Menu Plan Monday

It's Monday. We are in the throes of Daylight Savings Time-induced jet lag. This week's menu is full of simple and easy to prepare food. I am not assigning days this week. I change my mind randomly.

Meal 1: Broccoli, bacon and roasted red pepper quiche

Meal 2: Hoagies and split pea soup

Meal 3: Home made pizza

Meal 4: Spaghetti and meat sauce

Meal 5: Sticky chicken breasts with mashed potatoes

Meal 6: Leftovers (or as we call them in my house: Buffet)

Do you need some more menu ideas? Check out who else participates in Menu Plan Monday.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2008 in three bullet points:

• Here are a couple of Halloween pictures for Grandma. The kids were in a hurry to start Trick or Treating so, believe it or not, the top picture was the best one I could get of everyone!
• Richard wins the good husband award tonight. Matthew only came home with one sock. These are socks I just finished knitting for him a couple of days ago. Richard retraced the Trick or Treating route and found the missing sock. (Thankfully, it was not far from our house.) The man understands what it takes to be married to a knitter!
• Emmett was very sweet and shared his candy with us when he got home. I even got to have a coveted peanut butter cup.
  

Mmmmmm Aliens.......

So, this morning I was checking out Pioneer Woman's Food blog and came across her recipe for cake balls. I thought they looked so cool, but didn't really have an excuse to try them.

Fast forward about an hour. I am sitting in a conference room at Emmett's school in a meeting with his therapy team. His teacher leans over to me and asks if I can bring a sweet treat to the Halloween party tomorrow instead of crackers and cheese, as I had planned. Yay!!! I get to make Alien Cake Balls!!!!!

I ran out to the Giant Craft Store and bought the essential supplies. I baked a gruesome looking Red Velvet Cake and then set to work. Grandma Jean helped with the decorating. I hope they go over well with Emmett's classmates!

Thank you Kitten!

Kitten has bestowed upon me this thoughtful award. She is a sweet person with a heart of gold. I am flattered and touched.

This blog invests and believes, in ‘proximity’ [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy] "They are all charming blogs, and the majority of them aim to show the marvels of friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate?" Then let’s try to give more attention to them!

So with this prize we must deliver it to eight bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”


A lot of blogs I read have already received this award. I don't know who to pass it on to!

Ok, here is one worth noting:

Sandy

Menu Plan Monday

I try to plan menus every week to maximize our grocery spending and minimize food waste. This is the first time I will be participating in Menu Plan Monday hosted over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.
If you are visiting from that site, then Hello! Nice to meet you! I hope you like what you see. If you are a regular visitor over here, then Hello! Nice to see you again!

A few notes about menu planning, Knitwit style:

• Monday's are busy here with dance class dangerously close to dinner time. You will usually find a casserole that I can make at lunchtime or something bubbling in my crock pot on that day. (Um, except for this week, it seems.)
  
• I usually only plan to cook five meals in a week as we get respite care one evening a week so I don't cook that day. (Well, does reheating chicken nuggets in the oven count as cooking?) I also plan to eat leftovers at least one night a week.
• If you want a recipe that I don't provide a link for, let me know and I can email you.
• Grocery shopping was done on Sunday, so Menu Plan Monday actually started a day early here!
• Emmett and Charlotte visit with my Mother in Law most Fridays so you usually find a meal that the kids normally wouldn't eat on that day.
  

Sunday: Hot Pizza Dip with pita chips. Baked rice pudding for dessert.
Edited to add--if you try the rice pudding grease your pan very, very well or use a silicone liner. I think I may have to soak my dish overnight to loosen the baked on sugary milk bonded to the sides of it.

Monday: Creamy carrot soup, Tuna Melts, carrot sticks and hummus or ranch dressing to dip.

Tuesday: Crock pot roasted chicken, steamed frozen vegetables.

Wednesday: Chicken salad panini.

Thursday: Respite night.

Friday: Shrimp pomodoro pasta.

Saturday: Lasagna. (I haven't decided if this will be lazy skillet style, crock pot, or traditional.)

Last Days of Fall.

The wind is a lot colder. There is snow in the forecast. Every time we go to the park we wonder if it will be the last time there will be sand to dig in.

One Saturday Afternoon.

Memememememe

Kidlet's mum wins! What? I don't know. But for those of you who are curious, the title from my previous post is a line from The Simpsons.

