Menu Monday

OK, I know it's almost Wednesday already, but here's another edition of Menu "Monday".

Last week didn't require a whole lot of thought.....
Monday - we ordered in pizza as it was cheap night here in town
Tuesday - we went to Tony Roma's for Nathan's company Christmas supper
Christmas Eve - we went out to Olive Garden after our church's choir service
Christmas Day - we had supper at Nathan's parents
so I only had to make 2 meals!
Friday - taco salad
Saturday - chicken quesadillas

So, here's this week....
Monday - chicken fingers
Tuesday - lasagna
New Year's Eve - Nathan and I are going out for dinner & a movie - The Keg!!!
New Year's Day - Christmas at Nathan's parents
Friday & Saturday - don't know yet - I'm out of planning mode, better luck next week!

We are going on a cruise!

As you can see by my ticker, we are going on a cruise! We're doing a western Caribbean cruise with stops in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Belize City and Roatan (Honduras). I'm so excited! We went on a cruise 2 years ago (stops in Key West, Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica) and absolutely loved it! We've been to Puerta Vallarta twice, and though we enjoyed those trips as well, there was just something about the cruise that set it apart.

Last time we didn't do many excursions. In Key West we simply walked the island ourselves, which was fun. In Cozumel we just walked the main strip and did a little shopping. In Grand Cayman we did a snorkeling tour, and in Jamaica, we just did a little shopping close to the ship.

This time we'd like to do more tours of the islands themselves. Other than Key West, I felt like we didn't see much of the destinations themselves.

We'd also like to do a zipline excursion of some sort. After watching Amazing Race we're really excited about doing that. In Cozumel there is actually an "Amazing Race" excursion you can go on, but I know there's also a zipline one there so we'll probably end up doing that one.

And, yes, we are going by ourselves! Our kids are being babysat at our house, by my cousins for about 24 hrs, then my parents are coming down from the City (right close by) for a few days, then Nathan's parents are having them at their place (here in our hometown) for a few days. I think the kids will have almost as much fun as we will :)

Let the countdown begin!!!

Sunday School Christmas Program

Our church had our Sunday School Christmas program this past Sunday. The Grade 2 class were asked to draw illustrations for the bulletin - so there were numerous different bulletins handed out with different illustrations from the students. Here is the bulletin we got - illustrated by our Emma of course!


Here is some video from the program, starting with our youngest Sunday School kid. (I can't believe Jacob will be up there next year!)





During this segment, the 3 yr olds brought their favourite toy along to answer the question "If you were to visit Jesus in the manger, what would you bring Him?" Olivia got a gingerbread girl as a gift from her SS teachers that morning, so guess what her new favourite toy is?




In case you don't recognize them, Sophia is the sheep.....



Emma is the angel on the far left.....



Aren't they adorable?!

Push Up Update

So, after Week 2 of the PushUp training program you're supposed to do another exhaustion test to see where you're at. Basically you do as many consecutive pushups as you can without killing yourself. I had to do this before starting the program so see what level of training to follow.

Before starting the program I could do 11.

Now..... drum roll please..... I can do 28!

That's a pretty good improvement in 4 weeks of training I'd say (yes, it took me 4 weeks to do 2 weeks worth of training - I repeated one day for one week because it was so difficult, and took almost a week off when we went on our little trip). Unfortunately this also means I have to train at the highest level of training this week - and this week's training looks scary! Wish me luck.

Jacob - 10 months

Here's Jacob's 10 month picture. He even got a cute little haircut so we can style it now - it's hard to tell in this picture cause of the tree background. He looks like such a little man! He's a cutie.

Merry Christmas!

Menu Monday

Monday - homemade pizza and pizza pinwheels for lunches
Tuesday - lasagna
Wednesday - homemade sub sandwiches
Thursday - tacos
Friday - Ringette party
Saturday - sweet n sour sausage
Sunday - Christmas at my parents!!!! Not sure what's on the menu, we take turns picking the Christmas menu every year and it's my parents turn to pick this year (I think!).

Wrenikje Recipe

As requested, here is the recipe for wrenikje (cottage cheese perogies) that I got from my mom who makes awesome perogies.

Dough
4 cups flour
2 cups light sour cream (1 small container)
2 egg whites

Filling
4 cups dry curd cottage cheese (1 large container)
2 egg yolks
salt & pepper to taste (1 - 2 tsp)

Mix dough ingredients (love my KitchenAid!), roll out, top with filling, cut & seal (love my perogy cutter!). If you freeze them first there should be less chance of them opening up.

