Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 

We had a little party at our neighbors house last night to bring in the new year.  We barely made it to midnight which is really sad, but that is just the way it goes when you have kids.  A big thanks to our good friends for having us over.  We had fun and enjoyed the company as always!

We started out 2011 with some yummy breakfast thanks to Daddy!

The smile says it all!  He is cooking a not-so-healthy breakfast which will be one of the few meals he gets like this in the new year! 

Some love from the boys!

We hung out in our PJ's! We told Luke to put on some socks, and he came down in a pair of Logan's just to irritate him!

We ate some Eggs Benedict and hash browns, a family tradition to start off the new year with a bang!

We played a few games of Shutes and Ladders...

...and Candyland!

We finally got dressed and took advantage of the warmer weather outside until it started to pour. Then we came in and got dinner ready.

Pear and blue cheese sandwiches with black-eyed peas. We did our best to explain what a new year means and that the peas would give us all good luck.  Logan finally ate about 5 of them.  Luke spit his out. We also tried to explain that the new year is a chance to start fresh and learn new things.  Logan was excited about all of the possibilities.  Luke is just excited about his dinosaurs and Zhu Zhu pets! 

Speaking of new things, a few post ago, I mentioned I was working on a new year experiment.  I thought it was a bit crazy to try and pull off, but I am happy to report that at least one part of my life will be stress-free in the new year!  For those of you who have been biting your nails in anticipation, here it is! I managed to plan and write down 313 meals, one for everyday of the week with the exception of Fridays (ok, you probably aren't as excited as I am)!  What I hate more than weekly meal planning, is not having a plan at all, so this totally eliminates all meal planning for the year!  I left off Fridays so we could use that day to eat out, eat leftovers or eat whatever we want.  Otherwise, I have a plan in place for a cooked meal each day of the week.  Yes, it is a bit crazy, but I have really worked hard the last couple of years to save money on groceries using the Grocery Game.  And, I have to say, we saved over $1,000 this last year alone. My issue is that I am spending at least two days planning meals, cutting coupons and grocery shopping every week.  I am hoping that I can cut coupons and us the Grocery Game around the meals already planned.  The meals I chose are family favorites and many others picked from cookbooks and magazines I already had.  I also tried to plan the meals using in-season fruits and veggies to help cut cost and hopefully buy locally from farmers markets etc.  My goal this year is to provide a variety of healthier meals and save money. All in all, I have about 200 recipes that have been dispersed throughout the 12 months.  The pear sandwiches above was my first planned meal of 2011.  That means you can ask me on any given day what I am going to have for dinner, and I can give you an answer (you know you want to)! Of course there will be some nights that plans change or I may even come across a new recipe I want to try, but I can always make changes if need be.  At least this way, I can just look at the calendar for the month and plan out shopping trips. Now, if it actually saves time and money, we will just have to see, but at least for now, I don't have to worry about what's for dinner this month or even in September! Ok, you can now make comments about how crazy I am!  What's funny to me is that this goal is the easier of the two I have for myself this year. I will share more about my other goal a bit later after I have had time to see that I can stick to it.  It is a whopper! I hope you all have had a wonderfully fun-filled day and here is to a happy, healthy and fabulous 2011!