A month of (vegan) meals

I’ve been making a concerted effort to be a better meal-planner.  Too many nights, I found myself in the kitchen at dinnertime wondering what the heck I was going to make.  I’m not a fantastic anything-but-the-kitchen-sink type of cook and I also rely heavily on recipes rather than experimenting in the kitchen, so not having a plan for dinner each night was stressing me out.  I started planning meals in August and am now on my second-round of planning meals four weeks at a time.  Here’s the plan I came up with:

My notes about the meals are in red and I linked to the recipes if they’re available online or if they came from an online source.  The links don’t work in the image above because it is a jpg file, but here’s a link to open the meal plan as an MS Word doc.

I was doing well with meeting the plan for the first week up until Friday when our family schedule got mixed around and Teeny ended up going to a friend’s house for a party and we took Tiny out for a Mommy/Daddy/Tiny date.  The lucky girl got to have dinner at Whole Foods followed by grocery shopping and a trip to Target to buy paper towels.  She had an awesome time.  Then, because we’d had pizza at Whole Foods on Friday, I didn’t make it for dinner on Saturday.  On Sunday, I caught a touch of Tiny’s stomach bug from earlier in the week and did not feel like making – or even eating – dinner.  I’m still not back to normal, but I’m just grateful I didn’t get as sick as Tiny did and I’m SO GLAD she’s better.  So, I’m a bit off the plan, but, if my stomach feels up to it tonight, I’m going to attempt the black beans & rice.

In another week or so, I’ll start planning the next four weeks of meals.  Will that include Thanksgiving?  I can’t even begin to do that math.  I’ll be interested next August to look back at a year’s worth of meal plans to see how tastes change seasonally.  I’m definitely craving warm foods and breads these days – bulking up for winter, I suppose!

While all of these meals will be prepared vegan-style by me, certainly they can be easily adapted for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

 

Busy Bees & Coffee Beans

I took an unexpected break from posting for the last few weeks for myriad reasons.  September is crazy busy – especially now that one or both of the girls is in preschool every day of the week.  Lots of bags and lunches to pack and forms to sign, e-mails to be read, and orientations to attend.  Then add to that the beginning of the school year at the university where I work and me being responsible for getting 58 new graduate students (more than 50% international) oriented (or orientated – whichever you prefer) and enrolled.  Then add on a sick kid, a husband working overtime and me volunteering to teach Sunday School when I’ve never formally taught anything before.  Lastly, add on all the life-stuff we’re all responsible for on a daily basis and you get the recipe for BUSY!!  I sit here this Monday afternoon thankful for a break long enough for me to sit down and write a post and thankful that a semblance of a schedule for our family is starting to form.  It might be Halloween by the time we get the hang of it, but we will get the hang of it!

Looking back – and without my photo library to remind me – I’m having a hard time remembering what the girls and I have been playing lately.  If I were to highlight the one thing that has been a hit with both girls, especially Tiny, it’s the coffee bean sensory box I put together for her.  I wish I had a picture to post, but we’ll just have to use our imaginations today to picture what it looks like when this little cutie

 

sorts and pours and plays with a box of these

She calls them “my beans”.  “Mama, I want to play with my beans.”  Love it.  I’m a big fan of experiences that are sensory-fulfilling on multiple levels.  With these beans, Tiny gets to touch and smell the beans, and delight into hearing them pour or drop one-by-one into a container.  Teeny loves playing with them, too, and, for the most part, they’re both good at keeping the beans contained within the tray I provide them, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t found a few stray beans in our basement that I’ve, at first glance, mistaken for creepy-crawly bugs.

 

A tote for Teeny

Yesterday I featured a pillowcase upcycle project I did for my youngest daughter, Tiny.  I followed up on my promise to her big sister and made Teeny a tote last night.  Here’s how it turned out:

Pretty cute, I think!  I gave her tote a messenger bag strap rather than the double handles I did on Tiny’s tote.  I also added a thin blue ribbon piping around the top and I plan to add this to Tiny’s bag, too, because I like so much the way it turned out.

The great thing about these bags is that, from far away, they look awesome and it’s only if you get really close can you see how imperfect they are!

That’s DIY for you!

Anyway, Teeny and Tiny took their bags with them this morning both stuffed to the brim with a change of clothes and their respective comfort items.

This weekend is shaping up to be much less busy than last weekend, so I’m hoping to make both Teeny and Tiny a new lunchbag and I also hope to do some painting or crafting along with them since we’ve not had much time lately to get involved in those projects.

I hope everyone has a restful, sunny, and warm weekend!