Then boil and serve if you like them that way. Or boil and fry if you like them that way. I fry mine just using Pam so I can pretend it's healthy.

With the leftover dough, we make empties - boiled and fried as well - we nicknamed them "heart attacks".

Last time I made these the recipe made 46 perogies and 8 "heart attacks" - enough for 2 meals for our family (when I make them alongside farmer sausage and corn)

Gravy
2 tbsp margarine
2 tbsp flour
milk (may 1 1/2 cups?)
salt and pepper to taste
sausage drippings

Melt margarine in a saucepan on medium heat, add flour to form a roux, stirring like this for one or two minutes to "cook" the flour. While whisking the entire time, slowly add milk. Stir continuously (or milk will burn) until it boils at which point gravy will thicken. If it is too thick, gradually add more milk until it is the desired consistency. Add in sausage drippings (if you have) and season to taste.

Serve over perogies, noodles or rice.

Enjoy!

Push Up Update

I have to admit that I did not do pushups during our little holiday - but I did swim every day and one day I even exercised on the hotel elliptical and treadmill for 30 mins (total, not each:)

But today I was back on the pushup attack and managed to do Week 2, Day 1 which was 5 sets of pushups - 14, 14, 10, 10, 15 with 60 seconds rest between each set. Which means I can do 63 pushups in less than 10 mins - not too shabby if I do say so myself!

Menu Wednesday

Here's Menu Wednesday as promised!

Just to make you jealous, here's some of the places we ate out on the weekend - Paradiso, Ruby Tuesdays, Chili's, Green Mill, and Johnny Carino's. Carino's was amazing! This was the first time we'd been and it was sooo good. Definitely going back there.

Anyway, here's the menu for the rest of the week....

Wednesday - Rachael Ray's Chicken with Mushroom-Dijon gravy (but with no dijon cause I don't have any).
Thursday - wrenikje (cottage cheese perogies) and sausage (which I practically don't have to make cause they're in the freezer!)
Friday - spaghetti
Saturday - probably tacos
Sunday - probably homemade subs - has to be a quick one before the SS Christmas concert!

Best school lunch idea EVER!

A few weeks ago at a girls night out with the ladies from our now-broken-up-bible-study group, we were discussing meal planning (hence my renewed effort to plan meals - Menu Monday!) and school lunch packing, and somehow the fact came up that my awesome pizza dough recipe made enough for 3 pans of pizza and I only need 2 pans for supper and some leftovers. I've never had much luck freezing dough and using it later. So Pam (the cooking guru!) gave me a wonderful idea!!!

She said to roll out the remaining dough and top it with pizza toppings, roll it up and cut it (like cinnamon buns), then bake and freeze - voila! Pizza pinwheels - perfect for school lunches.

Our kids absolutely LOVE them!!

So, thank you to Pam for the great idea - and now I am passing it along to all of you in bloggyland!

Christmas Traditions

I'd like to start more traditions in our family - especially Christmas traditions. We already have a few - we always attend the Christmas Eve choir service at our church, for ex, but I'd like to have more. I recently found this blog that has 100 Christmas Tradition ideas! The trick will be finding ones I like that my other half doesn't find too dorky. I'm much more apt to be dorky than he is :) I also find the trouble with 100 ideas is that it's so many I don't even know where to start!

At our COFFEE Connections (morning out for ladies at our church) this morning one of the women talked about a tradition they did - each child got to pick a character (shepherd, wise man, etc) and they would start from varying places in the room, depending on how far they had to travel to see Baby Jesus. As their particular part of the story was read they would move towards the Christmas tree. When the time came for Baby Jesus to be born, they would take a special gift ornament off the tree. It was a small box wrapped in gold wrapping paper, signifying Heaven and tied with a blue ribbon to signify royalty. Inside the box Baby Jesus was also wrapped in red and white tissue paper. White signified Jesus' absolutely purity and sinlessness and the red stood for the blood He shed to pay for our sins. I thought this was a fun tradition!

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

Menu Monday

Monday - homemade chicken fingers and fries
Tuesday - sweet n' sour sausage and rice
Wednesday - tacos
Thursday - spaghetti and focaccia bread
Friday - supper with the inlaws
Saturday through Tuesday - restaurant meals cause we're going away for the "weekend"!!!

So, next week will be Menu Wednesday I guess :)