Menu Plan This Week

Tuesday: Spaghetti with Creamy Tomato Parmesan Sauce

Wednesday: Beef Burgundy, Mashed Potatoes, Veggies (family favourite)

Thursday: New Years Eve...not sure yet...maybe Pizza

Friday: Chicken Enchiladas, Rice, Tossed Salad

Saturday: Salmon, Rice, Broccoli

Sunday: Leftovers

I have a lot of things whirling around my brain that I want to blog about. I just have so little time right now :-). We had a wonderful Christmas and holiday time with our family. On Boxing Day, we bought ourselves an Ipad, which we are all going a bit crazy over :-D. I really, really like it and am having so much fun finding all sorts of apps for all sorts of things. One of my definite favourites is DuoLingo....it is SO MUCH FUN! I am brushing up on my French with it and hoping to become somewhat fluent. I have a thing for languages...I took Spanish and German in university (just intro courses) and enjoyed them so much. Supposedly, 34 hours of Duolingo is equivalent to taking a university course. It's got rave reviews from professors and it a super popular app. It is sort of like a game and I just love sitting down and working through the short lessons. Our kids are really into the Barefoot Atlas right now and are learning all sorts of things. E is loving a certain timed reading app, and is really motivated to read on it and answer comprehension questions. It is the perfect thing for homeschooling and this mama who loves learning all sorts of new things. I know we are already making such great use of it, and I can't wait to add some more great learning tools on it.

Menu Plan Monday

It's a busy time of year for everyone, but our family tends to keep the Christmas season pretty low-key. I do put up a couple of decorations,but we currently don't put up a tree, I do a little bit of baking (but not overly much), and we are also quite low-key with gifts. From us, each of our kids is getting one gift plus a few stocking stuffers. My husband and I actually don't exchange gifts right now. We prefer to use the money on other things like going on holidays or maybe a bigger item. For example, we are considering buying an Ipad for our whole family this year.

This year I baked a batch of cinnamon twist cookies (my Dad's favourite that I make for him since my Mom is gluten-free and doesn't bake with gluten anymore) and about 4 dozen old-fashioned cream cookies (a Mennonite tradition & also one of my husband's favourite cookies). The cinnamon twist cookies did not last very long around here and are already gone. Tomorrow I plan to take some time to decorate the cream cookies with the children. If time permits, I will also make up some snowflake sugar cookies that I usually make for Christmas, but I'm not really sure if I'm going to take time for that this year or not. Maybe I'll get around to it at New Years.

I have decided to keep going with homeschooling instead of taking a few weeks off right now. We will take a few days off (for sure the 25th, 28th, and the 1st,) but I'm hoping to just fit in a bit of extra work in on the other days and keep up as usual. With homeschooling this year, I have found it to be more beneficial for us to take a week off when things get a little crazy or when we are all feeling burned out. Today, we got about 2 1/2 days worth of school work in, so we might be able to make this a 3 day week, which would be great.

Here's the plan for this week:

Monday: Sweet & Sour Chicken, Rice, Veggies

Tuesday:  Bowtie Broccoli Alfredo

Wednesday: Tuna Melts, Salad, & Fries

Thursday: Vegetarian Chili

My life

Last week was kind of a tough one for us. One disappointment after another has made it hard for my heart to remain hopeful and optimistic many times. Feeling stuck on a hamster wheel, always trying to get off, is not a fun feeling. My head constantly needs to remind my heart to not trust in my feelings, which all came crashing down on Saturday morning.

Thoughts affect feelings, so I force myself to think the right thoughts to try and bring my feelings back around again.

My life exists to bring glory to God, not to bring glory to myself.

My life exists to point others to Him, not to myself.

My life exists to know and experience a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

My life exists not to live out my plans, but to live out His.

When I awake in the morning, the sunrise reminds me of my Father, the One who paints the skies, and He reminds me that my life exists, and His purpose for me here is not fulfilled.


..."being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6