my blessed life

Ah.  Meal planning. My housekeeping salvation. Last week went so smoothly (you know, after two straight weeks of chaos), it was lovely!  Here's hoping for another great week. But first, I have to tell you about Raddish Kids !  I found their booth in the vendor hall at the Teach Them Diligently convention I recently attended.  It is an awesome *cooking club* for parents and kids!  I picked up one of their freebie recipes at the convention and we tried it last week.  We made their Greek Turkey Burgers --only with beef instead of turkey because I didn't look carefully into the freezer before grocery shopping.  Oops.  Oh well, we loved these with beef probably even better than turkey.  And get this: these burgers tasted just like a yummy gyro!  I love those things! Anyway, you can subscribe to these cooking kits and they will arrive at your house every month with three of the recipe guides and all kinds of other cool stuff tha...

So I just realized how badly I have slacked this year on the weekly wrap-ups :/  Kind of feel bad about that.  Okay.  I'm over it.   This just hasn't been the year of the weekly wrap-up, I guess. But there's always now and I thought I'd jump back in there. Part of the reason I haven't been motivated to post our weekly wraps has been that so many of our weeks have been really hard this year.  You may remember my post last fall about how our 9-yr-old son, Mr. B, has been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.  We are still learning how that is effecting us as a family, how we can better help him succeed, and how to handle the daily challenges.  And there are many daily challenges.  Often in the evenings I am just emotionally wrung out (this explains my lack of blogging in recent months).   I am very hopeful that we are learning new and better ways to help our son learn and grow in areas where he really struggles...

This past weekend my husband and I were privileged to attend the Teach Them Diligently homeschool convention in Nashville.  I have to say, I was pretty excited about going!  And my hubby was generous enough to come along, keeping me company while also enjoying some workshops himself.   The convention was held at the beautiful Gaylord Opryland hotel although we didn't stay overnight there.  Since we live just an hour from Nashville we commuted instead.  The first couple of days we left the kiddos with the grands, but decided to take them with us on the last day since we wouldn't be there the entire day.   If you've never been to TTD, or any homeschool convention for that matter, I would highly recommend going!  Until this convention I had only attended a couple of other state level conventions.  TTD has done an amazing job of putting together a well-thought-out, God-honoring event that they are bringing to 4 different cities in the US th...

Happy 12th Birthday to our Princess!! (isn't this an awesome hat/card that my sister got her?!) Yesterday our oldest turned 12.   It's hard to believe how quickly time flies by. It seems like just yesterday I was getting her nursery ready  and buying all of those tiny clothes. She has grown into a lovely young woman and we are SO proud of her!! She is a joy to have for a daughter. We had a great day together.   First, we had some lunch and played games  ...and acted silly at Chuck E. Cheese.   Then we went to see the new Cinderella movie (wonderful!). We squeezed in a bit of shopping (birthday $$, you know!)  and finally, we met up with my family for a birthday dinner at Olive Garden. And posed for a few funny shots after dinner :) Happy Birthday, sweet girl!!

OK, here we go ...getting back on track.  My life is in desperate need of some boring, ol' routine.  So far the first three months of this year have   f-l-o-w-n   by!! Life, please slow down. Thank you. Anybody else feel this way, too? Well, I'm beginning the start back to some routine by posting my dinner plans for the week here on the blog again.  While I do still meal plan even if I don't post about it, I find that posting it brings me so much more accountability. I'm happy to say that we are planning to use the grill this week for the first time this spring.  Yes, spring is actually here even though it seems to be staying mostly hidden where we live so far.  I am so ready for sunshine and warmer temps! Anyway... ...here's what cooking this week: Monday: going out to celebrate The Princess' birthday!  {Olive Garden} Tuesday:   {grill} Greek Turkey Burgers with Fried Potatoes Wednesday: {slow cooker} Sloppy Joes w...