our daily bread.

Life's blessings come in such surprising and unpredictable ways. Needs are met by the grace of God, support of family and love of friends.

One day I will write more on this. A lot more. And I pray one day I will be able to pay it forward in more ways than one. And one day - hopefully every day - my life will glorify God through everything.

February Recipe Club - Mardi Gras party!

One of my oldest and dearest friend (and one of my most favorite people in the whole world) moved back to Starkville around the same time that I did this past fall. We both grew up here and after graduation moved off. Crazy circumstances brought us back to Starkville at the same time. Amazing how God works, isn't it?

We decided to form a recipe club for other girls that are somewhat new (or new again) to Starkville. Some of these girls have been here for a year or more but it is fun to get together once a month and form friendships with other locals! Friendships are more important than ever to me and I am excited about getting to know these girls.

A few weeks ago, 9 of us had our first recipe club dinner. I am already looking forward to next month. It was so much fun - and the food was great! Several girls couldn't make it in February (one had a baby that day!) so it will be fun in March to meet more girls. We will be turning all of our recipes into a book at the end of the year.

I find it is harder than ever to be spontaneous (maybe impossible!) so having a set time to enjoy the company of friends - new and old - is so important and refreshing! I love my boys, but I do love time with girls. How do you enjoy girl time? I would love to hear ideas!

Fort

Keepin' it real Friday

My cute friend, Jenni at www.mattandjennimurray.blogspot.com, likes to keep it real on her blog on Fridays.

I like it, so I am copying.

I like to think I keep it real on here all the time, but just in case anybody out there thinks I have it all together, I am here to prove you wrong. There are many snapshots of my life I could have taken for today's installment of Keepin' it Real Fridays, but I narrowed it down to two.

Here is a picture of what my kitchen looked like when I finally woke up this morning after pressing the snooze button for thirty minutes:

Few things of note:
- The dishwasher is full and clean. And has been since yesterday morning. I just haven't unloaded it yet.
- There is a towel under said dishwasher because it leaks. We haven't really looked into the problem, we just put down a towel.
- There is half of a glass of wine next to a sippy cup. I think that is self-explanatory. Except, why did leave wine? Also notice a BOX of wine on the counter. Keepin' it classy in '12.
- You can't see it, but the sink is full of dirty dishes.

This is exactly how it looked last night when I intentionally ignored it and went to bed.

On to the next keepin' it real picture:

Me. At 5:45 this morning in Jones' bathroom.

Let's all notice how swollen my eyes are.

Yesterday was not a good day. We all have bad days, and for me, yesterday was one of those. Luckily, today is Friday. Also lucky for me, I cried like a baby last night and felt much better afterwards. My eyes, however, are suffering this morning.

I am happy to report that after a shower, three cups of coffee, some mascara and lots of concealer, I look somewhat better.

Happy Friday to you!

Saturday morning fun

Valentine's party at school

I loved seeing Jones interact with the other cuties in this class at their Valentine's party. I was amazed he sat in that little chair without getting up. Peer pressure, I guess.

For Jones, the party was all about the food. And the balloons.

A boy and his balloon

Trey and I gave Jones an Elmo balloon for valentines day. It was tied to his high chair when he woke up that morning. He loved it. He was obsessed. He held it all through breakfast and then cried when I told him it had to stay home while he went to school.

Then his teacher gave each child a balloon at their party. Valentines day was officially jones' favorite day ever. He successfully convinced me to let him take a bath with his two balloons and cried like he lost his first best friend when they lost their helium after getting wet.

Simple joys.

dinner date

I used to think Valentine's Day was a super cheesy made-up holiday. I guess it kind of is.

But my view of this holiday has changed drastically over the years. Maybe it's because I am older now. Maybe it's because I have a child now. Or maybe it's because I like any excuse to celebrate seemingly otherwise ordinary days. At any rate, it is nice to actually set aside a little bit of time and effort and show those you love that you, in fact, love them. Effort, people. It's all about effort. And celebration. And candy. So really it is all about putting effort into celebrating with candy.

