Keeping Up With...Food (Menu Plan 6/1 - 6/7)

I took a few weeks off from menu planning.  Well not really planning, but writing the posts.  Honestly there wasn't much going on with our menu.  We have been so busy that most of our meals have been freezer meals, use up what we have or eating out.  We've had a ton of parties and a ton of fun the past month!

But with that I have fallen off the eating well wagon and that ends tomorrow.  I have set a goal to be under my calorie goal every day in June.  Last time I tried to go 30 days I made it 28 and was really proud of myself.  I'm really hoping to make it the full 30 days but we'll see, we have a festival on day 27.  I of course want to lose some weight in this month but I really just want to feel better, sleep better and be able to keep up with these very active boys of mine who have the next 12 weeks off!!

Here's what we're eating this week:
Monday - Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff
Tuesday - Taco Tuesday for AJ's birthday!
Wednesday - Sausage & Zucchini Skillet
Thursday - Quinoa Chicken Primavera
Friday - Shrimp Scampi over Zoodles
Saturday - Steak & Baked Potatoes
Sunday - Buffalo Chicken Salad - either in lettuce wraps or on buns

My water infuser broke somehow last week, boo!!  I was still using it all the time and was looking forward to using all the fresh fruits of the summer in it.  I haven't had time to get a new one yet, may need to get on Amazon soon!

As always, I'm linking up with Laura at Mommy, Run Fast & Jill at Fitness, Health and Happiness.  Go check them out for some more yummy recipes!  Have a great week!

Keeping Up With...Family (Memorial Day Weekend)

We had a fun filled and also relaxing Memorial Day weekend.  It is the unofficial kick off to the summer, although it didn't really feel like it this year since the boys still have school this week.  Next weekend feels like our summer kick off.

The weekend started Friday night with Adrian and I going out to dinner to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary (May 27, 2006).  My in-laws were able to come in and stay with the boys.  We headed to Easton to a steakhouse Adrian has been wanting to try, Texas de Brazil.  It is basically a meat buffet, with guys walking around with all kinds of meat and serving it to you.  It was delicious!  We overate and then tried to walk some of it off on a gorgeous night around Easton.  We ended the night with a few drinks at Carl & Sarah's house.

Saturday morning was the first morning we haven't had swim lessons in months.  It felt great to sleep in and not have any place to be!  We had a relaxing morning then started getting ready to head to Coshocton for our friends' wedding.  We had a fun time celebrating David & Juanita getting married (again).  The boys especially enjoyed the candy bar...and that they basically had candy & cake for dinner.  They were a little overwhelmed with the music and didn't really dance much.  But we all still had a great time!

Daniel loved these sunglasses!

Daniel & his buddy Nathan (his mom is the bride)

Zak playing guitar to get the party started

Me and the beautiful bride

Sunday we had designated as a day of recovery and a day of catch up around the house.  It wasn't a super fun day, but we got a ton of stuff done.  Daniel finished his homework log for the year, AJ made some progress on learning how to ride his bike & Adrian & I did a TON around the house!

Monday I was teaching in the morning, then we were going to head to Zoombeezi Bay for the first time of the year.  The weather forecast wasn't great, good chance of thunderstorms the entire time we would be at the park.  We decided to skip the park and have another "stay home day."  I had a blast teaching Zumba in the morning and catching up with some Zumba friends.  Then we played some board games, video games, practiced riding our bikes and got a few more things done around the house.  The weather turned out to be OK and we could have gone to the water park, but I was glad for the extra day to relax.

The talented instructors I was blessed to teach with on Monday

All in all it was a very fun and productive weekend!  We made some plans for our summer and are ready to finish up this last week of school and have some fun!

Keeping Up With...Family (Kalahari Weekend)

I have been hearing about Kalahari Water Park for a few months now and the boys are really into swimming and water slides right now.  When I saw a great Living Social deal for an over night stay there, I jumped on it.  We wanted to go for Mother's Day & Adrian's birthday, but that weekend had too many other things going on so we postponed a week and went the night of the 17th.

