FOOD!

I know we all get a little stagnant and stale with our food routine; I have a facebook friend that shares her meal plan for the week and it can be REALLY helpful!  I'm not quite organized enough to actually PLAN the sides, but I find that once I've made a plan and a shopping list, the accompanying dishes aren't as difficult to figure out.

I REALLY wish my boys would branch out and be a little more vegetable ambitious.  I'm NOT willing to make different meals for us, so even though I try to be as healthy as possible, my menu is not exactly always "skinny", "organic", "vegan", or "low" anything.

Heck, it's a huge accomplishment to have graduated from fast food 5 nights a week to cooking 4 nights a week with 3 of those being processed/box meals to actually COOKING real food 6 nights a week.  And we don't do leftovers for DINNER.  I save leftovers and that feeds me lunch occasionally, but we don't do them for another dinner night.

So, without further ado, I am going to attempt to do a weekly blog post with my week's meal plan for those that may be struggling to figure out what they can cook.  If I can, I'll post the link; the majority of my recipes come from Pinterest.  The following is this past weeks's food.

*Broiled fish ( I normally use Target's Swai fillets, but my Sac one has been OUT for over a month :(  Used Cod this time, and didn't care for the flavor of the fish.  This recipe is one of my favorites, though, and I thought the parmesan cheese was a nice touch at the end.
Broiled fish  LOVE this recipe, I sprinkle the seasoning on both sides of the fish.  This time, I added a little sprinkle of shredded parmesan cheese for the last 2 minutes of broiling time.  That was the ONLY thing that made the cod edible.

*No boil chicken alfredo.  LOVE this recipe!  It also works beautifully with shrimp; I just buy a bag of the large precooked from Target and skip the part where I cook them in a pan.
One pan chicken alfredo

*Brats. No recipe needed here.  I buy the low fat cheese ones, slap them on the George Foreman for 6 minutes, and slap them on a whole wheat weenie bun!
Johnsonville brats

*Pancakes.  Made these last night.  SO good!  Subbed a 1/2 tsp of Allspice instead of a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and the flavor was SO yummy.  We don't do maple syrup in our house, I actually love plain old sugar free syrup.  Saved time making them after work by mixing up my dry ingredients ahead of time.
Vanilla cinnamon buttermilk pancakes

*Pork sandwiches with home made BBQ sauce.  This turned out really well, I was surprised at myself!  First time trying out this recipe and it was a winner.
BBQ pork sandwiches

*Broccoli Beef.  My favorite!  LOVE this recipe, I would eat it 3 nights a week if I could.  WAY better than Panda Express and so, so easy.
Broccoli Beef

Hope this is helpful!  I have SO many recipes on Pinterest pinned that I haven't gotten around to trying yet ... I will post as I finally DO try them :)  Oh, and GO BRONCOS!!!

It's now time to count ... DOWN. Third Trimester!

I was just looking at my calendar today and was shocked to see I'm at 29 weeks this week.  Whoa.  Colton will be here before we know it!  This has been a very blessed pregnancy; not all that different than my my pregnancy with Kody.  I had no problems growing the boy, it was BIRTHING the boy that was the problem!  Hopefully that problem is solved with my planned C.

I just wish I had someone I could really share this experience with.  I feel very isolated out here sometimes, but there's nothing I can do about it.  I miss all my GA horse peeps.  CA horse peeps are just different.

Baby boy's going to be stylin'!  We are finding so many cute baby things it's hard to just say "no" lol!

Kody's really looking forward to being a big brother and actually talked to me about being a positive role model in Colton's life.  Warmed my heart!  I'm so proud of my teenager, he's turning into an amazing young man.  I always knew he would be!

I am really proud of myself; I've done a GREAT job at making a meal plan each week and sticking with it.  I'm still doing what I highlighted in an earlier blog post; I have my list w/ all the different categories of food so I don't make chicken 7 days a week.  We're saving a ton of money by going grocery shopping ONCE a week and not eating out 5 days a week.  I just joined Costco last week and I'm going to see how that works out for us; I did it primarily because I've heard it's an amazing resource for formula.  I will try and breast feed again for a short amount of time, but like w/ Kody, I will switch to formula for ease and sleeping purposes.  

Alright.  Gonna give y'all the obligatory 3rd trimester baby bump pics!  I feel pretty lucky, I THINK I'm going to make it through this pregnancy w/out having to delve into maternity clothes.  I did buy a belly band thing that I can put around my normal jeans and I hope that works out well.  My work pants have an elastic waist so I think those will work too!  Took these over the weekend ...

I think that's about it!  Not much else to update.  11 weeks to go; 11 weeks until back on track w/ exercising and watching calories like a hawk.  11 weeks until 8 weeks of just being a mama.  11 weeks until the final birthing experience of my life.  11 weeks until we officially become a family of 4.  Wow, how time flies!