Friday's Fave Five #18

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Living To Tell The Story

To preface this, I am feeling much more like myself these days and finally have my appetite back, so you'll see a lot of food mentioned! :)

1. My dear friend Jen had her baby and we got to meet him over the weekend! He's so tiny and looks just like his mommy! He makes our lil' guy look HUGE! This is me holding him. I love newborns!



2. I finally got back to my weekly menu planning and shopping and made some pretty good meals this week, including this. I did pulled pork in the crock pot (just used root bear!) with peas and oven fries. They're plain steak fries but I added some seasoning--yum!! The sauce on the meat is from our favorite BBQ restaurant in Florida--my folks brought it back for us on their recent trip.



For lunch, I'm loving SMOOTHIES!! I have one almost every day and it's great because I can add flax seed and protein powder, plus get my daily dose of milk, yogurt and fruit in one drink! They're so refreshing in this heat, too.



3. Beating the 115-degree heat. I dumped out Andrew's sand box and filled it with water for him to use as a "pool" and he loves it!





4. I'm trying to cut waaaay back on sugar but I don't want to deprive myself completely...so I treat myself to Bryer's Fresh and Dreamy ice cream (half the fat!) with fruit on top almost every night. Yes, I sometimes add a crumbled cookie and chocolate syrup!



5. I can't let a Friday go by without mentioning our "angel baby." This boy is so happy, so laid back and so much FUN! He's cooing and smiling at EVERYone and gets more active and more alert every day. He just melts my heart!

He's two months old now and just starting to get interested in toys. It's so much fun to "play" with him!





I hope you all had many things to be thankful for this week, too! We are blessed!

Menu Plan Monday

To check out lots of wonderful menus and recipes, check out Menu Plan Monday on
I'm An Organizing Junkie

Simple Mom is also covering Menu Planning today and has great tips and tools
HERE

In an effort to be the best mom and wife I can be, I am trying to get back to making a weekly menu for our family. With my hubby recently starting Atkins, I'm "on my own" for dinner, aside from the meat he can also have. I want to start going more vegetarian and using more whole foods, but for this week, I stuck with tried and true favorites. I'll enjoy stealing other people's ideas, though!

Here goes!

Breakfasts: oatmeal, cereal, fruit, yogurt with granola

Lunches: tuna salad wrap, turkey sandwiches, smoothies, pbjs

Snacks: hummus with carrots, almonds, apple with peanut butter, raisins

Dinners (recipes appear below):

Monday: taco soup

Tuesday: hot dogs, veggies and beans

Wednesday: roast in the crock pot with carrots and potatoes

Thursday: pulled pork sandwiches, fries and veggies

Friday: pizza and salad

Saturday: (vegetarian) pasta with sauce and mushrooms

Sunday: leftovers

SLOW COOKER RECIPES:

1. taco soup
Put into slow cooker on low for 5 hours or high for 3-ish hours:
* 1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
* 1 packet taco seasoning mix
* 3 cans of the beans of your choice, with liquid (I prefer black, kidney and pinto).
* 1-2 cans of diced tomatoes, with liquid (you can use the ones with green chilis to add a little kick)
* 1 can corn, with liquid, if desired
* 1 cup of water, or more if you like it more liquidy
TOP with cheese and sour cream. You can also put tortilla chips in the bottom of your bowl, or crumble them on top.

2. roast in the crock pot
Put in crock pot on high for about 4 hours.
* 1 lb. roast, seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder
* small bag of baby carrots
* 3-4 potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
* 2-3 cups of water
* 1 onion, cut up

3. pulled pork sandwiches
Put in crock pot on high for at least 5 hours.
* 1 lb. pork tenderloin, butt or shoulder, seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic powder.
* enough beer or rootbeer to cover it
Once it's able to be shredded with a fork, remove and shred.
Dump water out of crock pot.
Add the sauce of your choice to the meat and place back in crock pot for about an hour.
Serve on buns.

Thanks for stopping by!

Girls' Night In

Now that I am emerging from my postpartum fog (I call it a "milky haze"), I am trying to get back down to the business of taking care of the people around me. My love language to others is giving gifts and with us on a budget, I don't get to do it very often. But I felt led to do this for a dear friend who has been such a wonderful encouragement to me for the last several months.

She is due with a baby boy any day now and her sister and mother are in town for a visit, and hopefully to meet the baby. I thought it would be fun to create a "girls' night in" bag so I assembled this at the store and gave it to her this morning.



I got some Crunch N Munch, "Maid in Manhatten," some good candy, a facial mask, a nail buffer, nail polish and some cute nail decals. They can pop the movie in, enjoy some snacks, have a facial and paint their nails--soooo girly!

I hope it blesses them--I know I had fun putting it together! Just thought I'd throw it out there in case you thought of someone who would enjoy something similar. It's always fun to surprise someone with goodies!

Lookee

Nothing exciting to report from the holiday weekend. We stayed home and relaxed, basically. Got a few cute shots of the fam, though!

Drew doesn't think there's a resemblance. HA! Puh-leez.



