Menu

It's time for a menu baby! Here goes:

Monday: pizza at Everett's birthday partay. No cooking for me!

Tuesday: broccoli cheddar quiche (basic quiche lorraine recipe with broccoli thrown in in place of the ham), salad or fruit

Wednesday: beef stir fry with brown rice (freezer meal)

Thursday: leftovers

Friday: roasted chicken, taters, veggies

Saturday: chicken salad (leftover from roasted chicken, made with homemade mayo, sour cream, grapes, celery, pecans, dill relish and tiny bit of mustard), fruit, banana bread

Sunday: leftovers/clean out the fridge day

Anyone else got a menu plan they'd like to share? I'd love to see it!

I have pared down my time in the kitchen considerably. I have done this by batch cooking and freezing our meals and by cooking very simple, basic recipes. I can see a huge difference in my energy level and patience with my kids. I absolutely love to be in the kitchen and prepare yummy, large meals for my fam and friends. But, I've seen that time spent in the kitchen unnecessarily is not fruitful emotionally, spiritually or physically for our family during this stage of life. If you see anything above that you would like a recipe for, comment and I'll get it together. Love to all.

The Three C's

For those of you who may not know, I have three year old twin girls. I also have a precious almost six year old son. Our life is often loud, chaotic and stressful. Overall, we have a wonderful and fun life, but sometimes I let parenting become an annoying burden and not a faith-stretching, patience-bringing, joy-filling opportunity.

In these not-so-fun moments when I'm trying to get something done whether it be fix dinner, fold clothes, have a phone conversation and one or all of my children misbehave, my tendency is towards anger and impatience. Instead of getting mad at my precious babes, I have started to preach to myself these three words, "Calm, contact, cease." Okay, so this is what that means:

Cease: stop what I'm doing. My job is to parent these children and train them in the way they should go. My primary goal is not to get dinner on the table or fold laundry. I have to stop the secondary things to focus on the primary. This is so hard for me because I just love to get 'er done! Discipline takes time. But, it's worth it.

Contact: Go to the offending child or children, get on their level and make physical contact with them in a kind, gentle way while instructing them. This often is just me squatting in front of one of the kids, placing my hand on her/his shoulder and asking them why they are upset or helping resolve conflict. With a fit throwing miss or mister, this often means that I must physically remove the child from the room. Each one of my kids weighs over 30 pounds now. I'm as strong as an ox these days.

Calm: I just gotta keep it together! I cannot get mad or the kids will learn from my bad example and they will be stressed out by my lack of self-control. Sometimes I have to whisper to keep from raising my voice. Sometimes I close my eyes and pray. You get the picture.

I hope these three C's help you as they have helped me. I truly feel that the Spirit comes to our aid when we need Him and that He is "near to those who have young". Oh, and look at these cute kids. Seriously. They kill me with their cuteness.

Below: The Viv-ster with a sour cream stache. Hilariously serious face here.

Brooklyn baby:

My big boy is about to lose both of his top front teeth. I made him pose for these pics so I could capture his sweet smile before we transition to a snaggle tooth grin. :) Love this big boy!

Sisters

For those of you who may not know, I have three sisters. I am #3 in the line up. I lurve my sisters. In April I was invited my by my sister, Andrea, to ride along on a work trip to Destin. Oh, did I mention my hubby let me go sans kiddos? That's right, 5 heavenly days of sister time. It was a great trip to say the least and we laughed and laughed and laughed. See pics of our adventures below:

My younger sister, Sharla, moved to Boston shortly after she got married to my precious bro-in-law about 9 years ago give or take. For the last few months, Sharla and her sweet little fam of five have relocated to Arkansas and will be here till October. Holla!!! I have enjoyed more time with Shar in the past few months than I have since we were in college. To have her here is one of the greatest gifts God could hand to me at any time. I just love that girl!

Sisters really are built in BFFs. Each one of my sisters is precious to me and can make me laugh till I cry. I love that we can all four be together on occasion during this brief season. We even had a little girl night last Thursday and it was won.der.ful. See below. Love them. (left to right, Rachel #1, me #3, Andrea #2, Sharla, #4)