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mesmerizing.

  

My Meal Plan

This month we are so excited to start officially homeschooling Claire.  I can't wait.  We are planning to start the third week of August.  I have the entire year planned out in my handy, dandy planner but I am still waiting for our geography curriculum to come.  If that comes early and I have a chance to prepare and plan it, we may start sooner since Claire is SO anxious to start.  For weeks she has been watching me go through her books, cut out felt continents and collect fun supplies for science, games, and prizes.  (I will go into the curriculum I chose at a later time)

I am so excited to start too -I have planned on doing this all my life after all! But now I am just nervous about my schedule and having time for everything.  I also still have my part-time job at Big D and don't want to be up til midnight every night sorting and filing paperwork.  I am trying really hard to guard my schedule and I've already had to say no to a couple of people asking me to do things for church and I feel so badly!   I am terrible at saying "no".  Even if I don't want to do something, I usually do it because I'd rather hate doing it than tell someone no.  But now it is necessary - at least until we get started and I figure out how much free time I will have for extra things.  (So don't ask me to make any commitments right now or I will have to say no!)

One area I have become more efficient in after Paige was born is my cooking/meal planning.  Before, I rarely used to plan ahead which led to many trips to the grocery store each week and many days of staring into the fridge hoping for some last minute inspiration at 6pm. I decided that making a meal plan was now a necessity - not a luxury, since running to the store is a huge ordeal for us right now.

I made a list of all my regular, tried and true recipes, arranged them according to genre (Mexican, American, Chinese and Italian) and spaced them out so that there weren't any time where we were eating a certain genre of food 2 nights in a row and then did my best to mix up the chickens, beefs, pastas and porks so that we weren't eating chicken for 4 days straight.  Then I put a reasonable suggestion for a side dish next to each meal.  It was a little work at first but now that it is set up, I just look at the list, refer to my recipe book to write down what ingredients I will need for that week and go shopping ONCE.  Since I know what I am making ahead of time, I can let my meat thaw the correct way instead of in a hot water bath a half hour before we eat.   Why is such a simple, common sense thing like meal planning such a nemesis to us homemakers?  I don't know, but now that I have my system that works for me, I am sticking to it.  My life has been SO much better in the cooking department since I implemented it a month ago.

Here is my list in case anyone wants to see it.  Recipes available upon request.

Main Dish	side
Tortellini	salad
Chicken Fricasse	fruit
Arroz Con Pollo	salad
20 Minute Stir Fry	egg drop soup
Pulled pork Sandwiches	coleslaw
Pecos Pasta	salad
Patio Tuna Squares	salad
Carbonara	broccoli
Enchurritos	Mexican rice
BLT Pasta Salad	fruit
Chinese Chicken Coleslaw	Hawaiian rolls
Tacos/Tostadas	none
Beef Stroganoff Sandwich	salad
Parmesean chicken	peas
Carnitas	chips and salsa
Chicken Oriental	brown rice
Cheeseburger pie	coleslaw
Green Chile Lime Taquitos	Mexican rice
Chicken Pot Pie	salad
Lasagna	salad
Chilequiles	fruit
Tuna Casserole	peas
Orange Chicken and Rice	salad
Hamburgers	wedge fries/beans
Tamale Bites	salad
Grilled Chicken	brown rice/veggie
Baked Rigatoni	salad
Springtime Broccoli Salad	Hawaiian rolls
Chile chicken casserole	coleslaw
Homemade Pizza	salad
Deli Style Pasta Salad	fruit
Versatile Stir Fry	brown rice
Taco Pie	salad
Maple Oven Pancake	eggs
Spaghetti	salad
Tortilla Soup	quesadillas
Barbecue Beef on Corn Muffins	fruit
Chicken Tamale Casserole	fruit

There are 38 meals.  When we get to the bottom of the list, I just start back up at the top.  I don't make dinner on Sundays or Wednesdays so we have well over a month before repeating a dish.

And now, because I can't post a blog without some sort of picture, here is one of Claire smothering her sister.

Paige-d All Night Long

Well, I haven't written much about Paige since she has been born.   That is because she is extremely non-photogenic so I have not been inclined to post pictures.  Let's just say she is taking her time to get out of those awkward newborn weeks.  She has gotten a lot better the past few days.  Not so pimply and crusty.

Paige has been a little bit of a handful.  Way more so than I ever dreamed.  Everyone always says that the third child just falls into place and blends into the family, that they are the easiest, so on and so forth.  Not so with this one - at least not yet.  You see, Paige just now started sleeping at night.  Not through the night, just at night.  You'd think I'd know how to adjust a baby's schedule by now, I have done it twice before, quickly and successfully but for some reason Paige was resistant to all my techniques.  We desperately tried the babywise method of feed, awake, sleep on a 3 hour cycle but this blob had no awake time so it was eat, sleep, eat, sleep, all day and when she wants to sleep, she's going to sleep, cold baths wouldn't even wake her for more than a few seconds.  Typically around 11pm she decided it was her awake time that lasts for a couple hours followed by a few hours of restless sleep.  Josh and I were up and down every hour to half hour with her all night every night until yesterday.   This week I decided she was old enough to let her just scream it out.  I said look punk, you are tired, (she had been awake for like 5 hours straight) you are fed, you are clean, you are safe and comfortable, there is no reason for this nonsense, and I let her scream.  She screamed for maybe 12 minutes and then fell asleep for 4 glorious hours.  She does a little better each night so we are glad for that.

Now that she is sleeping better we are all happier and I am hoping she stops gaining weight at such an alarming rate. (many nights she nursed for 8 hours straight because I was so tired and it kept her quiet)   I mean, look at her!  She is FAT.   

