Sunday, April 26, 2009

Quick Update

Just a brief update on some of my past posts......

I tried out the recipes I posted in "What's For Dinner" . The Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole was super easy to make and has definitely made it into the dinner line up. The Creamy Enchiladas was also pretty tasty but a bit salty and I thought tasted better as leftovers. I think I might also use a little less of the heavy whipping cream.

I'm also happy to report that it seems like Wal-Mart has gotten whatever kink worked out and I haven't had any problems recently using internet coupons. I'm not saying that I still might not encounter some issues the next time I try to use them but it's been a while (See my post "Say It Isn't So" if you aren't sure what I'm talking about).

Thursday, April 23, 2009

All Before 8:30

Here is what we've been up to this morning.


Tuesday, April 14, 2009

What's For Dinner?

As you may recall one of my new year's resolutions this year was to be more diligent about planning out a weekly dinner menu. I've done pretty good about keeping this resolution with a few weeks of falling off track. One of the hardest things about planning a menu is sometimes actually coming up with new items to add to the line up. A few of us were talking about this recently at our home bible study (after our devo time of course) and were sharing some of the items we were planning on fixing that week or that we use in our menu plan. We thought it might be nice to e-mail each other our menus but Dallas and I decided to actual post our current menus in hopes to get some additional ideas from some of you or to perhaps help add a few items to your weekly line up. Who knows, if there is enough interest this may just become a regular post. If you missed it here is Dallas's current menu as well as some of the recipes. Thanks to my friend Beth I came up with a few new recipes from a recent post she did where she talked about one of her favorite sites "This Week for Dinner". So for anyone interest here is what the Winberry's will be having for dinner over the next 3 weeks (I typically just do a 2 week menu but I got a little crazy this week). By the way I only plan out Monday through Friday, we also keep Monday's pretty quick and simple as David has to be somewhere by 7:00p on Monday nights.

Monday:
Roastbeef Subs
Auju
Chips
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Pizza style Subs
Chips
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Fish sticks
Homemade mac-n-cheese

Tuesday:
Chicken Quesadillas
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Tacos
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Fried Chicken
Rice
Gravy
Green Beans

Wednesday:
Stromboli
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Marinated, Grilled Chicken
Baked Potatoes
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Frozen Pizza

Thursday:
Chicken Cordon Bleu (this is a new recipe I'm going to try)
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Creamy Chicken Enchiladas (this is another new recipe)
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Chicken Spaghetti

Friday:
Salmon
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Green beans
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Frozen Lasagna (pretty exciting huh)
Garlic bread
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Still coming up with an item

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Cordon Bleu and Creamy Chicken Enchiladas:

Easy Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
- 6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 8 slices Swiss cheese
- 6-8 slices ham (I get the thinly sliced ham from the deli)
- 2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup
- 1 bag croutons (or seasoned bread crumbs)
Line bottom of 9×13 pan with chicken breasts. Salt. Lay slices of Swiss cheese, then ham over the top of chicken breasts. Mix cream of mushroom soup with about 1/2 cup of milk and pour over top. Mash croutons and sprinkle over top. Cook (uncovered) at 350 degrees for about 1 hour.

CREAMY ENCHILADAS
2 C chicken, cooked & shredded
2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic crushed
8 oz tomato sauce
1/4 t salt
3 C heavy cream
5 bouillon cubes - chicken
1/3 C olive oil
12-18 tortillas
1 1/2 C monterey jack grated cheese
1 large onion
1/4 t sugar
DIRECTIONS:Sautee onion in 2 T oil until translucent. Stir in garlic, tomato sauce, salt, sugar and chicken. Cover and simmer 5 mins. In a large saucepan heat cream. Dissolve bouillon in cream - don’t heat too hot. Set aside. In a small skillet heat ~1/3 C of oil and dip each tortilla in oil turning once for a few seconds to soften - drain on paper towel. Dip tortilla in cream mixture - place on flat surface - put 3 T chicken mixture and roll up. Place rolled tortilla seam side down in 9X13 baking dish. Pour any remaining sauce over enchiladas. Cover with grated cheese. Bake 350 25-30 mins.

