Menu Plan Monday

Monday Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with ham and cheese in it, toast and fruit and yogurt smoothie.

Supper: Tuna noodle casserole and green beans.

Tuesday Breakfast: Banana breakfast shake and pancakes.

Supper: Detroit style coney dogs, fried potatoes and fruit salad.

Wednesday Breakfast:

Lunch: Spanish tortillas with black beans and rice.

Supper: Chicken a la king and green beans.

Thursday Breakfast: Applesauce raisin batter bread, cheese and yogurt.

Supper: Spaghetti and mixed greens with baked goat cheese toasts.

Friday Breakfast: Maple walnut granola.

Supper: Cornish Finnish Michigan pasties and Corn.

Saturday Breakfast: Waffles

Supper: Tacos

Sunday Breakfast: Eggs and toast.

Dinner: Chili and corn bread.

Supper: Corn Pone Pizza and Salad.

For lots more menus visit the Organizing Junkie.

Our busy days!

Yesterday and today have been quite busy. I thought it would be fun to share some of the happenings with you all. This week my parents found out that their neighbors had some bunnies that they were wanting to get rid of. They asked us if we would want them, Dad had a cage we could use and he will help me butcher them this fall. I thought that sounded like a fun opportunity so we said yes. I hope it all works out all right as the kids are having a great time with them now but I do want to butcher them before winter. They are very cute and tame and all 4 kids really enjoy them.
Yesterday was a full day of working on the roof. Mom, Dad and Luke came over and helped all day. Mom stayed on the ground but helped a ton with picking up trash, taking care of kids and helping with house stuff. I worked on the roof quite a bit but not all the time. The 3 older kids spent some time up there working as well. (Jonathan the most). Jake also came over and helped quite a bit. We are blessed to have family and friends that are generous with their help. The picture above is of Jonathan and Dad.

Ken and Luke and a view of how the new shingles are looking. It got pretty hot up there. We drank a lot of water! A cute little picnic guest (at lunchtime).
For our picnic party for supper I (with quite a bit of help) had fun making these fruit arrangements in ice containers. This was the first time I have tried making them but the ended up working pretty well. I thought they were a lot of fun to make and will probably make them again some time. To make them I put some floral Styrofoam in the container and then covered it with a lettuce leaf. We cut fruit into different shapes, We made some melon balls (with a melon ball spoon) and then we also make some cantaloupe cutouts in flower and star shapes. We put all the fruit on kabob sticks (often putting more than one fruit on the stick, like putting about 4 melon balls (or grapes would work very well if you had them) or a flower shape and then a juneberry in the center. After putting the fruit on the stick we then stuck it in the Styrofoam, arranging it like you would a flower arrangement. I also added some mint sprigs for greenery.

Lots of food!

A pretty fruit bowl that a couple of the ladies put together.

Some of the picnickers.

We put candles on the deck rail. The looked cute burning but most of them blew out (from the wind) after a few minutes. Oh well! :-)

A few of the people inside. For this table I just used some blue and white checked cloth I had for a table cloth, I then put a red place mat in the middle with a little vase of daisies.

The kids had fun playing tug of war.

I had a blue table cloth with white flowers and then a red and white one which we put on a couple of tables in the yard. Mara picked daisies and put them in vases for the table. I thought it looked very pretty for Independence day.

We did go to the fireworks thought we were feeling very weary by that time. There was a beautiful display. Megan tried reaching for them and kept saying "pretty!"



Today it was back on the roof again! We were blessed to have Luke and Mike come and help us out a lot! The house is now done but we have a little over half of the garage yet to go. Maybe we can get it done tomorrow after church (and the potluck and parade), we shall see. But now it is off to bed for me!

Happy 4th of July!!

Red, white and blue around our house. We have a busy day planned with putting new shingles on our roof, have a bunch of company for an evening picnic and going to the fire works. We plan on having fun and we hope you do too!!

God bless America!

Works for me Wednesday ~Parties!

Something that I have always enjoyed is having parties. Growing up it was common to have the house full of people and I really liked that. As soon as I was on my own I started doing that as well. When I was in college (a very small Bible college) I had fun fixing lunch for everybody once in a while. Then when Ken and I got married we started a tradition of having a bunch of people over for a christian/ family friendly New Year's Eve party every year. We also enjoy having games nights every so often and other parties as well.

I enjoy getting ready for the parties: Planning food, possibly decorations and what to do. I also enjoy seeing a houseful of people having fun. I think many people think Parties are expensive but they don't have to be at all. The basics for a party are something to eat (in case hunger strikes) and something fun to do together. Since we don't drink alcohol or serve it at our parties that certainly helps a lot with cost also I have found that food doesn't have to be expensive for people to enjoy it. A party with homemade cookies, popcorn (which I buy in bulk for very little), and Iced tea or lemonade or even water is enjoyed as much as if I were serving shrimp and caviar! Also for decorations you can often find stuff around your house or yard that will make your place look extra special without having to spend money. The key is to be creative and to not have the mind set that you have to spend money to have fun.