A tote for Tiny

I think my sewing is improving. Granted, I only know how to use one stitch setting on my sewing machine, but I’m getting super talented at sewing a straight line.

Last night, my instant-gratification-loving 4-year old asked me to make her a bag out of fabric and ribbon. I told her I could make a quick bag out of a pillowcase and ribbon, and she thought that was acceptable (phew!). I got to work and had one made for her within 1/2 hour. It wasn’t awesome, but it was quick. I told Tiny, my two-year old, that I would make her a bag later that night. I didn’t get a chance to sit back down at my sewing machine until after both girls went to bed, but that ended up being a good thing because I took that long, uninterrupted period of time and created a pretty cool little tote.

Check it out:

I didn’t take photos as I went along and I totally winged it as far as measurements, but I’ll tell you the basics of how I made this bag.

1) I laid the bottom half of a pillowcase (the open half had been used for Teeny’s quick pillowcase and ribbon bag) flat and cut about 1/4 of it off of the right side.

2) I turned the pillowcase inside out and sewed up the now-open right side.

3) I folded down the top opening of the bag about 1/2 inch all the way around and sewed it.

4) I pinned one end of a wide ribbon to the left side of one of the panels of the bag (still inside out) and then pinned the ribbon down on the right side at the point where I felt the ribbon strap was a desirable length. I sewed both ends of the ribbon to the bag.

5) I repeated step 4, but on the opposite side, and I made my ribbon strap the same length as the one on the other side.

6) I flipped the bag right-side out and ironed on a heart applique to the bottom right corner.

Voila!

Teeny was a bit envious of Tiny’s bag when she saw it this morning, so I quickly assured her that I had plans to revamp her bag tonight to be just as cute as Tiny’s. I have a tutu applique to put on Teeny’s bag. She also wants me to sew her name onto it, so I have to learn embroidery while I’m at work today.

This was a fun project to do on the fly and it was seriously cheap. I had all the materials on hand, but I remember the pillowcase cost less than $1 and the ribbon was from a bag of ribbon extras I got at Hobby Lobby for something like $1.99. The applique only cost $2 or $3 at Joann’s.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Teeny’s tote!

I just linked up to Made By You Monday, Tip Me Tuesday, DIY Under $5.

Pinterest Favorites August 31st through September 7th

Is anyone else super busy these days?  Things are picking up at work and our last few weekends have been super busy and our schedule is all over the place and I’m trying to stay focused on the end of September when things will even out again.  Because of all the busy-ness I didn’t do much Pinteresting this week (and I certainly didn’t make or do anything I saw on Pinterest) , but, still, it’s not hard to come up with a list of 10 really cool things posted on that site.  Here’s my list of favorites for the past week:

Click on any of the pictures to be taken to their pin on Pinterest.

1. Adorable DIY head wrap.  Cold weather is coming!

2. Fabric scrap mosaic on canvas

3. Adult-sized long-sleeved tee turned into a girl’s cardigan

4. I love these pants, but that fabric is the cutest I’ve ever seen!

5. Upcycled t-shirt dress.  This is a great idea to use up some of the many shirts my girls have grown out of!

6. Produce bags made from t-shirts

7. Tabletop biosphere: science project with the kids!

8. Leaf garland

9. Snug and soft headband made from t-shirts

10. Brown sugar and cinnamon cold-brewed iced coffee

What cool things did you find on Pinterest this week?

What a weekend!

A lot of fun – but no rest – was had this weekend.  On Saturday, the girls had an extended playdate with some friends…

…during which they had a marathon play dough session.

Then, the girls and I met their Aunt at the dollar theater (woot!) to see the Winnie the Pooh movie. Have you seen it? It’s awesome.

The next day we traveled to the in-laws and then went to a wedding.  The girls danced, and danced, and danced.

We drove home late that night and the next morning my husband and I looked (and felt) like this:

The temperature had dropped 30 degrees (possibly a little more) from Saturday to Monday and since it was a cool, gray, drizzly day and we were all exhausted, we went to see the Pooh movie again.  It was sold out.  So, we went home and watched a previous Pooh movie on DVD.

Then we went to my Mom’s house and had a party to bid farewell to their 100+ year old oak tree that has to be cut down.

We got home around the girls’ bedtime and I was asleep soon after they were.  The girls had been so amazingly well behaved all weekend.

It was fun.

Kool-aid play dough and Mommy & Me interviews

Whoa! Jenny from Let the Children Play featured one of my posts on her It’s Playtime feature this week! Thank you, Jenny! I am beyond excited! I’m honored, too, to be able to post an “I proudly encourage play” button – because I do proudly encourage play!

