First Lesson!

I just have to share more 'horsey' pictures this week .... this is Kristen's first ever riding lesson. The only other time she's been on a horse was at a county fair when she was about 3 yrs old!

The first 'big' task she did (which I thought pretty scary) was lead the horse (all on her own) for a few yards, turn him around and walk back to the teacher with him. When she stopped him to turn around he immediately bent down to eat the grass!! The teacher said "if you let him look at the grass, he'll think he can eat it"! She managed to pull him away from the grass and carry on and walk him back. Above pic is after this and they went in to the riding ring .... Kristen is listening to the teacher (Ms. Sharon) talking about the 'lunge'.

Kristen, holding the lunge on her own telling the horse to 'move on'

Then it was time to get on the horse! Don't worry, she didn't get on backwards, the teacher had her turn around on the horse and sit all 4 ways, front, side, back then side, then front again. This was to show Kristen how much movement she can make on the horse without thinking she was going to fall off.

She was a little nervous once the horse started to move, who wouldn't be, the experience was very new to her. I heard Ms. Sharon say "take a nice deep breath"! She could probably see Kristen had stiffened up the minute the horse moved! But it only took a few seconds for her to relax :-)

How's this for progress... Look Mom no hands!

So as you can see, Kristen really enjoyed her first lesson. I must admit there were times I was a little nervous too ;-) That's my baby up there on that HUGE beast!!!

Linking up to Outdoor Wednesday.

Thrifty Tuesday!

I don't know if I'll make every Tuesday post a 'thrifty' one but for the next few weeks, while I take a break from PW recipes, I thought I'd share with you a little more info on my menu planning and how I'm saving money on groceries. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the meals we're having, but hopefully I will start doing that, so I can recap on the week and show you the meals I made. I'm also trying to work on making a menu list of the meal week and adding a shopping list. That way for future weeks I can just pull out a pre-made menu including the shopping list and go shopping. Kinda like the Kraftfoods '1 bag - 5 meals' concept, but with my own meals.

I must admit I don't usually like following a recipe when I'm making dinner, I prefer to just do simple things like grill chicken breasts and serve with salad or veggies. So I'm working on keeping things simple like that and if anyone wants my menu/shopping list I can try to get it up on my site or email it to you.

As I mentioned yesterday in my Menu Plan post, I didn't stick to the menu last week at all, but that's ok. It's not set in stone, I don't have to follow it if I don't feel like it, it's just easy to have it written out incase I don't want to think about 'what's for dinner tonight'. I've found too that some nights because we have left overs there's really no point in making a new meal the following night (of which I'd probably also have leftovers) because the fridge just starts to fill up with .... yeah, you guessed it - leftovers!!! So, here's what we did actually have last week:

Monday - I did make the taco meat and we had soft tacos, with spanish rice and my homemade ferried beans.

Tuesday - I made the pasta salad I mentioned last week HERE, and had hotdogs on the grill with Bush's bbq beans.

Wednesday - I made the Crockpot Salsa Chicken, BUT we didn't actually eat it! There was still leftovers in the fridge and neither one of us was hungry at dinner time so we just ate a little later while watching 'America's Got Talent'! I think Jason had hotdogs again ;-)

Thursday - I made enchiladas (but not the creamy ones) using some of the salsa chicken. They were SOoooooooo Good :-)

Also on Thursday I made some apple sauce using the apples that I'd picked from our tree! This turned out really nice. The recipe was just 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup sugar and a tsp of lemon juice.. the blog I found the recipe on didn't say how many apples so I used 4 large ones to try it out first. .... then we just mashed them after boiling for about 20-25 mins. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on and a spoonful of icecream - yummy.

Friday -I can't even remember what we had now! So I need to get better at keeping track of it all ;-)

If you'd like to try planning your meals each week here's a great link I found to help you get started:

Menu Planning Made Easy - @ Stone Soup


I surf around a lot for blogs like this and will share as and when I find good ones. I hope you find them helpful.

Until Thursday ;-)

Well I've been trying to get pictures all day of the table in the kitchen, but it's just so bright with the sunshine this is the best I could do today. I will try to take some better shots and perhaps some night shots (candles lit etc) and post again on Thursday.