It is Thanksgiving weekend in my neck of the woods. My delicious No-Knead bread is minding it's own business on the counter, waiting to be baked and devoured at dinner tomorrow. My brother's hat is looking more hat-shaped, and my grey hair is now a lovely shade of magenta. I don't have much else to report, so I am leaving you with a fun meme. Please feel free to spread it around. If you comment on my blog and take it, let me know and I will be sure to comment at yours.


If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now,(even if we don't speak often or ever) please post a comment with a completely made up and fictional memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your blog(if the spirit moves you) and see what your friends come up with.

Egghead likes her booky book.

I love to read. I have loved books as long as I can remember. I love sharing books with my kids. When I had Emmett I could hardly wait to share with him a book I remember from my own childhood:

The Monster at the End of This Book. I remember my Dad reading this to me and how much fun we had together. The kids love reading it and turning the pages as Grover gets more and more agitated. Some of my other favourites are:

Cunnigham's Rooster. This is a gorgeous story about a musician Cat who has lost his inspiration to write. His creativity is renewed upon meeting a Rooster who inspires him to write his magnum opus. Unfortunately, it is now out of print. I took my copy from my Mom's house and keep it in a safe place. I read it to the kids, but it is not on the shelf of books that Matthew can reach!

Someone is Eating the Sun. I was a wee sprog during a solar eclipse (I think it was Feb 26, 1979 according to a NASA website) My parents read this book to my brother and me to help explain why the living room got suddenly dark in the middle of the day. The illustrations are different in this edition, but the story is still the same. I need to track one down for our collection.

When I was in Grade 1 my teacher kept a log of the books her student's read. Once you read 100 books, you got a book to keep. My 100th story book was Cinderella. Of course I still have it!

When I got older and could read on my own I started a longtime love affair with EB White and Laura Ingalls Wilder that lives on to this day. I guess I even named my daughter after a spider!


I could go on for days about my favourite books. I even had library cards in two towns when I was little (One at home and one in my Grandparent's town)

What are your favourite children's books?

*You get bonus points if you know where I got the title of this post.

Who made this rule?

Background information: Some nights Richard will spend the night on the couch after staying up too late playing computer games or watching TV. Last night was one of those nights.

As I am laying in bed this morning I notice three things: 1. I am alone. 2. The sun is all the way up so that means I got to sleep in. 3. Emmett is up. I snuggle under the covers and listen as he goes downstairs and then comes back up and goes into his room. I then hear him tell Charlotte that they can't go downstairs because Daddy is asleep on the couch. So, what do they do? The come into my bed and jump on me. (But not before Emmett tells Char to whisper and tiptoe because Daddy is asleep.)

Does this sound fair to you??

I am NOT going to ignore the kids and house and read this all afternoon......

.....Emmett and Charlotte are going out with Grandma.

Click on the link and you will find the whole book. Free. Before you settle in, at least load the dishwasher and put on a pot of coffee, OK?

Bad Blogger!

Yep, that's me. I don't feel like I have much to say lately. My days come and go at the hectic pace that three kids will give you. We are busy, but not much noteworthy happens. Emmett and Charlotte get chauffered to school and dance class, Matthew packed along for the ride.

Our wedding anniversary came and went. We saw Elton John play for three hours. Fantastic concert. Richard was a good sport despite the overly enthusiastic woman sitting beside him. She got more and more enthusiastic as the concert went on and she drank more and more beer.

Emmett is adjusting to a new school routine and new therapy routine. I got a note home yesterday saying how he broke down in therapy trying to explain something to the therapist that she couldn't understand. My stomach twisted. I am reading the Well Trained Mind and several books a kind homeschooler sent me (Emmett LOVES the games you sent, Wendy!) and as I am learning more about apraxia, homeschooling is sounding better and better. As it turns out, a classroom may not be the best place for a kid with apraxia to be. When you put a child like that in a group of kids it is too easy for him to get overwhelmed and not be allowed the extra time it takes to formulate sentences and then speak. So far we are fortunate that his class is very small and he has an aid with him. I just feel in my heart that at some point I will be bringing my boy home so I can help him the way he needs to be helped. Maybe I just have a fundamental mistrust of the school system??

I am finding time to knit. I am finding I need to read again. So far there are two books I am working my way through and one on standby and a new project on my needles. (The Well Trained Mind, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Twilight on standby and a helmet liner for my little brother so he stays warm on the oil rig this winter)

So there you go. I am still here.

