Rockin' Like A Hermit Crab

Boy, I am SO ready for school to be over!  I miss having my big girls at home, and I really enjoy having them here during the summer.  Granted, Madeline gets out of school and is home around 3:30 every day, but with the evening rush, I feel like I hardly see her.  Audrey has been living with her dad for the past 3 years, but it looks like she may be coming back here to live!  I am afraid to get my hopes up, as there is nothing "legal" yet, but I can't help but be excited at the possiblilty!!!  If all goes according to plan, we will be picking her up next Friday!  That thought just makes me giddy!!!  I know, I'm saying that I'm excited about bringing a teenager home, but I've been looking forward to having teenagers for a long time.  I really think teens are neat people in their own right, and I like them as a whole.  I know liking them from a distance is totally different from living with one, but like all parenting challenges, I know it will have plenty of wonderful things to offset the tough times.  Hmmmmm....  I may have to come back and read this in a couple of months when the novelty wears off and her hormones go into overdrive!

On a totally different subject, I have been working very hard on a menu for all of our meals.  I used a template I got from the Racketty Scrappety blog Megan has a wonderful blog with oodles of fabulous templates, if you are into digiscrapping, and has also put up a lot of her recipes for everyone to use :) I filled it in using recipes that are my family's faves. I have had a wonderful time with it - I am in week 3, and it has made my life so much easier! We have done a pretty good job of sticking to the menu for what to eat on a particular day, with a few exceptions. Tonight, I had planned to make Beef Burgundy, which is a crockpot recipe, but I didn't remember to put it together yesterday so I could just throw it on this morning. So, I'm subbing tomorrow night's Lasagne, and will put the crockpot meal on for tomorrow night. Which will be perfect, as the Spring Carnival at Madeline's school is tomorrow, and I'm helping!

Anyway, I have been trying to make a master cookbook for the 8 week meal plan, and it's going well - one week at a time. The breakfast menu is the same week to week, and includes homemade instant oatmeal packets, breakfast cookies, scones, muffins, French toast sticks, and pancakes/waffles. I made a ton of the oatmeal packets all at once, and that was so easy!  I make the French toast sticks with a free sample recipe I got from 30 Day Gourmet. They are very good, but I tend to make them without orange juice, just 'cause it's not something I keep on hand. Milk works beautifully, and I usually add in some instant powdered milk to add a little more calcium.  I froze each serving in zipper sandwich bags, then put them all into a couple of gallon freezer bags.  Very convenient!  Last week I made 3-4 weeks worth of scones and froze them. I also made a big batch of breakfast cookies, but I hate to say, they were incredibly popular and I don't have any left lol!  Here is a recipe card I made with the Orange Poppyseed Scone recipe I used - and it rocks!  



Chris, of Heavenly Scraps, was very graciously allowed me to offer this card that I made using paper from her "Rainbowz" kit.  The title font is Boingo, and the recipe font is Ziggy Zoe, and I made the paper that the ingredients are on. If you would like the full-sized 4x6 card, it is available HERE.

I will be posting more recipe cards as I get permission from the designers whose products I have used.  My plan is to print them up at Costco, then put them in one of the photo albums that has openings for 3 photos per page.  I am going to have a breakfast section, a lunch section, and a section for each week of dinners.  

Well, it's looking like naptime for me - I have been SO exhausted the past couple of days!  This two little ones have been running fevers, so I wonder if we don't all have some kind of minor bug...