Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Chili in the Crock Pot, Cheese Twists

Breakfast: Sweet Potato Spice Muffins

Tuesday: Cream of Harvest Soup from the freezer

Wednesday:

Thursday: Buffalo Chicken Fingers

Friday: Pizza

My Mediterranean breakfast

I've been threatening to post this for awhile, but was having problems getting the picture off the camera. Not that I can remember this particular incident, but years ago (about 32 . . . ) I got my friend Wayne to try some yogurt. Apparently I was unwise and gave him some plain yogurt. I don't even like that stuff normally, so I don't know why I would have done that, but word has it I did.

Unfortunately that put him into a yogurt funk and it was about 25 years before he tried it again. Happily, his wife or some other wonderful person gave him some of the stuff loaded with sugar and fruit and he rightly found it to be quite a treat.

Lately I've fallen in love with Greek-style yogurt. It is super thick and creamy, with a nice protein and calcium content since all it really is is strained regular yogurt.

I tried this slow cooker yogurt recipe because I can make half a gallon of yogurt at once. With that quantity I don't mind draining out some of the liquid because I still have a number of servings even once a lot of the whey is gone.

To strain it, I put a thin tea towel in a colander and just dumped in the finished half gallon of yogurt. I let it stand for 3 or 4 hours, then scraped it into a container and refridgerated it. Delicious and cheaper than buying it in the store!


The day I took this picture I was feeling especially Mediterranean with my figs and honey drizzled over my Greek-style yogurt. It was one of my favorite breakfasts of the past month or two.

Activity Day--DONE

Yesterday I got the vague idea to have a Halloween party for Girls' Activity Day today. We did one last year, but the other leader was in charge and there weren't really enough activities planned to keep the girls' interest, so I wanted to make sure that didn't happen.

There are about 7-10 girls who come on a regular basis, including my three, so I decided to do it on a rotating activity station basis. We started off with 3 gathering activities:

*Reviewed the second Article of Faith ("We believe that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's trangression.")
*Matched up Halloween riddles that were divided in two and pinned to girls' backs
*Chewed up sour candy while keeping an absolutely straight face

Then I introduced the 3 activity stations:

*Don't Eat Pete game*Writing and decorating letters to our ward's 3 missionaries
*Making "grave yard" desserts (a cup with chocolate pudding, crushed Oreos, an oval cookie with RIP written in decorating gel) and baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

The whole thing was an awesome success!

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup

Tuesday: Impossibly Easy Taco Pie (A classic Betty Crocker recipe)

Wednesday: Toad in a Hole (egg broken into a hole in a slice of bread, baked or pan-fried)

Thursday: Thai Peanut Chicken and Noodles

Friday: Spooky Apple Pizza

Meal Plan Sunday

I'm going simple this week!

Monday: Spaghetti, steamed broccoli

Tuesday: Chicken patty sandwiches

Wednesday: Egg & "sausage" casserole. Dh and I bought some sausage-flavored TVP and we're curious as to how it tastes. In addition, we have a lot of bread in the freezer that needs to be used, so there will be a bread component to this as well.

Thursday: Southwest Rice and Beans

Friday: Pizza

Kevin's last day of his old life

I'm feeling reminiscent today because tomorrow Kevin starts his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is 19 1/2 years old and when his 2 year mission is complete, he will have spent about 10% of his life on his mission. 10% is a tithe, an appropriate amount for church.

Kevin was my happy surprise baby. I had already adopted 2 lovely children and thought my family might be complete. I was really very happy with the children I had. I came back from living in Europe and was staying with my parents when I began to suspect I might be pregnant. Sure enough, I was. By the time he was born, I was living in Europe again and he was born there.

He was a cheerful, blond baby. He walked early--9 months--and climbed even earlier. Talking . . . that was another story! He was really late with that.

He used to tie things up, Barbies in particular. Upside down. He used to get in H and D's personal space every chance he could and since he wore them down, they'd let him. Here he is with both of them:

He was really interested in anything novel and that may be why he liked tying things up. I often wondered what his . . . um . . . "skills" would lead to as an adult. I'm surprised, to be honest. He turned out to be really easy-going. Not what I expected at all.

Tomorrow he officially starts his mission in Provo, Utah at the Missionary Training Center. While he's there he'll learn how to be a missionary and how to speak Portuguese. And I'll learn how to spell "Portuguese." I'm really happy for him.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Leftovers (we have a fridge full of them)

Tuesday: Leftovers again, plus will make quesadillas as we have a lot of tortillas on hand

Wednesday: Mexican scramble with peppers and black beans

Thursday: Chicken fingers

Friday: French bread pizza

Happy birthday to dh

Today we celebrated dh's birthday. It started last night when we went to an outdoor outfitter to choose a new and much larger tackle box for him.


In honor of his birthday he took the day off. His company is generous with days off and he has a number of days to burn. Since dh is going hunting later this year in an unfamiliar area, he took the day to drive the Suburban up into the area and scout it out.

While he was gone I went shopping for his requested dinner which was homemade hamburgers and pasta salad. He wanted to make the burgers himself, so I just bought the meat for him. I made a fancy pasta salad with homemade Italian dressing to marinate the pasta, cheese, pepperoni, peppers and cucumber dices. It was delicious.

The other project was his birthday cake which was a magnificent six pound German chocolate cake with coconut pecan filling. All made from scratch, of course. Ha--I hope he doesn't expect made from scratch every year. Next year will probably be Betty Crocker cake and canned frosting. :-)

The only real surprise for him was the girls' gift which was a portrait of themselves.

Happy birthday, dh--I love you very much.

5000 Days Project: Two Brothers

I watched this show yesterday afternoon. The photographer followed 60 children for 5000 days. The particular one I watched was about two brothers and their relationship with each other starting at ages 8 & 10. My favorite part was seeing the older brother on his mission. It seemed a lot like what Kevin might experience on his mission, although that boy was in Chile and Kevin will be in Brazil.

http://byutv.org/watch/152c381b-b220-481a-869a-b077b9aa5354

Speaking of Kevin, because his mission starts next week and his visa has not yet been issued, he'll be headed to Provo, Utah to learn Portuguese and how to be a missionary, instead of going directly to Brazil to get that training there. He said either way was fine with him and he's planning to have lunch on the BYU campus one afternoon and invite anyone who wants to say hello to come eat with him. Great way to see pals in one sitting. Wish I could be there too. :-( But :-D that he's ready to start his Great Adventure.

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Chicken/Black bean enchiladas (leftovers)

Tuesday: Albondigas Meatball soup (recipe from a grocery store mailer)

Wednesday: Quiche. Still trying for this one and haven't served it in the past two weeks despite having it on the menu!

Thursday: Chicken Tortilla Casserole from the freezer

Friday: Pizza The missionaries are coming for dinner--they're 20 year old guys, so I'd better make a lot!