Meal Plan Week 5

This week I'm switching things up a bit.

I decided to do the e-meals again. So this week is a mix of some meals from that and a few others. I started by getting the low carb plan from Walmart. In the past they used to plan the meals around the weekly ad to help save money. However it doesn't appear to be that way anymore. 

Like I have said before, I haven't made a bad meal from their menus. However I should also say that I have never actually made all the meals in a week before. I typically pick through what I think my kids might eat and what looks good to me. I know that if I won't eat it, my kids definitely aren't going to! Some of the meals this week looked good, but I wondered if there was a better plan for our family. I am always intrigued by the family friendly plan, but whenever I look at the sample menu it doesn't ever look like food my family would like. So next I looked at the quick and healthy plan and that looked really good. The beauty of e-meals is that you can swap your plans when you want. It use to be that you could only swap 1 or 2 times during your subscription, but I don't think that is the case now.

They also have the choice of family plan (feed up to 6) or 2 person plan. When the kids were little, I use to do the 2 person plan and that was more than enough food for all of us. I upped to the family plan this time. When my boys want to eat, they can eat and that's only going to get to be more and more. If I find that it is just too much food, I will switch down to the 2 person plan again.

So this week is a mix of 2 meal plans and a few others thrown in. With e-meals the grocery list is already made for you! Bonus! So all I have to do is go through and figure out what I need to buy. Each meal has a number so it's easy to cross out the items for the meals that I am not going to make. Or if I'm only making a meal or two from the list I highlight the items I need. On each list on the side is the pantry list. Items that are common to have on hand. Most of the time I have all of these items, but occasionally I don't have something, so it's always good to double check it!

This is not a sponsored post, I just wanted to share something that I find helpful to use!

Here's my referral link in case you want to give it a try too!

http://emeals.com/invite/christina-spieker

Our Kitten Turns 4!

I am finally getting Miss Belle's party posted. She is cat obsessed and so it was an obvious choice to do a kitten party for her. Her birthday is right after Christmas so we tend to do a party at the beginning of January. This year she invited 5 little friends from school. Five little girls is SO much easier and quieter than pretty much any number of boys! It was a very relaxing party!

I typically love to go all out with a theme for a party. This year I had to scale that back a bit. With playing single parent for the month, there was only so much I could do. But I think it turned out great and Belle had a great time!

I found a cute invite on etsy. The shop name is PinkInkCreations. I would love to design these myself for my kids parties, but I typically run out of time and just have to order one.

However I did make the decorations! Lets start with the front door when the guests walked it. I put together a yarn ball wreath in the party colors. This wasn't hard to make but a little time consuming. I didn't follow a tutorial for it, I just did what I thought looked good. The 4 was green from my sons birthday a few years ago. I have an issue with getting rid of things that could be used again at some point. Because of that I had it on had and just had to give it a fresh coat of pink paint. I love how it turned out.

Once inside, quests were greeted with a chalk board sign. It instructed them to take a pair of ears and a tail (I crafted both of these items). It also told them to draw on their whiskers. (Which I now see I misspelled! Way to go me!) For the whiskers I just had a black face paint crayon.

I had to take a few photos of Isabella showing of her tail, ears and whiskers!

For activities, I had coloring sheets to do while we waited for all the guests. I had a several cat nip mice toys that I hid around the house and I had the girls crawl around like cats to find all the mice. We also had a pinata. Walmart didn't have a cat one so we settled on a Trolls Poppy one instead. It threw off the decor a bit, but Belle love it! The girls blew through the games quickly and so they enjoyed just playing with Belle's toys for a good portion for the party.

For food, we had a pink kitten cake. The best part of this cake was that it was rainbow tie dye inside, per the request of a certain 4 year old. I regret to say I didn't take a photo of the cake once it was cut. I also had goldfish crackers that you scooped up with a fish net (don't worry I bought a brand new one!) and swedish fish. I went easy for drinks and just did juice bags. 

  

For added decor I also yarn wrapped the letters to say MEOW and set them by the food. For party favors, each girl when home with a kitten that they adopted complete with an adoption certificate that I print from a site I found off of Pinterest. However I can't seem to link it, because it is now saying not found.

Such a fun party with great friends!

Meal Plan Week 4

I'm on week 4 and I am still going strong with my meal plans and sticking to them! 

