The Plan - Month 1

A while back I mentioned the "Grand Family Plan" that I've been swirling around in my brain.  We started using it in January and I'm really enjoying it. 

Part of the plan is being more purposeful in what we are doing.  We skimmed back everything!  Haven't even missed gymnastics once!  The opportunity to be home and take the time to teach our kids and just be with them and soak in everything about them at this age learning and growing was exactly what we were missing. 

One of the tools that I have been using is this book:

Inside there are 12 values to teach your children.  Month 1 for us was Honesty.  It has teaching tools and ideas inside that made this perfect and easy to add to our family home evenings.  I read a quote during the month from Gordon B. Hinckley from the book Standing for Something, a book I love and have read several times over the last 10 years.  Anyway, it basically said, "where there is honesty other virtues will follow". 

Month 2 (February) will be courage.  I am so excited.  I just felt in our busy lives it wasn't enough to just hope that our children caught our examples of how to live by watching us and hope that primary filled in the missing links.   With all the extracurriculer things families have children spend more time with other adults than their parents. 

The other book I have been supplementing with is the book 52 Weeks of Fun Family Service.  One week honesty, next week service, etc.  The fun thing is I have noticed my kids talk about being honest with eachother as the weeks have progressed.  Something must be sinking in!

You can get these books from Amazon by clicking on the icons on the right hand side of the page! 

Friday Fixins'

Do you ever stumble upon one of those blogs that has a million followers and wonder how in the world you could NEVER have heard of them?

Boy howdy did that ever happen to me!  I was glancing through the most recent copy of my LDS Living magazine when I saw an article for a new cookbook coming out and the girls had a blog.  Well, the taquitos looked awesome,  {I’m a big fan of dipping my food}, so I made a mental note and never even read the article – no time! 

This evening between piles of clean towels and ones still covered in the most recent barfing adventures of my 2 year old, I started to jot down my menus for the next two weeks and {ah, ha hallelujah praises} my brain actually remembered something that I wanted it too!  Chicken taquitos!

[he is not this cute when he is throwing up]

So, I googled the website and found this awesome blog that has like 6 thousand followers, gorgeous content, and thought, “what the crap? How come I’ve never heard of them?”  {Sigh}  I felt so left out?

Perhaps you yourself are feeling left out too.  I’m telling you cute, cute, cute is the word over there at their blog!  Loved it!  Anyway, I now have about 47 new recipes printed out and waiting to try….too bad the majority of them are sweets…like this chcoclate mousse crunch cake.  I will never lose my 10 lbs., so long as there is this and French bread smothered in butter!

So on for this week’s menu:

Friday- Chicken Taquitos , black beans, fruit, salad, chips and guacamole

Saturday – Pizza!  So, so delicious!

Sunday – We haven’t had a roast in forever so we’ll be having crockpot roast beef, rice pilaf, salad, cauliflower, carrots, rolls

Monday -  Cheesy scalloped potatoes w/ ham and corn

Tuesday – 3 cheese manicotti, salad, broccoli, and fruit

Wed – leftovers or breakfast for dinner

Thursday – date night!

I love leftovers and date night next to each other.  Two nights off!