Another busy week ahead for us as we have baseball, the last week of classes for our oldest son, and a special treat – the boys’ grandmother visiting!  I’ll also be seeing our family’s chiropractor again when I take Lincoln in, as I’ve apparently broken my neck and have no idea how.  (No, it’s not really broken, but I have very limited movement and it just plain hurts.  Maybe lifting the car seat in and out of the van?)

Here’s the week’s menu:

Breakfast

• easy, fluffy biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon
• oatmeal
• cereal
• oatmeal pancakes
• waffles

Lunch

See Easy, Healthy Lunch List

Dinner

• grilled chicken, veggies, salad, bread
• taco salad, guacamole, chips
• baked salmon, quinoa, salad, bread
• easiest enchiladas ever, chips and salsa

Baking

• chocolate chip cookies
• Amish white bread

What’s on YOUR menu this week?

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.

Have you heard of Clever Container yet?  They have some pretty cool home organization tools for just about any room in the house.

From laundry to kitchen, to bedroom and bath, and even your car, Clever Container has gadgets to help you get your life more organized.

Click here to view their 2012 catalog.

Tracy at Clever Container Company is sponsoring a $50 product giveaway this week!  Be sure and stop by her Facebook page and tell her thanks for sponsoring this awesome giveaway!

Enter to win here:

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Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good;  His love endures forever.  Psalm 107:1

Lincoln is growing so fast and is such a delight!

His latest accomplishments include smiling, cooing, laughing, finding his feet and reaching for toys!  It’s always amazing to me how quickly babies grow up!

His smiles absolutely melt my heart!

Landen got his first hair-cut this past weekend.  Sweet boy….took him almost two whole years to grow this much hair!

Here’s the before.  He looks excited, and only a bit apprehensive.

And after……He looks like he has found out that a haircut is not all it’s cracked up to be.

But he did really great.

So thankful I get to be these sweet boys’ mama.

What are YOU thankful for this week?

You may have noticed by now that I have a thing for making granola bars.  I’m not exactly sure why I do, but it’s true.

It could be that I can make them any time with ingredients that I keep in my kitchen.  It might also be that I like melting honey and coconut oil together.  And it could very well be the fact that I would much rather choose to serve my children high-fructose-corn-syrup-FREE snacks that are also wholesome and nutritious (and usually organic, too).

But I don’t always like to make the same ones.  I mean, a girl’s gotta branch out, right?  I do have my favorites, and this one is probably at the top of the list (for now).

This granola bar is super sweet and really reminds me more of a rice crispy treat than a granola bar.  So yummy and slightly addicting.

The recipe is super easy, which is a good thing, since you may find yourself making them as often as I have lately.

I experimented with the sugar before deciding on what worked best.  First, I tried using sucanat (natural sugar), and they were delicious, but stayed gooey and never “set” into a bar.  Annoying to a teenage boy, by the way.  Next, I tried using turbinado sugar (another more natural form of sugar).  I’m not sure if it was the sugar or the fact that I may have cooked the sugar/oil/honey mixture too long, but these bars were just too hard.  Finally, I decided to try brown sugar and not cook the mixture quite as long, and yep!  We have a winner!

Feel free to experiment with your favorite sweetener, too, and see what you prefer.  You may find that you like a more gooey bar anyway.  And the turbinado may work just fine if you cook it for a little less time.  I’d love to know your favorites!

This is where I order my coconut oil from.  Click below to take advantage of their sale that ends today.  (If you order by clicking on any of my links and have never ordered from Tropical Traditions in the past, you will receive a free book on Virgin Coconut Oil, and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you.)

Virgin Coconut Oil, Gold Label, 2-jar pack – 2 quarts – BUY 1 GET 1 FREE!

We’ll be leaving town for a day to go and celebrate this momentous occasion with him and our family, so our  menu is short this week!

I’ll be baking a couple of things for the short road trip.  Here’s the plan:

Breakfast

• cereal
• oatmeal
• oatmeal pancakes
• eggs and cinnamon toast

Lunch

See Easy, Healthy Lunch List

Dinner

• loaded baked potatoes
• grilled chicken salad
• spaghetti and meatballs
• fiesta chicken stuffed baby bells

Snacks and Baking

• carrot zucchini muffins
• oatmeal cookies

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.

What’s on YOUR menu this week?

My friend Dana from A Slob Comes Clean has written a wonderful e-book called 28 Days to Hope for Your Home.

In this well-written, funny, AND practical guide, Dana, also known as “Nony the Slob”, shows us how to transform our home from “don’t-answer-the-door-just-pretend-we’re-not-home” to a more orderly home where we enjoy spending time with our families.  No, it’s not an overnight change.

This is NOT a guide to getting completely organized in 28 days.  28 Days to Hope for Your Home is  a step-by-step guide to developing four basic housekeeping habits that will help even the most desperately disorganized woman gain hope for her home. 

Take 58 seconds to watch this video of Dana telling us what her book is all about.  (Email subscribers will need to click through to watch.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddjy-iZ9Td8

The e-book contains:

• 28 days of specific, to-the-point instructions to develop four basic habits that will help you find hope for your home.
• Insights into the reasons why these habits are so hard for some women to embrace.
• Bonus sections which include practical strategies for decluttering, dealing with laundry, and preparing quick, home-cooked meals.
• A total of over 45 pages of all new, exclusive content in an easy-to-download PDF format.  It can even be read on a Kindle!

