Meal Plans Week of 4-11-10

Looks like another fairly busy week here.  The main event of the week...Rebecca's 2nd birthday!!  I really can't believe my little girl is turning 2.  We'll just be celebrating as a family on Saturday.  No big party.  If it's a decent day we'll go to the Frederick Meijer Gardens to see the butterflies.  If it doesn't look like a good day for that we'll go to the children's museum or something.  Of course a birthday means cake :)  So that will be one of my main projects this week.  I'm doing a Dora cake.  I finally finished the planning phase yesterday.  Hopefully it turns out ok!

The rest of the week will have plenty going on as well.  Today is church.  Tomorrow I'll probably do some shopping, and Justin has council.  Tuesday is grocery shopping and Justin has orchestra.  Wednesday is Kindermusik.  Thursday Justin has class.  Friday morning is MOPS, and my small group is providing breakfast.  Then Saturday is birthday celebration, and Justin has an orchestra concert in the afternoon.

For extras I'll mainly focus on making my food for MOPS and Rebecca's birthday cake.  For MOPS I'm making Yum Yum Coffee Cake and fresh fruit with cream cheese dip.  I'm also going to make pancakes and try soaking the grains first.  I have been doing some research on the benefits and how to do it.  I figured I'd start with what looks like the easiest thing to make with soaked grains.  I'll also work on odds and ends cleaning as time allows.

Last week was quite productive.  I did some cleaning in the kitchen and the living room.  I went through some of Rebecca's toys and moved some upstairs (it's getting crowded in the living room!).  I went through all of Rebecca's clothes from last year to see what we actually have for this summer.  Hopefully a lot of it will still fit and we'll be mostly set.  I swapped my winter/summer clothes.  That involves moving one pile of sweaters from my closet and putting 4 pairs of shorts in my drawer.  That's it :P  I need some new clothes.  I also rotated our mattress and changed all the bedding (bye bye flannel sheets and piles of heavy blankets:) and changed Rebecca's sheets.  Rebecca and I also did several baking projects - ice cream cones, butterscotch bars and cinnamon applesauce bread.  And I made frosting and decorated Justin's work cake.  Plus we had dinner guests on Friday.  Not too bad.  Hopefully this week will be just as productive.

Here are the meals for this week.  I did a pretty good job of planning based on last week's sales and what we have in our pantry and freezer that needs to be used up.  About the only "extras" I'll have to buy this week are sour cream and buttermilk (staples) and a few items for MOPS and Rebecca's cake.  But the stuff for MOPS and cake don't count...they are special events.
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S - (church, nursery)
  B - yogurt, granola
  L - cp honey and orange chicken over brown rice
  D - chicken florentine artichoke bake (from freezer) (Justin), leftover carrot souffle (me)

M - (shopping, council)
  B - pumpkin walnut bread (from freezer), orange
  D - squash soup, soft pretzels (from freezer)

T - (clean fridge, Meijer, cake deco, bake for MOPS, CAO, meatless (for me), soak beans, soak grains)
  B - chewy granola bars, mixed fruit
  D - soaked pancakes w/ blueberry topping, walnuts and whipped cream, bacon (for Justin)

W - (KM, put away laundry, meatless)
  B - pancakes w/ blueberry topping, walnuts
  D - crockpot rice and beans w/ sour cream, avocado, salsa and cheese

Th - (cake, class, prep food for MOPS)
  B - cereal
  D - leftover squash soup

F - (MOPS, clean, cake)
  B - crunchy granola bar, fruit
  D - leftover rice and beans

S - (laundry, Rebecca's birthday, FMG, CAO concert)
  B - leftovers from MOPS food (if any)
  D - (some of Rebecca's favorites) hot dogs (grass fed, natural beef), roasted veggies, homemade french fries
  Dessert - birthday cake and rainbow ice cream