Friday Five: 2/2/18

1. Many times in the last 3+ months I have not been fond of food. It’s like a necessary evil. Some smells make you nauseated, but if you don’t eat, the nausea is much much worse. Pregnancy is so weird. I can’t handle the smell of red meat, but chicken is great. My fishy-tasting vitamin makes me gag, but (cooked) sushi is amazing. Anything creamy is on my top list. Tomato or spicy foods are not good currently, which is odd for me. We eat tacos at least once a week so I hope this changes! But for some reason, good food tastes REALLY REALLY GOOD lately, and I’ve actually had less food aversions (albeit still nauseous) this time around, which I’m thankful for. I think it’s working out in favor of my family, because we have eaten some REALLY REALLY GOOD food lately. That being said, I have some amazing recipes to share:

• Homemade granola bars
• Creamy chicken and wild rice soup
• Instant pot chicken parmesan
• Instant pot chicken (lame name but so tastey! and I made gravy 😉 )
• Chocolate mousse
• Buffalo chicken pizza
• Southwest scrambled eggs
• Instant pot pork chops one pot meal (this one included mashed potatoes and gravy and carrots and pork chops in the instant pot, all at the same time!–see below pic)

2. Speaking of food, my kids have been rocking it in the kitchen lately. My kids are constantly in the kitchen with me anyways, but Gabriel and Lucy are really getting some good skills down. One night a few weeks ago I must have looked extra terrible, because they ordered me to sit on the couch while they would make dinner. They did a great job, and I really didn’t have to do much except turn on the oven. They served all of us a dinner of homemade pizza bread, cottage cheese, fruit salad (canned fruit layered with cool whip! ha!), and milk. Lucy had another night where she was in charge and made pasta bake, garlic bread, mixed vegetables, and jello salad. They always make some kind of ‘dessert’ and I love it!

3. On another note about food, (see a theme here?) Walmart grocery pickup is absolutely the best thing ever. Now I cannot compare, because I have never tried HyVee or any others, but I assume they are all about the same. I love that I can put my order in 3 days before and then just show up, they load it in my car, and we are off again. It has really streamlined my grocery shopping and our grocery budget! You know exactly what your total is before you checkout and meal planning is so simple. I just put things into my cart as I plan out meals on the calendar. I’ve been doing shopping every 2 weeks and rarely have to go into the store otherwise unless something unexpected comes up. That’s HOURS that I’m saving not having to walk the stores, checkout, wrangle kids, etc. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it!

4. Gabriel is in 2nd grade this year, which means he gets to receive 2 sacraments at church this year! We are so excited for him! I remember when he was little I thought we had so much time until he would be old enough for First Communion and Reconciliation, but here we are! He has First Reconciliation on Sunday and First Communion in a few short months. I know it’s not about the clothes, but we’ve already been scoping out suits 😉 He is excited for everything and is an eager learner. He comes up with the best religious discussion at home and I love seeing how his mind works. I cannot wait until he can be an altar server next year! Can’t believe our oldest is so old!

5. We are STILL on the hunt for a new vehicle. This is not easy. So many decisions. I wish someone would come along and just tell us exactly what we were meant to buy that we would be the happiest with, both in function and in price. However I have not met that person yet. Maybe he’ll show up tomorrow. We know what we want, it’s just if we want to pay that much. Ay-yay-yay! In the meantime, we’ll keep looking….

Happy weekend!