Meal Prep!

I've shared before how I like to have a meal plan for every week.  If I don't have meals prepped, we're more likely to eat out.  I'm not against eating out, sometimes we eat out once a week, depends on our (aka, the girls') schedules.

 

I used to use my Sunday afternoons to browse cookbooks. magazines and cooking blogs to make my meal plans for the week.  I loooooved my Sunday afternoons!  Now we have volleyball most weekends, so I make the time to do a monthly meal plan.  

Right now I have Fridays off, so when I am not running errands and kids to their appointments, I will meal prep.  I like to get at least a couple full meals made up and put in the freezer, brown up a few pounds of hamburger, grill chicken. make meatballs and chop up veggies. Weeknight meals are WAY easier when you have the main things prepped.

I also make my lunches for the week.  I don't mind eating the same things everyday, I truly don't get bored.  I have a mixed green salad with carrots, sugar snap peas and grilled chicken.  A side of fruit and veggies and some hummus rounds out my lunch.

This is what works for me, I love knowing whats on the menu everyday!

Linking up with Wendy at A Daily Dose of Del Signore

Reflections Program

Every year our school has a program called "Reflections", it's an arts type of program where they give you a theme and have several different categories that you can submit your work.  Some of the categories are visual arts, photography, lyrical, literature and film.

The theme this year was "Believe, Dream, Inspire".  Since our Emma is such a writer, she of course wrote a book!  Her book is called "One Dream" and it is the story of Caroline who lives back in the 1800's and has a dream that she ends slavery.  Because of that dream, she is inspired to write President Lincoln encouraging him to end slavery.

This kid has an imagination, I tell ya!  And they thought so too, because her story won first place and now gets sent down to the state level!

She was pretty stoked about this...Her dream, of course, is to be a writer.  This kid has written a bazillion stories, or should I say, started a bazillion stories.  Not kidding, if you were to clean her room right now, you'd find about 6 different types of notebooks with stories in them.  She writes anything from a fairytale to mysteries.  Last Halloween she wrote a mystery that had me so enthralled, I begged her to finish it because I had to know what happened to the kids in the castle.  I'm still waiting...

Way to go Emma, we're so proud of you!

Hang On to Your Hats!

It's Thursday here in Minnesota (as if it's like Tuesday in Iowa and Monday in Boston...) which should actually be renamed "snowstormday".  I swear we only get snowstorms on Thursdays or Sundays.  Seriously, Fridays plans are always ruined because of the storms and Mondays are even suckier.

So, what else do you do during a blizzard, but make lava molten cakes, right?!  As if I need more chocolate in my life, I decided to whip up these scrumptious morsels of pure dense, sweet chocolate heaven.  

This delicious recipe hails from Mels Kitchen Cafe.  Love her.  Love her recipes.  I probably make a couple of her recipes a week, serious yumminess.  I didn't get a pic of the center, because silly me baked it a wee bit too long and it wasn't gooey like it should be.  This does not take away from how freakin good these are.

I feel like this could be us tomorrow with as much snow we have right now.  For now, I will try to imagine this...

Presidents Day Volleyball Tournament

This past weekend we spent a total of 17 hours watching volleyball.  17 hours of nerve-wracking, high intensity volleyball.  We (the parents) commented on how maybe we should have had a beer IV placed to keep us calm.

Saturday the girls played ok, came in 3rd out of 4 teams.  They just weren't "on" like they usually are.  We got back to our hotel and decided to make a break for the Mall of America.  And those of you who know me, know how much I love to shop...said no Cara EVER.  Oh well, this was for the kids.  We left Alayna back home to stay with Grandma for the weekend, she would never had survived sitting that long.  Emma got to bring her BFF Abby with and they did so well, very patient ladies!

Our first stop was the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience.  I was bummed as it wasn't exactly what I was thinking it would be for the amount of money we had to shell out.  However the girls loved it!

Emma is not a diva.  At all.

After spending 2.5 hours and only making it to 2 stores, we headed back.  After the traffic and enormous amount of people, I needed a beer.  Stat.

We hung out by the pool and relaxed, exactly what we needed.

Sunday volleyball started at 8 am.  The girls were in the Silver division with 31 other teams.  These ladies played like I've never seen before, it was truly incredible to watch!  And my baby girl who has always struggled with overhand serving, served out of this world!  Seriously, I don't know what happened, but she served like she's always gotten it.  The best was when she was up to serve, and we were ahead 24-23, and needed one point to win and make it into the championship game.  You could tell she was nervous, and I prayed hard!  She got up, and served an ace to win...I cried.  It was an amazing moment for her and one that I hope she never forgets.  The thing I loved so much about this was that she knows the things she has to work on, but doesn't let it get her down.  She works her tail off to make it better.  Love that kid.

And yes, these awesome ladies came back and won first place in their division!  12-0.  WOW!

So proud to see how much they have improved since their first tournament in January!

Happy Valentines Day!

Had ya worried for a minute there didn't I?  No, it's not Valentines Day yet, but I did make the fam a special dinner last night as we will be gone on the actual big heart day.  Rachel has a volleyball tournament Saturday and Sunday so we are heading up on Friday.

I'm pretty dang lucky to call these peeps family.  As crazy as they can make me (including you, Mr. Zimmer), I am so blessed by them everyday.

I made our favorite meal, chicken marsala with creamy mushroom risotto.

And for dessert, layered strawberry/raspberry cheesecake.

This dessert is Rachel's new fave.  I got it from Mels Kitchen Cafe.  You seriously would have thought the kid had never eaten before!