I didn't want to not post anything after saying I would add pictures later today. I do like how the table looks, but I must say it's rather strange seeing it there..... it looks so low!!! Of course I know that's because I've been used to the higher table for over a year now, so I'm sure I'll get used to it again soon.

I'm wondering if I should paint the chairs? What do you think? I've seen similar sets where the back and the legs are cream but the seat is left wood. I think that would be kinda tricky to do without getting paint on the seat from trying to paint around the 'spindles' on the back of the chair. You can see (click to enlarge if you need to) I have two cushions on the chairs right now, they are the ones I made to go outside on the porch but I've not really used them out there yet because it's been so hot we never go out front. I like the splash of color they give, so I might consider just making two more so I have 4 and leave the chairs as is? I'd love your input ;-)

Menu Plan Monday - August 2nd

I plan on doing another post later today for 'Met Monday'! I've swapped the tables over, so I will be posting before and after pictures - stay tuned.

In the meantime I wanted to put up my menu plan for this week. We didn't stick to the plan last week, but I'll go in to that in more detail in tomorrow's post. Here's what's on the menu this week:

Monday - Spaghetti and Meatballs, garlic biscuits, side salad

Tuesday - BBQ Chicken Breasts, mash and corn (I'll be grilling two extra breasts for our dinner tomorrow)

Wednesday - BBQ Chicken Melts

Thursday - Jason's birthday :-) Pizza, breadsticks..... and birthday cake!

Friday - Lasagna 'Made Over' , iceburg lettuce wedges w/ranch dressing


Stop by OrgJunkie.com for more menu ideas.

Sunday Musings . . . . August 1st

Wow, July is already over, and here comes August, probably the hottest month of the year, especially in Texas! The next 5 days are forecast to be 100 degrees or over, that doesn't sound appealing to me at all. The only thing we'll be doing this coming week is staying indoors or going round to the pool. Oh, but on Tuesday Kristen will be having her very first riding lesson - we'll just have to brave the heat for that.

Last night we went out to a surprise birthday party for my sweet friend/neighbor Cheryl. It was her 40th birthday :-) I have a ton of great photos to share but I used my small camera and I've since discovered that the cable I use to download them to my computer is not the right size! (long story short I think Jason shipped the cable I have always used with our phones that we sold), the one I am left with is the wrong size. I will have to buy a new one soon so I can get the pictures off my camera. Cheryl's sister had hired a DJ and we had a blast dancing to 'old' disco songs. The theme was 'Luau' and the roasted a half pig for the night. I went over to help do the decorations, everything looked wonderful, with fresh flowers and shells on the tables, and there was even a pinata for the kids. I wish I could show pictures today :-/

I did take these pictures earlier this week with my 'old' camera (the one I like best!). . . .

I set the timer so I'm actually in a picture with Kristen

I worked on my menu plan for next week and will hopefully post that tomorrow. I was so happy to see that a lot of you liked me 'Frugal Friday' post. It will be fun (and motivating) to share with you how well I'm doing on cutting back on our grocery bill. Today I went out to buy the Sunday paper (something I never do) simply to get the 'coupons' that every one talks about. I spent just over $33 for this weeks groceries (didn't need any cleaning products this week) to make the meals I have planned... and that includes pizza for a 'birthday boy' (Jason) this week ;-) I had a $1.50 off Digiorno pizza and breadsticks, so it only cost me $4.00.

Enjoy the rest of your day, can't believe the first day of August is nearly over already too!!

Stretching My $$$$ - using what I have!

As you know we've decided to get 'frugal' mainly to start paying off our car loans a little earlier than planned. My main goal is trying to cut down our grocery bill and that means making my dollar stretch a little further. I've been reading a lot of 'frugal' blogs this week and learning how to use coupons at places like CVS and Target

This week despite the fact I made a menu plan on Monday I have actually changed it a little, I'll post more about that next week when I recap what meals we had. One of the meals I did make was the crockpot salsa chicken. I mentioned this in my Monday post but couldn't remember where I'd seen the recipe. It's simple to make though. . .

The recipe calls for an 8oz can of tomato sauce but my can was a 16oz size so I just used all of it! Add that with a cup of salsa to the crockpot and a tsp of cumin and a packet of Taco seasoning, then place your chicken on top. I used 3 large bone in chicken breasts that I got on sale a few weeks ago (I had in the freezer) and they were only about $3.50. Above is the chicken after 4 hours in the slow cooker, I had taken one breast out and already shredded it, then I did the rest and allowed it to cool. This made a huge batch which I will freeze for meals over the next week or so.