This Friday we are planning on having a 4th of July picnic/party at our house. I thought I would share some of the things that we are having and planning on doing.

• I am planning on setting up tables and chairs outside. I have a blue and white tablecloth, a red and white one and a plain white one so I plan on using those.
• We have a flag but the pole broke so I am planning on handing it horizontally from the deck in a place everybody will see it as they walk over to the food area.
• I think I will pick some of the red, white a blue flowers that I have growing or that are growing wild around here to put in a vase or two.
• We are planning on grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, and making a salad or so and then I also asked others to bring something to share. I discovered that I had some koolaid in my cupboard (something we never drink normally) so I am planning on making that and Iced tea to drink.
• I am hoping to make a fruit arrangement (at way less than how much the would cost to buy!!!) that will be good to eat and to look at.
• For dessert I am planning an ice cream dish with raspberries and juneberries on top to look like a flag. (kind of like the photo here)Or now that I am looking around more, a fruit pizza that looks like a flag would also be yummy! Or maybe a cheese cake. I guess I will have to let you know afterwards what I do.
• I am also thinking about pulling out our luminaries that are painted red and maybe making some more in white and blue and using them. Also all our candles in those colors. I think it would look neat to have them all around the rail of the deck.
• As far as entertainment, I think we might set up croquet and badminton and also people can play regular games.
• I will try to use red, white and blue dishes to serve in as much as possible.
• We also already made and froze, star shaped sugar cookies.
• For paper products we bought just plain white cheap ones but then we stamped them with blue and red stars. (below)

I didn't have regular star stamps but I did have one I had made quite some time ago with leftover rubber from another stamp from stampin' up that I had to assemble and some cardboard. We also used a little cookie cutter as a stamp. (picture below)
Here are some more links to get your creativity going:

• As always Family Fun has a bunch of fun and cute ideas.
• Here are some cute Treat Holders.
• More ideas for recipes, crafts and activities from Disney family.
• A very cute wreath for Independence day.
• A 3-D star to hang for decoration.
• Red, white and blue popcorn.
• A bunch of 4th of July ideas. I liked the one about having a watermelon seed spitting contest.

After supper and games and visiting (also that day we are planning on starting the job of putting new shingles on our roof) we plan on heading to the lake to enjoy the fireworks. We plan on having a pretty busy weekend (including walking in the parade on Sunday after church). What are your plans for the weekend?

And I forgot that it was a themed addition at WFMW this week. So to see a bunch of easy and quicky recipes you can visit Rocks in my Dryer.

Wordless Wednesday ~ An Iris

Tackle it Tuesday ~cleaning and organizing

We had quite a few things we wanted to tackle today. We had quite a bit of laundry that needed to be folded so all the kids and I worked together on that. Working together seems to work well for us. If I fold it by myself it works fine but it takes a while and the kids aren't learning how to do it, if I have them do it by themselves (at least the boys) they have a hard time staying motivated and doing a good job. Doing it together we keep each other motivated and I can work on teaching them how to do it right. We got all of the Laundry folded and put away for our first job.

Megan helped with the folding for a while and then I noticed she was standing over by the living room window for quite a while. I couldn't see what she was doing as she had her back to me. After a bit I decided I had better check and I saw that she had actually gotten the syrup bottle from out of the kitchen and was pouring syrup carefully in the window sill. Note to self: keep a better eye on Megan!

This next project was Jonathan's project with mine and Megan's help. He and Megan took everything out of the fridge and then I washed it all out, including removing and washing the drawers and then we put everything back in. It is kind of hard to tell in the picture how much better it is but I can assure it is much cleaner! As far as organization goes it didn't help that my parents delivered another gallon of milk and several dozen eggs between the taking of pictures. We certainly appreciate their delivery though!
^ this is the after picture. ^
^ This bathroom closet had gotten to be a rather unorganized mess! This was Mara's job for the day (with help from me).
^ It looks much better now!! ^

^ This is a cupboard in the dining room where we keep scrap paper and other craft supplies, play dough stuff, table cloths and thermoses. This cupboard has a hard time staying clean. This was Aaron's job with help from me.
^ Yea! Much better! ^
^ The top of our fridge was looking pretty cluttered! ^

^ Looking better. I was also amazed at the amount of grime I wiped off!! ^

Check out other Tackle it Tuesday posts at 5 minutes for mom.