Menu This Week...

I confess, I'm "borrowing" my sis-in-law Marisa's idea to post her menu ideas on her blog. It's a great way for me to remember as well as to share great recipes, so I hope you enjoy. THANK YOU MARISA!!!!

Monday: BBQ Chicken Braid
                Broccoli
                Fresh Strawberries

Tuesday: Actually Delicious Turkey Burgers
               Fruit and Spinach Smoothie (I use fresh strawberries, orange juice concentrate, milk, yogurt,
               ice, vanilla, honey, frozen fruit, and spinach--no recipe, I just kind of throw it together)
               Sweet Potato Fries
               Peas
       
Wednesday: French Dip Sandwiches
                    Spinach Salad
                    Honey Lime Fruit Salad
                    Chocolate Peanut Butter Fun Cake

Thursday: Slow Cooker Southwest Chicken Stacks
                 Pineapple Mango Orange Smoothie (I just combine orange juice concentrate, yogurt,   
                 honey, vanilla extract, and a frozen fruit mixture w/ mango, pineapple, and peaches)

Friday: Movie Night! (Mom's night off)
           
Saturday: Honey Lime Enchiladas
                Black Beans
                Mexican Rice
                Strawberry Lemonade

Sunday: Delicious Greek Pastitsio
              Spinach Salad w/ Feta, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Vinaigrette
              Sweet Dinner Rolls
              Ethereal Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Here's to a new week!!!
             
                   


              
              

Vacation week...a little late on this post too...

Here is a note from a few weeks ago that I forgot to post. Guess I had a few distractions in the middle of it. :) Ha ha. Imagine that :) Anyway, just a little note... John had the last week of March and first week of April off and I got a little break :) It's been pretty incredible to be able to sleep in and go exercise---tried out water aerobics at the YMCA as well as Zumba and loved it. Exercise has been a saving grace for me throughout the last 7 month adventure. I read books that have been on my list for a while, got to go to dinner on my own (sounds funny, but alone time has become very precious and doesn't happen very often, so when it does---hallelujah!!), and got to go on dates with John. I feel much more rejuvenated and am grateful for an amazing husband who cares so much for me and shows it consistently!! I am really blessed. What a wonderful man!! I think often about how wonderful he is and how well Heavenly Father knows me to have provided a man so perfect for me. It hasn't been an easy 7 months, but I feel closer to John because of it and even more grateful that he is in my life. I wouldn't want anyone else at my side throughout eternity.

Anna's birthday and Easter...

So I'm super late in posting all of these photos, but that seems to be my life lately...and I'm ok with it. :) :) We celebrated Easter with birthday fun as Anna's 3rd birthday was on Easter this year. The kids had a blast finding the eggs outside (hiding eggs in Tucson is no easy feat, but we had fun :) ) and finding their Easter baskets I had hidden. We had dyed eggs the day before and waited until John was home Sunday to make dinosaur eggs out of them. John made Anna a bunny cake (he is SO good at the cake thing and since I'm not much of a cake fan, I don't mind at all giving him that task :) ) and we had our neighbors, Kara and her son Owen (Kara's husband Grant was at work---he is in residency with John), over for dinner. We sang "Happy Birthday" and Anna acted shy yet loved the attention. We had had a family party in Denver earlier that week and opened presents, so it was a pretty simple party with dinner and cake and ice cream. For birthdays, I ask the kids what they would like for dinner and Anna asked for homemade pizza. That was probably the simplest Easter dinner ever---I can't complain :) All in all it was a great day and we had some good family fun! Here are some pictures from our adventures.

In all the party-ness, I forgot to take a picture with candles and all. Oops. This will have to do :)

Our dinosaur Easter eggs!

Such cute kids

Big smiles for the camera!!

I just can't get over how cute Vera's smile is in this pic :) I think it's one of the few non-posed smiles we have of her :) Well, all of their smiles just make me smile...