Menu Planning

My New Year's resolution was to streamline some of my Mommy tasks. I'm starting with Menu Planning. Because if you want to save money on your groceries, I've decided this is where it is at. Not couponing, not Club memberships, just good old time consuming meal planning. But you know I have a hack for that...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios

I promise this is easy.

 

Halloween in the Sleepiest of Suburbs

Oh Halloween.

This is the trial of our "No Noggin" costume. This is the only thing the Personal Assistant has talked about all month-being No Noggin for Halloween. Our neighbor made him promise not to fall again asleep this year so he could see the spooky No Noggin costume.

Conversations with My Personal Assistant

The Personal Assistant on why Gigi is here...with boobs:

 

P: Hi Gigi!

Gigi: Hi buddy!

P: Um...you have personals. Are you going to nurse our baby?

Gigi, wide eyed: Ah...no...

P: Then why have you got them? What are you going to do with them? What do you use them for?

Me: Gigi nursed me with them when I was a baby. Mommies just nurse their own babies.

P: Oh!

 

The Personal Assistant on bead work:

"We are making JEWELRY here people! We're not here just playing with beads. This is SERIOUS."

 

The Personal Assistant popcicles for breakfast:

P: Daddy gave me this popcicle for breakfast!

Me: Oh really?

P: No

 

The Personal Assistant on Caffeine:

P: Why do you drink caffeine Mommy?

Me: Because you and your brother have way more energy than I do and it helps me keep up. And I don't get enough sleep...really I should get more sleep.

P: Oh. And you can't sleep because of the caffeine.

 

The Personal Assistant on Gigi's milk supply:

P: Are you going to nurse our baby?

Gigi: No.

P: But you have personals...oh no...Gigi, did your milk dry up?

 

The Personal Assistant on his reflection in the fitting room mirror:

"Oh! I have never looked more handsome!"

 

-Jen

 

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Quick Fix: Children's Gallery Wall

My Personal Assistant has finally reached that "color and draw and paint for hours" phase and it is pretty glorious. BUT...

1. Every shred of paper he touches is now precious and must be displayed and/or protected from Mr. Baby.

2. They are constantly ripping things off the fridge/splashing water from the fridge fountain thing.

So, with some junk from the basement I made a gallery wall for the playroom. I'm a bad blogger and I don't have a before. So here's the after:

 

First kid, second kid

"Parenthood is magical."

"A new baby changes your life in such unexpected ways."

"Everything is different after you have a baby."

If you are having your first, precious, lovely, perfect child these words will likely be repeated to you over and over by well meaning adults.

If you are having your second child, the conversations get much more fun. So to all my Mommy friends about to have second babies, this one is for you.

Adventure awaits.

Protein.

 

 

Quick Fix: Chandelier Makeover

We've had a winter full of surprises. Many of them were not good. Like the furnace breaking twice in the coldest February on record, leaving us with no heat for a month. Or the the day the second floor toilet flushing into the stud space one morning, and a short in a wire causing half the house to lose power in the afternoon. Or the day shortly after that when we woke up smelling gas in the kitchen (easy fix) and ended up with our water heater tagged because it needed a new chimney.
I have spent most of the winter hating my new house, and spending the reno budget on emergency repairs.
But I am trying to like it. I really am. So I am tackling the dining room on a shoe string budget-starting with that fabulous 1980's chandelier.