my sweet hubby

My hubby Jeff called me from work this morning to tell me to call my parents about babysitting the kids Saturday night. I asked why (of course) and he said he just won us two tickets to the Donnas/Blondie/Pat Benatar concert here in Memphis this weekend!
I was shocked I honestly hadn't even heard the concert was coming to town I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Donnas and the other two ladies ROCK! A local radio show he listens to every morning at work was giving away tickets and just asked for emails why you wanted the tickets! Jeff wrote a SWEET email to them saying why I deserved them!
Here is the email:

Good morning gentlemen. I'm writing to do my begging for the Pat/
Blondie/ Donnas tickets. My wife is a huge Blondie and The Donnas fan.
I'd love to take her to the concert. She's the hardest working person
I know, with the worst pay. Being a stay at home mom who homeschools
our 2 kids isn't a life I'd want to take on. I'm happy to work to
afford us this life. Spending doesn't allow a lot of extra money so
buying tickets isn't in the budget. She also keeps our money on track
and she won't let me cheat a little to buy tickets. If you'd consider
me, I'd really appreciate it and you'd be making my wife very happy.

Have a great day fellas

I will be sure to update how the concert was but I am even more excited for this FREE (besides paying for parking) night out with my hubby!

Monday Monday Monday

It's Monday again well technically it's Tuesday since it's 1 am as I type this! Jeff took a vacation day today so we had a jam packed day of family fun including the zoo!
So now I am all off on my days of the week so I am late posting this!
Here is what I am making this week!



Monday - Chicken Parmesan
same recipe I do for spaghetti except I coat the chicken in Italian bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese then bake and serve on top of the spaghetti

Tuesday - White beans and cornbread
soak beans overnight then cook in the crockpot with 1/2 fresh water and 1/2 chicken broth to cover the beans. Then I throw in some chopped up bacon and serve with cornbread

Wednesday - Smoked Sausage with cabbage

Thursday - Pineapple Chicken with brown rice
my easy chicken/teriakyi sauce, crushed pineapple in the crockpot recipe
***I was supposed to do this recipe last week but turned out I was out of teriakyi sauce so I did a BBQ chicken***

Friday - homemade pizza

Saturday - taco bar
ground turkey with taco seasoning and all the fixins

Sunday - dinner at the in laws


Hope everyone has a great week!! We actually have nothing going on this week! After VBS, two weeks of swim lessons, and then Parker having Crossfire camp last week it's nice to just have a chill week! We are still hanging out with friends and doing some fun stuff but nothing we HAVE to go do!

it's Mondayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

It's that time of the week again

Get TONS more menu planning ideas/tips/recipes here


Monday - Chicken Pot Pie
made it with real pie crust not just biscuits on top!

(crockpot) Tuesday - Pork chops Potatoes carrots
All in the crockpot cooked in chicken broth and salt/pepper
Cut up potatoes put in crockpot with carrots, add chicken broth up to the top of the veggies then place seasoned pork chops on top!

Wednesday - Breakfast (pancakes, turkey bacon, and maybe some scrambled eggs)
quick easy cheap and a family favorite!!

Thursday - Spaghetti
nuff said

Friday - Pizza
Homemade everyone thrown on their own toppings

Saturday - Meatball subs
My son LOVES and begs for these now

Sunday - dinner at the in-laws

I just realized typing all this that we are like having an Italian themed end of the week!!

Funny Websites that make me giggle

There have recently been a bunch of "people's mistakes" type websites go up and they make me giggle! I know it's not good to laugh at the misery of other's but if you are in need of a chuckle check some of these out


Awkward Family Photos

Cake Wrecks

Craft Fail

Menu for the week

Last week was crazy with VBS I never posted our menu. The next two weeks Parker has swim lessons then Crossfire camp the week after that! We are some busy bees!

Here is this week's menu

Monday - Spaghetti with sausage
with whole wheat penne, tomato sauce out of the freezer, and sausage!
I am also going to try a new Garlic Parmesan recipe in the breadmaker

Tuesday - Taco Soup
I do this in the crockpot and use ground turkey

Wednesday - Smoked Sausage with white beans Cornbread and Salad
I do this in the crockpot too....soak the beans overnight then rinse the next morning
Add chicken broth, Lawry's seasoning, salt & pepper, with some diced up smoked sausage then simmer all day...YUMMY

Thursday - Fish Tacos and mixed veggies
The quick fish stick kind that my kids love! I use soft tacos and mix up some tartar sauce with salsa to top them

Friday - Cresent Hot Dogs and Mac n' Cheese
Yes this is a quick everyone loves meal perfect for the end of the week when I am too tired to cook anything major

Saturday - Pork Chops Baked Potatoes and Broccoli
Probably going to do the chops on the grill

Sunday - going to the inlaws!

I hope everyone has a great week and click here to get MANY more menu planning ideas

VBS

It's Vacation Bible School week (it's been crazy so I totally forgot to type out my menu planning Monday even though I did menu plan)


This year I am the Croc Crew leader for Parker's class! He wanted me to be since I worked in Lyndee's room last year and I am going to take advantage of him wanting me around for as long as I can!
He was so funny yesterday when we were in the room waiting on the kids to show up "Do I call you Caryn or Mommy?" I just said whichever you want! I wasn't going to point out to anyone I was his mom or call him son in front of anyone but I overheard him more than once bragging that I was his mom!
Also they were short on volunteers so my 16 year old (very mature) sister Dorothy is my assistant and we also have two teen helpers! We have a great crew even though there are a few wild boys but what else is supposed to happen when you get boys together??
Now I just have to find some yellow (since we are the yellow team) clothing since I only have one tank top that is yellow and I can only wear that one day!

rollercoaster of a day

This has been a crazy day...the craziest I have had in awhile! Here are the days highs and lows!!

