Menu Plan Monday

So, I am at the point of this pregnancy (15 days left til my due date!) where I don't want to do anything responsible. I just want to lay around but this is not possible when I have a family to take care of! SO, needless to say I am WAY beyond taking care of my family without a plan. If I don't plan, we will eat out for every meal - which we did yesterday. yikes. So, back to menu planning more than just suppers - our poor lunches and breakfasts have been rough lately!

WHILE I was planning this menu we were invited to two people's houses for dinner - perfect! Extravert time AND no cooking - a great pre-baby combo for all of us.

Also, I have recently found the website weelicious.com. I love it! Fun and healthy recipes for little ones. A couple lunches are from there.

Dinners: 

Monday, 31 – Dinner at friend’s house

Tuesday, 1 – Happy new year! Pinto Beans (already made in my freezer), brown rice, broccoli

Lunch tea party for the girls at a friend's house.

Wednesday, 2 – Dinner at a friend’s house

Thursday, 3 – Wildtree chicken and pepper kabobs (already prepped in freezer) with Greek rice or potatoes

Friday, 4 – Vegetable enchiladas 

Saturday, 5 - Wildtree Hamburgers (meat already prepared in freezer), Sweet potato fries

Sunday, 6 – leftovers or pb&j – david preaches both services, so we’ll be on the run most of the day.

Lunches:

Green veggie pancakes 

Tex Mex Rice cakes 

PB&J with fruit

Cheese quesadillas with veggies or fruit that I have on hand

Hummus with veggies and pitas

Breakfasts: Smoothies, Oatmeal, Eggs, Cheese toast, Biscuits, Cereal, fruit

Sister visit

My sister and her family headed our way after a busy time in Alabama and Atlanta celebrating Christmas. It was a laid back visit - which was nice. Em and I went shopping with baby Sawyer while the husbands took all the girls to the North Augusta Greenway to play. It was cold and windy, so not the perfect day for outside - but at least they tried! 

This is the only picture I got of the whole visit - Emalee reading books before bed for all the kiddos. The girls had a great time playing together and little man sure is growing up!! I can't believe how big he is. 

I loved having Em and Mark in town. We always enjoy their company. We ended up staying up way too late talking. Emalee has told me she knows now to spend at least TWO nights with us - one to talk and the 2nd to sleep :-)

They drove from our house the next day to Maryland to their NEW HOUSE! They closed and moved in the next day. Their lives have been crazy - but of course they handle it with what looks like extreme calm. Wow. Can't wait to go visit them sometime soon (ish).

Thanks for coming, Holmes!

Little girls are so cute

Caroline is growing up so much and I can tell the most when she plays with her new friends. The little cardboard house we gave her for Christmas is now in the garage and she and her little neighborhood girls have named it the secret house. They all huddle in it and tell secrets and plot plans to foil the neighborhood boys somehow.

Their secrets were extremely mild and childish - like "I had chicken nuggets for lunch" and "I got a new headband for christmas". It wasn't too intense either since they let me take a picture and sit right outside. We've told Caroline that she doesn't keep secrets from mommy and daddy - so I was a little nervous at first, but it is still so innocent.

This kind of play blows me away sometimes that my daughter is acting so big!!

Christmas Day

Christmas eve was sweet at church. We had lessons and carols; David gave the children's lesson. When we left church we put the girls down to bed. David and I ate chinese together and watched a little bit of a christmas movie and then stayed up super late prepping for Christmas morning. 

Oddly enough our girls slept in! Caroline didn't get up until about 8. So we had a little snuggle time in bed and explained that today was finally christmas! We talked about Jesus' birthday and how we get presents for His birthday to celebrate the fact that He gave us the best gift of all!! 

 Then went to the den together to open stockings. 

 After stockings we had breakfast: grits casserole, sausage casserole and apple cranberry bake. Yum! Then we opened presents. I loved how laid back our girls were. They were not in a rush to open presents, probably because of their age and lack of expectations. But it was a nice slow morning - which I enjoyed.

 Elizabeth Joy showing off her vacuum cleaner - she's my little helper and loves cleaning with me so we thought this would be the perfect toy for her.

 Showing off my Juliska bowl, Pioneer Woman Cookbook and some bumgenius diapers. Love them all - thanks Mom and Dad!

 We spent the rest of the morning being laid back and playing with the new toys. It was definitely weird to not be in Alabama for christmas, we missed seeing all of our family. But it was also nice to be in our new home - to settle in. I must admit, not having almost a month off for Christmas is weird. :-) This is our first christmas to not have the student christmas schedule!

After naps Gigi and Didi arrived for Christmas part 2. We were so glad they could come and celebrate with us!

Caroline got a kick out of her little karaoke machine. Gigi had a great idea to put a CD in there with "Sweet Caroline" playing. She couldn't stop laughing!!

 I was a serious baby doll fan as a child. I love having little girls to pass on the love of baby dolls to. Elizabeth Joy got a little Bitty Baby from Gigi and Didi. She is getting very serious about being a little Mama these days, so she has been very excited, especially with her new cradle from my parents.

 Caroline got a big Martha Pullen baby doll named Abigail. She has long beautiful hair that Caroline loves to fix.

 Christmas dinner was a turkey that David cooked! his first one and he did a beautiful job. We also had potatoes gourmet, stuffing and cranberry bake from breakfast. I forgot to get the green beans I had planned on serving and stores don't kid around with christmas! Everything was closed at about 6 on Christmas eve! (which is good). I guess this was my first time to try to run to the store on Christmas eve.

Cookies and Christmas

Cookies, Kids and Christmas go so well together! We had fun with little Caroline and Graham cookie decorating. Their momma and I were ADPi's together at Auburn and it is great to have my past and present collide in our reconnection! She invited us over for some of the best buttercream frosting and cookies to decorate and play with the kids! I must say I thoroughly enjoyed tasting their sweet creations :-)

 We had our own little gingerbread cookie decorating at our house and we had lots of fun!