We got up bright and early on Sunday and hit the road.  We were able to start using the water park at noon and wanted to get there as close to that as we could.  We got to the area right around noon, stopped for lunch at McDonald's down the road & headed to the park.

Thankfully we were able to check into our room as soon as we got there.  We went and got changed into our swim trunks and headed to the water.  We spent the next 3 1/2 hours swimming, riding the lazy river, playing in the wave pool and going on slides.  Everyone started to get tired and hungry so we headed back to our room for a dinner break.

I can't say enough how much we enjoyed staying at the water park.  It was nice to be able to just walk a few feet to get to our room.  We were able to spend a lot more time playing since we could also take frequent breaks.  We packed a bunch of snacks to keep in the room to save some money, but we did splurge on pizza, fries and ice cream for our dinner.

After refueling we headed back to the water park for more fun.  It was starting to clear out a little, making the lines for the bigger slides shorter.  Daniel and I really enjoyed the two slides they had that 4 people rode together on one giant raft.  He and I did them a bunch of times on Saturday, especially at night when the lines were shorter.  AJ loved the wave pool, he spent a good chunk of time in it.  It was very cool because you were able to ride on a tube in the pool.  It was fun to watch AJ being splashed around in the waves in the tube. 

We were all in the pool and I noticed that Zak was starting to doze off (it was almost 9pm).  Adrian took him back to the room to try to get him to go to sleep while the big boys & I rode the giant tube slide one more time.  We went back to the room & swapped off, I stayed with Zak and relaxed while Adrian took the boys to play in the arcade.  By the time everyone finally got back, we all passed out shortly before 11pm.

You would think the late would mean sleeping in, but not for our boys.  They were up and raring to go and we had everything packed and in the car before the water park opened at 9.  We played for another 3 1/2 hours before everyone just got super tired and hungry.  We grabbed a quick lunch and hit the road back home, where Zak and I both napped for a good part of the trip.

All in all, it was a great weekend trip for us.  We haven't had a lot of time together with our crazy schedule the past few months so it was nice to just get away and reconnect.  The boys loved every minute of the water park.  AJ's favorite ride was the wave pool, Daniel's favorite ride was the big tube slides, and Zak's favorite ride was the big dumping bucket.  I really enjoyed the lazy river, especially since I got to go around it twice by myself!  I also really liked the tubes in the wave pool, that was a new thing to me.  We plan to go back again, hopefully this fall or early next spring!

Keeping Up With...Family (Celebration Weekend!)

Two weekends ago was a busy one for us!  We had lots of fun things to celebrate.  It was both Mother's Day and Adrian's birthday.  We also were invited to a birthday party for one of Daniel's friends.  We wanted to go away at first, but that wasn't going to work out for that weekend so we improvised instead.

We spent Friday night relaxing and recuperating from a very busy week.  We hung out with some friends after school, enjoying the beautiful weather.  We ordered dinner for everyone (Jet's pizza - yay!) and just lounged around playing video games and watching TV then sent the boys to bed early.  Adrian and I caught up on some DVR shows and also headed to bed early.

Saturday morning we let the boys blow off swim lessons and we had a relaxing start to our weekend.  The boys couldn't wait to give us their presents so we opened everything Saturday morning.  AJ and Daniel each made me a book for Mother's Day in school.  AJ also made a ceramic bowl & tissue paper flower.  They bought me a Donkey Kong video game (Daniel), Sorry board game (AJ), Paw Patrol board game (Zak), food processor & new essential oil diffuser (Adrian).  For Adrian, they bought Lego Lord of the Rings (Daniel), The Hobbit movie (AJ), new trucks (Zak) and a Blue Ray player for his new TV (me).  We spent the rest of the day playing with our new toys and games, playing outside and enjoying being together as a family.

