MEAL PLAN SWAP!!!!

IT's TIME...
Let's get to Swappin'!!!

the point of this meal plan swap is to encourage each other to plan, which saves time, energy, and moolah!
AND this swap is gonna be a HUGE blessing for anyone who wants a bunch of meals to look back on and plan for!!
So excited to see what yall have done!
{I will leave this button in my sidebar so that you can revisit my blog and read the meal plans whenever you'd like...or just go directly to the person's blog who planned it!}



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THE PLAN:

Monday
b: oatmeal with brown sugar, cheese slices
l: peanut butter sandwiches with carrots and fruit
d: Tuna Noodle Casserole

Tuesday
b: scrambled eggs with cubed ham and cheese
l: left over tuna noodle casserole
d: Taco Soup

Wednesday
b: strawberry waffle with peanut butter or nutella, cheese slices
l: ham and cheese roll ups with fruit cups and crackers
d: Hobo Dinner

Thursday
b: egg omelet (with cheese and ham, or whatever)
l: peanut butter sandwiches with chips and fruit
d: Mom's Spaghetti

Friday
b: oatmeal with brown sugar, or cold cereal, and cheese slices
l: left over spaghetti
d: Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Saturday
b: scrambled eggs, toast with jelly or peanut butter
l: turkey and cheese sandwiches with fruit cups and crackers
d: Pot Roast (crock pot)

Sunday
b: toast or waffles with whatever topping, "daddy's" scrambled eggs
l: Grill Day
d: Grill Day


THE SHOPPING LIST:

Meats:

12 oz can tuna (solid white albacore in water)

3 lbs ground beef

boneless skinless chicken breasts (1-1.5 lbs)

Pot roast package (walmart has these, comes with the veggies and the seasoning)

Any meats for grilling (beef, chicken, shrimp, fish)

Cubed ham pieces

Canned:

small jar diced pimientos, drained

can cream of mushroom soup

14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (I use the β€œbasil, garlic, and oregano” flavored)

6 oz can tomato paste

1 can corn

1 can ranch style beans

1 can rotel

1 can diced tomatoes

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 can 6 oz evaporated milk

I can chopped green chili peppers (optional)

Seasonings/Spices:

bay leaves (2)

oregano

worchestershire

garlic powder

onion powder

parsley flakes

ketchup

1 packet taco seasoning

1 pkg dry ranch dressing

Veggies:

baby carrots

3 potatoes

onion

Grated β€œMexican style” cheese package

Any veggies for grilling (asparagus, zucchini, corn)

*salads or other veggies for sid

Other:

wide pasta ribbons (you can use wheat)

spaghetti (wheat)

garlic bread (frozen)

lays potato chips (snack size bag)

Corn tortillas (1 dozen)

Waffles (I get the ones with strawberries in them)

Eggs

**this does not include things like bread, peanut butter, milk, fruit, sandwich meat…


THE MEALS:

Tuna Noodle Casserole

you need:
12 oz can tuna (white in water), drained
can cream of mushroom soup
small jar diced pimientos, drained
wide pasta ribbons (12 oz pkg)
small pkg lays potato chips

recipe:
Drain tuna
mix tuna, soup, and pimientos together
cook 1/2 package pasta ribbons and drain
mix noodles with the tuna mix
cook at 350 for about 20 minutes
top with crushed chips

Taco Soup

Mix together:
1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 pkg dry Ranch dressing
1 can corn, drained
1 can ranch style beans, drained
1 can Rotel (I use 1/3 of the can bc I cant handle too much spice!)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup water

Mix all together in skillet and heat through.
Serve with tortilla chips or fritos,
or over salad!

Hobo Dinners

you need:
foil
1 lb ground beef
baby carrots
potatoes
onion (or onion powder)
salt and pepper
Worcestershire

recipe:
lay out pieces of foil, 1/person
form hamburger meat into patties, place on foil
peel potatoes and cut into bite sized pieces
place potatoes, carrots (and onion wedges if you use it) on top of meat
sprinkle everything with salt, pepper, and a little worcestershire
cover each "dinner" right with the foil
bake at 350 for about 1.5 hours

Mom's Spaghetti

you need:
1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
onion powder
garlic powder
bay leaves
oregano
worcestershire
parsley
salt and pepper
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (basil and garlic flavor)
6 oz can tomato paste
a little ketchup
spagetti noodles, cooked

recipe:
cook beef, then add everything else
let simmer for 20 minutes
serve on top of spagetti
serves well with ceasar salad and garlic bread

