Quick, before I get Sidetrack'd

It’s Monday again, and, although I’m a wee bit late, that means it’s time for Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com.  Let’s not even talk about what we ate this weekend or the kitchen disaster that developed at dinner time on Saturday evening (that’s another story for another time).  We’ll just pick right up with Monday this week.

Monday – leftover tacos/nachos from Sunday evening

Tuesday – homemade chicken and noodles (hopefully)

Wednesday – meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green peas (from last week)

Thursday – breakfast casserole

For more menu ideas visit Menu Plan Monday.

Please join me in welcoming the newest addition to our (extended) family – our nephew, Baby Bean.  He was born on Tuesday morning weighing in at 7 pounds 9 ounces and measuring 19 3/4 inches long.  Hop over to tell Lu congrats and see a picture of her beautiful baby boy.

I can’t wait to meet him and hug him and his Momma.

The other day when I was trying to make the menu plan and grocery list, Matt and I discussed how useful it would be to have some of our past menus to look back at for meal ideas. So, in an effort to do just that, I am going to try to start participating in Menu Plan Monday again on a regular basis.

We shop on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings, so our menus run Friday through Thursday. Here is what we’ll be dining on this week:

Friday: take out or something from the frozen food section

Saturday: lunch – turkey sandwiches on croissants, chips / dinner – pizza for Matt and the kids (girls’ night out with my two best friends for me!)

Sunday: lunch – mexican-style ravioli, salad / dinner – chili dogs, tater tots

Monday: pizza pasta bake, salad

Tuesday: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green peas

Wednesday: breakfast for dinner – eggs, sausage, homemade biscuits

Thursday: leftovers night

Looks like I’m all about comfort foods these days. I’ll blame that on baby girl.

For more menus and meal ideas visit orgjunkie.com.

Happy Monday!

I came across a post on Simple Mom this weekend (via Rocks in My Dryer) entitled “The Great Myth“. It was a great reminder that none of us, no matter how it seems, is able to do it “all”. I was particularly struck by these two quotes:

“Every choice we make in life is both a choice to do something and a choice to not do something.”

“And at the end of the day, we need to trust that God gave us the energy to do those things to which He called us, and no more.”

I hope you’ll read the complete post and find encouragement for those days when you just don’t seem to measure up (at least in your own mind).

As you know, unless this is your first visit to Sidetrack’d, we are expecting to welcome baby #3 to our family in early January. Three doesn’t seem like an abnormally large family to Matt and me, but a good size portion of the rest of America doesn’t seem agree with that. Apparently, we are in the process of becoming a full-fledged traveling show.

Now, I will grant that we do have our children fairly close together – Little and Boo are 20.5 months apart and Boo and Baby Girl will be not quite 21 months apart – which I’m sure adds to our oddity. But if you know us well, you know that this is just one way, definitely not the only way, in which we’re a bit strange.

Last Monday was the big ultrasound day. All along we had planned to take Little with us, but due to appointment time, scheduling conflicts, and prior commitments, we decided to take Boo as well. The looks began as soon as we walked in the doctors’ office door. And I don’t just mean people glancing up from their books and magazines to see who’d entered the building, I mean people on the other side of the room fully turning around in their chairs to see us entering (fortunately, Matt was with us or I’m sure I really would have gotten some looks!). The children were well-behaved and fairly quiet (as quiet as a 3 year old and 16 month old can be expected to be), but you could just feel the unspoken comments.

This isn’t our first encounter with this type of thing either. Since I’ve had enough baby bump for people to recognize that I’m pregnant we’ve heard all the “wow, you’ll have your hands full” and “three little ones; you’ll be busy” type comments. And, of course, we’ve noticed the looks that say “are you crazy?!” or something of that sort. I’m sure it will only get more prevalent as we get closer to welcoming Baby Girl and then, especially, when I’m out alone with all three of them.

But it makes me wonder: if we get this kind of censure (at least that is the word that comes to mind) as a soon to be family of five, what do larger families feel when they are in public together?

Over the past few years I’ve considered taking up several new hobbies. The most notable were quilting and sewing both of which resulted in my giving up and selling all of the related items (mainly due to my inability to stay focused on any one thing for a considerable length of time. There is a reason this blog is titled sidetrack’d). I’ve also dabbled in paper crafts (card making, etc) and, lately, a bit in decoupage. I enjoy both of these, but to do them on a regular basis just requires more creativity than I’m generally able to eke out.

That brings us to the latest in the long line…knitting. For quite some time now I’ve contemplated learning to knit, but I just haven’t made the effort to find a class or a book to help me get started. I enjoy needlework (counted cross-stitch, embroidery, etc – basically things that involved counting stitches and a pattern), so I think knitting would be a good fit. And, I would be able to knit cute little hats and sweaters and things for my girls which would be a definite plus (Little just isn’t all that into cross-stitched things :-)).

So, I’m off to seek out some instruction to get me started.

GIRL!

I tried to post from the doctor’s office yesterday, but my phone and WordPress weren’t cooperating.

Baby girl is healthy and very active. Everything looked good on ultrasound, so now we just look forward to meeting our new daughter in a few months (she’s due in early January).

I’m afraid Little is going to be disappointed about the hair pulling thing, though. I have a feeling baby sister will love to touch Little’s pretty hair as much as a baby brother would have.