Goofing around.

A nerd is born.

A new computer arrived on our doorstep yesterday. Emmett waited all day for Richard to get home and open the box. Richard wasn't even allowed to eat dinner. The computer had to come out. The box was opened, the new computer was unpacked. The phone rang. I answered it and Richard went outside for a moment. When we both got back to the dining room, the new computer was set up and running.

Richard had to take it apart and install a couple of things, but Emmett wasn't upset. He watched very closely and Richard started teaching him the names of everything inside the tower. Emmett was then allowed to play with the carcass of the old computer. He was in heaven. Who needs toys when you have a dead computer and a screwdriver????

I don't know if I should be impressed or scared.

Emmett's first week of school.

We did it. We survived the first week of school. There are some bad rumors circulating about Emm's school because it is located in the core area of our city. I am now it's biggest fan. I can't say enough good things about his teachers and support people.

His teacher and he have bonded. We had one bad day this week where Emmett had an accident in his pants, but they handled it quickly and as far as I can tell, discreetly. I talked to his resource teacher afterward because she phoned me to follow up. The way she was talking reassured me that we are all on the same page with regards to our expectations of Emmett. No one thought Emmett needed to be banished to diapers because of one slip up. The principal even realized that it would cause a regression if we did that because he is the father of small children himself. I feel like I am part of a team. The staff seem really motivated to help Emmett. I spoke to his Speech Language Pathologist today (SLP) and gave her his history. She described the curriculum she will follow and told me how she is going to train the TA to help. The school has decided to add a monthly visit to the Occupational Therapist to his regime as well, on the advice of our neurologist. There is a notebook in Emmett's backpack that gets sent home every day where the teacher or TA scribbles a little line or two about his day to keep me informed.

Emmett has made a friend.

So far, so good!

We might be a little nerdy......

Emmett got this book for Christmas a couple of years ago. Whenever Richard and I read it to the kids we automatically change the repeating chorus through the book so it is gramatically correct. I cannot read the book the way it is written. That particular sentence makes my teeth itch.

What are we going to do when the kids learn to read????


One more thing. File this under "Out of the mouths of babes."
Emmett was looking for something today. He said "Where the hell is it?"

We went from no speech to cursing in a matter of weeks. Richard and I are trying to figure out where he picked that particular phrase up. Neither one of us use it. We blame Knight Rider. (The original series. We kick it old school here.)

Mother Nature is changing her clothes.

A little boy is excited and nervous.

Today is his first day of school.

Party Paralysis

Confession time: I hate planning/throwing birthday parties.

When it comes to birthdays, planning, inviting, baking, gift bag making.....it all makes me want to lock myself in my bedroom and suck my thumb for days on end. I never know who to invite, what to serve, I worry that no one will show up or that that if they do no one will have fun.

I am a big dork. But now you know.

If you don't get invited to a birthday party here, don't feel bad. It's not that I don't like you, it is probably that I forgot to plan something and we ended up eating birthday cake at Grandma's house instead.

A year ago today........

I held this little bundle in my arms.


Today I am lucky if I can catch him long enough for a quick hug.

Happy birthday, Little Man. Why did you have to grow so fast???

My week by pluses and minuses.

There are a lot of jumbled thoughts swirling around in my brain. Here are some bullet points to highlight the past week.

• +Charlotte started preschool this week. Parents are allowed to stay for the first week to help their little students get acclimated. I did not have to. She saw toys. She saw kids. I didn't even get a wave goodbye.
• +The teachers at preschool were so happy to hear about Emmett's breakthrough they shed happy tears for him. I am going to try to drag him in to say hi when we drop Char off tomorrow. He didn't want to go in on Tuesday. He said "That is my old school. I go to my new school now."
• +We met Emmett's new teacher and EA today. They are very sweet and very enthusiastic about helping Emmett be the best he can be. They copied a few things from preschool that worked for him there. When Emmett saw his visual schedule in place he relaxed noticbly. He will be ok.
• -The Resource teacher informed me that they only have funding for Emmett's helper for 21 days. I have to go to another meeting to plead his case and get the funding extended. (insert expletive here)
• -My respite worker lost her temper at me and yelled at me in front of my kids about my lax housekeeping skills. She came into the house after two days of constant rain. We were ankle deep in toys. The table was piled high with various art projects. I called the co-ordinator today. She will not be returning to our messy house again.