I would love to hear what you are having for dinner. If interested in playing along post your menu on your blog and then link it back to here using the link below.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Hippity Hoppity....Happy Easter

**warning....long post and lots of pictures**



Easter has been in full force at the Winberry's with all kinds of hip hopping activities. Caleb is not really into the whole idea of hunting eggs yet but he still seemed to enjoy all the events that took place anyway and definitely enjoyed getting to eat his fair share of candy.

On Thursday we enjoyed hanging out with our friends at Mommy and Me. Caleb loved getting to roam around the church building with a couple of the other kids since it was yucky outside. He seriously would be very content just roaming aimlessly around the church building all day. I'm not sure what it is about it but he can't get enough of it. He also liked getting to participate in the Easter egg hunt even if he didn't quite understand the whole concept of picking up the eggs and putting them in his basket. He however quickly caught on to the fact that there was candy inside the eggs and didn't waste any time making sure his cheeks were nicely filled. The other kids were super sweet and would bring over eggs and put in his basket as they wanted to make sure he didn't miss out.



On Friday I decided to bust out the egg shaped cookie cutter I bought this year and make a few sugar cookies. Maybe next year I'll get ambitious and attempt to make these adorable, and delicious, little cake eggs that Dallas made and brought to lunch on Sunday. How cute are these!
The weather was finally nice on Saturday so we spent the day hanging out as a family and got out for a few hours. After dinner that night we started our family tradition of dyeing Easter eggs. Caleb's favorite part was watching the color tablets fizz in the vinegar. I'm not really sure what he thought of the rest of the experience but David and I had a lot of fun getting to re-live some of our childhood days.




The Easter bunny brought Caleb a little wagon filled with various summer items (sunglasses, bubbles, shovel, pail, rake, etc). Caleb seemed to really like the wagon and all of it's contents. He decided that the rake and shovel made a nice make shift golf club and proceeded to hit the eggs that the Easter bunny brought him vs. picking them up and putting them in his baskets. He was so funny to watch. We later showed him that the Easter bunny put candy inside the eggs so he then went around shaking some of the eggs to see if they had anything in them. It was so fun watching him enjoy each item in the basket. He picked up the rake and shovel and played with them for a while, then discovered the sunglasses and had to try them on briefly, then it was on to the bubbles where we had to stop and have us blow them for a while so he could pop them. He next examined his new book in which he got very excited when he realized it had tractors in it and very excitedly exclaimed "tractor, tractor, tractor". The last thing he looked at was the chocolate bunny. It was actually the item he was the least interested in, oh how your priorities will change later in time. He apparently didn't want to waste any item inside his new wagon and even took time to play with the Easter grass.




We had a great Easter morning at church and had a wonderful time having lunch with friends. We ended the day with devo and pizza at church (we missed the giant candy hunt because we were all taking a nap but Caleb was still able to pick out a few items that were leftover when we arrived and still ended up with plenty of candy). Despite the yucky weather we had a wonder Easter and enjoyed the day spent with one another as a family and with our church friends/family.


Thursday, April 9, 2009

Birthday Freebies

Who doesn't like something for free AND some additional ways to help celebrate your birthday. Check out Freebies 4 Mom's great list of birthday freebies. Here are a few of the freebies and discounts that I ended up receiving for my birthday.

*15% off coupon at The Children's Place
*$10 off $20 purchase at Mimi's (David, Caleb and I ended up eating for $10 + tax!)
*Free Like It create your own creation (ice cream + 1 mix-in) from Cold Stone
*Buy one get one free blizzard from Dairy Queen (Yummy, this was a nice treat after dinner)
*Free small original sandwich from Schlotzky's (This made for a nice free lunch this week, I didn't even have to pay tax. I just drove up asked for the sandwich and didn't have to order anything else.)

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Craft Time

I finally decided to bust out some of the scrapbook paper and stamps that are collecting dust in my craft room and get a little crafty. I also ran across a great website that has been a huge help to jump start a little creativity. I love this site and love that she posts a new card layout everyday. Here are some of the cards I made recently.