Chicken Enchildas

you need:
chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite sized pieces
2 cans cream of chicken soup
6 oz can evaporated milk
onion powder
(optional: can chopped green chilis)
corn tortillas, torn into small pieces
mexican style grated cheese

recipe:
Mix cooked and cut chicken with soup, milk, onion powder and chili peppers
In 8x12 dish, place layer of torn up tortillas
then add layer of chicken mix,
then layer with cheese
Repeat layers, ending with cheese on top
Bake at 350 or until hot and cheese is melted
serves well with salad and chips

Pot Roast (crockpot)

(easy breezy!)
Just buy the pre-made pot roast package (Walmart carries them),
pop in crock pot with the veggies and seasoning, and let it cook all day
We serve this with cornbread

Grill Day

(we usually do this once a week when the weather is nice!)
can grill whatever you want:
beef, chicken, shrimp, fish,
asparagus, zucchini
peaches and pineapple on skewers

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Happy Meal Planning and Cooking!!
(and let me know if you have any questions about any of this)

To those linking up with a meal plan: what a blessing to me and to so many others...
THANK YOU!!

{link up below}






{Letters to Littles}

Letters to Littles link up today!
Lots on my heart to share with my sweet toddler today...how bout you?



Share your sweet letters below, and believe me when I say this will be a HUGE blessing to your little one's hearts someday.

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Abigail, Oh, Abigail...

my girl. you are so precious and so sweet and so adorable.
but these days...these days, you are also so testy, so independent, so opinionated.
One minute we are hugging and the next we are "arguing".
You are very VERY strong willed.
I have to remember that this is an amazing God-given quality that serves you well in your life..it already has, and definitely will in the future.
I pray that the Lord teaches ME how to teach you to steward that quality well.

You are in the toddler stage right now where independence is so very important to you.
I can't tell you how many times a day I hear "I do it MYSELF!".
I LOVE that you are getting so big that you can do more things yourself,
even though it makes my heart hurt that you really are a little girl now, and not just a baby.
It's fun to watch you help with so much...the cooking, the laundry, even taking diapers to the trash for me when I change "Baby Bethy". You are SUCH a big help darlin.

One thing this independent strong willed spirit you've got has been teaching me,
is that I need the LORD's strong Spirit to help me deal with yours. :)
I really do. It is no easy task to go up against the ambitious, hard-headed, strong will of a beautiful, puppy-eyed 2 year old little girl.
It can be (and sometimes is) disastrous.
But we are working through it sweet girl.

Sometimes, no, a LOT of times, I feel like I have no clue what I am doing in parenting a toddler,
but I know there is grace for that. At least I'm attempting to believe that for myself.
I realize you are becoming the age where memories are gonna start sticking, and I want to be aware of that even more so now....
be aware of what i am teaching you, how I am handling things, how I am discipling you,
and how I am loving you.

I want to create this loving bubble around you...not to shield you out of fear,
but to protect you from the lies and schemes of Satan. I don't doubt for one second that he is above attacking a little one.
He is that conniving and deceitful.
I want to teach you how to operate out of love, out of peace, instead of fear or entitlement.

I'm not naive, i know that this is all just part of your development and it is just a stage.
But I also know that God's grace can go above and beyond to teach BOTH of us how to act and react as we journey through toddlerhood together.
We will make it sweet girl.

To be honest...though it drives me bonkers some (most) days, your strong will is something I admire.
It is amazing to see the confidence the Lord has put in your tiny spirit already.
It's been there from the very beginning, even inside my belly you were strong willed. :)
I cannot WAIT to see where this confidence takes you.
Even though we have our moments, I am your biggest fan Abigail.

Mama

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some {pretty} baby blues for ya

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hope you can pick your heart back up off the floor...because I know it just melted.

and don't forget:

and


{linking up today here and here..check out these lovely ladies!}

ambulances, tornados, and God's protection


Yesterday I got through the day SOLELY on God's grace. But reflecting back, I can see His divine protection, provision and grace. And I'm so thankful for that.
Bare with me and keep reading to the end, because I want to share all of God's SUPERNATURAL provision for me through all we dealt with yesterday.

Abigail has really never hurt herself, never had a big fall or injury, never had anything bleeding.
But yesterday morning she was running to the back door, excited to go to story time at the library, and I didn't see her coming so we bumped into each other.
She fell face first into the leg of our TV table.
Blood just started pouring from her nose and mouth and she was screaming for a good 20 minutes straight.
It was horrible to watch her in so much pain, and feel so helpless.
(thankfully no teeth were broken, and she just busted her lip and scraped up her nose and face pretty bad)

Little did I know, this was just the start to the day.

