It was like a dream....

Okay, so anyone who knows me knows I HATE to cook. Why you ask, well maybe it was because I was raised by a mom who didn't have a clue in the kitchen and hired multiple people to cook for us while we were growing up. When we weren't being cooked for we ate frozen fish sticks and mac n' cheese or fast food. Can I tell you how excited we were when Dominoes Pizza invented home delivery! Sadly, I am carrying on in this legacy, but I don't really have an excuse of working a full time job to get out of this responsibility. Maybe the other reason I hate to cook is because Zak is never here and whenever I do cook, there is always some complaining which doesn't make me real eager to cook again. I will admit I am probably not that good at it and my meals are not made with love, but obligation to provide some sort of nutrition. Thankfully someone invented Dream Dinners.

It is a magical place where the meals are all ready for you to put them together, you just follow the easy recipe cards and dump all of the ingredients together and voila.... a healthy gourmet meal! Each meal only took a couple of minutes and after only one hour Zak and I had put together 12 meals. Of course there will be the cooking time but most only take about 20 minutes. Here are some of the meals we made..

Chicken Parmesan w/ Garlic Bread

Pesto Ravioli with walnuts

Pecan crusted Chicken

Asian Orange Chicken

Italian stuffed shells

Parmesan crusted Pork Chops

I would never even attempt to make any of this at home, not to mention all of their meals are less than 400 calories per serving. The total cost for all 12 dinners was about $200, I am pretty sure I couldn't buy all the ingredients at a grocery store for that. All of the dinners are 6 servings which will mean when Zak isn't home we will have leftovers which will provide another meal. I feel like one of those housewives in the 50's when they invented the microwave.....Yea for modern technology! If you want to check out the website here is the link.

http://www.dreamdinners.com/

Holy Moly Guacamole!

As Ethan would say....his new favorite saying among a few other choice ones that are not fit to put in print. I don't know where he learns these things, he certainly never hears them from me!
This week has been FULL of getting ready to get back to school activities. Here is a rundown....
1. School Shopping- all three kids need at least 4 or 5 outfits and 2 pairs of new shoes. Oh and underwear and socks.
2. Supply Shopping- I know Utah provides most of them, but they need to express themselves in their binders, folders and backpacks.
3. Dentist- All three kids get check ups and cleanings- all three have cavities. Whaaa! That means we get to go back for more appts.
4. Orthodontist- for Lauren-guess who gets braces in a couple of weeks? Zak voted to wait till she was 16 to cut back on potential suitors, but I thought that might be a little too mean. His fall back plan if she misbehaves then he will just shave her head. Yep, that ought to do it!
5. Haircuts- now that Lauren is older, we can't just go to Supercuts. We have to go to the fancy salons and the haircuts now include coloring. Oh and eyebrow waxing. She was cursed with Zak's eyebrows.
6. Doctor appts- Ethan has to have a check up for his preschool. He is not going into the army just preschool, not sure why they need to make sure he is in tip top physical health. Maybe so they can make sure he can climb the monkey bars and that he has no communicable diseases.
7. A dozen trips to each child's school- Registration, schedule changes, lunch payments, school bus payments, locker assignments, one trip to the district to fill out homeschool PE form (Lauren opted out of one semester of PE, I figure she does 6 hours of cheer a week, that should be plenty. Of course instead of taking art or some other class that forces her to use her brain she chooses Office Aid. I guess I have to pick my battles.)
You can imagine the hundreds of dollars that Getting Back to School costs. Not to mention the gallons of gas.
Will it be worth it? OH YEAH!

Cousin Craziness!!

We have had my two nieces here all week, this is actually the second week they have stayed here this summer. There have been some craziness but also some really great memories. I will try to recreate them for you without pictures because the first day they were here they were making videos and my camera was broken, which leads me to the craziness.....
Miranda brought her scooter up, Chloe has the same one and they zipped around the neigborhood at mach speeds. You can imagine how my street of elderly folks responded to that, which led to the first angry message.
(Reenactment-names have been changed to protect the innocent)
Bob-"Evelyn, you need to call me back right away I need to talk to you about your girls and their scooters"
I don't call him back because I know what he is going to say. Okay I am really non-confrontational.
Next day...Bob pulls up to my house
"You know those girls are going to get hit riding those scooters all over the place, I have talked to the police captain and he is going to send a car up here. There are lots of crazy drivers on this street and I am just concerned about your girls." There is no one under the age of 65 on this street but maybe he has a point..

Next day #2 Angry message
Ethel-"Sis. Call I wanted to talk to you about your girls, I noticed them taking some apricots from my tree and I don't mind if they have some, but I think they might be using them as weapons and I don't want them wasted."
Weapons? Huh?
This leads to a large discussion why you cannot take fruit from someone else's tree, how technically that is stealing. I felt like I am on some episode of "Leave it to Beaver." The girls felt bad and made a 12 page card about how sorry they were and dropped it off at Ethel's house. So lesson learned and maybe a funny memory made as well.
All in all, it is great to have them here, one of the main reasons I am glad to be back closer to family. Hopefully they will have great memories of visiting their aunt every summer in Mayberry, I mean Logan.