Menu Plan Monday and more

Once a week, I sit down and plan out our menu for the week, sometimes 2 weeks at a time, depending on how busy our schedule looks. That way, I’ll only need a quick run to the store for produce, bread & milk.

This week, I will be trying to clean out our pantry, freezer & fridge. We are headed to Phoenix for my friend Allison’s wedding. Allison and I grew up together in California and we were best friends. I am so grateful that our friendship remains, 21 years later? I’m unsure if that’s the correct number, at any rate, it’s close enough, give or take a year or two. Love that I am able to share the memories of my childhood with someone besides family, since I did not grow up with my siblings.

Anyway, so on to cleaning out the pantry, fridge & freezer. Here is what I’m thinking I can pull off…

Sunday we had Taco Salad

BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad 
Cook chicken, cut into strips & mix in BBQ sauce in a large skillet and cook on med. until heated. Toss lettuce, black beans, red onions, corn, and chicken in a large bowl. Sprinkle with cheese. Top each w/2 T light ranch dressing.

Spaghetti w/meat sauce & salads

Breakfast for dinner (scrambled eggs & either crepes or pancakes)

Pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches, salad & chips

Why all the salad? Well, I just recently bought a big container of Spring Mix (which I LOVE) from Costco. Even with all those salads, I’ll also need to make salads for myself for lunches to finish it off before we leave.

Other reasons to be excited: it’s a trip without the kids, I am in need of a break in a big way right now! We will get to hit up Trader Joe’s and IN-N-Out Burger! We are also staying at a hotel that is not far from a place Guy Fieri visited on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives that I might try and talk Jeremy into visiting. It’s a Mexican place and their carnitas taco looked super yummy! The only thing holding me back is that it’s a Mexican food place…and we’re from Texas. Will it really blow me away?

Yes, I know, I need to update with our snow storm pictures! Can you believe they are predicting snow again for Tuesday. What a crazy winter it has been!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It's snowing here today - ALL day. And we have lots of it - by Texas standards. It's 4:55p.m. and we have around 8 inches currently. It has been snowing since roughly 4a.m. and is supposed to keep up until midnight. Hello, do I still live in Texas??

This picture was taken this morning after I took Kaylin to school. They still had school, there was only about 2 inches at that point. Around 11:30 they decided school would let out an hour early, and then by 4p.m. they went ahead and canceled school for tomorrow, as it's only supposed to get worse. Jonathan had school today, but I was up at Kaylin's school working on some PTA stuff and it was getting worse by the time we got back home, so I decided to keep him home with me. It was a good thing I did, as they called 2 hours later asking everyone to come and pick up their kids by 11:30 a.m.



I did take some other pictures after this, but my camera battery died on me, so it's charging right now. Yes, I could get up and take some pics with my phone, but to be honest, I'm nice and toasty in front of this fire after taking pics outside while the kids played in the snow :) Maybe I will remember to upload those later. If nothing else, they'll be on picasa or facebook.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday: At the in-laws for the Vikings game

Tuesday: Meatloaf, corn, mashed potatoes

Wednesday: Build your own taco bar

Thursday: NYE party (I’ll be making grape jelly meatballs, chips, queso & guacamole, fruit & dip, plus friends will be bringing other things over)

Friday: Taco Soup w/ toppings

Saturday: Pork Tenderloin, mashed sweet potatoes, southern green beans

Sunday: Chicken Fajitas & refried beans

Lonestar Christmas

In addition to hosting the ICE! exhibit, the Gaylord Texas goes all out on the Christmas decorations. Once we were done with ICE! we walked around looking at all the decorations.

Right after we let out of ICE! we were in the gift shop, where they had a train full of stuffed animals. Jonathan LOVES him some trains, so he moved all these stuffed animals into the next car and climbed on in. Last year, it was actually something that they let the kids play in, so I didn’t stop him. I would have if he’d just climbed on top of the stuffed animals, but I didn’t think he was hurting anything by doing this, and one of the associates was right there next to us. We put all the animals back and he was not happy to leave the big Jonathan size train.

And then, we found this in the lobby of ICE!… he was in heaven! I’m not sure how we had missed it earlier! He didn’t want to leave. Not even when Mimi offered to buy him a cookie or ice cream.

We wrestled him out of the train and went to get ice cream and watch the glass elevators go up and down. Don’t you wish you were entertained just as easily?

Then we walked around to check out all the trains and other beautiful decorations.

 

This was the giant gingerbread house. And giant gingerbread man, woman & dog.

Trains….   this picture sums up how Jonathan felt about the trains. 

One of several of the large Christmas trees they have on display in the atrium.

ICE! at the Gaylord Texan

Yesterday, I took the kids to see the ICE! exhibit at the Gaylord Texan over in Grapevine. This year’s theme is “How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and I think it might have been my favorite exhibit. This is the 5th year they have done it.