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A little later, after she was calmed down and we had played and distracted and gotten the bleeding to stop, we headed up to the city to return some of her shoes and stop by Babies R Us.
(oh my heart aches just thinking about this again)

I was speaking with someone in Customer Service about a return, and I looked over right as Abigail was falling out of the back of the shopping cart, head first.
(I think she had stood up for a second to look at a toy she had dropped on the floor.)
I did what I could to catch her but was too late.
It was seriously like I saw her falling in slow motion.
head. first.
Right into the concrete floor.

she SCREAMED and and I scooped her up, looked at her and she had the biggest knot I've ever seen right on the front of her head.
She screamed and cried and screamed more...louder than I have ever heard her.
The woman behind me in line came over, told me she was a doctor, and recommended we call the paramedics to come take a look since she had hit her head so hard.

as you can imagine, I was just SHAKING with fear.

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Long story short (well, kind of)...the paramedics came, evaluated her and said she seemed to be ok, but just to keep a close eye on her over the next 24 hours.
Having a stretcher brought into Babies R Us, with people staring, was very traumatic, but not near as bad as taking my screaming toddler, and now screaming 3 month old, into the ambulance to be evaluated.
Abigail would not calm down and I did what I could to ease her fear and pain but it took about 45 minutes until she finally calmed.
it was awful. just awful.

But she finally calmed down when i got her to listen to baby's "heart beep" with the stethoscope...
she loved doing that and it really helped to distract her.
Daddy finally got there (he was 30 min away at work) and she was MUCH better with him there...while I did paperwork in the ambulance, he took her to get a Jamba Juice.
When I pulled up, she was like her normal self, playing and drinking her smoothie.
SO so thankful.

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Of course having to call 911 for your child is not exactly easy.
ooooo, but this wonderful day did not end there my friends.

As we drove home from dealing with all this, it started raining and became dark very quickly.
About 30 minutes after we got home, the tornado sirens started going off and we hunkered down (yes, I am from Texas so I can say that) in our stairwell closet with a bunch of cushions and a tiny lantern.

Our small city made national news yesterday as a tornado swept right through town.
As we hid in the closet with the TV turned way up to listen to reports, we literally heard them saying that the tornado was now crossing the intersection which is about 1/4 mile from our house. SO scary.

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We are obviously okay, and our home is okay..thank the Lord!
But the roof of Parker's office building was ripped off, and it basically just rained right into the building.
He spent a lot of the evening there trying to salvage and cover things.
They had just moved into this new office 2 weeks ago.
We are still praying that they did not lose anything that cannot be replaced for clients.

(btw, keeping a toddler and a newborn in a dark closet is a WHOLE other blog post!)
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but. BUT.
I want to tell you ALL the ways God met us in this crazy day yesterday.

I've been trying to "wean" Abigail off of her Paci this past week, but I had let her have it yesterday morning because she was throwing a fit and I just didn't feel like dealing with it.
But that paci probably prevented her from knocking teeth out when she fell.

When Abigail fell from the shopping cart, I had NO idea what to do. Like I was sitting there holding her just clueless.
I've never even imagined in my head how I would handle something like this.
But the lady behind me in line was a doctor. She told me what to do. She was there with her own kids but stayed with me the entire time.

Abigail fell head first right into the concrete floor. I can't even think about all the possibilities of what could have happened. (head injury, broken neck, etc)
But she only got a huge knot on her head, and it already looks much better today.

When she fell, she was screaming for a paci but I didn't have one with me (remember, I was trying to wean her). I was so upset bc I knew it would help her feel more secure.
But the manager at Babies R Us, who had already brought me ice for her head, asked me what kind of pacis she used, and went and got me a pack of them, and gave her one. He even brought her a stuffed animal when we were in the ambulance.

Sweet Bethany cried the whole time we were in the ambulance, but I could not help her because I needed to hold Abigail who was still screaming.
But one of the paramedics rocked her, gave her her paci, distracted her and helped her calm down. He later shared with me he has 6 kids of his own.

A tornado touched down very close to our home, and caused damage all over town.
But we are safe.

I had LOTS of moments yesterday where I could have completely lost it, been angry, been scared, been totally crazy.
BUT.
God's grace got us through. He protected, He provided, He showed up.


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{If you need to find us, we might be hunkered down again, as more tornados are expected tonight}

I finally had a good cry about everything last night as I climbed into bed, but I woke up this morning thankful and hopeful for a new day. Thanks for yalls prayers and concern for us!
and thanks for listening to me process all this today.

Basically, I am just overwhelmed today at His goodness towards us.