I ordinarily wouldn't think anything of it but the other two were so tiny for the first 3 years of their lives, I am concerned for her.  She is 5 weeks old and weighs over 11 lbs. 

Adding a third child to our family has been harder than I thought it would be.  I feel ridiculous saying this.  Obviously, there are plenty of people out there who have 3,4,7, 19 or more children and manage just fine.  I am just trying to find my groove I guess.

 Joy always asks to hold her but doesn't like it when Paige squirms or cries.

 

This week, I ran a bunch of errands with the girls all by myself (usually I do my shopping with my mom)  They were so great and well behaved, I felt so proud. We went to 5 stores, and were out for over 3 hours. The very last store we went to was Goodwill, just for fun.  I found a ton of great things, mostly books and little girl clothes.  All was well until we started to walk to the front to pay.  Then Paige decided it was screaming time.  (She had eaten not too long ago and had just woken up so there was no reason for it but to scream).  So I got her out of her carseat and tried to calm her down, she spat her pacifier on the floor and then I stepped on it.  I tried to push the cart while holding her.  Joy loves to push the cart and kept pushing it into things while I was trying to steer with one hand.  I told her to stop but then decided it was better than having her running loose while we were trying to get to the front.  I don't know what Claire was doing - not helping though.  We get to the front and of course there were 3 people in front of us.  I thought of just abandoning our cart and going home but there were a few things in there that were too good to leave behind so we stayed in line.  Claire and Joy started annoying each other and whining, Joy was on the floor.  The guy behind me was not amused by the ear splitting screams coming from Paige, Claire was pushing the cart into the lady in front of us.  I gave up telling the girls to stop because they couldn't hear me over Paige anyway. Joy started crying for some reason.   We finally get to the checker and she decides to be chatty, I was trying my best to answer her between screams but then I heard Joy shouting "Mommy!" loudly and repeatedly, so I turned around to see her hold shorts and she said "potty."  In a serious tone.  At that point I was laughing because the whole situation was such a mess.  I calmly told Joy to please wait til we got to the car, finished paying and left.  I am sure there were probably cheers from the people behind us in line after we finally got out the door.  Most of them passed us up in the parking lot as we walked to the car, went potty, loaded up, got drinks handed out and cried and complained.  As soon as we got home, everyone took a nap.  That day, I learned to stop while you are ahead...

and that nap time fixes everything. 

Sesame Street Exhibit = Bummer in the Summer

 Last week we used our summer pass to the science museum again.  This time the Sesame Street Body exhibit was open and we had the free tickets from the deal I bought so we were excited to check it out.  What a let down.

It was cute to look at but that's about it. 

The first station we came to was this one about feet.

    

You can imagine the thrill it was to lift up an extremely heavy wood door to see the word LONG underneath.  Whoopie!  I expected there to be something to touch and feel or a sound or SOMETHING.

Next there was a pretend grocery store in which everything was stuck to the shelves and the cash register didn't open or do anything.  There was a few pieces of fabric fruit floating around but nothing to do with it.  I didn't take any pictures because there was nothing to take pictures of.

Next, this station went through the different organs and their functions.  So, you push and pull on the lever and the heart makes a beating sound.  That is it.  The lung part actually inflated and deflated so I guess that was good.  I don't know, we found it extremely boring and lame.

On to the next station.  A pretend sink.  Everything stuck down, nothing to do but look and watch an Elmo's world portion about washing hands.  What fun!  You can tell how impressed Joy is by her expression.


The one thing we actually spent time at was this somewhat interactive board where the path you were on would light up as you ran, wheeled in the wheel chair or rowed a boat.



 The museum was having a bubble time for members that we go to go to but it was equally as disappointing. 
The ONLY bubble wand that worked was this one.  And we waited a long time for it to be Claire's turn to use it.
 
All the rest did nothing.  Seriously, could they not get a few more that actually worked?

Joy just ate bubble solution and washed her hands most of the time.

Claire did make a bubble cube - it has some fancy name but I can't find it anywhere on the internet.


My mom and I left thinking "Who actually comes up with the exhibits and who designs them?" Obviously people who although they may have an childhood education degree, don't have children.

Morning Ritual

Every morning when Josh leaves for the work, the girls have to run along side his car and wave until he is out sight.

Claire likes to "race" and beat him to the end of our yard.  Poor Joy is not as fast so she runs and waves wildly while shouting "Bye bye Dadda!"

I love to have these little ones, it's the sweet little things like this that will make the best memories. I can't help but feel happy and smile as I watch each time - until Claire runs back to me and says in a I'm-bored-already voice "What are we going to do today?" And then our day begins.

Paige's First Swim

Paige is 12 days old today!  She weighs 7.5 pounds - up a whole pound in one week! Her belly button cord finally fell off yesterday so today she went for her first swim!  She complained at first but then settled down while Nana was holding her.

Looking at her biggest sister.

Here we all are! The four of us girls.

Sewing For Claire

 I haven't sewed very much since moving, but for some reason I got the urge to finally make something out of this top that I've had stashed away in my pile for years. 

I worked on it off and on all day between Joy's potty breaks and nursing Paige and various other things that came up.  

Claire was excited.  It helps that it is her favorite color.

 The shirring was already on the back of the original shirt.  Yay! Easy.

 and what top would be complete without a matching bow?

 Someone is getting freckles!

 Thanks Claire for enduring this photo shoot.  

(she got an ant bite and you would have thought it was the end of the world.)

Unfortunately, as I was sewing the last strap on, my machine made a horrible metal clunking sound and definitely has something majorly wrong with the timing.  I have been wanting to have it serviced for a while but now I will have to get it looked at soon!