This weeks Menu

I thought I would share my menu and the recipes I try. I'm not the worlds greatest cook, or the worlds most prepared person. However, meal time has been getting easier and easier. I hope this means that I won't have to fight the kids to eat dinner at home for too much longer.

Saturday: Parmesan Chicken, Orzo, Garlic Bread, and Salad
Sunday: Stew and Rolls
Monday:Navajo Tacos
Tuesday: Hamburgers, Homemade french fries, Vegetable platter
Wednesday: BBQ chicken, Baked Pot, frozen corn
Thursday: Spaghetti and Garlic Bread
Friday: Pizza

Parmesan Chicken: cook in crockpot with a jar of Emeril Legasse tomato & basil sauce, and a bit of parmesan cheese. Right before serving add Mozzerella to melt.
Orzo: AWESOME!! click here for recipe.
Stew: Always us McCormick stew packet. Although the last few times we made it it was way to thick. On accident we cut too many vegetables and instead of wasting them, I added a second packet with the water. It turned out perfect, for me.
Navajo Tacos: Scones and chilli. How can you beat that?
Hamburgers: I like to add Worcestershire sauce. It keeps the meat moist.
French fries: I just finished the first fry. We'll see how they taste after the second fry when it's actually dinner time.
BBQ Chicken and Baked Potatoes: Just cover the chicken with BBQ sauce and put in oven with potatoes for a while. About 350 degrees. I love this meal because for the most part it cooks itself.
Spaghetti: My only suggestion is Emeril Lagasse spaghetti sauce. I love the tomato & basil blend. It is very similar to the sauce my Dad used to make at Palermo's. On top of that I KNOW my kids will eat spaghetti.

Tori's Reading

Tori has been learning to read Braille for some time now. She is learning Contracted Braille, and is now advancing her speed. I spoke to a wonderful lady, who just happens to be a friend's Mother. She also just happens to be blind. She asked me what Tori's reading speed was, to which I had no answer. So at the girls last evaluation I asked. Tori was just about 10 wpm. Marcia wants Tori to be about 80wpm by the end of the year. So I have started figuring her wpm, everyday. Last night she read 14.6 wpm. Seems slow, but any progress is good!!! We will continue to encourage and help as she and Samantha need.

Crochet

I'm loving this whole crochet thing!!! I seem to have a knack.

Brett requested a hat and scarf. I can't believe how long it took me to make the scarf.

Hats, hats, hats.



I also made Samantha a Poncho. Shhhhhh......don't tell her, it's for Christmas.

I have the best husband in the world!!!

This is just a few of the MANY things my husband can do. He will tackle just about anything!!!

1. Sewing Samantha's Christmas dress 2. Making a Braille table for the girls to use at school. 3. fixing the furnace over the Thanksgiving Holiday, 4. Sanding, stripping and painting his car 5. Making his own tie for work and church 6. Fixing my car 7. Building a fire pit for the back yard 8. Building me a jewelry box 9. Finishing off the window sill, after we tiled the back splash 10. Photoshopping silly picture for the kids.

Yes, I have a lot to be grateful for!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Snow

The last week has been a snow filled one. My kids haven't minded one bit!!!

Stake Talent Show

The Stake talent show was a lot of fun. Brett, Bryce, Dorian, and Paul did a barber shop quartet version of love at home. They really did pretty good.

I was only going to take video of Brett's group but it was such a fun night I had to video most of it.

Duncan's Afghan

I finished Duncan's afghan. He seemed quite pleased, and said it was bigger then he thought it would be. I think it looks pretty good.

Yes, I know I'm cheesy. But what good is it to make something if you can't add a little of your own personality.

Colonial Days

Tori had Colonial Days at school on Thursday. She asked me to help out, so I agreed to do so. Me and two other Mom's decided to tie a quilt. One of the other Mom's got everything and of course I just showed up. I'm pretty good at that. The kids had a lot of fun, surprisingly. They actually almost finished the quilt the first 2 hours, so we decided to cut out all the mistakes and let the 2nd two hours finish it up.

Jason was naughty after I picked him up from preschool so I had to leave. Tori was quite disappointed so I felt bad about it. However, there wasn't anything I could do so I gave her a kiss and told her to be good. She bounced back pretty quickly.

Scouts

Wednesday was the Court of Honor. Duncan got to carry the flag for the flag ceremony. It always surprises me how much enjoyment he gets out of that.

Spendy

We have had to spend a bit of money the last couple of days. I needed new front tires. The van would wobble like there was a flat tire. Even though they were full. So we got those replaced. Also, our box springs broke. My poor husband would wake up everyday in a major amount of pain. I sat on his side of the bed yesterday and I walked away 15 minutes later with a huge back ache. I made the decision and we went to the D.I. and bought a brand new box spring. I think that Brett was just trying to tough it out. He is a pretty unselfish man. Someday I wouldn't mind getting a new mattress as well, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. I called Brett this morning, and asked how he was feeling. He said he was doing pretty good. His back still hurt, but he thinks that was residual left over from the last few days.

Aurora's Band Concert

Tonight we went to Aurora's band concert. She plays the bassoon and did a great job. The kids had fun and so did we.
Jason did smile most of the time. I think he just plain enjoyed the noise. Who knows if he really understood the music, but he enjoyed himself.
I swear that bassoon is as big as she is.
Here's some video of the fun.

