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1) Once a Month Cooking: I've had many inquiries regarding my Once A Month Cooking adventure, so I thought I'd post my observations regarding my experience thus far. Overall, I think this method of meal planning is really going to work for our family ... but ask us again in about 6 months and we'll really know how it's going! The book titled "Once a Month Cooking" is a great way to get started. The book describes the method and has several menu plans to select. You can pick a month-long or a 2 week cycle. This has really helped my last-minute meal planning habit this week. I still start at the last minute, but at least half the job and time-consumption is already done!

First Step = Planning: I chose a 2 week cycle to start with b/c the recipes sounded most appealing as a group. I'm glad I did a 2 week to start with b/c they took a long time to fix! Also, several of the recipes I was able to divide into 2 entrees b/c we're a small family.

2nd Step = Shopping: In your menu cycle, they list your ingredients that you'll need for all of the recipes you'll be making. (I encountered a couple of discrepancies here, just to note for the future.) So I photo-copied this list, checked my pantry/fridge and headed to the grocery store for almost 2 hour trip with the boys (and lots of snacks for them!). This cost about $150 at the military commissary, in case you're wondering how much this costs - this was enough food to make the main entrees and some sides for 14 meals.

3rd Step = Cooking Day: The books outlines your cooking day steps e.g. chop 3 peppers, dice 7 onions, cook 4 lb chicken, cut 3 lb chicken, etc. Basically you do alot of prep work to begin with and set the food aside until you need it. I had a few other problems in the book at this point (told me to cut so many lb chicken, but in recipe calls for # of chicken breasts, etc), and decided that I need to more carefully read through the ingredients and directions in order to plan this better. Then you assemble the meals, with some more prep things along the way. After you assemble the meals, you store it in the freezer which you've already cleaned out to make room. It tells you ahead of time, what kind of containers you'll need to store these meals - mostly 1 gallon freezer bags. 14 meals took up about 1/2 of my freezer space.

4th Step = Rest: I was exhausted! It took me about 12 hours, despite having a helper with the kids for about 6 hours that day. I did have to fix meals for the kids, fix boo-boos and get them down for naps. So the day after cooking day, I had to have a nap!

5th Step = Eat: Basically we have 14 new recipes to try. They recommend using their recipes to get started so you can get the hang of the idea and I agree with this. It helps to have an idea of what freezes well and how to store it. You still have to prepare side dishes, but the main course and sometimes the entire course is ready. Just thaw and either heat or cook/bake. We've only really liked 1 of the 4 we've tried so far. But the others have been edible - and we've finished them off. I just won't make them in the future. So what are we eating tomorrow night? Leftovers! :)

2) New Year's Resolutions:
Jacob is more or less potty-trained, although we're going thru a rough patch with having stinky accidents this week. I wish I could say that he's solely worn underwear since in 2009, but there was a day this week when he ran out of clean underwear and had to wear a pull-up until I did laundry.

I have thrown my baby bottles away (well-used for 2 babies) since Zack is completely off the bottle. We are trying to wean him off the pacifier, but this is not going as well! Here he is looking for 1 of his 10 pacifiers usually kept in this drawer... He likes to walk around with one in his mouth and 1 in each hand - it was very disappointing for him to not find one here (they are hidden up in a cabinet now).