It is far too crowded to go out to eat on Valentine's night and I didn't want to cook so we decided to order take-out after Jones went to bed. We ate on our fine china and lit candles and had the rule not to talk about money (or lack thereof), how dirty the house was, or work. So basically we talked about Jones and football. It was nice.

My plate had enough food to feed a small army. It was delicious.

My gift to Trey was concert tickets to see one of his favorites: The Avett Brothers. In Trey's words, paying for memories is far better than paying for items. I agree. Sometimes.

Here is the card I made him letting him know what his gift is. I am glad he gets my humor.

Thanks, pinterest

Thanks to other people's creativity, Jones will be handing out these cuties at his school's valentine's party tomorrow.

Reading

The rodeo came to town tonight!

The boys were excited to go look at all of the horses and watch the cowboys. And the big boys were just as excited! Boys night out at the rodeo while the sisters and baby noelle adams hung out in our pjs at home... Perfect!

Check out Henry's full cowboy getup. He was set! And he had a cowboy vest and hat for jones. He was very proud of that hat. Wanted to sleep with it. Sweet little cowboys.

Stickers

Jones has a fascination with stickers. Santa must have known this because there were pages and pages of stickers waiting on jones Christmas morning. I find stickers all over the house.

Jones' new favorite place to put stickers: on feet. His feet, our feet, Sophie's feet. He thinks it is great fun.

Phone picture dump

Life lately on my iPhone. Enjoy!

my view

I don't hate working here.
The groundhog may say more winter, but this weather screams spring.

Feb. meal planning

I have tried several different meal planning techniques since I started working full-time. Including not cooking at all.

I even signed up on an online meal planning website. They send you a meal plan and shopping list for each week. It is convenient and I recommend the site, but it just didn't work for our family. The problem I ran into was that I was not realistically cooking 6-7 times a week, I was spending more money on groceries each week than I would like, and the recipes often took longer to prepare and cook than I was willing to do.

Jones and I get home between 5:15 and 5:30 during the week. Jones immediately goes to his highchair and says "ee-ee-ee" (eat, eat, eat). I can sometimes get him distracted by playing with Trey while I cook, but the bottom line is the kid is hungry after school! So I needed fast - but healthy - meals with little prep.

I decided to make my own meal plan. I am only in the first week so I can't say it's perfect, but the past two nights have been easy - and tonight's dinner is already prepared.

I worked out a plan for two weeks, cooking three times a week. 3 times a week is a little more realistic for me. Plus, it gives us nights to eat leftovers, which we always have.

Trey and I made a commitment not to go get Mexican this month (we are trying to not eat out at all). We have found ourselves eating Mexican once a week- it's fast, yummy, and cheap. But it's not really healthy and we don't need to spend that money eating out.

Anyway, thought I would share the first two weeks of meal planning. I try to grocery shop on Sunday afternoons after I get coupons from that morning's paper.

It is nothing fancy or earth shattering and definitely not gourmet, but hopefully it will work for us.

Jones certainly enjoyed the yummy chicken soft tacos Monday night, which is success enough for me. I cut up avocado and grape tomatoes and he loved it! He is not a meat eater at all, but this chicken was so flavorful and tender, he ate it all. We had it for leftovers last night. Just as good.

Tonight we are having poppy seed chicken, which I prepared last night. All I have to do is put it in the oven and heat the green beans. Yay for low stress week nights.

Friday night we are having zucchini fries. I have to sneak vegetables not only in my toddler's meals, but also my husband's. Wish me luck!

Here are the links to some of the recipes I am trying:

http://pinterest.com/pin/237776055296085946/ - Weight Watcher slow cooker lasagna
http://pinterest.com/pin/237776055296097612/ - taco chicken
http://pinterest.com/pin/237776055296041670/ - fries
http://pinterest.com/pin/237776055295957804/ - crock pot french dip


What are some of your favorite easy weeknight meals? How do you quickly get healthy meals on the table? I would love to know!