February 'Heat Wave' (Siobhan)

~February 'Heat Wave'~

We've been enjoying a few 'balmy' 50 degree days lately. The boys love playing basketball, and I've been bringing the babies on lots of walks. The other day Shaila and Brandan pulled out sleds and a swimming pool and went sledding on the snow mountains at the end of our driveway. We are all SO ready for spring, but we're enjoying the sunshine while we wait 😉

                                                 Baxter                                                     Cade

The babies don't know what to think of each other in their snowsuits! They just stare at each other and look so confused...

February Freezer Cooking (Siobhan)

~Freezer Cooking~

Over February break, Mom and I spent three days cooking and baking. We filled our freezer with lots of yummy meals and snacks for the next twelve weeks! Today I'm posting some pictures and links to most of the recipes.

Chili, Chicken Stock, Italian Sausage Soup, and Stew Beef (for Beef Stew)

These Granola Cookies are one of our favorite snacks! I froze 13 quart bags, one per week. (I doubled the recipe.) For our huge batches of cookies, granola, etc. we mixed our recipes in huge aluminum pans from Sam's Club. Our biggest mixing bowls weren't big enough!

Click here to see our Granola cookies recipe post

 

 Mom made a huge batch of her Spaghetti Sauce. I also made two batches of Bolognese Sauce. We adapted the recipe from Ina Garten. It is so delicious!

We froze almost everything in plastic ziplock bags, but we did use a few jars for the sauce and stock.

These Turkey Chili Meatballs are delicious!! We like to have them by themselves with BBQ sauce and mashed potatoes or in some of Mom's homemade sauce with spaghetti.

 

Mom made two 1770 House Meatloaves. This is by far our favorite meatloaf recipe. It is time-consuming, but it is totally worth it! We love to have this with mashed potatoes and some veggies.

 Brandan and Shaila helped me make six batches of homemade granola bars. These divided up into nine quart bags. Mom made four batches of Granola.

We also made Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole, Buffalo-Chicken Ranch Taquitos, Macaroni and Cheese with Kielbasa, and Carnitas

We have started having family pizza night every Friday. We make different kinds of homemade pizzas. Some of our favorites are cheese, pepperoni, meat, hawaiian, and BBQ chicken. I'm planning on freezing the dough ahead of time so we can pull it out for a quick dinner!

Our freezer is now packed, and I think we're going to be done with cooking for a while 😉

February Break 2017 (Siobhan)

~February Break~ 

We decided to take an early February break. Mom and I spent the first half of the week cooking and baking for our freezer meals.. By Wednesday the kids were asking to get back to school 😅 We had a very productive 'break!' Here are some pictures of some of the fun things we did along the way...

Movie night on Mom's bed! We also had a family movie night and watched the new Pete's Dragon movie.

Story time! I guess Baxter and Cade decided to eat their book :)

(Cade)

We were snowed in on Thursday (the amount of snow we have been getting is ridiculous!) Dad took the kids skating on Friday. We finished off our vacation with homemade pizza and shamrock shakes!

(Baxter)

Stay tuned for a regional meal post soon!