Menu Plan & Updates - Week of October 26th

We've been busy bees as usual.  In addition to the every day crazy, here are some highlights from the last couple of weeks:

We went apple picking with friends.

Molly's version of apple picking is walking around the orchard eating an apple.

Jack decided we should use some of our apples to make a pie.  Done!

We've also made apple crisp and Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze (+ nuts and some extra spices, super yum!)  Mark was appled-out before we even made it through the apple crisp.  Lame.  More for me!

And for more fall picking goodness we also made a trip to the pumpkin patch.

The patch we visit charges by the armload, carried in from the field and across the street.  Hence the showcase of Mark's carrying skillz.

And pumpkins were carved. Mine is the happy one on the left; Molly's choice, Elmo, is next to mine; and Jack's choice, scary pumpkin, is next to that.  Mark's angry pumpkin is on the end.

Jack is super excited for trick-or-treat tonight!

We've been doing lots of home improving around here.  Well, maybe not "lots", but the focus of what little time we have available is on projects.  The bathroom is... a long way from finished.  2 walls have been dry walled and a new tub surround has been ordered.  *Sigh* It takes a lot longer than you would think to measure, cut, and put up dry wall.  See also: little time.

Last weekend I took advantage of some gorgeous weather and painted our front door.  Red!

Action shot of Jack helping.

I've always wanted a red door.  We replaced our garage door a few weeks back and we then had the ability to switch up the accent colors on our house.  Whee!

We also got new shutters, which was supposed to be an easy little swap project.  Buuuut it's a project around our house so of course it got very complicated.  Now we have no shutters.  ::thumbs down::  Hopefully the new ones will be up by the end of this weekend and I can share an "after" pic :)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have 40lbs of chicken in my kitchen waiting for my attention.  (Hooray for chicken!)



Sunday:  Family Gathering

Monday:  Grilled Burgers with Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Tuesday:  Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Fried Rice

Wednesday:  Pumpkin Chili (Crock Pot) with Pumpkin Corn Muffins

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday:  Out

Menu Plan & Updates - Week of October 5th

We've had a busy couple of weeks!  I feel like we always have somewhere to be or something to do anymore and while it's nice in some ways it just wears me out in others.  I'm not the kind of person who likes to be overscheduled!  Thankfully, today we're having a hang around the house kind of day.  The weather is rainy and chilly and I have things that need to be done around the house so that's what we're doing today!

This past weekend marked one year of my being a doula and it has been an incredible year!  It was a big step for me to start doing birthwork and there were so many unknowns to intimidate me when I first began my journey.  A year ago I was sitting in a workshop thinking this is amazing!  But how am I going to do this?  Well, I'm doing it!  The right clients always seem to find me and even when I have moments here or there when I think maybe now is not the season in my life to be doing this type of (on-call) work... Then I'm there, supporting a mom in labor, watching a baby being born, and it just reaffirms that this is what I'm meant to be doing.  I love the work that I do!

I just attended my 9th birth as a doula and I somewhat unexpectedly ended up with 2 births within 1 week of each other.  Both were overnight births, which means that I've missed 2 full nights of sleep in the last week.  And being that there are no bonus nights or real naps (or fairy nannymothers) available I'm very much still catching up in the sleep department!  So, if I can still say this work is for me at this very moment... it's a good thing :)

In other news, 2 weeks ago we had new furniture delivered!

It was supposed to be delivered several weeks ago, but we were trying to sell our old-new couch with no interest.  We got to the night before delivery and were all, uhm... we're going to have 2 couches!  So, we rescheduled our delivery to give ourselves more time to sell, or at least figure out a spot for it.  The new furniture arrived and the old couch got bumped to the garage and just when I thought we would not sell it a few days later it sold!  I was so glad to be done with that whole process.

And then we decided we needed one more thing to do so we ripped the ugly faux-tile down that's in our only bathroom.

It's taken 8 years and selling our house on the horizon to drum up the courage to work on our only bathroom.  Have I mentioned it's our ONLY bathroom?!  It's kind of a necessity to have everything in there functional.  Ugh... Here we go.

We've also slowly been working on finishing up decor in Molly's room.  I added a rug and this cute little addition this weekend:

I DIY'd based on something I saw on Etsy.  The original inspiration is super cute, but as much as it might be worth the $39 + shipping for a handmade item you know *I'm* not paying that when it's something I could swing myself.  So I made my version out of materials I already had on hand, which makes it kind of free-ish :)


Here's what we're eating this week:


Sunday:  Mark made Chicago-style pizza - nom!

Monday:  Creamy Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese

Tuesday:  Turkey Pot Pie

Wednesday:  Autumn Salad with Acorn Squash and Pomegranate Dressing

Thursday:  Leftovers

Friday & Saturday:  Out