Meal Plan for September 17-21

I am really excited about my meal plan this week! A nice thing about shopping at the commissary is that their prices on meat and produce are pretty stable so I don't need to try to plan my meals around what's on sale this week. It gives me a little freedom to just try new recipes that sound good!

Monday: Grilled Chicken, Corn Cakes and Cucumber and Carrot Salad

Tuesday: Cheesy Ham and Potato Soup, Salad, and Cheese and Chive Biscuits

Wednesday: Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings, Green Bean Casserole, and Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

Thursday: Dinner out with a military spouses' group

Friday: Spicy Sweet Glazed Shrimp, Cheese Grits, Sauteed Zucchini

All the links except for the cheese grits on Friday are new recipes. I can't wait to see how they turn out!

5 Months Old

Addie is 5 months old! Technically, she was 5 months old over 2 weeks ago. But some months I get a little behind on getting the picture made. Ah, well. This is my favorite of the bunch of 5 month shots. I just can't get enough of that sweet face! At 5 months old she is almost sitting up on her own, she has learned to blow bubbles and she started eating cereal! She is such a big girl!

Easy Cheesecake Pie

This is one of my favorite desserts because it is easy, it is fairly healthy, and you can switch out the cheesecake for lots of other flavors! Here's the recipe:


2 cups of milk
1 large or 2 small boxes of Cheesecake flavored pudding (sugar free if you'd like)
1 tub of Cool Whip (sugar free or light if you'd like)
1 Graham Cracker Crust

Whisk together milk and pudding until well mixed. Fold in Cool Whip.  Pour this mixture into pie crust. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Top with fruit if you like (I like it with raspberries).

 See? So easy! And there are all kinds of flavors of pudding you can use in place of cheesecake: banana cream, chocolate, lemon, coconut, butterscotch, whatever.

Trying again (again)

Hi there. I'm going to attempt to get the blog back up and running. Yes, again. :) Much has changed in our lives recently. We are now living in Dayton, Ohio, where Andrew is stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He is finished with his course work for his PhD and is completing his internship year here. A year from now we will probably get orders to go to our next base... but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We have lived in Dayton about 3 weeks now, so everything here is new to us! In addition, I am now a stay-at-home mom! It is a new adventure. Not quite what I expected, but I think I am going to enjoy it (especially on days when nap time actually happens). Addie is 5 1/2 months old now! She is such a good, sweet baby. I love spending my days with her.

So the blog will hopefully be new and improved. I hope to do some blogging about cooking, crafting, books, life as a stay-at-home-mom, life in a new place and learning about the military and our new way of life. Stay tuned!