I can not find the desire or drive to cook. I really don’t even want to bother with eating at this point, it is such a hassle!
So I have been trying really hard to find new things to cook, but they all look either to time consuming have too many ingredients or it is just to damn hot for me to turn the oven and stove on.
Everything I make is basically chicken, cheese and pasta. I love summer, but I realized this year that my cooking really goes downhill in the summer. I just don’t want to take the time. Rant. Rant. Rant. Listen to me complain…..
Sigh, get over it girl. I am grateful that I have the ability to make my family food, and to feed them. (but really I just want to feed them fall-spring and have someone else do it in the summer. Is that really too much to ask?)
Remember that time I used to plan my meals for the week?
Yeah, I miss it too….
OK, what happened to June? In fact, what happened to the first half of the year? I am not exactly sure how we just celebrated the 4th of July, because I am still in denial of the fact that it is July.
It has been unseasonably warm this year in the Pacific Northwest. Typically we have a pretty rainy spring, and don’t get above 90 degrees until after the 4th of July. This year it happened in June, and for the weeks now we have been hovering close to the 100 degree mark. Never reaching it, but getting close.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, but it does make for some serious feet dragging come dinner time. The last thing I want to do is stand in my already hot kitchen and turn on something hotter to make my kitchen hotter just to feed my family. I know, I know….
It also makes it really hard for me to want to plan meals, or think about meals, or cooking….can’t we just grill hamburgers and hot-dogs all summer long? I guess we can alternate some chicken in there sometimes.
But really, if I am gonna be honest with you, my real issues is that I am not home. My mom has a pool and lives two miles from my house….
So when the temps get above 90 where do you think I am going to be spending those days? Or she will call me at work and tell me she picked my kids up from the sitters to bring them to her house to go swimming and everyone is going to BBQ at her house. Works out great for me, but then I get in a no-cooking-no-grocery-shopping-rut.
Now I am out of everything and need to make dinner tonight. So easy sandwiches is on the plan after a trip to store. The rest of the week will be oven free and made with minimal heat.
First we had family in town, and then we got sick and Sid got pink eye and I got super sick and things just spiraled out of control. The thought of planning meals was horrible, but then coming home and having nothing planned was worse.
Yesterday we spent the day fishing with the boys and got home late and were dirty and tired. But I knew I needed to sit down and figure out what we are going to do about dinner next week. Especially since the boys basically ate pickles and Cheetos yesterday.
My boys love pickles
Menu Plan 6/15-6/21
Mon: unsure if we will be home for dinner, and I still need to go to the store
As some of may have noticed I love to make party decorations.
This is great, as both my kids are young and have many more birthday for me to decorate.
Ian’s birthday is in March and I make him start deciding on a theme in December and verify it in January. This might seem difficult for a 4 (soon to be 5!) year old boy…..But Ian is different. Basically when he decides something, that’s it. He picks his Halloween costumes out 3 months in advance and doesn’t change his mind. So I know that if he decides he wants a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle party for his 5th birthday, that’s the party he is going to get.
I loved TMNT growing up and I love that Ian does too. Now they are different and I am not entirely sold on them yet, but it’s the thought right?
I couldn’t wait to share all the projects I made for Ian’s birthday and this months Silhouette Challenge “Party” fit so perfectly. I already shared how I made his pretty awesome invitations so I am not going to go into that again.
Here are the decorations from the party we had in March, I know….March was moths ago, don’t judge. (I will warn you, this post is heavy with pictures)
I actually had plans to make rosettes with all the turtles, but only got Mikey done. I was really please how the turtle head turned out after tracing and cutting with my Silhouette Cameo.
For Ian’s Superhero Party I made a city-scape backdrop for the food table, which of course I didn’t keep. Since I had to make a new one, I used my Silhouette and cut a stencil out of contact paper. It made painting the building super easy.
I just used white duck tape for the road lines on the black table cloth. The sewer grate and decorations on the colored circles hanging down were made with the Print and Cut feature.
I had this grand idea for the food labels, instead of using the table tents, like I normally do. I would make them like large cupcake toppers and just stick them in the food.
This is where planning ahead is important. I already had my menu planned, so it was easy to print and cut the food labels prior to the party.
My idea mostly worked, but a few things needed giant marshmallows as stands.
I was really happy how my pennant banner turned out. I used the sketch pens to draw the face before cutting out the triangle and then used the Print and Cut feature for the masks.
For Ian’s “Happy Birthday” Banner I wanted to use the same face as I did for the giant rosette. I ended up adding the black outer layer to give it more dimension. I just had to trace the image in three parts.
The pieces that had letter on them did not get the black outline, or white eyes. I didn’t want to take away from the letters.
Since there are four turtles I wanted to have all of them up there, so I made a turtle shell to go in between happy & birthday.
Because the number of letters in my banner is odd, I didn’t have a symmetrical color pattern. Don’t look too closely.
The turtles all started with some toxic ooze so we needed a warning sign. Using a wood sign, scrapbook paper, and distressing ink I made a sign for the vinyl letters and danger symbols.
I was going to use vinyl for the green ooze, but decided to try some paint. After painting on the drips, I just went ahead and let the paint drip down the sign. It was one of those “umm…why didn’t I do this earlier? because it is so much easier” moments.
It gets hung on the front of my mom’s house (Party Local), which is where I hang all my party signs.
When Ian decided to have a TMNT party I was at Target and they had these buckets in the dollar spot. I decided not to wait till the month of his party to buy them. So glad I did, cause they were gone the next time I went. We filled them with stickers, candy, TMNT fruit snacks, little pens, and Toxic Ooze (of course).
With my Silhouette I made “Thanks for shell-abrating” tags for the buckets.
The stickers for the ooze were made with Silhouette’s clear sticker paper. I had the kids all help make the ooze and fill the cups.
I bought this cute little pizza box design from the Silhouette store and used the Print and Cut feature to cut them out. I put all the stickers for their buckets in the pizza boxes.
We also made masks & turtle shells for all the kids to wear and take home.
The windows on the box buildings were cut using my Silhouette. I was trying to decided between a stencil and paper, and the paper was easier.
My wonderful aunt who makes our birthday cakes was sick, so we went with cupcake for this party. I didn’t have time to make all the cupcake wrappers but there was about a dozen that had them.
I had been collecting the mini-pizza boxes to use at the party and we put some of the cupcakes in them.
For the top cupcake I made a big topper with Ian’s favorite turtle. I also used some plastic TMNT cups that I bought as center pieces. I cut out designs and inserted them in the cups with florist foam. Unfortunately I don’t have a great picture of them.
Want to Check Out More Silhouette Projects?
My Silhouette Challenge buddies and I are all sharing projects on our blogs today, so peruse the projects below for a wealth of Silhouette inspiration!
I Tri and Craft 