A few things I have noticed since starting this. We tend to have less garbage at the end of the week (or beginning. Garbage day is Tuesday.) I'm not really sure why. The only thing I can come up with is that there is no fast food garbage any more (or very little) and well that takes up space! Also I am doing loads more dishes. This stinks but I know its for the best, so I'm sucking it up!

In the past I have gotten a subscription to E-meals and we have loved the recipes we have actually made. I don't think I have made a bad one. I'm seriously contemplating doing this again. Along with cooking and baking at home, I find that I am gaining weight. Boo!! I don't know if its because I feel the need to have lots of stuff on the table every night instead of a main meal and veggie or fruit. So I was looking at the low carb meal plan. I also think my kids might eat better if it wasn't casseroles and meat smothered in sauce.

Now my only concern with doing this, is that it's all new recipes. I love new recipes, but sometimes (okay, most of the time) it's easier to just put together something that you already know how to do. So I fear that I will get away from making the meals and resort to fast food again!

On the plus side the menu plan is prepped for as well as the grocery list. So that part is a breeze and if I choose a store in town (walmart) the plan the weeks meals around sales at that store. So win win on the spend less resolution!

If you are thinking about trying e-meals too click here for my referral link.

But for now, here is my meal plan for this week.

Meal Plan Week 3

A day late, but it's getting posted, so that is a win! We had company in town this past weekend so the meals on Saturday and Sunday were a little mixed around. I was still able to stick to schedule pretty well though! I really am loving having a plan for supper everyday. It's also helping with my spend less, save more resolution. Much less eating out and wasted food. Bonus I have awesome food for lunches with having left overs!

My kids on the other hand are not probably liking this as much as I am. They are all huge supporters of fast food and choosing what they get to eat. Having to sit at the table and be told this is supper, if you don't eat it you don't get a snack before bed, has been a harsh reality for them. I have been doing amazing at holding my ground against the whining though!

Here is this weeks menu. I decided I better put pizza for one night. I think my kids were going through withdrawal. I'm surprised Papa Johns hasn't called to make sure our family is okay since we haven't ordered in weeks!

Meal Plan Week 2

The first week of 2017 is over and I am happy to report that I kept up with my meal plan everyday except one. I ended up not making Saturday's meal, but it was only because we were invited to a dear friends house for supper.

Here is this weeks meal plan. We are trying one new meal I found on pinterest and I let Belle choose a new dessert to make. She wanted cake, but I talked her into cupcakes. We still have cake left over from her kitty party. More on that to come this week!

I was able to purchase all the additional groceries I needed last week when all three were in school, so that was a win! And I think I only threw a few additional items in the cart!

On a side note, I have been to Target 2 times this last week and I have walked past the dollar section both times with nothing added to my cart! That really is no easy task! Especially when they are putting out all the cute valentines things!! I love to decorate for the holidays!

Wish me luck on a second week of meals!

New Year, New Things to Attempt

A new year is upon us, a clean slate! Today is the day for resolutions right. I make some every year and some I stick to halfheartedly and others are abandoned within days/weeks of the new year. I won't say that this year will be different and I will stick with them for the full year, but it's worth a shot right!  All I can do is try!

One of my biggest resolutions this year is having a plan for meals. I have been terrible about cooking the last few months (full year maybe). Because of this my kids have survived on Mac and Cheese, PB&J sandwiches and whatever is found in the fridge that evening. There's been an occasional meal maybe once a week, twice if we're lucky. But this year I plan to change that. I plan to write up a weekly meal plan. I ordered a Meal Planner notepad from Shutterfly. I got it when it was one of their sales and for $7, hopefully the cuteness can keep me on track! With a plan I feel it will be easier to actually produce a meal for the table. And grocery shopping once a week. For this week I ordered the groceries online. It's cold here and the kids are all home for Christmas break and it was by far easier. I struggle every time doing this. There is always something I need that I can't find in the online catalog of food and once it arrives it seems I am always disappointed in something that came. I'm picky about fruit and meat and just need to pick it out myself! But alas for this week it was for the best and we will make due!

I also want to start cooking more because I have a cupboard (and some counter space) full of cookbooks and printed out recipes. These either need to start getting used or need to go away. So we will be trying some new recipes this year. Hopefully 1 a week. This week I stuck with tried and true recipes (except for the dessert the first day. I hope to make 1 dessert a week. I LOVE to bake! So this one is new.), we'll branch out more next week! I hope to post my meal plan here every week in hopes that it will keep me on track and I will be held to it! If you have any excellent recipes your family loves please share them!