They keep it a frigid 9° F in the exhibit, because, well, duh, they need to keep the ice sculptures frozen solid. However, as we learned yesterday, apparently the colder it is outside, the colder they need to make it in the exhibit. So, yesterday was pretty much the coldest day we’ve had in 2009 so far, 18° that morning, which apparently meant, they needed to make it –3° F in there. Talk about cold!!

I tried to get through there as fast as possible, but still get our money worth. I think the kids would have stayed playing on the ice slides all day. I went down twice, Jonathan went down 4 or 5 times and Kaylin went down 6 or 7 times before I left with Jonathan. No worries, my mom went with us, so she stayed in there with Kaylin, but Jonathan was absolutely freezing and I was worried my camera or phone were going to freeze. They had warned us to keep them warm, as they had at least 10 freeze within the last hour. Of course, mom kept asking Kaylin if she was ready to go yet, and Kaylin kept saying no, but once mom said that was enough and they were leaving Kaylin said her feet were freezing!

Jonathan coming down the ice slide.

Kaylin coming down the other ice slide.

Jonathan and mommy trying to keep warm.

Poor Jonathan, do you see how big that parka was on him?

Family pictures

We had our annual family Christmas pictures taken at BluDoor Studios. So happy with how they turned out! ReJana and Mike really do a great job!

November has been busy

Back in at the beginning of September I took on the Hospitality chair position in the PTA at Kaylin's school. It has kept me busy. The picture I posted of my dad & Kaylin at the Grandparent's Day luncheon was my first event. For November, we had a luncheon to thank the teachers.

A picture of the dessert table. We had SO MANY desserts. I learned my lesson that the 3rd grade parents at Kaylin's school ROCK when it comes to asking them to help with donations.

This is the table full of cold goodies. Lunch meat, cheese, pasta salad, bread, rolls, veggies, etc. We also had a table full of hot foods, but there was never a clear path so that I could take a picture of it. The teachers were very happy and seemed to really enjoy the lunch.

Also in November, we all know is Thanksgiving and both Kaylin and Jonathan's schools had a Thanksgiving lunch that family members could attend. Kaylin's I didn't get any pictures at, as we had some excitement during lunch, which really threw me off my game. In the middle of eating, the fire alarms sounded. Surely, we thought, they wouldn't plan a fire drill in the middle of lunch with an extra 150 people on campus, right? Well, when we said that out loud Kaylin's response was, "ugh, we just had a fire drill yesterday!" Very dramatic like, you do not disturb Leuwerkes when they are eating, FYI! Once she said that, my dad and I knew this was not a drill, so I start thinking someone must have burned some turkey or something. We still don't know what set it off, but I was also helping with this event, so after Papa went home and Kaylin went back to class, I was still around to help with other lunches, and the fire department showed up. I won't voice my concerns that it was 30 minutes after the alarm went off and that they are less than 1 mile from the school. Clearly, we are in big trouble if our house, or the school, which is also in our neighborhood, were to ever *really* catch on fire. My neighbor was volunteering with me and we joked that we will just have to borrow each other's hoses if the need ever arises. So, as you can imagine, I was a bit preoccupied to snap pictures during Kaylin's Thanksgiving luncheon.

Jonathan and Daddy

Mommy and Jonathan

October update

In October there is the annual Alliance Air Show which features the Blue Angels. We live about 1 mile from Alliance airport, so we are treated to the air show for free! This time, we happened to be at the neighborhood park with some friends. One of Jeremy's co-workers asked if his girls could come and play for the day, as both he & his wife had to work and family members that usually watch them when they are both scheduled on a weekend, had something come up. So, his girls came over, they are 6 & 8 so the perfect age for playmates for Kaylin! We had a lot of fun!

Need an idea of just how close/low they flew at times?








Here's a group shot.


All the girls!

And then it was Halloween! This is a house on our street. Halloween is their holiday of choice, they do decorate for Christmas, but Halloween is the holiday they seem to go all out for. I thought about snapping the pic as we were walking by. I wish I would have stopped and snapped a better one. There's always next year, and it seems they are always adding to their display, so next year will be bigger & better.

Kaylin was a witch and Jonathan was a dinosaur. All night long, he kept sticking his hand up like they were claws and saying, "RAWR!"

September photo dump

Clearly, I could never make blogging my profession. I cannot keep up this thing up to date. Here are some of our pictures from September.

Eating lunch with Papa at the Grandparent's Day luncheon.

A random picture we snapped of Jonathan wearing Daddy's hat.

Kaylin celebrated her birthday with a pink castle bounce house.

Here she is opening presents with her friends. She dressed up for her party in a dress, dress up heels, a tiara, a necklace, rings, make-up, the works! She was definitely princess for the day!