Menu Plan Monday: April 19th

I'm keeping this week as simple as possible in the kitchen. Vince is gone all week and the rest of us are preparing for a trip later in the week, too.

I will also be doing a small amount of freezer cooking (3 meals) so that we will be prepared when we get home from our trip. Two days after we return home we have company arriving. I thought having our meals already (mostly) prepared would greatly alleviate my stress levels since arriving home from a semi-long trip puts my house in a state of chaos. I can focus on laundry and cleaning then instead of cooking.

I'm actually feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all I have to do this week. But it'll all get done.

Oh~and did I mention that we are also wrapping up (the majority) of The Princess' schoolwork this week? I know, I'm all about trying to overdo it. When will I ever learn?!

I must tell you about our fave meal from last week though. I have been focusing on creatively using up leftovers and needed to use up some leftover grilled chicken and leftover mashed potatoes plus the remaining Easter eggs. So we had Salmon Patties with Potato Cakes and deviled eggs. It was such a hit! The salmon patties were absolutely delicious as was everything else~even the kiddos were fans of it all. I felt such triumph in creating a great meal out of random leftovers!

Here's what's cookin' this week:

Monday: Pinto Beans & Cornbread
Tuesday: Mac & Cheese w/Peas & Carrots
Wednesday: Bean & Vegetable Soup
Thursday: Whatever-I-Can-Scrounge-Up
Friday: Leave on our trip:)

What have you got going on in your kitchen this week?

This post is lined to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

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My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

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