The next night I used some of the taco chicken and made enchiladas. I simply spooned some chicken in flour tortillas added a little cheese, then poured over half a can of enchilada sauce, topped with more cheese and baked them for about 30 mins til they were hot and the cheese had melted. There's plenty of chicken left to make at least another 2, or even 3 meals.

Also this week I made these. . . .

using these . . . . .

well, not all of them! Jason took a lot of the larger cucumbers to work for anyone that might want them. I don't think this variety is actually pickling cucumbers, but I used smaller ones to pickle because, well they'd probably go off before I got to use them fresh in a salad, so I followed THIS recipe and now I have some in the fridge for the next month.

On Wednesday night I was out wandering in the (overgrown) garden and noticed the apples on the tree were turning red, they were pretty large too.

I took pictures, then I thought I would pick some, they were so big I thought for sure they must be ripe!

I picked all of these! Don't they look wonderful.... do they taste wonderful? Hmmm, well to be honest I think they could have been left a little while longer, they seem to be a little dry, but I didn't want to waste them so I made . . . . apple sauce! I forgot to take a picture of the sauce but I only used 4 apples, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar and boiled til soft, then mashed them. Wow! they tasted really good. We tried it warm with a little sprinkling of cinnamon on top and a spoonful of vanilla icecream! I am going to use the rest of the apples today to make more then I will either make a pie or freeze some til later.

So much food and I've hardly spent a penny since I got groceries in on Monday (usually I'm at the store at least 3 times a week getting other odds and ends!).... and I only spent $55 when I did go to the store this week. I'm on a roll, and rather proud of myself for spending so little this week. I hope I can keep it up. I've allowed myself a budget of $300 for food this month (that will include cleaning supplies and toiletries/personal items), but I'm hoping I can drop it to $200 next month.

I'm linking up to Frugal Friday today at Life As Mom. Hop on over to read about some other great money saving tips.

Giddy-Up Horsey!

Kristen has recently been asking about taking horse riding lessons! I don't know why all of a sudden, but she is all excited at the idea of riding a horse. I must admit she's asked before in the past about possibly taking a lesson, but when I told her that it wasn't just a ride on a horse, that she needs to have an interest in the horse's welfare and how to saddle it up, muck out it's stable etc. she seemed to go off the idea, at least she never pushed me to look in to it further.

Well this time, she seems more adamant about trying it out, no matter what it involves. Earlier this week I called a local riding center and talked to the owner. Our first step was to go along and watch a lesson, so that is exactly what we did yesterday (just before we went to piano lesson). I took my camera along . . . .

I've never really liked horses, and have never wanted to go riding, although if truth be told, I like the idea of riding on a horse I'm just too scared to try it! I've been on a horse before but probably only 2 or 3 times in my whole life. Kristen has therefore never really been around horses either

I'm sure she was a little nervous here, but only because she wasn't sure if she should pet him or not. We asked permission first and were told it was ok. This horse had just been out for a lesson and was getting his saddle taken off.

After looking around the stables (and trying not to stand in poop!) we headed out to the training ring.



The lady in the green shirt is the owner I spoke to, this little girl was getting a beginner lesson (I heard the lady, Sharon tell her she wouldn't be holding the reins that day but holding on to the saddle).

We could only stay 10 minutes more, so we didn't see the young girl get on the horse, she was being shown how to hold the horse on a lunge and how to command it to walk, and then trot etc.

Our next step is to call and arrange a first private lesson for Kristen. After that if she is really interested in it, we might be able to sign up for a small group lesson each week once school starts. No groups are held during summer as no one can commit to the same time and day each week (so Sharon told me). We have the option of keeping our lessons private or semi-private. But a group lesson is only 3 or 4 girls max. We'll just have to see how it goes.

I'm joining in with 'Outdoor Wednesday' this week. Don't forget to head over to Susan's and see who else is participating. One thing I do know, as summer ends and the cooler weather starts, I think a hobby like this would be great for Kristen. Oh to be outside again and it not be so darn HOT! Roll on Fall