Happy baby, smiling at his brother.



Brother love.



Andrew painting.



Beautiful Arizona sky over our house Friday night, followed by a marvelous thunderstorm!



And that's about it from here! Just wanted you to know I'm still here! :)

In the way of an update, we are thoroughly enjoying this time of life with our new baby boy. We almost don't have a choice--it's upwards of 109 degrees here during the day so we stay in the house a lot, trying to pass the time. If we go anywhere, it's to an air conditioned store or a pool!

I am finally feeling more normal and am working hard at staying as healthy as possible. Plus I'm always trying to get enough sleep, of course! No crafting to speak of...I do miss it! I am trying to just relax in this season, and enjoy time with my family. I know Ethan won't stay a newborn forever and life will get more active soon! For now, it's nice to just slooooow doooown.

Thanks for checking in!

Friday's Fave Five #17

Read more entries over at

Living To Tell The Story

1. One ridiculously happy, content, ADORABLE baby....





...and a big brother who obviously adores him.





2. One-on-one time with Big Brother, who is evidently tired of seeing the camera out all the time. See the animals I made??? I'm pretty proud.

I do treasure time with Andrew these days and have to remind myself that he still needs some snuggle and play time with Mom, despite how independent he is! I need it, too...he is my baby, after all.



3. My friend who came over to watch Big Brother while I went out to have blood work done, then showed me how she makes blondies. YUM! She even washed some dishes for me!! So sweet.



4. An order for 17 robot-themed birthday cards for a friend got me back into "crafty mode." It was fun to get back into the card-making groove!



5. Day after day of fun play-dates...BECAUSE A FRIEND FROM CHURCH LOANED US THEIR VAN FOR THREE WEEKS! When I prayed last week for a van, I should've been more specific! :) We desperately need another vehicle but it's funny how God provides in the meantime!! Andrew loooves riding around town in the van and going new places with his baby brother.

We are so blessed! Hope you all had a terrific week as well!!

Latest & Greatest

Father's Day celebration at a local park. I know the boys had more fun than the dads did but we all had a great time. Here's my brother and his family, plus the three of us on the train.



Me and the boys on Father's Day. Yeah, I know it was Father's Day but I'm not dressed with someone else holding a camera very often!!



Having a friend over to show me how to make "blondies." I learned a few good tricks and they're delicious with pecans!



Making cool Lego creations with Big Brother. He calls this "exercise" and I have no idea why. Although for me, the brain power to do this IS a work out!!



Filling an order for 17 robot-themed birthday party invitations for an old friend. It was nice to "get my crafty on" after a long hiatus.



And basically enjoying every moment of THIS. Can you believe Little Man is 6 weeks old???





It's hard to want to do anything else all day other than try to get THIS response.



Yep, I'm in love!!

Friday's Fave Five #16

Read more entries over at

Living To Tell The Story

A day late! :)

Sorry I've been MIA for so long...every Sunday, I'd suddenly go, "Oh, no! I forgot my Friday post!!" Life comes atcha fast!!

#1 is of course that ETHAN IS FINALLY HERE!! :)

He arrived at 8:12a.m. on Tuesday, May 12th weighing 8 lbs. 6 oz. and measuring 21.5". I had an amazingly wonderful (natural) birth experience and he is perfectly healthy in every way. He's a great sleeper and eater (which is all he does, anyway) for which we feel very blessed. As of 2.5 weeks old, he has already gained a pound!

You can check out pictures from these prior posts:

Newborn/hospital

First days home

Week 1

Here's a good recent one of "Mommy's New Man" at about 11 days old.



#2 is that we've been house-sitting for my hubby's aunt, two blocks from our house, for the past 10 days. She has cable TV and a pool so we've been camping out over there and having a blast! It's been nice to have evenings of just hanging out and enjoying each other instead of the inevitable chores and to-dos at home.

Andrew has especially enjoyed his "night swims."



#3 is that we got to host Memorial Day at the aforementioned aunt's house for my folks and my brother and his family.

Here's Ethan in his patriotic outfit.



And my and my two boys!! Yeah, turns out I don't own a red shirt.



Here's the whole fam enjoying the pool. Perfect Memorial Day weather!



#4 is that I've been anxiety-free for a week now and have even had my appetite back for the past several days. Food tastes good again!! I am very grateful to be feeling back to my normal self. Now I've just got to focus on staying healthy and eating well for my hungry baby!

#5 is that I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight already. That is, my pre-pregnancy weight from 3.5 years ago!!

The last two months of this pregnancy were marked by anxiety, profuse sweating and a lack of appetite. The only upside is that I dropped the actual pregnancy weight within a few days, and was back to my weight from 3.5 years ago (that was after a lot of effort on Weight Watchers, by the way) within a week or two. Of course I still have the "jelly belly" but at least I don't have a bunch of poundage to lose. Here's me, two weeks postpartum. Yes, I'm showing off a little.



There are about a million other wonderful things I could mention about the last week and we truly feel so very blessed to be in this season of life right now. I love my boys!!!

I look forward to catching up with all of your latest now!! :)