That leads me to my next resolution. CLEAN out this house. We just have too much stuff here and I've decided it makes me crabby. I'm much happier when I can see the floor and the counter. So I hope to go through every closet and corner in this house over the course of the year and purge. Some things will be saved for a garage sale in the spring, some will be thrown and the rest will be donated! I really can't wait!

Along with the less clutter resolution is the spend less, save more! Now you may wonder what that has to do with less clutter, but let me tell you that Target dollar spot sucks me in every time and although I have gotten some very useful items there, most of the time it is stuff that we don't need and it just adds to the junk!

So here's to an amazing, clean and delicious new year!

And now we wait...

Once again, a lot has happened since I last posted about our journey. Contracts are signed and the "business" portion of the journey is out of the way and we can focus on the fun stuff. I finished all my Lupron shots and managed to get through them with only a small bruise on one side. Considering things I've heard about these, I am pretty proud of myself for this!

With those being complete it means we moved onto the big guns, the PIO (progesterone in oil). Those come with a large needle and go into the muscle in my backside. Yuck, right! I'm not going to lie I was dreading these shots, and really felt for all the couples going through this process that have to do these shots to have a baby. It's kind of like adding insult to injury in my opinion! Chris said he would help me with these ones, as I just wasn't sure I could jab that needle into myself. We received an email from the clinic that the egg retrieval would take place on 11/13/15, so I started the shots the night before.

The first night was not fun, we figured out the right location to inject and drew a circle on my skin so when we got around to the shot we knew where. There is a decent sized area where you can inject these, and I've heard it is best to find your sweet spot. If you find this is will hurt so much less! After about 20 min of going back and forth between Chris would do the injection to I would do the injection, and hormones getting the best of me with some tears. It was finally decided that Chris would do it and I just couldn't look. He just had to stick it in. After all of that it really wasn't that bad. I'm not going to say it was painless, but fairly close. I massaged the area afterwords and let a heat pack sit on it for awhile. It was starting to get sore, but that was supposed to happen right? That night I didn't sleep much due to the pain in my hip and got to get up the next morning only to have another shot right away. We switched sides and adjusted the area up slightly. MAJOR difference on that one! Since that first injection I have had very little pain with them after. We have the system down pretty good currently. I warm the PIO up under my arm while I brush my teeth and put my contacts in. Chris then injects it and I massage and use a heat pad. It's working so far. Maybe one of these days I will get up the courage to do them myself, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. 11 shots down and only like 9 more weeks of them.

Five days after the retrieval it would be transfer day! We flew to CT on the 17th and hung out in the hotel for a little while and then ventured out to the mall to kill some time. Once again I found a Target! And this one was two levels which meant that it had a cart escalator! I know, your thinking seriously, but they are really kind of cool! After some shopping and supper we headed back to the hotel to hopefully sleep. After all the next day was transfer day! We met with Colin and Tracey for breakfast at the hotel that morning and then all rode together to the clinic. 

 

Transfer was at 9:30 and we arrived at 9 so we were ready to go! Up until this point we were planning on transferring 1, unless the doc thought we should do two. I asked if anyone had heard with the embryo grade was and Colin mention that they were thinking of doing 2. It was probably a good thing I was sitting down! I was always willing to transfer 2, but in all the discussions the thought was just 1, so I had wrapped my head around that. So this came as a slight shock. Statistically transferring 1 would give them a 60% chance of having a baby, transferring 2 gave them an 80% of having 1 baby, so they decided to go for 2. In the end the embryo grades were both A's and the doc said they looked great!

I was taken into the procedure room and got prepped for the transfer and then Chris, Colin and Tracey came in and stood at the head of the bed. They had an ultrasound machine to see the embryos going in and a tv on the wall where we were able to see the embryos in the lab. The embryologist then brought them in and the procedure probably took all of 5 min. and was completely painless. IT still amazes me when I think about and what all happened in such a short amount of time! Chris and I headed back to the hotel after and just spent the day hanging out. Chris was able to work some and I watch tv and took a nap. Colin and Tracey had an 8 or 9 hour drive home so they took off right away to get a start on that. The next morning we got up and flew home. A quick trip, but a very important one.

So now we wait, and wait, and wait! I had some blood work done a couple days ago just to make sure my levels were where they should be and all looks good, so more waiting. The day after Thanksgiving I will go in for more blood work and we will find out if we are pregnant. 10 days is a REALLY long time to wait!!! So here

s to hoping that at least 1 took.