I'm sure...

that there is other stuff I should be posting about, but I'm too tired to remember. Ryan was so cute tonight and called Anna to talk to her and tell her happy birthday. It was REALLY funny to listen to them talking. On Sunday we went down to Portland to have dinner with Tommy and Nicole and Vicki and Jordan. Ryan was really excited because Toryn was there and he'd have someone to play with. :-) Cole was pretty grouchy, I'm sure there are more teeth working their way through. His little cheeks are swollen, so I know there are more to come soon. Ryan's new fun thing is asking for a high five, then saying "down low, TOO slow!" He thinks he's SOOO funny! :-) Alright, well Josh, Ryan and Cole are all sleeping, so I'm going to take advantage of that and sleep too!

It's been a couple days...

I'm so tired lately because Cole wants to nurse ALL.NIGHT.LONG. So it's making me pretty tired. Anyway, Ryan was super excited because on Wed, the school only had half day and so for bussing reasons, they had the KG classes stay until 12:30. So Ryan got to take a lunch to school with him and that made him happy! He felt like such a big boy eating lunch at school. I don't know what to do with Ryan. I know it's a period of adjustment but by the time we pick him up from Miss Carolyn's, he is exhausted and ready for bed. We've already moved his bedtime from 8pm to 7pm, but honestly, if he could, he would go to bed at 6pm! So if any of you have any ideas of what I can do so he's not TOTALLY exhausted...that would be awesome! I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. I'm going to spend most of Saturday and Sunday making freezer meals for next week so we can have a little time between dinner and our bedtime routine. Tonight I had a meeting with the enrichment committee because we are planning our Fantastic Friday, and then we have to plan our Christmas dinner. We have some really good ideas and so it should be super fun! Anyway, I think that's about all...nothing really exciting has been happening with us...just work, school and home. :-)

YAY me or something...

So I'm down 29lbs since I had Cole. That's not too bad. I'm only 3.8lbs from my pre pregnancy weight...unfortunately after that I still have about another 20lbs to go...but it will happen eventually! Josh is doing a program with people at work that's kind of like a couch to 5K workout. So I've started doing that also. It's not too bad of a work out and hopefully it will help! :-) I've also been doing weight watchers online and that's been helping a lot too. It definitely helped me cut out ALOT of snacking. When we were in Eugene I was doing a great job at keeping foods out that had high frutose corn syrup out of the house. Of course after we moved life got crazy and I slacked off. Now we are back at it again. So that is nice. I don't it doesn't make a HUGE difference but it makes us feel better and who needs that extra gross stuff anyway? :-) So yeah that's about all on the weight loss front.
On the food front, I made a few more freezer meals for Josh while we are gone in Ar. He says he will be fine, but I don't want him eating Tony's Pizzas and hamburgers the whole time we are gone! LOL! I'll be posting the recipe for the French Toast Casserole in Better Than Drive Thru later tonight.

TGIF

So Tuesday and Wednesday, Cole had a touch of a fever. We gave him some Tylenol and that seemed to help. He also slept a TON! It was good for him though...it helped him catch up on all the sleep he missed out on at Country Fair. :-) Now he's doing great and feeling wonderful. We are back to our lovely Washington weather...for the next 10 days it's basically going to be no hotter than 75°...which I don't mind...but I don't think 75 is really swimming weather, so we will probably spend more time at the park.
I'm on the verge of beating my bank. In the past week, they have "lost" two $100 deposits. Yep...lost...as in they are there one min and gone the next. Needless to say, Josh and I are switching to a credit union on his next paycheck. I've not heard of people having these problems with CU's so hopefully it will help. I'm just done with dealing with all the crap and excuses. Seriously, is there no such thing as customer service anymore??
Last night I made spaghetti and I made meatballs to go with it...I think I did a pretty great job! I totally forgot to take pictures and stuff...so the next time I make them I will and I'll post it in Better Than Drive Thru. When I told Ryan what I was making for dinner he said "Meatballs? What's a meatball?" Then I realized he'd never had spaghetti with actual meatballs...so it was pretty fun. He really enjoyed them. Tonight I'm trying to decide between tacos or sloppy joes...I guess we'll just have to see what I'm in the mood for. :-)

Here is a pic for Grandma Nettie...Ryan sleeping with his CareBears. :-)

Tonight's dinner...

So I used another recipe from the Better Than Drive Thru blog. (You can click on it on my sidebar) This one came from Emy and it was for a Ham and Swiss Stromboli. I was really excited to try this because I LOVE Stromboli! Instead of using the premade french bread dough, I made my own 1.5lb loaf using my breadmaker. It turned out great! Since I used a bigger loaf, I upped the rest of the ingredients a little. It turned out great! Here's some pics of the final product...






