5 meals in an hour

 Recently I discovered an organizing blog that I love so much. When I was looking around on her site I saw a button for a website that said "Make 5 dinners in one hour".
I was intrigued so I clicked on the button. The freezer cooking that I occasionally do ends up taking an entire day and my entire freezer but I love having meals prepared ahead of time. We eat a lot healthier that way.
This blog has a system where you pay $15 for a few months worth of meal plans. She emails you the meal plans broken down weekly with the prep and cooking instructions as well as the shopping list. If you visit her blog you can request a week free trial.
I decided to try it out last week and enjoyed it enough that I thought I would let you guys all in on it.
I don't think I am going to be doing this every week but I am interested in doing it for a few nights a week and perhaps our busier weeks.
The goal with her meals is to have family friendly meals that are easy to prep and cook and are well balanced.
It took me just under an hour to make the 5 dinners. I spent a lot of time getting out my measuring cups though so next time I will read through everything I have to do and have the specific cups/spoons, etc out and pre measured when I begin.
The cost for all the ingredients for these 5 meals was  just under $70. I spent more on this shopping trip because I was also getting things for our other meals but I thought the cost was pretty good. Also, some items I didn't need much of for the recipe but I was out of or didn't have so the next time I will not have to buy them.
I have been struggling with a very picky eater (Maddy) so I was curious to see if she would eat these meals.
Here is the breakdown of my trial week:
1) Mini Honey Mustard Meat Loaves served with mashed potatoes and peas. This was a great meal. I don't usually like meat loaf except for the one recipe I grew up with and this was very different. But it was great. The kids loved the little personal meat loaves and both of them ate all of their dinner.
2) Chicken and Broccoli Bake served with rice and salad. Maddy would not eat the salad but enjoyed the rest of it and even ate the Broccoli. Abi loved every bit of it as did Doug and I.
3)Crispy Pork Chops served with broccoli in cheese sauce. Maddy wouldn't eat the meat but did eat a little of the broccoli but then began spitting it out after a few bites. Abi and I both liked it. Doug loved it.
4) Chicken Caesar Salad Sandwiches served with carrots and ranch dip. I also served jicama. The sandwiches were really good... not for a hearty meal though. They are more of a lunch or summer/spring dinner. Abi ate part of it but didn't love it. Maddy wouldn't eat any. We learned that Abi doesn't like ranch dressing anymore and neither girls like jicama at all. I had to promise never to serve it again. :)
5) Slow Cooked Shredded Beef for Tacos served with chips and salsa. This was great. I loved that the tacos called for slices of avocado because I love it! I didn't give it to Maddy but Abi loved the taco as much as Doug and I did. Really good.

If any of you are interested in the program I have put the button on my right sidebar.

Abi brought down two books she hadn't read before yesterday. I dragged out the camera to tape her.

Easter

We had church at 9am on Easter morning. The Easter Bunnyleft Abi a little box of Jelly beans with a note that said the Easter baskets were hidden and she could follow the clues after church.

We got the girls in their Easter dresses and I took them out front to try to get some great pictures. Maddy wouldn't cooperate with that.

We had a great time at church and then as soon as we got home everyone wanted to get in cozy clothes. I put in the ham and Abi began following these bunny notes all over the downstairs to find her treasures.

She finally found her basket behind my reading chair. She was beyond excited to find a pillow pet.

It was then Maddy's turn to follow the carrot notes...

She found her basket in the cupboard she likes to climb into.

She was most excited about her chocolate bunny krispie treat. Once she had this in her mouth it was hard to get back out!

Abi showing her little chocolate bunny...

We had a great dinner and then played and read and watched movies the rest of the day. Maddy was having a lot of fun climbing into her basket.

Saturday's Easter happenings

We had a few things going on that morning but in the afternoon we set up a little Easter tea party. Doug's mom sent us some adorable Peter Rabbit tea china so we set that up on the table. I was going to make it a little fancier but decided this was good enough with all that was going on that day.

The girls were very excited to be sitting down to 'tea'.

We had cranberry lemon scones and little Easter cupcakes.

Maddy loved the cupcakes!

When our tea party was over I brought out a few activities for Abi. First, she colored this bunny.

She also searched for Easter Eggs on a coloring sheet....

I brought down our big tub of shapes to make tanagram bunnies...

Then it was time for the big Easter Egg hunt. I had thought about doing this outside but the ground was pretty wet so we did it inside. I had little bunny masks for the girls to wear while they hunted but Maddy , of course, didn't want to wear hers.

Abi, the egg crusader.

Hunting for eggs....

Whenever Maddy found one she wanted to open it and take the candy out. I kept having to take them away from her because I didn't label the eggs for her or Abi and just had them find whatever they could find... but Abi's had jelly beans in them and Maddy's had animal crackers and yogurt melts in them.

