Meal Plan #3

I'm going to be honest with you all with my meal plan last week! I didn't do the best job sticking with my menu,  it was a busy one and I just wasn't feeling cooking! So this week we are doing things super simple. It is also my oldest birthday on Wednesday! So here is the meal plan for the week: 

Sunday: Forgotten Chicken in the crockpot with green beans (never made this last week and we have lacrosse practice tonight so I needed help with cooking this) 
Monday: Bacon wrapped steaks, mashed potatoes, & corn 
Tuesday: Taco night 
Wednesday: Mollie's birthday! We are doing meatballs and pasta. 
Thursday: Pork tenderloin, rice, & green beans
Friday: The girls have a field hockey game so we will either get take out or go out to eat! 

I have been grocery shopping on Saturdays which works well for our family. I usually have to go to the store during the middle of the week to stock up on fruit, veggies, and milk! 

When do you grocery shop? Do you meal plan out for the whole week or just for a few days? Always curious what other people do! 

xoxo, 
Erika 

Weekend Update #1

Last weekend was a busy one. We started off Friday night with two field hockey games for the girls. It was fun to play under the lights! Mollie played goalie for the second game. 

Saturday morning was spent cleaning, grocery shopping, Target trip, and Lowes! After lunch the boys went and got haircuts. We then headed out to the outlets and dinner. We were looking for winter jackets and a few outfits for Hudson. It was a very successful trip!

We had a 30 minute wait for a table at dinner. 

Once we got home we watched college football and just relaxed for a bit. Had to get this boy to bed to early since he had a football game on Sunday morning. 

It was an early game on Sunday but we nothing a little coffee couldn't fix!

Hudson played so well. It was definitely a better game than our past ones!

He is so freaking cute! He is obsessed with football. I love all the cute shirts I get to wear. After the game we grabbed Raising Canes. It was good!

Ended the day helping my mom out on a craft project, lacrosse practice, and then home for dinner and watched Inside Out 2. I was wishing I got a nap in but nope maybe next weekend! 

Hudson wore one of his new outfits. So cute! 

xoxo, 

Erika 

 

Three Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

This recipe is a true sign that the Fall Season is here! I have been making this recipe for almost 14 years now and they are one of my kids favorites. So simple to make! 

You only need three ingredients....Yellow cake mix, can of pumpkin, and a cup of chocolate chips!

I always start off by mixing the cake mix and pumpkin first. You can always change up the cake mix and use spice cake mix. Yellow cake mix is what I had on hand at the time. This week I'm going to try it with chocolate cake mix and see how it comes out!

 

Once you have mixed it well you can go ahead and add the chocolate chips. I do about a cup of the mini chocolate chips, but as I said it really doesn't matter what kind you use or what you use. I bet white chocolate chips would be really good in this too!! I have a friend that mixed Halloween sprinkles instead of chocolate chips. 

Once you are done mixing the chocolate chips in then you can scoop them into a muffin pan. I use a mini muffin pan! My kids love them that way!

 

Make sure you grease the pan as we are not using a muffin liners! Once your oven is preheated then you can put them in for about 15-20 minutes depending on your oven. I usually have to do it for about 20 minutes and they always come out perfect! 

Once they are done let them cool and enjoy them!! They go perfect with a cup of tea or coffee! I usually store them in the fridge to keep them longer or you could even freeze them! 

I hope you enjoy them as much as my kids do! Let me know if you have made them before and if you do anything different! 

xoxo, 

Erika 

 

Meal Plan Monday #2

 Happy Monday! I can't believe that tomorrow will be October. This is one of our busiest month of the year. I feel like the next three months are super busy! I did my meal planning this past Saturday along with grocery shopping since my hubby was home. He came with me and it was a huge help! We did pretty well sticking with our meal plan last week and stayed under my $250 budget! I do shop at Aldi's and still somehow spend a fortunate there, but with a family of 5 it is what it is right now! So let's see what we are having this week: 

Sunday: Steaks tips, mashed potatoes, and corn
Monday: Chicken sandwiches & mac and cheese (fresh fruit) 
Tuesday: Forgotten Chicken and steamed broccoli- trying out this recipe that I found on Pinterest - Forgotten Chicken
Wednesday: Meatloaf with rice and green beans 
Thursday: Grilled sandwiches with fresh cut veggies
Friday: Pizza night

This week we have to stick with the meal plan as it's a bit of a crazy week and we have something going on each night. So for the nights we have to get out of the house quickly I chose something quick to make so we can either take it on the go! 

