The What's for Dinner Solution by Kathi Lipp

Almost a year ago, I wrote about an awesome book by Kathi Lipp. I also had the privilege of hearing Kathi speak and then meeting her in person at the MOPS convention in Nashville, Tennessee last summer. She is an awesome speaker and had us laughing, crying, and thinking all at the same time. So when Kathi was looking for bloggers to do her 5 day What's for Dinner blog tour, I quickly signed up. I got my book in the mail last week and am so excited to share parts of it with you this week.

For Day #1, I am going to share our menu for the week. One way to solve the "What's for dinner?" problem is to plan. There is nothing worse than buying a cart full of items at the Walmart, then come home and realize you have nothing to make dinner with. So I challenge you to plan, plan, plan! And then go shopping. Here is what's on the Evanoff menu this week:

Monday- Pork roast, carrots, potatoes in crock pot, crescent rolls, grapes

Tuesday-Baked chicken, corn, mandarin oranges

Wednesday-Chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans (This is my LOOP meal-lefotovers on purpose, more on that later in the week)

Thursday-Pancakes, eggs, bacon

Friday-Vegetable Soup, rolls, applesauce

Nothing really fancy. Just food that my whole family will actually eat. So today I shopped for the above list and actually have everything I need to make these 5 days of dinners. No more trips to the store (unless we run out of milk...which we probably will).

Wordless Wednesday

Broncos Lose John 3:16 wins!

Amazing!

What I did over Christmas break!

If I were still in grade school, this is what my essay on the first day back from Winter break would look like.

I read 2 books over break. I finished The Hunger Games in 2 days. Then read Catching Fire in 4 days. I stayed up until 2 AM 2 nights in a row reading these books. Then I slept until almost noon 2 days. I felt like I was in college all over again cramming for finals!

We rarely go to movies at the theater, but in a 2 week time frame, I went to the movies 3 times. That is a new record for me. I ate way too much movie theater popcorn and my gallbladder is still paying for it! That popcorn takes a long time to digest, but it is so good!! We Bought A Zoo was my favorite movie, although it made me cry like a baby. My favorite quote from the movie is where the dad tells his teenage son, "You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it."
We went with our cousins to see Chip Wrecked and the kids of course loved it. My sister and I decided we are way behind the times on popular music, and I am okay with that!
And lastly I saw Dolphin Tale with Noah only. My mom watched the twins overnight, so Noah and I went to the cheapo movie theater and watched this. Now he wants to go visit Winter, the dolpin in the movie.
So that is how I spent my Christmas break. Very exciting, I know! I am also having a Purex crystals fabric softener and Jockey sports bra giveaway on my other blog! Please enter the contest, you just may be the lucky winner.

Denver Broncos Rock!

The boys both have their family projects due tomorrow. We only had 17 days to work on them. You would think sometime during those 17 days, we would have gotten them done. But no, I remembered them tonight. I was totally engrossed in the Bronos/Steelers game this evening, so we had to wait until halftime to work on them. After the awesome 1st half of the game, we decided to do them in Bronco blue and orange and add the mascot. Thankfully, the Broncos were able to pull out a win in overtime tonight, otherwise we would have felt rather silly sending these into school tomorrow.

So for tonight, the Broncos are #1!!!!

My 1000 piece puzzle!

Early in December, our local Aldi had 1000 piece puzzles for five bucks! Every week I passed by them thinking what a fun family activity that would be to do over Christmas break. Then I would quickly get back to the reality that my 3 boys won't sit down to do much of anything except maybe to eat. Sometimes they don't even sit down to do that. Finally after about 3 weeks of walking by the puzzles, I gave in and put one in my cart. It sat on the counter until the day after Christmas when I decided it was time to get out the puzzle. After all the card table was still up in the living room giving me the perfect place to work on it. So two weeks later, this is all I have gotten done. My mom stopped by our house last week and was so excited to see that I was working on a puzzle. She loves puzzles, her mom loved puzzles, her grandma loved puzzles...so it must be a genetic thing that none of my children have. Because aside from bumping the table and dropping pieces on the floor, my kids have not helped me one bit! At the rate I am going, my puzzle will be done in March. Maybe my mom will come help me out!!

I am obsessed!

Am I the last person on the earth to hear about The Hunger Games? Seriously, everyone I talk to has already read the series....months ago! I love love love to read. I keep a list of books I read all year. And I had never heard of The Hunger Games until a girl at work read all 3 books in one weekend and told me I had to read them. She helped out by giving me the last 2 books which she bought because she didn't want to wait for them at the library. So I put the first book on hold, checked it out on a Friday and was finished by Monday. Oh. My. I am obsessed. I am halfway through the 2nd book. I stayed up until 2 AM the other night reading about Katniss and Peeta! (Thank goodness we are still on Christmas break, and I was able to sleep in) Then I couldn't sleep after I closed the book because I kept thinking about the games.

Now I cannot wait for March 23, 2012 when The Hunger Games movie is released. I am trying to convince my 10 year old to read the book before the movie comes out. If so, he will be my date to the movie!