We also hid some animal cracker packs from Doug's parents and some Easter bags from my parents. Abi finding her bag... it had treats and a Polly Pocket in it!

Maddy finding her animal crackers....

Maddy opening her bag. It had treats and a Pet Shop stuffed animal.

After the egg hunt it was time to color eggs I got a little egg coloring kit that I thought looked like a lot of fun. It wasn't. It was little bunny stampers and stamp pads. When I added water to the stamp pads, they ran all over.

I managed to clean it up a bit but it really didn't work well and our eggs were so boring.

Maddy stamping her egg...

Abi still enjoyed it...

showing off her eggs...

Then we played Don't Eat Peter.. It was so much fun.

Then it was time to relax. The girls played with toys and we all watched "The Easter Beagle Charlie Brown".

It was such a fun day!!!

Disney posted a video on youtube showing them making the Kitchen Sink at Beaches and Cream. I decided to post it to our other blog to show you all exactly how it was made and what they do when they deliver it to your table. It was so much fun!


Check it out here: 


The Kitchen Sink

Happy Easter

I'll post Easter happenings later but for now...

In my last post I talked about Abi reading. Today I taught her Primary class. We were talking about Jesus and the resurrection. I wrote the word 'Immortal' on the board. Abi immediately sounded it out and read it right! I was so excited.

And in other church news. Maddy is not 18 months yet but they invited her into nursery today and she was happy to go. I was surprised by this because Abi would throw herself down in the doorway and scream way past 18 months old but Maddy went right in and loved it. She was in there the whole class. So strange!

Something that makes me very happy

I'll try to take a video sometime but Abi has become quite the reader lately. She takes books to bed with her and will sit and sound out until she can read the whole book by herself. Then she will call me in to show me that she can read this new book she couldn't read before.
Last night she called me in for two books. They were both easy readers but a couple of levels higher than she normally reads with a lot of words and sounds we haven't covered yet. She read both books and I only had to help her with a couple of words.
It was one of the best mommy moments for me. I guess it is because I love to read so much and books are such a huge part of my life that watching my little girl that isn't even in Kindergarten yet read a book to me makes me so happy.

Our crazy girls

Yesterday Abi was upstairs for a few minutes and when she came down she was wearing one of Maddy's pajama shirts, a pair of Maddy's bloomers, Maddy's shoes, and an old baby bib. It was so funny.

Maddy has this thing where she loves to wrap things around her head. Usually it is a pair of Abi's pajama pants or something like that but today it was a damp towel Abi had just used to wipe up some water she spilled on the counter. She pulls them over her head and to the back and then wraps them around her neck. It is so darn cute and funny..

Family Home Evening for Easter

For Family Home Evening this week it was time to use our Resurrection Eggs. First, I hid all 12 eggs and Abi had to find them.

Then she helped me with the lesson. I read the passage for each egg, Doug read the scripture that went with it, and then Abi would open the egg and explain what was in it.

For our activity our front room became a disaster spread with paper and stickers as we decorated our official Easter baskets. This year I decided to get metal pails from Hobby Lobby for us to decorate and use every year.

The girls had a great time playing in the stickers. I 'helped' decorate Maddy's while she made a mess.

Abi had so much fun decorating hers in secret so we couldn't see it until it was done.

The finished baskets...

We used crinkled paper instead of grass.. hate that Easter grass!

When we were all done Abi got to have an ice cream sundae with Easter M&M's sprinkled over the top!

And then there was snow again...

After the mean tease we had of warm weather it got very cold again. Then it snowed again.

Abi wasn't too happy about it even though she loves snow. But, she did take time to run around in it on her way to get the mail.

Maddy watching it fall..

Resurrection Eggs

For our Activity Days night last week, I had the girls make resurrection eggs. It was really fun. Abi came along with me. There wasn't enough for her to do one so I let her do one at home later.

She was so happy to be decorating her basket!

Days of Sunshine and Warmth

A couple weeks ago we finally had the sunshine out and it was warm!

The first thing we did was to release the butterflies. I was so sick of these things by the time we released them. The habitat was looking a little gross thanks to the meconium that they secrete when they emerge... it looks like blood running down the side of the habitat. 

We had all 5 butterflies survive and the first one flew out and took off across the road. You could almost hear him saying, "Freedom!"

The rest took a while to fly out but then the 2nd one finally did. Then we had another minute wait. Once the third one flew out, the fourth was right on his tail.

The only problem was butterfly #5 that had a broken wing. I felt bad shaking him out and watching him walk across the grass unable to fly. But I think it was probably happier to be out walking around in the fresh air then walking around in the habitat.

We also got out one day to fly a kite....

And another day we went to the park. Abi was so excited to ride her scooter there. I can't remember what she was doing here...

Maddy enjoyed the swings...

Abi is all about going up the insanely steep slide now. I felt better knowing that she forgot to take off her helmet. 

The joy of playing outside!