REALLY?!?!

I am going to be 6 weeks tomorrow and although I will talk about this in my Week 5 Vlog I am just in shock.  I am 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant and I have already busted out my maternity wardrobe.  Now don't take this the wrong way, I LOVE my maternity clothes but really… really!?!?!  Where is this coming from?

I know you show sooner with your second pregnancy but this is just nuts! 

My husband suggested triplets this morning (which is why I took this picture).  This was about 30 min. after I woke up… not a drop to eat or drink… this is what I woke up to!

Oh boy!

Menu Plan 2/25/11 to 3/5/11

This was hard to do… dinner foods do not sound great to me in the morning.  But this week has been very difficult without one… I honestly don't know how I lived pre-menu planning days!! 

Here is what I have for today - next Saturday (2/25-3/5)

• Green Chicken Chili Cheese Enchiladas, Steamed Carrots
• Veggie Burgers, Veggie Sticks & Homemade Potato salad
• Shake & Bake Chicken, Homemade Mac & Cheese, Steamed Spinach
• Chicken Tortilla Soup (I LOVE this blog!  Her recipes are very down to earth yet upscale)
• Pesto Pasta, Cesar Salad & Garlic Bread
• Turkey Burgers & a Veggie (artichokes if they have them- I hope!)
• Dinner with my parents x2 (tonight my Mom is making Lasagna from scratch)
• Grab night (there may be more than this but some nights all that sound good are PB&J's!)

Hope every else is doing well! 

The following week I will post the video showing all of these meals prepared.

An update... Finally! (=

FINALLY!!

The cat is out of the bag!  Yes, WE ARE PREGNANT!!!

Life is starting to get back to "normal" and with that said I should have my menu plan back up come Friday.  I didn't plan this week.  We were too busy having fun last week!  But boy oh boy am I wishing I had made one… I feel lost this week without it!  Even though each day I want something totally different and quite extreme.  I am almost thinking that I may have to plan out two weeks just so that I have enough options…  Any suggestions here?  (and how do you respond to comments?!?!  Is it possible here?)

Hope everyone is doing great!  Its so nice to be back on here again!

Talk to you soon!

-Jeni

2-12-11 to 2-18-11 Menu Plan (VACATION!)

YAY!  The time has come and we are on vacation in about T-6 hours!  Megan (on YouTube Rmmartin92405) flies in this weekend and I could not be more excited.  About a month ago we created a menu plan with all of our favorites and with food that can make 7 people happy all at once.  We created a shopping list and are ready to go!  We plan to eat at home as much as possible in order to save some $$$! 

Breakfast Menu:

• 
  Omelets & Toast (2-days)
• Apple & Blackberry Crepes
• French Toast, Home-style Potatoes, Eggs & Bacon
• Monkey bread & Cheese Omelets

Lunch Menu:

We will be out and about so we will not be eating lunch at home (-:

Dinner Menu:

• Taco Ring
• Build Your Own Nachos
• Build Your Own Pizza
• Spaghetti, Salad & French Bread

I plan to share with you guys how the "build your own nights" go.  I think that these are great ways to make everyone happy all at once.  We are going to share some of our own tricks with you on how we plan to get the kids involved all while keeping it as healthy as possible.  So look forward to those videos.

I hope you have a great week!

I just ran across this idea from Whole Foods… I had been wanting to try some "green juice" or a "green smoothie" for quite some time now (looking for coupons led me here and I remembered!).  The idea of using spinach or something along those lines is not all that new to us HOWEVER using frozen berries & almond milk along with it is.  I think I may increase my budget by just a hair (I know, I know… I just can't be happy with a small amount) but the health benefits are there and if I could jump start us with some dark leafy greens on our way to work… then well… why not?!?!  It'd sure beat my chocolate milk! 

I just hope I can find frozen [organic] blueberries for cheap!  I think they would be cheaper than fresh... I will have to play around with this one.

I'll let you guys know how this goes! 

2-6-11 to 2-11-11 Menu Plan

This week has been pretty neat and super laid back as far as food goes.  In cooking with things that I already had this week I have found so much more that needs to be made.  Because I shopped at Costco last week I still have leftover spinach, potatoes & broccoli.  Well the potatoes are not from Costco (I WISH they would carry organic potatoes) but I let Deacon pick them out at Whole Foods and he picked out a ton!

With that said I am going to challenge myself to use up even more and save the money for our following week's vacation.  We are having good friends come and stay with us for a week.  We did our menu plan about a month ago along with our grocery list.  I will show everything we buy and make (-:  Should be fun!  We will be feeding 7 people; 1 of which (HOPEFULLY 2 [me!]) is a pregnant woman (-:   They are coming in on Saturday so I only need to plan for my family from Sunday-Friday.

Here are the ideas I already have running through my mind for next week:

• Broccoli, Chicken & Rice (with a homemade sauce- NOT the cream soup)
• Creamy Chicken Soup (leftovers from when I made it last)
• Chicken Burritos (I have tortillas, chicken & cooked pinto beans -all frozen just waiting to be assembled) & a veggie
• Roasted Chicken, veggies & bread (I found a chicken in my garage freezer that I bought about a month and a half ago (I blame moving for my loss if it!  sheesh- that’s almost embarrassing to write))
• Mexican Soup (we ended up having PB&J's one night last week- they just sounded so good!!)
• Dinner at my parents house

Now these are all things that I already have.  From this all I only need to buy some basic items:

Milk

Cheese

Eggs

Fruit (for breakfasts/snacks/etc)

And that’s it!  Maybe like $30 for the week?  We shall see… but I am super excited to do this again- for even less!

Here is my challenge to you- do the same!  Make some room in your pantry, clean out your freezer and save some money!  I thought my cabinets were already bare but boy was I wrong!  I think I could honestly do this for another 2 weeks!

Happy Eating!