Thanks Emy!!! :-)

Today...

Cole has been pretty clingy today. He just wants me to hold him...which I don't mind. However, it does keep me from getting anything done. I was able to get him to go to sleep so that I could clean up the kitchen and get dinner in the oven. Josh is stopping to pick up some french bread to go with the lasagna and to make Ryan happy, I'm going to make some broccoli. I am pretty tired today. I guess I just didn't sleep well. I was SO hot all night long...not sure what that was all about. Hopefully tonight I will sleep a little better. :-)

Freezer meals...

I'm actually going to give myself a pat on the back! :-) The freezer meals I made actually turned out SO well! There are definitely things that I will tweak for next time, but over all, they are really good. I'm going to keep making some every couple of weeks so I have a few on hand for those nights when I just don't want to cook. But the dinners have been so helpful, so that is one less thing during the day that I have to worry about. Anyway, just thought I'd put that out there...who knew freezer meals were so great!? :-)

Dinners are officially finished...

So yesterday I prepared the last two freezer meals for us. They were pulled pork and chicken stir fry. I told Josh that he is set for at least nine meals so that should give me enough time to recover before I have to start making dinners again. I made homemade rolls last night to go with the first half of the pulled pork that we ate and I had some dough left over so I made cinnamon rolls that I put in the fridge until this morning...so now they are in the oven and smelling SO delicious...I can't wait until they are done! I have actually really enjoyed doing these freezer meals. I think I honestly will keep maybe three or four in my freezer at a time so that when we have busy days or just lazy evenings where I don't want to cook, we can have those on hand to throw in the oven. Who thought freezer meals would be so great! LOL! I also need to go to the store today and get some more flour, sugar and milk so I can make some bread and some roll dough to stash in the freezer somewhere. We LOVE our homemade rolls, so those will be nice to have on hand too. I'll just have to rearrange the freezer a little more to make some more space. :-)
On Sunday evening we got all the baby stuff arranged where we could fit it. Since we don't need any of it right this second, we have it all stored in the hall closet where we can get to it, but it's out of the way. Ryan's room is all nice and clean, ours is decent, the bathroom is clean. I've gotten half the dining table cleaned off and the last load of stuff to go down to the garage is next to the door for Josh to take care of cause they are too heavy for me. Then after that it's just laundry and getting stuff arranged. We are doing good! :-)
We aren't rolling in the dough right now and a Mother's Day commercial came on and Josh said "Ummm...Mother's Day is going to be kind of slim this year...but don't think we don't appreciate you!" LOL! All I really want is a foot rub, so if I get that, I will be happy. :-) Okay, well I think that's all for now. I need to eat my cinnamon rolls and then unload and load the dishwasher so Ryan and I can go to the store. I hope everyone has a great day!! :-)

For Kirsten...

I took a picture of my freezer so far! I have two lasagnas, chicken manicotti, chicken enchiladas, tater tot casserole, bacon wrapped chicken and a package of pork steaks that I have faith Josh can cook up well! :-) I also have juice and frozen veggies on the door. I'm still going to have to find a spot for the chicken stir fry and the pulled pork! I need a bigger freezer! LOL! So I officially have seven dinners prepared...a full week to help Josh out after I have the baby. Now that I'm prepared...Cole will most likely be overdue! LOL!

IT'S FRIDAY!!!!

I'm so happy it's Friday. Josh is working a short day today, which is nice. It's supposed to be a nice day today so we are going to try to get out again. Ryan and I did end up going to the park yesterday. Right as I was starting to make lunch, our power went out. Our cell phones hadn't gotten here yet and everything in our apt is electric. So I flipped all the switches to see if that was the problem, but it didn't help. So I put our shoes on and we went down to the rental office. I walked in and all of their lights were out too. The manager said she had called and that basically our street and three other streets were totally out and they couldn't give a time of when the power would be back. So Ryan and I took the opportunity to grab some lunch and have a picnic at the park. We ate and he got to play and watch the duckies. The sun was out for a little bit, but the wind made it pretty chilly. Finally we headed back to the apt and we found out our phones had gotten there and also our power was on! So I had Ryan take a rest and I rested for a little bit on the chair. I got to talk to Jenn a lot yesterday and she said that mom worked REALLY hard with her therapy and that they had lots of visitors, including my Uncle Tom who showed up unexpectedly! So by the evening mom was pretty wiped out. Jenn said she's doing good and her hard work is paying off. :-) She also said the physical therapists are great and so helpful and understanding with mom. I slept like crap again last night, but I've just come to terms with it. I figure that for the next couple of weeks, I'm just not going to be very comfortable. :-) It's okay, I know I'll live. I have been craving a HUGE plate of pineapple, watermelon, strawberries and kiwi with dipping chocolate. I haven't given in to my craving yet because I know I will eat it ALL by myself. However, I was considering doing a light dinner and have the fruit and chocolate fondue as our dessert. I think it would be fun for Ryan cause he's never had fondue. I think the dipping would be fun for him. So maybe that is what we will do...we will rent a movie and have a fondue night as a family. :-) If we do it, I'll make sure and take pictures of Ryan's First Fondue! LOL!