This Weekend

Tori couldn't be outdone by her brother and sister so she cashed in some of her reward points for an ice cream. Yes, I took her. =)

I bought some yarn to show Tori and Samantha how to crochet. It proved a little difficult and Tori was getting really frustrated, so I changed the craft. So of course I had to use the yarn. It was going to be a dish rag but the yarn was so thick it turned out to be a pot holder.
I made some granola bars. The kids ate it for breakfast this morning and all raved about how good it was.
This weekend, Brett made himself 2 ties. He is unhappy that I had to take a picture, but they both turned out really good!!!! He can now have as many Man Accessories as he wants. He just needs to make them himself. =)

Rewards

Duncan and Samantha have cashed in some of their chore points for some rewards this week. Duncan and I went to Orangeleaf to have some frozen yogurt. The addition of this reward was his idea.

Samantha and I went to Baskin Robins last night. She is such a sweat heart.

SEP's

Duncan and Tori had their SEP conferences yesterday. They are both doing really well.

Tori's teacher loves her, and is pleased with how she is doing. She met her A.R. goal, and is doing well in almost all other subjects. She still struggles with Math a tad, but I think if we work on her times tables so she can spout them off fairly quickly she will improve.

Duncan is doing well in all areas as well. He is enjoying pretty much everything with school this year, and likes his class. The biggest area he needs to work on is zipping his lip. We joked about Brett photo-shopping a picture so Duncan could bring it to school for a reminder. Well here it is. =)

This is just a poor snap from my camera. But it made us all giggle.

Samantha didn't have an SEP this time, because her teacher had surgery and was out for 6-8 weeks. Sam is doing well, though and is reading wonderfully.

My Goof Ball

Jason loves the Vacuum. I know, weird.

New Book

The new "Robert Jordan" book came out Tuesday. As always, Brett reads them first since he is so much faster then me. He finished it by 5:30pm today and handed it over. I love this series and look forward to it's completion. I'm about 100 pages in which is a huge accomplishment for me. I'll let you know how well I liked it when I finish. =)

Jason's Tubes

Jason got his 3rd set of tympanostomy tubes today. We had to be up by 6:00am and to the hospital by 7:00am. We dropped the other kids off at Janice and Dick's and headed out to the hospital.

We got there right at 7am, and started to check Jason in. You actually input his information into a computer there and Brett and I were a little absorbed. When I turned around Jason was gone. I ran in the hall and there he was playing with the wheel chairs. That's what I get for taking my eyes off him for 30 seconds.
They checked him out. He was having a bit of an asthma attack, so they gave him a good nebulizer treatment. He actually left the mask on while he colored on the sanitary paper on the bed.
Once he checked out ok, we went across to the surgery waiting room. He was so cute! He wanted his blanket, and carried it with him.
This is a fascination of his lately. If he sees a kitchen, everything has to go in it.
The anesthesiologist was HUGE! His arms were monstrous. I told him Jason would possibly give him a run for his money, but he started talking to him as he took him away. It was cute, the doctor was Austrian and had a pretty deep voice. As he walked away he said, "Hi Jason, look at the butterflies. Do you see them?" Jason never budged out of his arms.

Dr. Muntz came back after about 8 minutes of waiting. He was finished and Jason was just recovering from the anesthesia. About 10 minutes later we were called back and Jason had taken off his blood pressure cuff, he'd made them remove his name tag, and he'd gotten the pulse oxygen meter off. But he was just laying there like there wasn't anything to worry about.

We got out about 20 minutes after he'd woken up. This is him as we were waiting for his ear drops. He took a huge nap this afternoon, but other then that he hasn't seemed like anything is affecting him. I know tubes aren't that big of a deal, but I'm sure I would be a little loopy all day.

My job chart

My sister Leslie was referred to this awesome site by a friend. I'm so excited. It's easy to set up and easy to involve the kids.

http://www.myjobchart.com/

I showed Duncan and you should have seen him light up. He's coming up with all sorts of rewards to encourage them to complete their jobs.

There is a place they can post comments back and forth on the site and here are a couple comments from the kids about it.

Duncan wrote

hi dad this is soo cool!!!

Samantha wrote

I love doing homewrok for you Mom.

Gotta love it!!!!

Halloween 2010

Jason was my little caged tiger. He actually left his ears on for his preschool party.


He was a little bit confused about the pumpkin.
But once the paints came out he could have gone on forever.
Tori was a ghost.
Duncan was a Dead Gangster
Samantha was "Puppies for sale"
We went Friday to Brett's office and trick-or-treated.
After we got home, we found that Jason liked the costume make-up. He really thought it was paint and now one of my make-up brushes is beat up.
Samantha advised me that Halloween would be ruined if we didn't carve pumpkins.

This is Tori's. She watched a bunch of pumpkin carving tutorials on you-tube and wanted to try out the newer techniques.
Samantha's has star glasses and braces. Dad had to help with some of it but she loved every minute.
This is Brett's 8-bit cyclops. Love the little teeth.
Duncan was cute and got his little brother a donut at the trunk-or-treat. Then the flood gates opened and it started to poor. I haven't seen so many adults running in one place for a long time.
We ran up to the in-laws and Aurora was there. Jason seems to dig her. This face was a pose. I waited to see if I could get a normal face and he wouldn't relax until I took the picture.
We had a couple of cousins come trick-or-treating with us. We had a lot of fun. Wesley said that he got twice as much candy as he ever got before. I don't know if it was true or not but at least they felt like it was worth it to come with us.
The kids loved the big cat. Had to snap a picture with them.
Samantha was exhausted and wanted to go home. The other two wanted to stay out so I was brave and let them go. This was the last door that Samantha knocked on.
My sweet husband put the pumpkins out. Duncan carved his at school, so we had 4 pumpkins to place on the porch.