Meal Plan August 24th- 31st

The weather here in Wisconsin has definitely changed this week. Fall is here. It is too cold to play outside almost. It is only 60 degrees on a good day. This normally wouldn’t be bad but it was in the 80s last week and it is still a total shock to the system. Good news is that it is great weather for cleaning and cooking. Chili and cookie weather as I call it. SO anyway here is my meal plan for this week. Notice the comfort foods.

M- Dorito taco bake
Tu- Grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, corn, peanut butter cookies.
W- Chili
TH- Chicken enchiladas
F- General Tso’s chicken
SA- Brats, cheesy potatoes
SU- Not figured completely out yet. Will be daughter’s 4th birthday party I am thinking of doing pulled pork sandwiches, chips, dip, fruit salad, fruit dip, and Birthday cake. I am not sure yet. I will let you all know what we ended up having on her birthday party recap post. I will hopefully have that posted next Tuesday.

Nicole

meal plan monday

Homeschooling works!!

My three year old is almost four. She will be starting head start and transitioning from homeschool to public school. I started homeschooling her when she was eighteen months. Starting with shapes, then colors. She learned these quickly. She did however struggle with numbers and her abcs. So while potty training and waiting for her to pee we sang the abcs and counted to ten on the potty. I didn’t realize how well it worked until she had her screeners for head start with her teacher yesterday. She passed with flying colors. Her teacher was even impressed with how far her talking skills are and how well formed her sentences are and that she was telling full stories. I am a proud mommy today. She got a big bowl of ice cream last night as a reward. Now to start homeschooling all over again at 18 months with her little sister Daisy. Bobbie will also week doing homeschooling on Fridays when she is not in school and by doing nature studies on the weekends. I love homeschooling them so much and watching them learn.

Old picture taken of her when she was almost 3. Her grandma gave her a nabi kids tablet that helped her with her homeschool.

I will praise God in this storm.

God blesses you when you don’t even realize it. He protects you from things going terribly wrong in your life.

This week has been terribly crazy for me and my husband. I can still see the blessings in it though.

On Tuesday night I asked my husband to fix the printer that has not been working for a month. Instead his computer ended up crashing. Right now it is at Officemax waiting for them to repair it. It got reset with a ton of unbacked up baby pictures on it. The blessings in this are technology is being used in our house a lot less and we are spending more family time together. I believe God just wanted us to get up off the computer and spend quality family time together. With the baby pictures at least it was just a few months worth of them, and not all of them. My daughter still has some baby pictures left she is just missing some from being 6-9 month old. I grew up without any baby pictures after them all being burned down in a house fire when I was seven. She will not have to know the pain of having no baby pictures at all.

On Wednesday night our roof started leaking while a flood and terrential rains were falling. My husband was already asleep so I put a bucket under it. The good news is it was just a pencil sized leak that the bucket caught all the water from. We were blessed that this happened in the summer when my husband could fix it. We live in Wisconsin and if this happened in the winter we would not be able to fix it for months because of snow. I am glad God blessed us with finding the leak now.

When something goes wrong in your life look also how God protected you from it getting worse. God protects us in our everyday lives all the time.

Psalm 91 14-16

God says “I will save those who love me and will protect those who acknowledge me as Lord. When they call to me I will answer them; When they are in trouble I will be there with them. I will rescue them and honor them. I will reward them with a long life I will save them.

I love those verses. It proves to me God will always protect me. I know I always need God to be there for me, because sometimes life is hard and I need help.

Thank you for reading this

Nicole

Not my video just love the song.

How I teach my 3 year old responsibility

My three year old a loving a kind girl, but sometimes she thinks she can get everything given to her and do nothing herself. We try to stop this and one of the ways is giving her some responsibility for things around the house.

The way she does this are she does chores. She only has a few because she is only three.

1.) Take out the chairs and table for her sister and herself. They have their own kid table that they can eat dinner at. They start out on top of each other with the table upside down so she has to flip the table over and take out the chairs.

2.) She has her own little milk pitcher that she uses to get her milk. She has to pour her own milk at the counter for meal times.