While I am no Pioneer Woman...

I think I did pretty good with this. :-) Here is my journey making BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches. :-)



I used a 2.5 lb boneless pork loin roast. I cut up half a large onion into thin rings and spread them out on the bottom and then sprinkled about 2 tbsp of flour over the top. I placed the roast on top of the onions and flour and sprinkled the top with season salt, pepper, salt and chili powder. I do this all by sight, just be sure you don't over do the chili powder, unless you like it spicy! :-) Set your crock pot on 8-10 hours depending on when you start and when you would like to eat. :-)




This is what the pork looked like after about three hours.



At about 5 hours in the crock pot, I took half an 18 oz bottle of BBQ sauce (just pick your favorite sauce!) and covered the top of the pork roast. At about 6.5 hours you are going to want to flip the pork roast and make sure you cover the bottom with the sauce from the bottom of the crock pot.



At about 7.5 hours, use your meat therometer to make sure the internal temperature is at, at least 170°.



If the temp is right, you should be able to use two forks and the pork roast should shred VERY easily. You should take the time to make sure all the pieces are shredded.



This is how your pork should look after you have shredded it. At this time, add the rest of your BBQ sauce. Make sure you stir the shredded pork around to make sure it's fully covered. Cover crock pot and let it simmer for the last half hour. This will make sure that the BBQ sauce really soaks in to the pork.




Okay, so I didn't make rolls...but it wasn't my fault! I was totally ready, but then I realized since we moved I hadn't bought any yeast. :-( So we are having it on bread tonight. Trust me, it's good, but MUCH better on warm, fresh rolls. :-) I put a thin layer of butter on my bread just because. :-)
I like to load up my bread/roll with pork and eat it with a fork. However for smaller children or if you want to pick it up and eat it, I suggest using less pork per sandwich.



Here is the sandwich...serve with whatever sides you choose. Tonight, I just did green beans...cause I'm a slacker like that...and we had fruit with lunch. :-)



Here is Ryan enjoying his dinner! Please ignore all the crap on my table. :-) I hope you all liked reading about our dinner. :-) Feel free to try the recipe...it's SUPER easy because the crock pot does most of the work! Like I said before, I used a 2.5 lb pork roast, and it easily feeds 4 people. If you have more in your family or want to ensure leftovers...get a bigger roast! :-)

Trying to be ahead of the game...

While I was making breakfast this morning, I was actually proactive and got the pork roast put in the crock pot for us to have pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Last night we had yummy chicken stir fry and it made my tummy very happy! :-) Now I just need to remember to make the dough for rolls or we are going to have our sandwiches on just regular bread. :-) Which isn't bad...just not as good as homemade rolls. :-)
We are having another grey day after having a fairly nice one yesterday. This weekend is supposed to be super sunny, but I'm not holding my breath. So far we have only had a day...maybe two days break between all the rain and I don't see that changing anytime soon. However it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow, and Josh gets to take either friday or monday off...it's supposed to rain on monday so I think I'll have him take tomorrow off so we can all enjoy the day together. That's about all I have for now. I think I'm going to make Ryan lunch and the we will take a nap. :-) Hope everyone has a great day!!

Uneventful day...

So today was pretty uneventful. Ryan woke up in a really good mood and has carried that through most of the day! :-) So that is nice. I got all my daycare statements put together and Josh is bring them home for me so I can hand them out tomorrow. It's nice to have that done and out of the way.
For dinner I'm making pork steaks, rice a roni, corn and rolls. I'm really trying to get better at getting dinner started by 5pm, but it's kind of hard. Kids leave between 4:30pm and 6pm, so it's hard to concentrate on dinner and get the out the door. Everything is simmering and baking right now and my kitchen smells good!
I really like days like this. Nothing major to report...but no disasters either! :-) If only everyday could be this easy and calm...but I guess it would get boring wouldn't it. Tonight Josh and I are thinking of taking Ryan to Target and registering for the new baby! We are going to let Ryan help us pick out stuff for baby Cole, so that should be fun! :-) I'm sure I'll be able to guide him in the right direction.
I'm happy that tomorrow is Friday. Hopefully it will be another nice day and a good way to end the week!