Finally! (shhhh...he's asleep...finally)

The past two weekends have been fairly brutal on our ears. Lane has been ridiculously cranky. With crankiness comes his high pitched squeal/scream. So many of our friends were able to witness his adorable happy-squeal when he was a younger baby. His day care teacher even had something to say about it... 'Lane keeps squealing. Loud squealing. He's taught the other kids to do it, too. I tell him to stop and then realize it's another kid making the noise.' As loud as it is, his angry squeal is even worse. When he was younger, we kept a pair of our gun range ear muffs on the changing table. Every time we're in Sam's Ryan tries to talk me into getting a free hearing test (did you know they're free? 'cause they are. in case you didn't know.), blaming the need on Lane's screaming. I guess what I'm trying to say is that when Lane's unhappy, our ears suffer. And this weekend has certainly done some damage to Mama's ears. (I'm not even going to comment on the headache.)

I finally made him go to bed early and Ryan's left for Man Night (such a blessing for both of us) and that means one thing-I get to do whatever I want for the remainder of the night. And tonight I'm going to knock out my food update. Woot! (I SOOOO need to get out more.)

I'm slowly learning helpful 'meal planning' hints. The two tips I learned this week were 1) be flexible with your meal plan, and 2) don't try more than one or two new recipes per week. Monday night I had supper planned, but I forgot about the football game. Ryan's parents bought pizzas and invited us over. Ryan and Lane ended up going to watch the game and I went to the gym and game home to cook the next night's supper (What? I didn't grow up

in a big football family so I don't get that excited about football games. However, you put on some ice skating, gymnastics, or a good black and white movie on the classic channel? Game on!)

The rest of the week was filled with Broccoli, Cheese, and Potato Soup (awfulness. complete awfulness.), a tortilla pizza (wasn't that great), Corn Dog Muffins (jury's still out), and chili (a faithful recipe that never lets me down). Lunches were filled with a few sandwiches, salads, a trusty can of tuna on crackers, and then we also ate out a day or two. I'm already starting to see the shelves of our pantry.

I forgot to get an 'after' picture. Oops.

The freezer is another story.

Our freezer actually gained some items this week (ouch!). We had a loaf of whole wheat bread that I knew was getting a little past its prime (Ryan describes this as 'hard to get down'). I had a little over half a loaf left and I really didn't want to waste it (I loathe wasting food...especially a loaf. I loathe the loaf. Seriously. I crack myself up). And so when I made French toast Saturday morning, I just went ahead and used the rest of the loaf of bread, froze it individually on a tray and popped the pieces in a bag. I'll take that to work tomorrow and have over a week's worth of breakfast waiting for me at work. Yay for toasters at work!

Last night we splurged. After a long course of events (that included much screaming on Lane's part) we ended up grabbing supper at Sonic and bringing it back home.

Tonight we had pulled barbecue chicken (in the slow cooker!) with green beans and my most favorite homemade baked beans. I keep half cup servings of them in the freezer, and when I plan on having some I pull out servings for me and Ryan (he always gets seconds of these...they're that good!).

So that's my past week. I'm now off to mark projects in my new book (just received it today). I SOOO can't wait to start (and hopefully finish) a project from it! (I'm also toying with the idea of another challenge for all of my craft books. The challenge would basically be to make at least one craft project from each craft book or magazine I own.

And let me tell you, I have a crazy weakness for Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications.

Dang you, Sam's Club, for carrying these at 40% off.