What is your quick easy meal to go? 

xoxo, 
Erika 

Day In The Life - Monday Edition

 I love reading other day in the life blog post so I figured I would do one! I picked this past Monday for no particular reason. So let's go because it was a busy one. A little behind the scenes is that I'm a working mom of three kids, 13, 12 and 7. My husband is in law enforcement and works a lot! So a lot of the running the kids around falls on me and I wouldn't have it any other way! So let's go.....

My alarm went off at 5:30 and my two oldest were starting to wake up as they go to school around 7 am. First thing first is to take the dog out and feed him. Then I make breakfast for my girls. I usually sit for a few minutes and look through my planner and see what is going on for the day. I love my Emily Ley Simplified weekly planner. It's the only one I have found so far that I use every day, but that is for another blog post! 

Once I checked my planner it was time to get my coffee going and make lunches for the kids! 

Our mornings are pretty chaotic. After making lunches I empty the dishwasher and help the girls with doing their hair. They get dropped off around 7 and that is when my little guy gets up! He doesn't have to be at school till 8:15. He will have breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, and pack his bag. I do have to say he pretty independent on getting himself ready for the day! 

I'm always the last one to get ready for the day. Once I drop off the girls at school I come home and shower or do my hair depending if I showered the night before. I do my skin care and brush my teeth and figure out what I'm going to wear. I'm in a between state right now with my clothes as I have lost a some weight. I really need a whole new wardrobe! This outfit was perfect for today! 

It was finally time to drop off Hudson at school. He likes to get in line early so we usually have time to chat before he goes running into school. Love that he loves school! 

I literally work only a few minutes away from home, so after dropping off Hudson I went a grabbed a coffee from Dunkin and then headed to work. It was a busy day for me. I'm an HR Manager/ Credit Manager for a lumber company. Today was filled with completing payroll and timesheets, meeting with a new employee, dealing with customer issues, doing payments, and updating reports. 

Most days I work through my lunch as I leave around 2 to go pick up the girls from school. Today was leftover pot roast with veggies and dip. Super simple and yummy. 

I left work at 2:00 to go get the girls from school. The pick up line wasn't bad today! I got them home and they had a snack and started homework. I grabbed the mail and switched the laundry. Before you knew it was time to go pick up Hudson at school! After I got Hudson we had to drop off my oldest at an appointment and then had to go to Walgreen's to pick up a prescription. 

While I was at Walgreens I picked up my favorite protein shake and had it for my afternoon snack.

We headed back home and went outside to play for a bit. Hudson is playing football right now so everything is all about football! He loves it. 

After we played outside we had to go pick up Mollie but 

while we waited for her Hudson and I read a book!

 

The girls had field hockey practice tonight so we had an hour or so to waste some time! 

I made some pumpkin muffins that are coming to the blog I think on Thursday while also cooking dinner and starting to decorate my mantle for Halloween. Dinner was super easy tonight! I tried to clean up the kitchen for the most part before heading out to practice so that when I came home we could do showers and get ready for bed. 

While the girls were at practice we went to the playground and then sat in the car to watch a movie. It's starting to get dark so early! 

We got home around 7:15 and everyone jumped into the shower and grabbed a snack. 

Hudson went to bed around 8 and the girls put themselves to bed around 9:30 as they are exhausted from the school day and getting up so early. 

I finished cleaning up the kitchen, burned a candle, did my skin care and worked on my blog for a bit before heading to bed to read for a bit! 

