One of our favorite meatless meals

We try to eat at least 1 or 2 meatless meals per week.  First off, it's less expensive (have you seen the meat prices lately, especially red meat?).  Secondly, meatless meals usually require you to integrate much more healthy foods to make up for the missing meat.

So, frugal and healthy?  Yes, please!

I've talked about our vegan phase before, and even though it didn't last, it was a real eye-opener.  We were so used to having meals revolve around meat that we were missing out on some awesome food.

Time for the garden

This post is a little late, but oh well.  Almost 3 weeks ago, we planted our vegetable garden.  It actually took us a few days to get it all weeded, tilled up, and planted.

(I say we, but I really mean Jared.  The girls helped.  I took pictures.  And was probably in the house cooking.)

Day 1:  Weeding and tilling.

Addy was all into shoveling.

Homemade, no-bake Mac & Cheese

Yes, that's Dora under there.

My kids are 3 and 5 years old.  So, I'm sure you can imagine how limited our options are for lunch time. 

First off, lunches have to be easy because I just don't have the time to put together some gourmet meal in the middle of the day (or in the evening for that matter).  

Easter weekend 2014

Alright, finally uploading our Easter photos from this weekend!  We didn't do a big community or church Easter egg hunt this year; just at our house.

Jared and I filled eggs Sunday afternoon while the girls were resting.  (I've never decorated eggs and am not really motivated to.  We just get the plastic eggs, fill them with candy, and hide those.)

Jared's first 5k

This past Saturday, Jared ran his first ever 5k.  He "trained" for it for about 2 weeks leading up to the race, and only ran one full practice 5k a few days before.

And after all that training (sarcasm), he ended up winning.

He's a natural.

Well, technically he didn't win the whole thing.  He got beat by a girl, but he was the male champion, and got 2nd place overall with a time of 23:59.  Not too shabby.

Before the race.  It was down at the Cotter river bright and early at 7:00 a.m.  And it was cold.

Birthday weekend, and oh the cake

This past weekend, both Izzy and Addy had birthdays.  Addy's was Saturday the 12th and she turned 3. Izzy's was Sunday the 13th and she turned 5.

No, I did not plan it that way.

For now, since they're still little, we can get away with having a joint birthday get-together. (I'm not going to call it a party. It's not a party; just a get-together with family. Even though it can still be stressful like a party. Especially when everyone comes over to your house. Which means cleaning. And shopping. And cooking. And running around trying to make everything go smoothly. And finishing up the cake (haha, the cake...that'll be interesting to talk about. Wait, can you do parentheses inside parentheses?) literally 5 minutes before people start walking through the door.)

Uhhh...what was I saying?

Oh yeah.  We can get away with having one party for now.  Thank goodness.  Don't know how long that will last, though.

Izzy turns 5 today!

Isabella is turning 5.  Man, where did the time go?

I remember so clearly, as most moms do I'm sure, the day she was born.

The following picture was taken on April 12, 2009.  My due date was April 13.  I was about to pop.

Addy is 3!

Addy turns 3 today.  I can't believe it.

She was actually due on April 5.  But, unlike her big sissy who showed up right on time, this little booger was in no rush.  This picture was taken the morning we went to the hospital.

Look at me!  Good grief, she didn't need any more time!

This is how we do it (I don't feel bad about not teaching my kids)

When I quit teaching to become a stay-at-home mom, I was really concerned about my children learning stuff:  letters, numbers, maybe some handwriting, some math, and anything else preschool-related.  I even convinced myself I would teach Izzy to read this year.

But that just didn't really work out.

 This is what they would rather do!

We love bread (frugal French bread recipe)

We eat a lot of bread around here.  A lot.

And people claim that bread is not good for you.  Isn't it the French who eat a lot of bread, yet they're pretty thin?  Or maybe the Italians eat a lot of bread.  Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

It's probably the latter.

Now, I make most of the bread we eat; sandwich bread, French bread, rolls, what have you.  Please don’t think I am bragging, because I’m not.

First of all, I like to bake.  It’s fun.  I guess I would call it one of my hobbies.  I just like to do it.

Second of all, it’s cheaper than buying from the store.  And I’m all about saving some money!  I can make two loaves of French bread for about $1.20, which is $0.60 per loaf.  And that's even using some whole wheat flour; all purpose flour is much cheaper.