Good morning everyone,

I just had to share that this week is a very busy week for me (I am preparing to cook for our high school group for a retreat this weekend PLUS normal house stuff, AND the beginning of the school year for the district that my honey works for, PLUS starting babysitting “baby J” again this week, as his parents are returning to work this week also).   SO, I won’t be posting  this week, but I look forward to returning  next week and sharing with everyone next week.    I’ll leave you with some photos of yesterday’s baking…..

Today I baked:

• 6 loaves of whole wheat bread
• 6 loaves of ezekiel 4:9 bread (2 loaves worth were made into dinner rolls)
• 3 dozen fresh peach oatbran muffins
• 3 dozen multi-berry muffins with sugar topping

Here’s my basket from my CSA…..

Today I got:

• eggs (because my “egg lady” wasn’t at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday)
• carrots
• corn
• cantaloupe
• cucumbers
• squash
• bell peppers
• cherry tomatoes
• plums/pluots
• tomatoes
• grapes
• lettuce

Here is my menu for this coming week. Yes, there are more carry-overs from last week. Last week I ended up “winging it” more than I had planned, and the night of the concert, R and D and I got Taco Bell for dinner, and then on Friday night we went out for dinner and did a little shopping (got new shoes for 2/3 of the family).

• Crockpot Vegetable Lasagna

• Grilled flank steak (tonight’s dinner) with crockpot root veggies

• Slow Cooker Chipotle Lime Chicken Thighs with Jamaican Rice and Peas

• Slow Cooker Red Curry Chicken with Bok Choy and Sweet Coconut Rice

• Crockpot Gyro sandwiches

• Crockpot Mu shu chicken wrap sandwiches

• Mahi Mahi something or another…….

To share your menu plan or just to get some great dinner ideas please click on the Menu Plan Monday banner above.

This afternoon after church my sister in love came to have lunch with us.  She was here until about 2 pm.   When she left, R went into M’s room to play video games with him, and the two “little girls” went into their room.   We didn’t really know what they were doing until about 2 hours later when they both came out with an invitation to a concert.   Here’s what the invitation said…. (I am leaving their whole names out and using the abbreviations that you all know …..and I’ll be typing it exactly as it was written ……guess we need to work on spelling more this year )

H and r’s  consert!

When:   tonight.

Time:  after dinner.

Why:  Just for fun!

What are we doing?:  Are favorite things in the hole world  sing and dance

So as soon as we were all done with dinner, they “set the stage” in the living room…..they set up folding chairs on one side of the living room, and their CD player and a “mic” (which was actually a flashlight rubberbanded to a music stand base) and put their costumes on.   They came out and each sang a song by themselves, then H did a beautiful dance (she’s never taken any kind of  dance lessons yet she showed us such grace and beautiful dance moves….may have to talk to Daddy about the possibility of ballet for this naturally talented 10 year old!), then r did a fun crazy little dance, then they sang 2 duets together.   It was so sweet, so cute, and SO MUCH fun!  They put so much hard work into all afternoon…..it was just precious!   I’d love to see them do this again!  

Do/did your kids do this too?

This morning D and I had the absolute PRIVILEDGE of teaching the Kindergarten sunday school class at church.    This was probably the best group of kids that we’ve taught in a LONG time!   These 12 little kindergartners (well, they’ll all be going into 1st grade in the next couple of weeks)  were polite, well behaved, they were eager to learn (well, all but one, but D said that this particular little guy must have been tired, because he’s not normally such a stick in the mud), and they were GREAT with the Bible memory verse game that I do…..better than most of the 4th, 5th and 6th grade classes that I have taught over the past few years (D and I are substitute Sunday School teachers…..our children’s pastor knows that she can call on us anytime to help in a classroom).    Anyhow, something very interesting happened on the playground today……

There were two little girls (they are both 6 and both VERY social girls)  that had gone to sit on the bench across the little playground from us to talk.   Well, D went over after a couple of minutes to see what they were up to, since they had isolated themselves from the rest of the class.   He came back to me and told me that one of the little girls had told the other little girl to go and get “the boys” (we quickly found out that it was two particular boys) to come and talk to them.   So the “butterfly” went and got the boys and told them that the “princess” wanted to see them.   They strutted (yes, I said strutted!!!!!) over to where both girls were now sitting.   The girls talked to them for a moment, giggled, and the boys strutted (yep!) away again.    Shortly after that the “butterfly” walked back to the boys (she had a flirty little walk that she did) and told them something and they ran far and fast to the other end of the playground away from “those girls” (their words to D).

I was struck by how young these little girls have learned this type of flirtatious behaviour!   Neither of their moms are really flirty, and neither of them have older sisters.   They have learned this from observation (possibly at school, possibly just out in public places)…….how scary!!!!   And what a testimony of how we should really be behaving in public (yes, I am guilty of flirting with my husband in public sometimes, but I have now realized that that probably isn’t the best example to the children that are around).

D and I did talk to both of these girls’ dads about it so that they would be aware of the behavior……they both appreciated knowing!

SO, what have you observed by looking at things through the eyes of a kindergartner?

(I will probably have more stories next week…..we are helping in the same class next week :)  )

Ok, tonight I made dinner without using the crockpot….can you believe it? (Don’t think I won’t be trying this one in the crockpot though :)……but I really am not expecting to get the same flavors in the crockpot as I did on the grill) This dinner came together very quickly and is a fantastic dinner for a night that you don’t have a ton of time. (Although I did let the meat marinate for about 3 hours).