3.)Put her toys back into the container she got them out of.

4.) Get dressed and get her own shoes and socks on when she leaves the house or wants to play outside.

Another way she does this is she needs to say please and thank you and ask nicely for things.

These chores help her learn responsibility and help prepare her for when she needs to go to school this year.

Do you kids have chores? How old are they? When did they start doing these?

Thank you for reading I really value having people read my blog and look into our lives.

Nicole.

Sorry for no pictures of anything today. My husband’s computer broke and mine is too old to put the memory card discs into.

Meal plan August 17th- 23rd

This is my first post on this brand new blog. I am so exited. I have a one year old daughter named Daisy May. I also have a three year old daughter named Bobbiesue. They both keep me super busy. I also have a diabetic husband who just got diagnosed in June. These things keep my life super busy.

I am going to share with you today some ways to make feeding a diabetic fun.

The first way is play with different spice combinations. I don’t think I will ever run out of different spice combinations to play with. My favorite ones are chipotle and garlic on pork chops. My other favorite is Molasses and bacon and chicken. I use the mccormick grill mates for this.

The next way is to grill out. This is the prime time of year for grilling. The weather is beautiful outside. I love to just grill out and play with my girls while cooking a delicious healthy meal. I like to add my favorite spices mentioned above to meat and grill it.

The last but still a great way is to use local produce that is being grown around me. I love to use corn on the cobb as a side bought at a roadside farmer’s stand. I also love to go the farmers market and buy green peppers, onions, cucumbers and carrots and make a salad from them. I also add the green peppers and onions to my food all week long.

I also enjoy buying brats from a local german meat shop. It tastes so good because it was made fresh. Louies finer meats in Cumberland, WI has great brats. Louies site.

These are a few fun cooking methods that I like to feed my diabetic husband with. He deserves me to come up with fun cooking methods because he works 60+ hours a week for my family. I love what he does for our family so I try to cook the best food I can for him while trying to keep it frugal. The meal ideas from my meal plan may not work for all diabetics. My husband works all day and a very physical job so I need to keep his carbs on the medium side so he doesn’t go low and get sick.

Weekly meal plan

M- Oven chicken seasoned with seasoning salt, and also chipolte and garlic grillmates, rice on the side with green peppers, onions, and mushrooms.

T- Pulled pork sandwiches with whole wheat bread, mashed potatoes on the side.

W- Chicken, bacon, ranch sandwiches on homemade french bread.

TH- Pork chops with cheesy potatoes

F- cheeseburgers with bacon, mushrooms and local corn on the cobb

S- grilled chicken, with stuffing

SU- Locally made Louies brats, with salad and watermelon on the side.

Snacks

apples with almond butter

grapes

watermelon

cucumbers and carrots with french onion dip

oatmeal energy bites

What are  your favorite fun ways to cook your food? I am sure that you all have some great ideas.

Thank you for reading this.

I am linking up to meal plan monday at Meal Plan Monday

Nicole

Hello world!

Hello World. I am the mom of two adorable little girls. My Bobbiesue is three turning four in two weeks. She loves watching surprise eggs videos, frozen, and hugging her teddy bear. She is our wild child, and is full of life all the time. She wakes up early and goes to sleep late, always asking to craft or play with playdoh. She will start full day preschool in two weeks. It is kind of bittersweet for me. I have been home for her whole life. I stopped working when I was six months pregnant with her.

My Daisy May is seventeen month old and she is my quiet bookworm. She loves reading and carrying books along with her. She also loves to play with and wear socks. She always has a smile on her face.

My husband works at a beef jerky plant for Jack Links. He works in their packaging section. He works six days a week and twelve hour days. He is also diabetic and sometimes that is challenging for both us but we make it work.

I am twenty eight years old and got married at age 20. My hobbies include cooking, cleaning, and gardening. I also love to read the bible and homeschool my daughters.

In this blog you will find meal plans, cleaning tips, fun, and cuteness from my little girls. Yes this is a mom blog. I am sure most of you moms out there will enjoy reading it if you stick around for a while.