And it’s all written from the perspective of someone who knows what it is like to feel completely overwhelmed in her home . . . and who has successfully navigated her own deslobification process. 

28 Days to Hope for Your Home (Not for the Mildly Disorganized) is also available for Kindle at Amazon right now for $4.99.

But, you can get it for only $4.00 if you use the coupon code MARATHON when ordering here!

Enter to win your free copy of 28 Days to Hope!

One lucky winner will be randomly chosen to receive a FREE copy of this book.  Enter to win below.

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This post contains affiliate links.

I recently read that aluminum cookware is not even available for purchase in several countries.  When I read that, I immediately questioned WHY it is available in the U.S.  I mean, really?

We’ve known that aluminum causes problems in the human body for a long time, but for some reason, we continue (myself included in the past) to use products that we know are harmful to our health.

Did you know that aluminum is linked to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome and many other disorders?

I was writing this article for Keeper of the Home last month and couldn’t help but to really rethink why and how I’m going to be eliminating more and more aluminum from our home.

The most obvious place to start?  In the kitchen, of course.  And aluminum cookware, teflon-coated or not, is the first thing out the door.  Since aluminum leaches into hot food, it simply cannot be used or cannot be allowed to touch our food.  How to do this??

Stoneware

• Instead of baking cookies or brownies on an aluminum sheet pan, use a stone.  I got mine from The Pampered Chef years ago and I just love it!
• If you must use an aluminum pan for baking, consider using parchment paper on the pan.

Glass, Stainless Steel, and Iron Skillets

Throw out teflon-coated aluminum pots, pans, and skillets, and choose stainless steel, glass, or iron skillets for cooking.

No Foil

image credit

• Never wrap food in aluminum foil for baking potatoes or other vegetables in the oven, or for grilling outside on the grill.
• Instead, bake potatoes on rack unwrapped or bake them in covered glass dish.
• For grilling, use a stainless steel grill basket.

Food Storage

image credit

• Never wrap food in foil to store, especially if it is still hot.
• Don’t re-heat food wrapped in foil in the oven.
• Store food in glass containers or jars, or BPA-free plastic lidded containers, and sometimes, depending on the item, paper bags.
• If you must cover food that is in a glass bowl with foil, make sure the foil isn’t touching the food.
• For freezer meals, use a pyrex casserole dish and lid instead of a foil pan.

What healthier cookware are you using?  What are some ways you avoid aluminum in the kitchen?

Two ways I have found that make eating on the go easier for our large family are wraps/sandwiches and utilizing the crockpot.

Wraps are easy to roll up and throw into a bag to eat at the field.  And crockpots create the ability for family members to eat in shifts when they must.

We stress ONE family dinner at our house, but when sports practices interrupt that, these two methods of serving dinner are what works.

So here’s this week’s menu.

Now, I’m off to find soccer shorts.  If I don’t come out of the laundry room in the next hour, you’ll send help, right?

Breakfast

• oatmeal pancakes
• cereal
• eggs and cinnamon toast
• oatmeal
• blueberry muffins

Lunch

See Easy, Healthy Lunch List

Dinner

• chicken guacamole wraps, chips and salsa
• crock pot chicken and vegetables
• salmon patties and baked sweet potato fries
• easiest enchiladas ever, chips and salsa
• chicken salad stuffed peppers, baked potatoes, salad

Snacks and Baking

• fabulous homemade bread
• peanut butter cookies

To see more menu plans, click here.

What’s on YOUR menu this week?

If you missed this week’s Lilla Rose giveaway provided by Bambi from Nursery of the Nation, don’t worry, there will be more in the future!  Please feel free to stop by and let Bambi know if you’re interested in her sponsoring another one soon!

Congratulations to Adria Cain!  You’re the winner!!!

Bambi will be getting in touch with you via email to get your Lilla Rose flex-clip to you!

Thanks to everyone for entering!

To enter our current giveaway, click here.

I’ve been wanting to share Stacy’s book, that is packed full of amazing recipes for simple body scrubs, for a long time.

And the time has come.  The time is now.

Stacy, from A Delightful Home,  has so very generously offered to give away not one, but THREE  copies of her e-book, Simple Scrubs to Make and Give!

In this fantastic book, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how to make all-natural scrubs for anything from facials to foot scrubs, how to use them, and even how to package them as beautiful gifts for those you love!

This is the perfect idea for Mother’s Day!  (I miss my Mom so much and wish I could make some for her this year.)

I can’t wait to make some Lavender-Vanilla Sugar Scrub to exfoliate some dry skin I’ve been in denial about lately.

Have you been in denial about your dry skin, too?  Go ahead.  Feel the back of your right arm.

Um hmmm…….

Chocolate Lover’s Scrub?  Oh my.  Sounds divine!

What I love most about Stacy’s recipes is that they are all made using mostly things that can be found in the kitchen.  Or that they’re mostly made with things that are good to eat, too.  Or maybe what I love most about Stacy’s scrubs is that they smell amazing because they can be mixed with your favorite essential oil, like lavender.

Are you ready to learn how to make your own using as little as two ingredients sometimes?  You will be amazed at how simple it really is!

Be sure and enter to win using as many entries as possible!  And remember, there are THREE winners this week!

Thanks so much to Stacy for this awesome giveaway this week!

Happy Scrubbing!

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