Our dinner tonight was: korean short ribs (the butcher cut them thinly for me….they sell them under the name “flanken style short ribs” or “korean style short ribs”), steamed jasmine rice, prig khing green beans (frozen from Trader Joe’s, but I did add a pound of chinese long beans, and only used 1/2 of the sauce from the bag…..I was making dinner for another family in addition to our family), and watermelon.

Here’s the recipe for the short ribs. (This would also be fantastic with thin slices of steak!)

Koren Short Ribs

I only used about 3 3/4# of short ribs and mine were cut thinly (3/8″ or so thick) so when I grilled them, they only took about 6 minutes….4 minutes on the first side about 2 minutes on the second side.

I LOVED this meal! It was EXCELLENT and something that I could easily eat once a week! My family really enjoyed it also, and they would like to have it again, and they’d love to have it in our monthly meal rotation. But they didn’t love it quite as much as I did I LOVE LOVE LOVE asian flavors, so this was a big favorite for me I would highly recommend this recipe, and am totally planning to make it for some friends…..they are picky eaters, but I really do think they will enjoy this. This is a super simple meal that would be wonderful to prepare for company, and you wouldn’t have to be slaving over the stove for it!

Ok, onto the green beans…..I am definitely planning on buying these again! And will use just a small amount of the sauce….it would have been very intense as a side dish….if I were making it as a main dish with maybe some crispy tofu or shrimp or something like that, I might add more of the sauce, but as a side I only want some of the sauce. ooooooh, this would be SOOOOOO good with some crispy tofu, over a bed of brown basmati rice!!!! YUMMMOOOOOO Another meal for another night

Last night D and I took our 3 girls (as well as 7 others….friends and family) to a Natalie Grant concert that was happening in our area.   Well, the very cool thing about this concert is that the group that opened for them was a local group, and the promoter arranged for a community children’s choir to sing with this local band  for a few songs.   So, for the past 4 weeks, every Sunday evening, I have been taking H and r to the rehearsals, and they have learned the lyrics (well, they already knew the songs) and choreography to sing 3 songs to open for Natalie Grant at this concert.   They have had so much fun, and they did such an awesome job!  But they also got to attend their very first concert!   AND it was with one of their favorite singers!!!!!   These kids did such an amazing job, it was hard to believe that they have only rehearsed this for a total of 5 hours!!!!   And I was so excited for such an amazing opportunity…..I only wish they had allowed older kids/teens to be involved so that R could have done it as well.   BUT she got to go to the concert, and that was important to her.

If you have never seen Natalie Grant in person (in concert) I would HIGHLY recommend finding a way to make it to one of her concerts!  She is not only an amazing artist (I love her CDs but I think she is SOOOOO much better in person!), but she has a heart for people…..last night, she followed the Spirit’s leading and asked for those people that were hurting and in a rough place in their lives to stand, and she prayed over them……it was such a neat thing, and she did say that she rarely does that (I have seen her live two previous times, and she didn’t do that either time before), but was following the Holy Spirit’s leading!

I wish the girls had been able to meet Natalie in person, but they weren’t able to arrange that.  But they all had a great time at the concert.  And r even went up front and stood /sat in front of the stage on the floor with some of the other kids from the kids’ choir…..she did it without her sister (H was sitting with R and some of R’s friends)….I was so proud of her

(If you are wondering about M, he didn’t want to go to a Natalie Grant concert, so he stayed at some of our friends’ house with their son (who also didn’t want to go to the concert) and played video games and watched a movie–I think )

Here’s my produce basket this week……I had plenty of veggies in the fridge leftover from last week (last week I was using up the veggies leftover from the week before…..I seemed to have had a backlog in the fridge) so I ordered a “fruit only” basket for this week.

So this week I got:

• cantaloupe
• pluots
• peaches
• nectarines
• grapes

I LOVE summer fruit!

Wooooh! What crazy weekend we had! And what a HUGE blessing my crockpot was to me this weekend…..as well as leftovers from a couple of meals that we cooked at the church for our Summer Suppers on the Lawn, and for the High School group yesterday. I didn’t panic when it was time to think about dinner…..I knew that by preparing ahead of time, I had everything to put into the crockpot for dinner, OR we had leftovers that we could use for our dinner.

Here’s this week’s menu (and because I did do a couple of leftover meals, and forgot about some meals at church, etc I do have a couple of things that I’m carrying over from last week).

Monday, 7/28/08

• crockpot enchiladas (I need to use up leftover taco meat from yesterday’s lunch)

• mexican salad (from Menus 4 Moms)

• crockpot peach crisp (I have to adapt a recipe that my friend Serina found….she LOVED it, but it had some problems, so I will work on adapting it today)

• MAYBE some leftover refried beans

And here are the rest of the meals that I’m making this week…..I (again) will leave it to whim on when I make each item…..but I do know that the lasagna will be on Thursday…..I’m taking dinner to another family, and I can do 2 crockpots full, one for our family, one for their family.

• Crockpot lasagna

• Crockpot chicken tacos

• Slow Cooker Chipotle Lime Chicken Thighs with Jamaican Rice and Peas

• Slow Cooker Red Curry Chicken with Bok Choy and Sweet Coconut Rice

• Crockpot Gyro sandwiches

• Crockpot bbq pork sandwiches

To share your menu plan or just to get some great dinner ideas please click on the Menu Plan Monday banner above.