The Youth

David loves working with the youth! I found this picture on our computer and had to share it. This is from youth group one wednesday night in December. These are some fantastic kids who love the Lord!

Also, here are some christmas decorations in the sanctuatary. I thought it made the church look so pretty. We had fun helping hang the greens!

Zoo Lights

We went to the zoo lights in Columbia. We had a great time. We lived it up and got light toys that shine and blink, which the girls loved! 

 The zoo was so pretty with all the trees lit up and fun light animals everywhere.

 We rode the train! Here they are as they departed

 and during the ride. They had so much fun

 Then Caroline practiced milking a cow at the petting part of the zoo

 Elizabeth Joy tried to pet a turkey

 she did pet a horse

 The zoo has fun statues all over, Caroline rode this pretend elephant at the elephant exhibit

 Family picture! One of our last ones as a family of four!

 After the Zoo we drove into downtown Columbia, where David and I lived when Caroline was born. We took her to Marble Slab - where I frequented when I was pregnant with her.

 David and the girls had fun rolling down hills at the state house, climbing the stairs, and just running around having a grand time.

Then we drove around USC's campus for nostalgia's sake and showed the girls where we used to live. It was a fun night in Columbia!

Christmas decorations

Just for memories sake, here are my decorations of our first Christmas in our house! Karen did pretty much all of this with/for me during our week's stay after Thanksgiving. 

Snow village - a ski slope with little moving skiers is on the bottom left. This certainly intrigues the girls!

 My favorite hydrangea garland. I've had this up for the past 5 years! I'm afraid it might be the last because it almost had to be totally reglued every year. But it is beautiful to me! And our stockings! I need to get one for Anna Helen for next year! Wow... 5 stockings... (speaking of 5 - it hit me last night that Caroline will be 5 at her next birthday = CRAZY)

 Jim Shore Carolers on top of the piano

 Dickens village with some ice skaters on the end

 Nativity by the front door flanked by our blown glass ornaments that David and I made last year. 

 This is the view from our front door. 

I also put green wreaths on the windows outside with red bows and my fabric christmas wreath that I made last year on the front door. I already have ideas for outside next year, which will be fun!

Progressive Dinner

Tonight the youth had a progressive dinner and I got to be the entree house. We had lasagna, salad and garlic bread. It was such a fun night having everyone over! Now they are at the dessert house playing dirty santa. Every time I am around these kids I am so glad that we are here. These youth blow me away at their kindness, respect, love for each other and care and concern for us.

This morning a youth mom came over to help me clean up - she organized the toy room - no small feat! Then she went to the grocery store for me to buy what I needed!! Wow!! Then, some of the girls came over a little before the rest of the youth to help me do last minute stuff like put ice in drinks, put bread in the oven, cut the lasagna and even get Elizabeth Joy dressed :-) I am constantly in awe of how much the people of this church go above and beyond to serve David and me. I thought we were here to serve them - but they bless us and serve us more!!

Pet Fish

Caroline won some fish at our church's fall festival several weeks ago. Caroline talked Mimi, during her visit, to getting her fish some more fish friends. So we have two little guys in there now. She named them Caroline and Nemo :-) There were four fish total (since she is 4), but two of them kicked the bucket. It was our first time to explain death to Caroline and it went very well. After David explained how death entered the world because of sin, I went to give her a hug and tell her I was sorry. Caroline said, "It's ok mama, I'm fine." So, there we have it.
These little guys were a surprise on us, so I wasn't quite prepared when we brought them home to care for them, but I found this fish bowl full of rocks and shells at Goodwill and they seem to be happy little fish!
Both girls love the fish and love feeding them and talking to them. They sure are easy pets! I can't believe these two have lasted so long! ha!

Happy Birthday, Jesus Program

Caroline's preschool had a Christmas program today! It was so cute! Caroline sang "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Ring them all the day. Tell the world that Jesus came to take our sins away!"

"Ring, ring, ring the bells. Ring them loud and clear. Tell the people everywhere that Christmas time is here"

 All the kids were so sweet. They were waving to their parents the whole time or screaming "Hi Mama!" Elizabeth Joy was thrilled to pieces to see Caroline on the stage and seeing drawings of baby Jesus made her squeal in delight. We had fun. 

Happy Birthday, Caroline!

This weekend was Caroline's 4th birthday party! We were so glad to have Gigi, Mimi, Grandaddy and Aubrey come from Alabama to celebrate with us! We invited neighbors and church friends over to have a Dora the Explorer party. We played games, ate pizza, colored, and then when it was time to blow out the candles on the cupcakes we realized that swiper SWIPED the cupcakes! So the kiddos got maps and went looking. 

 They lined up and went on a search through our neighborhood through the Lollipop Forest

 the balloon lagoon...

 and finally they had to wake the sleeping giant (Grandaddy) with maracas. Then they found them!  In order to eat they had to sing happy birthday to Caroline (she loved it!)

 Elizabeth Joy's cupcake face was adorable

I learned that kids like to crowd around tight during present opening time!

We had so much fun and loved celebrating our big girl. Also, a big shout out to the grandparents. David and I could NOT have pulled off the party without them and all their hard work. All of us (kids and adults) took a serious nap afterwards. This age was so fun to have a party for. Caroline is really into all this celebrating.

That night we took Aubrey to Evan's Tree Lighting to ride ponies, fair rides and watch elementary kids sing christmas songs while they lit up the big christmas tree. Then Caroline had her first restaurant happy birthday song at Red Robin by all the servers and of course loved it. These sweet cousins and their baby dolls slept in matching pajamas and had the best time together.