Planning Ahead

This post may be a little lame, but I'm just SO excited...and maybe a little proud of myself....that I am going to share anyway.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, we have fallen in to quite a rut of eating out for dinner WAY too often.  It's not because I love restaurant food, in fact I prefer homemade food.  The problem is that I can't seem to get it together and cook dinner.  You'd think that with my baby being 3 months old now, I would know that around 4-5 p.m. her - or someone - is going to be fussy, requiring my attention and making dinner will be hard.  I should really plan ahead and start dinner earlier in the day, but I never remember and find myself at 5:30 most nights feeling exhausted and thinking, "Oh shoot, what are we going to have for dinner?"  So Marty would pick something up on his way home or we would order pizza.  It's terrible for our waistline and for our wallet's.

So, I decided it had to end.  Last weekend I called up my sister, Emily, who has made a freezer meal before and asked her advice.  Then I set off to make the few meals I already had ingredients for - but never got around to making - to be prepared for nights when I just don't have it in me to make something.

In one afternoon I made 8 freezer meals.  And it was actually not too hard - of course Marty was around to watch the kids since it was the weekend.  But I bet I could make a few on a morning or afternoon during naps as well. (Who am I kidding?) 

The 8 meals are: 2 Lasagna's, 3 Sour Cream Enchiladas, 1 Manicotti, 1 Pepsi Chicken and 1 Zesty Pineapple Chicken.  It has been SO great this week to know that no matter how the day goes, we will have a home cooked meal for dinner.  I wish I had a bigger freezer so I could make even more in advance, but for now 8 was pretty close to maximum capacity.  I could probably fit more in there if I moved stuff around, but I have to have room for my ice cream!

The other benefit to the freezer meals is that I split them in to smaller pans.  We always have a TON of leftover's when I make something in a regular 9x13 pan, (my kids are not exactly big eaters) and sometimes it ends up going in the trash.  But this time I split things in to 8x8 foil pans, so we cut down on wasting food as well!  YEAH!

The final result of 8 freezer meals:

The unfortunate result of making 8 freezer meals in one afternoon:

Even though the dishes required 2-3 loads through the dishwasher (no way was I washing by hand) it has been totally worth it!

In fact, I think I'll do it all again this weekend!

The Measure of Love

Today I found out how much Brielle loves me...and what it's based upon:

"Mommy, when you don't let me go to the park during the day it makes my love just a tiny, tiny, the tiniest, super tiny, tiny, little, tiny, tiny bit smaller. But don't worry, I love you up to the ceiling. No, I love you all the way up to heaven! But, when you don't let me go to the park it makes my love for you just go out of the place where Jesus lives. My love still goes to the floor of heaven though, just not all the way inside."

I can't imagine how much she would love me if I actually took her to the park!

Dear Birthday Fairies

Dear Birthday Fairies (they exist, right?) -

My birthday is in a couple of weeks and I thought I would get a jump start on my wish list so you could get to work on it. 

1. Please change my husband's orders so he doesn't have to go to Korea in July for 1 year without us.  I would really appreciate if you could change them to the Salt Lake VA hospital.  If you're in a pinch, I guess I would accept Colorado also.

2. Please send one of my family members to visit me.  Since I won't be able to make it to the reunion in May like planned (too many reasons to go in to for you fairies) I won't be able to see anyone until the middle or end of June.  Call me a baby if you must...but that's just far too long to go without family.

3. A maid and chef.  Really I don't think I need to explain this one.  I just don't want to cook and clean any more.

Sincerely Yours,

Camille

The Many Faces of Claire

So, I've noticed a running theme lately when it comes to pictures of Claire.  They are all of her making CRAZY faces!  I started feeling bad and began thinking that all the pictures I post of Addison and Brielle are so cute and dainty, and then the majority of Claire are of her pulling some crazy face!  I was sure I had better pictures of her. 

Upon further inspection I realized that in fact I did not have better pictures of her, so I attempted to do a little better the other morning and get her to give me at least ONE good picture.  Here is a look in to a "photo shoot" with Claire.

We started out pretty good...

Then her "creativity" began to spill out...

This last one is the best we got.  And yes, it is DARLING (because she is the cutest little red head ever!).  However, getting the picture was HARD!  So, this will do for now.  I fear for the poor person who has the job of taking her 3 year old portraits next month!