My homemade gifts from the boys

Sunday I got up and cooked Adrian breakfast.  Then I headed out for Anna's birthday party with Daniel at Magic Mountain.  I had a fun time hanging out with a few of the other moms while the kids ran around playing.  We planned to take everyone on the go karts, but since I had on flip flops they wouldn't let me so Daniel rode with one of the other dads.  Soon after we headed home to finish celebrating with the family.  Adrian cooked dinner and we had (more) birthday cake.  Adrian and I also enjoyed half price Frappacinos both days - the new S'Mores ones are delicious!

Happy Birthday Anna!

Daniel's first time on go carts

It was a weird weekend for us since we didn't really celebrate on the actual day of Adrian's birthday or Mother's Day.  We actually both did quite a bit of work on that day.  But we made up for it on Saturday and then this weekend we finally were able to get away as a family.  Recap on that coming soon!!

Keeping Up With...Family (School Updates)

I skipped this update last week because I honestly didn't have anything to write about.  We did our normal routine then last weekend we did chores around the house all weekend.  Our weekends are jam packed for the rest of the month and now June is starting to fill up as well.  So we used our one free weekend to do a bunch of stuff around the house.  We also relaxed because the month of May is going to be a marathon!

This past week was super busy with teacher appreciation at AJ and Daniel's school.  They spent the week dressing up with different themes, bringing in gifts for the teachers and telling them how much they appreciate all they did this year.  Since I volunteer on the PTO Board, I was very busy as well this week between making and buying things and volunteering in the school.  But it's all worth it.  Teachers do an amazing job and don't always get the credit (not to mention the pay) that they deserve!

Hats off! to our wonderful teachers

 

In the midst of this craziness, I finally finished all of the paperwork and officially registered Zak for preschool next year.  He will go to a different school than Daniel did because I wanted to find an afternoon program for him to make our mornings a little bit easier.  He will go two days each week for about 2 1/2 hours.  I alternate between excited to have some time to myself and upset that my baby is growing up.  He's excited and can't wait to start!!

And as if that wasn't enough excitement, Zak also started back at ice skating lessons.  We will be doing the parent and child class at least through the summer, probably the fall as well.  Zak really wants to learn how to ice skate and eventually play hockey like his big brother.  He had a bit of a rocky start but then he found his footing and by the end he was skating on his own!  He only did a few minutes without my help, but that was way better than last session.  I love doing the lessons with him!!

So that's what kept us busy all through last week!  The big boys have just under 3 weeks left of school, then we have about 10 weeks off for the summer before we start with all 3 boys in 3 different schools.  Should be an interesting year next year for all of us!

Keeping Up With...Food (Menu Plan 5/4 - 5/10)

Last week was a calmer week than we have had in a few weeks.  We did well sticking with the menu plan and only missed one meal when we decided to order pizza on Friday before our date night.  The boys were so excited when Adrian walked in with Jets Pizza!!

This week is busy again, but probably the last hectic week with me volunteering for the PTO.  It's teacher appreciation week so I'll either be in the school or helping out from home every day.  I'm excited to give back to our teachers this week.  They do such an amazing job with our little ones every day!

Next weekend is full of celebrations between Adrian's birthday and Mother's Day.  We also have a birthday party for one of Daniel's friends thrown in there.  We were planning on going to a water park for the day on Sunday, but since he doesn't want to miss the party, we postponed it for a week.  I'm looking forward to a fun filled weekend!

Here's what we're eating this week:
Monday - Meatball Subs - we got fresh bread this weekend and want to use it up
Tuesday - Taco Tuesday for Cinco de Mayo!
Wednesday - Sausage & Red Cabbage - didn't make this on Friday
Thursday - Buffalo Chicken Salads
Friday - Freezer Meal in the crock pot
Saturday - BBQ cheeseburgers
Sunday - BBQ brats/sausage

Water Infuser Flavor - Blackberry/Lemon - Yum!

As always, I'm linking up with Laura at Mommy, Run Fast & Jill at Fitness, Health and Happiness.  Go check them out for some more yummy recipes!  Have a great week!