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Saturday, April 28, 2012

5 month Luca


Things have settled down with baby Luca. We are now a family of five with a semi balance of routine. I love this baby-he is making raspberries with his mouth or sticking out his tongue and blowing. So stinking cute! He is also an excellent knitter as you can see. He makes my life interesting and I am excited to see him grow, he seems pretty relaxed and I hope that continues. I hate to comment on his sleeping, by the 3rd child I think as a parent who gets up at night not to count the hours of sleep that you get-but if you did it would be depressing. :)

Friday, April 27, 2012

{this moment} - A Friday ritual.

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
From Amanda Soule




 *I have been looking at this series from the beginning-first time participant..

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Pinto Beans-and more

This past Monday-I tried something different.

Per the recommendation in this month's Everyday Food I took the wise advise and meal planed from their Jump-Start Your Week (not available online). It provided 5 meals, a shopping list for the week, recipes and prep ahead directions. I changed 2 meals to fit our family taste but stuck to the main ingredients.

On Mon I bought most of our groceries at our local co-op. Mostly because they have the best variety of lentils and I am specific about lentils. 

Our groceries were surprising reasonable. 

I bought some extra things too-yogurt,fruit and staples. Out total bill was 68.00. (Which inculded a free range pork roast and grass fed skirt steak...) Not bad...

Monday I got home and did the prep. Which took roughly 1.5 hours. I made pesto, rice, lentils, cut timed veggies and set out the meat to marinade.

I also cooked the first meal shrimp penne with spring herb pesto.  It was really yummy! It fed all of us (the kiddos ate it too despite it's green color). You cook everything together so It really just took about 12 minutes to pull it together. I was more impressed because I had set some aside for a family with a new baby and then it fed us leftovers too...I think I used more pasta than the recipe called for but still...

Tuesday- we had leftovers from the weekend, because I did not get the pork roast in the crockpot in the morning.

Wed- we are having a pulled pork style taco. (I changed this from a roasted pork loin). I am also making pinto beans from scratch using this recipe.  I am excited to see how it turns out.

I just told Luis I feel like I have been cooking constantly...but not really.  What I have noticed so far is that I don't have to think about what is for dinner. Of course duh! It something that has been taken off my mind.

Don't laugh at this next statement-I've never shopped with a list.  Like NEVER and you guys! It was great (somewhere my mom is rolling her eyes, because she has mentioned this numerous times). I am still a little surprised at the ease that was generated by that little list.


Well I will give one more update at the end of the week, see if I am still as enchanted with this idea as I am today.

And just for fun....a baby