pictures

I thought that I would have lots of pictures to share with you, but things didn’t go as planned this past weekend. All of us went to Gilbert, Minnesota for a youth retreat. I took the camera in hopes that I would be able to get lots of pictures of the boys playing, having fun and interacting with the teens. However, the first night we got there Josiah slept for maybe two hours. For the rest of the time I was in survival mode and ended up never taking the camera out of my bag.

I do have pictures of Garrison and Josiah enjoying the warm weather last week. There is also a picture of Thomas doing his yearly spring cleaning. (huge smiley face) Enjoy!

I'll be back

Just wanted to let everyone know that I won't be able to blog until the beginning of next week. Come back then and I'll have lots and lots of pictures for you. Have a wonderful weekend.

Who's out there?

I would love to know who reads my blog. I know about a handful of people who do, but I know there are more of you out there. I would love if you left me a comment, even if you only want to say "hi".

To leave a comment....

click on "comments" below this post
type your message in the white box
to leave your name you can either type it with your message and then comment as "anonymous"
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I look forward to hearing from you and while you're here I hope you enjoy learning about my crazy, wonderful life.

Garrison and Josiah

Don't...

...you...

...just...

...love...
...these...
...boys?

I...

...do!

This makes me laugh

This is what life is like with two children.

Colors

Last week our family did a fun little "project" together. Each day we wore a different color. Then for lunch we ate foods that were that color (or I added food coloring) and I read Garrison the story of Noah and the ark and colored the color of the day into a rainbow picture.

Monday: Red
We had grilled cheese, apples and red V8 juice. I added red food coloring to the butter before I toasted it. We didn't wear red on Monday. I didn't even think of it until Thomas came home from work and pointed out that he was wearing a red shirt. Then we thought it would be fun to wear the color too.
Tuesday: Orange
For lunch we had mac 'n cheese, oranges and orange V8 juice. (Notice that I even went as far as putting our food into coloring coordinating plates, bowls and utensils. I know, crazy, right?) Garrison in his orange shirt. Josiah in his orange shirt.
Thomas in his orange shirt. Garrison is still wearing his orange shirt, but you can't tell. Josiah, however, had an accident that's why he is in red.Wednesday: Yellow
For our snack that day we had vanilla pudding, vanilla wafers, bananas and I colored our milk yellow.
Garrison in his yellow shirt. Josiah had a yellow shirt on, but had an accident before I could get a picture.Thursday: Green
We had a chef salad, kiwi and I colored our milk green. I also learned something in doing this little "project", Garrison LOVES salad. He ate three bowls for lunch that day.Friday: Blue
We had pancakes that we added blue food coloring to and blueberries (not pictured).We all wore blue, but didn't get a picture of it. This is, however, a picture of a duck in our pancakes.
Saturday: Purple
Our weekend was crazy. Jackie came up to visit us and Thomas and I went to a symphony so we didn't eat anything purple. Although, I had grapes for the day. We also all wore purple, but didn't take a picture of that either. I really dropped the ball on the last couple of days, but we still had fun.

March's challenge

* I would like to thank everyone who left posts or called with helpful tips. I found that through this challenge I'm not the only one who struggles with this.

I've decided that going back to doing a menu is going to be incredibly helpful for me. I like to be organized and this is great. It also lets Thomas know what to look forward to. I can't just "wing" meals anymore. Having two kids won't allow me to that. My days get busy fast and before I know it it's dinner time and I haven't even thought about what to make. A menu will be great.

Thank you again. I'll let you know how the month goes.

Thomas put our family to a challenge for the month of March. NO EATING OUT! We have been a family that enjoys eating out. Some weeks we can go without eating out at all and then we have weeks where I think we eat out everyday. Now when I say eating out I mean going to fast food restaurants. Not that that matters, but I wanted to clarify.

I blame eating out a lot on myself. I tend to be a little lazy when it comes to making meals. My biggest problem is not knowing what to make. Well I guess I have lots of problems I forget to take out the meat, I don't have all the ingredients and Thomas hates that I'm always saying, "I have to go to Walmart again" or I go to make something and I hear "I'm not in the mood for that"or "I'm not that hungry."

When Thomas and I were first married it was so easy to make meals. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was because I was "being an adult" and now had someone to take care of and it was all new and exciting. But now 6 years and two kids later it feels more like a chore.

At one time in our marriage I wrote out a menu. I would sit down sometime during the weekend and put together this really elaborate menu. If we had sloppy joes in the beginning of the week I would make sure that we had something like hot ham and cheese a few days later so that we could use up the hamburger buns before they molded. I even went as far as putting what we were having for supper up on a white board so that Thomas could see what we were having and didn't have to ask me.

So now with this challenge I have questions for you. How do you guys plan suppers? Do you shop for groceries the same day every week? Do you buy groceries as you need them or do you buy for the week? Or month? Do you tend to make the same things or do you enjoy trying new things? I would love to hear new ideas.