The heart wreath hanging on my back door seemed a bit lonely, but it also provided inspiration for an accompanying table decoration. While shopping at Target in those addictive $1 bins, I stumbled upon these darling Valentine’s Day pails: Continue reading
Monkey is 4 months old now. It’s hard to believe, and I keep squeezing him extra tight and enjoying that delicious baby smell because I know that the newborn days are flying by. Each passing day is bittersweet– it is wonderful to watch him grow and thrive, but I miss some of his itty bitty baby behaviors. I took these pictures early this evening.
Monkey is such a happy baby. He is a joy to be around:
He is such a smiley boy– he loves to laugh. Frog was much harder to make smile.
Well, a day late and a meal short this week! Actually, Monkey had his 4 month check up yesterday, so we ate out. I was expecting a bit of crankiness. I wonder if this is a self-fulfilling prophesy, as Monkey slept horribly last night. In my groggy state, I forgot that he needed another dose of tylenol. When MM woke up and asked if he could help with Monkey, and it dawned on me that Tylenol might help. It did, but still was rather restless…. I digress.
We have continued to stick to our meal plan, and this has reduced dinner stress and eating out. However, I’m still finding that we deviate either in the order of days, or take a meal out or add one in… does this happen to anyone else?
Well, on to the meal plan, so MM knows what he’s eating tonight. (He said he wasn’t sure last night!)
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Frog had a school fundraiser on Friday night. He’s in fourth grade now, and in fifth grade there are a lot of special “graduation” activities that the parents need to pay for. In order to defray some of those costs, starting in fourth grade, the students and parents engage in fundraising. At numerous events over the next 6 months, we will be having bake sales.
I’d like to think that I’m not a horrible photographer. I’ve enjoyed the wonderful capabilities of my Nikon D70 since Frog was just over a year old. That’s nearly a decade, and the camera has served me well. I don’t think that MM and I would be together now if we didn’t both have D70s. They are what caused us to click.
I’ve been trying to improve my photography of food and crafts. It’s not quite the same type of photography as capturing a smiling kiddo or flowers blooming outside. Scenic vista and cherubic children have been the primary subjects until I started this little blog. It’s a new style of photography, and we live in a home with not a lot of natural light. The family room is covered with knotty pine paneling, which darkens the room. We have a yard surrounded by old oak, magnolia and hickory trees that provide lush shade, which can hinder good close-up shots.
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MM and I were working on a couple of projects this past weekend. We’re actually still working on them, and they are the subject of other posts. However, we had several cans of spray paint sitting out in the kitchen. I have gotten rather enamored of the Rust-Oleum Gloss Regal Red, and was admiring the red coat hooks I painted earlier this year. Directly above the hooks is a light switch, and I always grimace when I see it. It seems dingy, and there is just so much knotty pine in our knotty pine family room and kitchen. See what I mean:
Being wordless isn’t something that generally describes me. Wordless and still, are two things I am not. However, I like the concept of Wordless Wednesday, and Nancy over at Do Small Things with Love made a new button for Wordless Wednesday:
About a year and a half ago, I remember sitting at work and having my coworkers talk about Pinterest, and how addicting it was. One coworker said that her 17-year-old daughter was using Pinterest to plan her wedding and decorate a nursery. Initially I was a bit confused, as her daughter wasn’t seriously involved with anyone, nor was she pregnant. Then I got an invite, and I was hooked. I learned that I didn’t have to use it to plan weddings or decorate my nursery… I could pin recipes and crafts. I hadn’t been using my craft supplies in several years, and they had been boxed up and stored away. Pinterest inspired me to get out my cardstock and heatgun and ink pads and yarn and all the other craft supplies gathering dust in my house.
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Well, we did fairly well around here last week with our menu plan. We’ve actually had more leftovers and extras than I thought, and I’m wondering if we should have 2 leftover days each week. I don’t know how many most families have, so I’m going to be visiting others menu plans today. I am still traveling for work 2 days a week until the end of the month, and I have a hard time mustering up the energy to cook when I get home. Thanksfully MM is willing to take over dinner those days, or other evenings if Monkey has kept me too busy. Even though we’ve varied our dinner plans slightly from our meal plan for the last two weeks, having a written out meal plan for dinner has greatly reduced my stress in the evening, and has helped with being more organized in our grocery shopping! Here’s what for dinner at the Tossed Salad house this week:
Sweet Treats:
MM loves stew in the winter. Well, I think he likes stew at any time of the year, but I generally only cook stew in the crockpot during the fall and winter months. Here in Georgia, the weather from April to September makes me disinterested in having a steaming bowl of stew. When I start making stews in the crockpot again, this tends to be my favorite recipe. The preparation takes under 10 minutes.
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