Once the candle is lit for the night the kitchen is closed! 

I hoped you enjoyed our day in the life post! I loved doing it! If you want more day in the life follow me on Tik Tok! 

Have a good night

xoxo, 

Erika 

Back to School Dinner

Back to School Dinner has become a tradition in our household. Every year the night before school starts we sit down as a family and recap our summer and what we are looking forward to the new school year. There are a lot of excitement and nerves when going into the new year that I like to make a special night for the kids. It isn't anything crazy and over the top as you can see below! I always make a favorite comfort meal. This night we had meatballs and spaghetti. 

I ended up not buying anything extra for decorations and just used what I had around the house. 

I love using the craft paper on the table and I just added markers and crayons. We played a few card games and filled out a Back to School Questionnaire that I had created on Canva. I was trying to find one online but couldn't find what I was looking for. It was super fun to create and I just love Canva. 

Here is a link to the questionnaire if you want to use it for next year!

 Back to School Questions

We read Splat the Cat - Back to School, Splat while the kids filled out the questionnaire. It was a cute story! 

The kids look forward to this tradition of ours every year! Even as my girls are now older they still have fun doing it and my son who is 7 loves it! 

Do you do a back to school dinner? Leave a comment if you do! 

xoxo, 
Erika 

 

Meal Plan Monday

 Happy Monday! Another weekend has flown by with it being full to the brim. I'm starting this series on my blog to keep me accountable and to hopefully help budget better when it comes to grocery shopping! I try to make our meals as simple as possible. So you will definitely see us having the same thing from week to week. If I'm going to try a new recipe I will do that on the weekends when I have more time in the kitchen. 

So here is the meal plan for this week: 

Sunday: Pot roast with potatoes and green beans
Monday: Taco night/quesadillas 
Tuesday: Air fry pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes and corn
Wednesday: Butter chicken with rice and green beans
Thursday: Pizza and salad night. 
Friday: Leftovers or Breakfast night 
Saturday: Take out or go out to eat! 

Leave a comment of what your favorite go to meal is on a busy night. I'm always looking for more ideas! 

xoxo, 
Erika 

Weekly Meal Plan

 Do you like meal planning? I don't but know that I need to do it so that we can save money and we aren't grabbing take out. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. We have a simple meal plan this week since we are going on vacation at the end of the week and we have a few busy nights. I planned out Sunday thru Thursday this week. This meal plan isn't set in stone because as I'm writing this we had flipped Sunday and Monday's meals for this week. 

Sunday: Hamburger & FF

Monday: Chicken Sandwiches w/ mac & cheese

Tuesday: Chicken Quesadillas

Wednesday: Pork Tenderloin w/mashed and green beans

Thursday: Breakfast Night

Let me know what your favorite meal is? Hope you have a good one! 

xoxo, 

Erika 

Weekly Meal Plan - 6.3.24

 How is it already Monday? This weekend was a sneak peak of what the summer is going to be like and I can't wait for it. We have one more week left of school and it is a busy one for sure. Meal planning is one of my weakness as an adult along with folding laundry. Can't win them all! I really do need to do a weekly meal plan because it keeps us in budget and with all rising cost on groceries we really have to be careful! So here is this week's meal plan. I should note that even though this is scheduled out I do tend to switch around the menu depending on if anything changes through out the week! Also, Saturday and Sunday's are usually take out or leftover nights. If I'm not listing a vegetable with the meals I always put out fresh veggies or fruit to have! 

Monday - Butter Chicken with pasta and green beans
Tuesday - Smashed Burgers with waffle fries
Wednesday - Crockpot pork tenderloin with rice and green beans
Thursday - Chicken Sandwiches - I bought these frozen ones from Aldi's - Aldi's Frozen Breaded Chicken Fillets. We add bacon and cheese. So yummy! 
Friday - My Mom's birthday! I'm making the cake. 

Please feel free to leave any dinner suggestions as I'm always running out of ideas. 

xoxo, 
Erika