand trails out there to ride and we rode about 237 of them. It was a blast. Except the time we went up the mountain and it got a bit rocky, it got so rocky we didn't want to go back the way we came. Nick wanted to make his own trail and I said no way, man. We ended up making our way down the mountain ok but had to ride on the main road to get back to camp. It was an adventure. I had the dark haired child with me and she is one that if you ask her what's wrong she says, "I don't even know" so I asked her if she was worried and she said, "yes," flat out yes. She was scared we were gonna be lost forever. Once we got back to camp she told the story over and over to her sister. It was like a fishing story without any fish, she stretched the truth a little bit. It was pretty funny to hear. 

Jen

Fourth of July

This was an unusual Fourth of July for our family. We usually host a BBQ and have friends and family over. This year is was just my little family of four. Everyone was busy or just wanted to be home. I can understand that, I felt that way myself for some reason. It was different but nice.

We still bbq'd. We had pork chops, roasted baby bell peppers and red onions, grilled jalapenos and  macaroni salad. We still did our annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, our family tradition. Then we sat outside to watch the firework show. The town fireworks are done from the fairgrounds, we have a pretty good view from our house so we watch from here and avoid the traffic. Then we did some of our own. We got done doing our fireworks just as it started to rain. And boy did it rain! Our neighbor said we got an inch, which is awesome! It always seems to rain on July 4th here, it's the beginning of Monsoon season.At least we got to enjoy the show first. Here are a few shots of our nigh. 

Sparkler art!

Roman Candles

More Roman Candles, my favorite. 

The Red, White and Blue. The symbol of our freedom that we are so blessed to have.

I hope you had a wonderful and safe Holiday.

Jen

Menu Plan Monthly

Why monthly? Because going to the grocery store exhausts me! Really, it does. It's the finding a parking spot, walking 3 miles to get in the door, wrangling two 7 year olds, the people, the lack of cashiers, the walking, oh, and the people. Then you have to come home and lug all the groceries in, put them away and then it's almost always dinner time so I make pb&j's and call it a day. It's exhausting. So I only do it once a month with the occasional stop to get some lettuce and almond milk or the 5 other things I forgot to get when I did my monthly shopping. 

We don't have too many options for grocery stores in my little town. Just two. One is more expensive but locally owned and the other store is a store that will go unnamed but you know it. Oh yes, you do. The locally owned store has great sales that I do shop when I am feeling particularly inspired to save money but the other store has everything you need, its one stop shopping. When you don't like shopping that's a great thing. It's kinda worth putting up with all the people and the walking.

And I only have to menu plan once a month. I'm a foodie and love to cook so that part isn't the selling part for me because it kinda feels like it stifles my creative cooking juices. If I really want to try something new I will get it when I stop for bananas halfway through the month or start next months list early, like I did for this month. 

This is the big plan for July:

Israeli Cous-cous & cheese w/ pork chops and a veg

Meatloaf (w/ hamberger and pork sausage) mashed potatoes & gravy, corn and green beans.

Sesame Chicken (my favorite!)

Lentil tacos (this is a new one for me)

Black beans ( I use the pioneer women's recipe- tweaked a little)

Black bean and brown rice burgers (these are surprisingly good)

Glug (our version of spaghetti carbonara- A family favorite)

Chick Pea Curry (new recipe) & rice

BBQ Pork Chops, rice pilaf (my Mema's recipe)

Crock pot Chalupas (new recipe)

Farmer's Pork Chops w/ Salad

Steak Sandwiches

Pork Ribs (done on the BBQ) corn on the  cob and salad

Pork Steak w/ au gratin potatoes and salad

Mahi Mahi  Fish Tacos (done on the grill) (these are the best tacos)  w/ mexican street corn

I like to have some meals prepped and in the freezer for those busy days:

Baked Ziti

Shepard's Pie (A family Favorite)

Chicken Teriyaki (ready for the crock pot)

That's only 19 meals and there are 31 days in July, I know. My family, my mom, brother and sister and their families all get together once a week for family dinner. I love that we do this, its really special time. We eat,the cousins play,the women play canasta while the men go on "man walks." We decide on a weekly basis what we are going to make and who brings what, and trust me I try not to have to go to the store!!!! Then there are leftover days, at least once per week so that brings me to 27 meals. Our son is coming to stay with us for a few days while he is on vacation from work, so I let him pick the meals he wants me to make and he hasn't told me yet...AND our daughter and her boyfriend and my grandson Fionn are coming to visit all the way from Mississippi this month. SO EXCITED and I will let her pick her meals too. Guess I will be going to the store a few times this month, but they are worth it!

The Garden

We ordered seeds, plants and plant food in April. Picked out the plot, tilled it, fenced it waited until the last frost and then we planted it. Rab spent the better part of two days running soaker hose to every plant. The garden was coming along good. Things were growing, we had some snow peas. The girls were so excited. We go out and check on them the next day and they were GONE. Just gone. I was hoping the girls ate them but they didn't. As the days went by we notice plants being broken and nibbled on. Then one morning we went out and saw that the watermelon plant was gone. GONE. Along with the honeydew, some corn, the zucchini, patty pan and other things. How disappointing! The blonde child was crying. Its a lot of hard work to plant and care for a garden to have rabbits and squirrels steal you plants.

We've taking some measures to deter the rodents and we bought some more plants. Straight neck squash, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin and cherry tomato. The rabbits and squirrels haven't touched my tomato plants yet, I just wanted to add a cherry tomato. They haven't touched many green beans, too much corn and they seem to be leaving the onions alone. They took every sweet potato but have left the other potatoes alone. I had high hopes for this years garden, hopefully its not too late. Oh, the struggles of not being a farm girl.

Jen

Summer Break; Week One

Why not make a play dough snowman on your first day of summer  break?  

During our first week of summer we slept a little later, made homemade play dough and flubber, watched a little extra tv and stayed up late. I really have to fight the urge not to send them to bed at 8 O'clock. Sharp. I really want to but it's still daylight so I haven't. I am one of those moms that needs a little no kid time in the evenings just to chill out and relax. Maybe even an uninterrupted conversation with the husband.

My girls are twins and they seriously could not be more different. One is blond, the other brunette. One is right handed, the other left. One has straight hair, the other curly. And the list goes on but I'll spare you. We went to the library this week and they were able to pick out four books each. One picks out cutesy little books like What if You Give a Mouse a Cupcake and the other picks out books like The History of Time. Could not be more different!! I am just glad they like to go to the library and pick out books. Score.

We also got to do something really cool as a family. Like once in a lifetime kinda cool,  well for the average Joe anyway,  I don't want to talk about it now but I will soon and maybe one day you will be able to see it, if we make the final cut. Fingers crossed. :)

I am looking forward to more weeks of summer break. As of June 30th I will be free from one of my jobs so I will have lots more time to do things I want to do. I am planning some sewing projects with the girls, I want to paint my living room and totally revamp my office that is in shambles. And I have a freezer full of goat milk that wants to be turned into yogurt and cheese. I may not be a farm girl but I know my way around the kitchen so that should be fun. I'll tell you all about it.

Jen