Woke up about 6:30 to my son telling me the xbox wasn't working so I got up in a panic and tried to fix it....figured out it was working just wasn't able to get on xbox live.....then spent 2 hours troubleshooting, reading forums, and even chatting online with AT&T (which I won't do again I would rather be on hold..like I was Monday to get Parker's computer fixed.....then to do the online chat that the rep takes FOREVER to respond) anyway after much frustration I finally saw on one of the forums where it was down today June 16th for maintence I could have cried right then and there! LOW but turned out it wasn't our fault

But I didn't we had breakfast, got dressed and went to meet some friends at the mall for the Malco Kid Fest movies. Lyndee hasn't done well the last two movies we took her to so my friend Susan offered to take Parker with her two boys and Lyndee and I just walk around the mall/play on the playground! It was very fun spending some one on one time with my little girl. Parker felt so grown up paying for his concessions with the Malco gift card! HIGH

Then we got home had lunch, played etc....went to Parker's Crossfire Commandos class and he landed his front flip! He's been trying for almost a month in class and at home progressing all the time but he finally stuck it and landed straight on his feet! HIGH

So we come home and had dinner and we all head outside to play/Jeff cut the yard and the lawnmower is gone! This is just insanity....first we noticed about March that our lawnmower was missing we were ticked but had had it quite a few years so ok....we used some of our tax return to get a nice one that would make Jeff's quicker and easier. Well he uses it ONCE and it gets stolen. We called the police on this one but of course nothing came of it. So after a few weeks (and the yard getting tall) he buys one from a guy at work that had two so at least we got a deal on this one. Well tonight ANOTHER one is gone!
Now let me explain part of our fence was broken but this wasn't the part facing the street (we are on a corner) but this was the part facing our neighbors house who don't have a fence other than this one we share but we had the fence replaced got a lock for the fence and got a chain for the lawnmower and chained it to the trampoline. So how the heck it got stolen is BEYOND me the lock wasn't tampered with so they must have jumped the fence and lifted that heavy thing over! LOW LOW LOW

To put the icing on the cake Jeff comes in to play some xbox, relieve some stress (still not able to get on xbox live but that's ok) he's just playing a shooting game when it freezes up and we get the dreaded red lights!! LOW

It's just one thing after another....I trust in God completely but I hate these lows I guess God gave us some highs today or we would be in a really bad place tonight!
Now I have a son that is terrified someone is going to break into our house but we prayed together and he actually fell asleep. I will see what tomorrow brings!

MPM

Ahhh Mondays....hate and love them! It's all about catching up on the house cleaning I slacked on over the weekend!

Here is my menu for this week. It's a busy week we are doing stuff with friends almost every day since the next few weeks are VBS, swim lessons, camps etc...so I am all about the quick and easy meals

Monday - Hamburgers baked tater tots and mixed veggies
Quick Easy on the grill though I did make some homemade hamburger buns by making the dough in my bread machine this morning!

Tuesday - A1 Chili and cornbread
in the crockpot you know it's Crockpot Tuesday

Wednesday - Steak dinner for my niece @ my parent's house
It's a "welcome to the world" party my parents have thrown for each grandkid and we all bring a disposable gift

Thursday - meatball subs with Italian green beans
This is at the request of my son since he ate a whole one last time I made them
I have some meatballs frozen from a previous spaghetti and meatballs so I just warm up with some tomato sauce then put on a sub bun with mozzarella cheese and toast until the bun is toasty and the cheese melts

Friday - Tacos
Ground Turkey Taco Bar with all the fixins

Saturday - Domino's House Party
I ended up winning a house party for this night to try all the new American Legends Pizzas so we are having a few friends over to eat pizza for free!!

Sunday - Father's Day
We are having lunch after my niece's baby dedication at my sister's house then dinner at the in-laws




Well there is my crazy busy week of meals....view MANY more recipes here

Experiment Days 4&5

I am a slacker with my blog so I am just now doing this!

Day Four I finally broke down and spent some frivolous money it was raining and the kids were having big time cabin fever so I took them to lunch and to play at McDonald's. I was good though and only spent $6 to feed us all so all in all not too bad! We stayed there over an hour and let the kids burn off all that energy!!

Day Five This was payday so I had bills to pay which is the norm and doesn't count for this part of our experiment. Also we ended up buying the new Dave Matthews album I am honestly shocked we made it from Tuesday to today NOT breaking down to buy it! (it's awesome btw) I am VERY proud of my hubby for going to Best Buy and coming out with just the CD/DVD which was on sale this week. I know he spent time looking around making his "if we win the lottery list"

I also bought our weekly groceries tonight at Walmart (I usually buy the majority at Aldi but I had quite a few coupons this week) and only spent $33 for the week!

All in all I think we did pretty good....we are sticking to our "Do I want to buy this or a house" motto and hopefully the extra nickel and diming will get better and better

Experiment Day 3

Ok it's Wednesday now and it's been hard...the kids wanted out of the house and usually McDonald's playground would be perfect for lunch. I thought about packing a lunch and going to the park but it's gotten SOOOO hot around here that we have to do parks early in the morning.
We had a fun picnic in the floor on towels and watched a movie not burning off energy but still fun!
I did wind up spending a little money today seems when we eat all our meals at home (and my son having ANOTHER growth spurt) I might have to start buying 3 loaves of bread a week! I had to run to Aldi for milk and bread but I see that more of a necessity not a luxury.
Also the new Dave Matthews Band CD came out yesterday and Jeff and I both want the CD soo badly but we have resisted but I am sure Saturday Jeff will be going to buy it while it's still on sale this first week out!
So another successful day!