No Longer my Friend....

Here's WHO:

Here's WHAT:

And..Here's the CAUSE:

I guess doorknobs no longer stop her.

ps: You can tell Hope is a 3rd kid. If my first kid did something like this I would be disinfecting the entire area. Clorox-ing the shower and throwing away the shampoo bottle.

With the 3rd kid, I just put the shampoo bottle back, hoping it would get rinsed off well after the next person takes a shower, hoping it's not me. :)

2 Busy Days for 28 Relaxed Ones...Good trade off!

So, here's how it started. I've done this crazy thing before. I've even gone to places that specialize in this kind of thing. I do it to make my life easier. But it's been a loooong time since I've had the motivation. But I was just one Taco Bell away from my limit. So I decided to muster up the motivation to do it again. The "thing" I'm referring to is MASS COOKING!!!

It takes a little planning, but in the end it's definitely worth it. I will post what I made, and you can comment if you would like a specific recipe. I make very simple meals. I just pre-make them and freeze them to cut down on cooking time every night. So here's what I did:

First I made a menu. I picked items we normally eat, and then some new recipes to try. I GOOGLED "Once a month cooking recipes" and searched for some that looked good. THIS is one of my favorite sites for recipes.

Next I took my shopping list to SAM'S & WAL-MART. At Sam's I bought a package of disposable pans (30 pack) and I also bought all of my meat. 3 big packs of ground beef, one big back of chicken breasts, a package of 2 roasts and a package of boneless ribs. It was $75.00 for all that. And then I bought the "other" ingred's at WAL-MART at spent about $45.00. So it's not that expensive considering the amount of food. I've gone to Supper Solutions before and made 12 very small dinners for about $150.00. So it's much more cost effective to do it on your own.

On the first day, I prepared all the beef dinners. I cut the roasts up into 4 small roasts. Then I browned the 2 packages of ground beef. And then I made the rest of the beef dinners.

The second day I prepared the chicken dinners. I baked the chicken breasts, and then chopped them up in the food processor ( I'll post the items I actually made below). But then I also froze a lot of ground beef and ground chicken to make in future recipes. Cuts the prep time in half.

These are the recipes I made. Let me know if you decide to try it. It really frees up a lot of my time. Good luck! :)

MY MENU

Spaghetti sauce x 4

lasagna

cheeseburgers 'n' fries casserole x 2

meatloaf x 2

roast x 4

Poppy Seed chicken

Chicken & Rice burritos ( I made 15)

BBQ Chicken (just put some breasts in a baggie w/ BBQ sauce)

BBQ Ribs (same thing as the chicken)

Chicken Pot Pie x 2

Plus I have 5 or 6 packages of pre-cooked ground beef, and 2 of cooked chicken for quick dinners like tacos, etc.

Then, in the morning you just take out what you want to have for dinner and let it defrost in the fridge all day. Then throw in the oven that night. VOILA

It's the big ONE EIGHT

....that's eighteen months old. I just can't believe how much change takes place in such a short amount of time! I'm trying to savor every moment, because I know before too long I'll wish we were back here.

One Year Makes a HUGE difference

In May we have a festival called "Mike the Headless Chicken Festival". The festival is actually named after a true story. A farmer in Fruita in the 1940's cut off the head of a chicken to have for dinner. Well, the chicken did not die, he actually lived for months and months. If you're really interested, feel free to click HERE and read the story.

Anyway, Last May we went to the festival and the kids rode the little rides and we got our first sunburn of the summer, and also had our first icee of the summer.

Lauren & Josh on the train ride

Lauren & Josh loving the train ride

Hope and Daddy trying to stay out of the sun

Well, this year was a little different. Larry and Josh were out of town on their first Father/Son camping trip. So Lauren and I got up early and ran the "Run Like a Chicken with your Head cut off 5K". And then we came home and picked up Hope and went back to the festival. Hope went to the little petting zoo. When she saw the little goats she said "woof-woof". She thought they were dogs and was unimpressed. And then I sat her on a pony to ride thinking she would love it. Nope...she freaked out. She went to pose for a picture with a man in a chicken costume and totally freaked out (can't blame her though, that guy did look creepy). She's into the stranger danger phase. Finally we put her on the little train ride (with the help of big Sis), and she actually loved it. It's so fun to see how much they grow in just a year.

Even though they're not smiling...they did like the train ride
Hope petting the dogs..er I mean goats.

Would you want to know if you were dying??

I know...we're ALL dying.
But I've been thinking about this lately. One of the teachers at the kids' school just lost her husband. He was not sick, had no obvious illness, just passed away very unexpectedly...leaving behind his wife and an 8 & 10 year old son. I just can't imagine having someone in your life here one day, and then POOF..gone. It would be so hard to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward, although I know people do it all the time.
But on the other hand, would you want the knowledge that your "time" is very soon?? I was following the story of a man named Randy Pausch who was a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He too was a very healthy, young father. He was diagnosed with liver cancer and given 3 months to live. He gave a reprise of his "last lecture" on The Oprah Show. (if you have not seen it...click here and watch it. It's very neat! If you have seen it, you HAVE to watch it again!!) One of the things he mentions in his lecture is.. "I can't control the cards I'm dealt, just how I play the hand."
I've met lots of Blogger friends that have gone through so many hard times, they've been dealt some pretty tough hands. It's so inspirational to see how they've played those cards, when it might have been easier to just fold.
I don't know that I would think about this as much if I too was not a victim of cancer. I'm so fortunate to have not had a "so many months to live" come with my diagnosis, as so many people do. I do think of life as fragile. It's easy to get caught up in life, you forget to live your life. It's also easy to take life for granted, you forget life could end tomorrow for you or someone close to you. But life is so good. Just ask this man as he continues to wait month after month for a new heart, since his has not worked right from the time he was born. It's people like that that probably remember to say "thank you" after every breath.
So back to my original point...I think. Would you want to know if the "end" was near for you? Would you need that time to prepare? As I was thinking about that, I realized it doesn't matter. We should actually live every day like it's our last. Tell the people we love "I love you" and be the very best we can be.
(My thoughts and prayers go out to the Gisner family.)

WhirlWind Weekend

We had a great weekend. It was very busy. Our family came up from Salt Lake on Friday night. We had a Sunshine Generation performance at the school. The kids were able to perform in an assembly. They were so excited, and did a great job.

Then Saturday morning, Lauren and I ran in the Girls on the Run 5K race. We had a lot of fun. I am running another 5K in 2 weeks. I have been doing the "couch to 5K" running program. It's a great way for anyone to get into running.

Right after the race, we went to watch Josh's football game......in the pouring rain. He did a great job.

Then we had just enough time to get home and ready to go to Josh's baptism. I gave a talk on the 3 "Bears" of Baptism. And then Lauren and my friend Mindy Dare sung a duet. It was beautiful. Josh was so excited to get baptized. He's such an awesome kid!

It was a very busy weekend...but we had lots of fun!

The Office

Every night Larry will go in his office to do some work. Somehow Hope knows when Daddy is in his office and she has other plans for him. She loves to go in and sit on his lap and watch him work on the computer. I figured out why she loves it so much....he's not actually doing work when she comes in. He puts BARNEY on for her! Now I get it! :)