This has been a week of transitions for us since the girls started part-time at a new school this week. Tuesday was their first day and Teeny had a great time and Tiny had a bit more trouble, but was okay overall. She’s two and being two is hard. I also started working more hours this week since summer is over (boo!). So, we’ve still been playing, but we haven’t delved into any significant crafts or projects this week, because our main project is learning our new schedule and establishing some new routines!

Two fun things we did do at the end of last week and this weekend, though, was make play dough using Kool Aid and do Mommy & Me Interviews.

First the play dough:

Not much to say since play dough is such a popular item to make and play with, but I just want to give a boatload of praise to the creator of the recipe we used because it was awesome! Seriously, we went from pouring the ingredients into the bowl to playing with our play dough within 5 minutes (the author said the play dough would be hot, but ours was just warm and it all still mixed and kneaded together just fine). The last time I made play dough with the girls, we used the recipe that came along with my Vita Mix blender and it was easily an hour spent waiting for the play dough to cool before we could play with it. The girls weren’t too keen on that wait. Also, it smelled weird. Kool Aid play dough smells fruity and fun!

Here are some pics of the girls and their cherry and tropical fruit scented play dough:

Play dough + household items like toilet paper tubes, caps, and plastic knives makes for a great time!

So I mentioned above that we also recently conducted “Mommy & Me” interviews. Perhaps you’ve seen this pinned and repinned a million times on Pinterest? Well, I brought out this activity one afternoon when we had an hour or so with nothing to do. The girls were up for it, so the interviews commenced. First, I interviewed Teeny, then I interviewed Tiny, then Teeny interviewed me. Teeny even took some pictures to document the process. But, first, the interviews:

Pardon the pink doodles. Tiny got ahold of this and just went to town drawing all over it.

Some observations about Teeny’s interview: I could have done a pretty good job predicting these answers.  I was surprised, though, that she said she likes to play Chutes & Ladders.  Every time we play it she says how boring it is.  Also, I had no idea she likes giraffes.  Sophie 2 is the plush gray kitty doll that our veterinarian sent us last year after our cat died.  She was gray and her name was Sophie, thus, Sophie 2 is befitting of this doll and, yes, Teeny does truly love  her (I was even told to kiss Sophie 2 goodbye when I dropped her and Teeny off at school this morning).  One last thing, Teeny always says the girl listed as her best friend is, in fact, her best friend.  However, it’s an interesting relationship because this is a girl that Teeny almost never sees outside of school during the year and has only seen once in 4 months.  There are kids she plays with daily and has an awesome time with and she never calls them her best friends.  This is really interesting to me.  Anybody else have this experience with their kid(s)?

Tiny's interview. She's two. If you couldn't guess.

Some observations about Tiny’s interview:  Yes, she really does like blue and pink and purple, so that’s an honest answer.  She also really likes pretending to be a baby, but she hasn’t yet grasped that being a baby can’t be a chosen occupation and she’s going to have to come up with something else to make ends meet.  She’s got time, though.  When I was her age, I wanted to be a bunny when I grew up and I’ve done just fine considering.    She answered the questions “What is your favorite book?, What makes you happy?, and What makes you sad?” all based on the fact that she had in her lap at the time the three books she referenced in her answers.  Apparently Little Miss Spider can really take a reader on an emotional roller coaster ride.  Lastly, she said her best friend is Emily, but she doesn’t know anyone named Emily.  When I questioned her about this, she changed her answer to “Teeny!”.

Teeny's interview of me.

Other than saying that my favorite number is 2, I have no idea what my answers were to the questions Teeny asked me (lots of things make me happy and sad and I don’t remember what I chose for answers that day.  Also, I don’t really have a favorite color, so maybe I just said blue?).  She doesn’t write much, so she drew my answers.  Anyone want to offer up an interpretation?  I love the pictures she drew of herself and Tiny.  Knowing them like I do, those pictures are totally accurate.  Teeny was born with her eyes all big like that, just wide open and raring to go.  Tiny is much calmer and content and I think that is portrayed quite well in her portrait.  They are apparently both very leggy girls.

Anyway, this is a fun activity to do with kids when you’re just sitting around one day.  I look forward to doing this every 6 months or so to see how they’re likes/dislikes are changing.

As promised, here are a few pics Teeny took of the interview session:

My interview face.

The questionnaire.

The (apparently very emotional) Little Miss Spider Book

Teeny took a darn good picture of Tiny.

 

I’m linking up today to It’s Playtime at Let the Children Play!