Meal Plans Week of 3-21-10

It seems that every month just flies by.  Here we are at the 4th week in March already!  This week shouldn't be too crazy.  I'll probably focus more on stuff around the house/in the kitchen than on outings (probably a good thing with this sudden return to yucky winterish weather).  One thing I need to take care of is birthday planning and shopping for Justin and Rebecca.  I've taken care of birthdays for extended family, but not our family :P  I'm in the planning phase for birthday cakes.  It will be a fair amount of work this year since Justin wants to bring a big cake to work on his birthday...and that's the day after a busy Easter weekend.  So I'll have to really plan well and use my time wisely.  I'm hoping to maybe get started on cake baking this week so that I can get it all in on time.  I'll probably also make him a regular cake for at home.  And I'm working on planning Rebecca's birthday cake too.  We're going with a Dora theme this year.  Rebecca has already made it very clear that she wants rainbow ice cream and sprinkles involved :)  In addition to the cakes I need to shop for presents.  What to get my husband for his 30th birthday???  That's a good question :P  I may hold off on shopping for Rebecca until after she gets gifts from extended family in a couple weeks.  I don't want to get any duplicates.  And we'll still have a couple weeks after that.  I need to start thinking about our Easter menu as well.  Still trying decide if I want to do a Seder meal againg this year.  And then the actual Easter dinner.  All I know is we'll have ham.  I need to plan the rest.  Overall I need to do some major planning for the entire month of April.  It seems like there is a ton going on.  We're seeing my family on April 2, celebrating Justin's birthday on April 3, Easter on April 4, Justin's actual birthday on April 5, maybe a baseball game on April 7, BIL and SIL over on April 9, Rebecca's birthday on April 17, Justin's orchestra concerts on April 17 and 18 and in-laws over the last weekend in April.  A lot of cooking, baking, shopping and outings will be involved with all of it.  So I'm starting my planning now to be sure I don't forget anything.

We have decided to fix our dishwasher instead of getting a new one.  We really do like our dishwasher, and after looking at new ones we think most of them feel cheaper/more fragile.  And they are quite expensive.  Plus the cost to fix ours ended up not being so bad.  We're waiting for the parts to come in.  Then we can schedule the repair.  So that might be some day this week.  We don't know.  So some of my plans are a bit loose so I can adjust for that if need be.  Justin and I are both so anxious to have it back!  With all the baking I've been doing there have been LOTS of dishes lately.  There are also a couple consignment/mom-2-mom sales this weekend that I might go to.

So here's what's on the agenda.  Sunday is church and I'm teaching BLAST.  Monday is grocery shopping.  Wednesday is Kindermusik.  Thursday Justin has class.  Friday are the sales.  Not sure about Saturday yet if we'll go anywhere or not.

I did pretty well last week with breakfasts and baking projects.  I think I had cereal twice.  I think Justin only had it once!  It's nice to not even go down the cereal aisle at the grocery store for weeks in a row :)  We've got plenty of cereal in the house...and we're going through it pretty slowly now.  For baking projects I made pita bread, orange muffins, chocolate chips, granola bars, hot fudge, wheat thins and corn muffins.  Yum!!

For extras this week I'd like to make some dried fruit if I can find any decent produce at the store.  I sure am anxious for the farmer's market to start!!!  Not the best selection at the stores these days.  Although I did just find out that we have a  Horrocks (sp?) near us.  So I may have to check that out soon.  They are supposed to have good produce.  I'm hoping to make a new batch of ice cream to go with Justin's birthday cake.  Not sure what kind yet.  And I'd like to start baking birthday cakes as well.  I think I'm going to try at least one new cake recipe.  I've actually made it through most of my baking experiments from my montly goals list.  I'm surprised.  I didn't think I'd get that much done.  We'll see if I can cross off a few more in the next week and a half.

We're still plugging along with potty training.  Rebecca definitely knows now what the potty is for.  She starts peeing the instant she sits down...every time (we try to have a few potty times every day).  We are glad she's getting the hang of it.  On the down side it seems as though she also associates peeing with any time she has her diaper off :P  We've had a couple instances of her peeing on the changing pad in the last couple days.  She hasn't done that since she was an infant.  So now we're going to start doing potty time (in addition to the regular ones we're already doing) every time we have to change her diaper...try to avoid the mess :)  We're still working on having her tell us when she has to go.  And still not much pooping on the potty.  But all in good time :)

And on that note, here's what's on the menu this week :)

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S - (church, BLAST)
  B - cereal
  L - turkey bean chili w/ cornbread muffins
  D - salad (me), pork roast w/ fruit (from freezer), rice or potato (Justin)

M - (Meijer, make dried apples, make brownies, meatless)
  B - yogurt, granola, blueberries and raspberries (from freezer)
  D - leftover corn chowder and cornbread muffins

T - (make ice cream batter)
  B - granola bar, fresh pineapple
  D - baked potato bar w/ chili and broccoli w/ cheese

W - (KM, make ice cream, bake cake and cupcakes)
  B - toast w/ cashew butter, fresh pineapple
  D - chicken noodle bake, green beans, applesauce (Justin), leftover chili (me...gotta use it up:)

Th - (bake cake, class)
  B - pumpkin applesauce muffins (from freezer), fruit
  D - salad

F - (clean, MOPS sale, make granola bars)
  B - toast w/ cashew butter, fruit
  D - salad (me), leftover chicken noodle bake, peas, applesauce (Justin)

S - (clean, laundry, birthday shopping, 2nd hand sale, bake cake, soak flour)
  B - yogurt, granola, blueberries and pineapple
  D - black bean butternut squash quesadillas w/ roasted red pepper, avocado, salsa, sour cream and corn, fruit