We had English Royalty Chocolate Chip Scones the other day. They were delicious!

Samuel and I made this Names of Jesus Easter garland yesterday. I enjoyed having ours up at Christmas because it was such a reminder of who God is and why He sent His Son here. I’m hoping this Easter garland is as much a reminder as the Christmas one was.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted our menu plans. I haven’t stopped planning, just never remember to post the plans on Mondays. In fact, I have 5 months of plans on my hard drive and almost a year’s worth in my household notebook. It’s nice to go back and look so we don’t eat the same meals too often. It also helps remind me of some of the more seasonal meals (like right now – our favorite grill meals).

I’ll be cooking a turkey later in the week for Easter. Sundays are so busy that I figure it’d be easiest to just prepare the entire meal ahead of time (probably Saturday) and then reheat once we get home on Sunday. No sense making the day any busier than it needs to be with three kiddos.

Sunday: breakfast for lunch – biscuits, creamed honey, and scrambled eggs. The biscuits and honey were seriously AMAZING.

Monday: hot dogs (bunless), mashed sweet potatoes, green beans

Tuesday: cream cheese ranch chicken and spinach, brown rice

Wednesday: ham slices, macaroni salad

Thursday: grilled chicken breast over tossed salads, maybe breadsticks

Friday: pizza night (every week)

Saturday: chicken pot pie with biscuit topping (probably turkey pot pie if I get the turkey done in time)

The meals without veggies listed we’ll just decide then which veggie to eat from the freezer.

Breakfasts are scones, eggs and grits, oatmeal, biscuits, smoothies, and waffles.

Lunches are salmon patties, pb&j, tuna salad, tossed salads, macaroni and cheese, and leftovers.

Snacks are string cheese, baby carrots, nuts, fruit, etc.

You can read more menu plans over at Orgjunkie.com.

Not too long ago I made an armband for my mp3 player so that I could work out without the cord getting in my way as much.

I followed this ipod case tutorial for the pouch and added a removable velcro band to the back.

The idea is great, but it needs work yet. The band won’t stay on my arm well enough, even if I turn it to where the player is facing in toward my arm. I’m thinking an elastic band would work better. Also, the ribbon closure looks great, but doesn’t really stay closed. That’s probably more where it’s placed though. I’ll probably add a small piece of velcro there too.

Overall, I like it. It’s cute. But it could be better too.

Our forsythia are blooming like crazy right now. Other people may keep theirs pruned back, but we’ve left ours to grow. They’ve turned into a nice hedge that blocks our view of the neighbor’s house.

I love it when they’re blooming. When you turn onto our street, you can’t help but notice this huge glowing line of yellow bushes. Now if I could just figure out what plants to grow in the rest of my yard so that I could have a constant show of flowers all the way through until fall.

They discharged Anna today. It was so sweet when we got home. The boys had been playing outside, and ran toward the car. Samuel gave me a quick hug, but before I knew it, the boys were both trying to get in the back seat to give Anna hugs and kisses.

Anna is doing much better. She still has a cough, but that’s mostly it. After how sick she was over the weekend, it’s good have my little Anna baby be herself again. She would probably tell you she’s glad to be at home where she’s not confined to a crib and hooked to machines with oxygen in her nose.

It is so good to be home. I’m a bit surprised by how tired I am, but that’s ok. Sleeping in my own bed after 4 nights in a recliner is going to feel amazing.

Last night I brought Anna to the emergency room when she was having trouble breathing. She’d been doing a little better after getting a nebulizer from the doctor on Thursday, but yesterday afternoon she got worse again. The on-call pediatrician recommended I take her in to be re-checked. I’m thankful I did.

They ended up admitting Anna for the night. She has bronchiolitis and is a pretty miserable little girl. She seems to be doing a bit better today, but is still on oxygen so it looks like she might be here tonight too.

I miss being at home, but I’m thankful for the care she can get while she’s here.

What fun – all five of us are sick at once. The boys started last week, but now Stephen and I have it.

It’s been interesting to watch it since all of us have been affected by it in different ways. The kids all had coughs and fever, Anna has cough, fever, and wheezing, I have a fever and body aches, and Stephen has the congestion. It’s nuts.

My heart just about broke for Anna today. I took her in to the doctor to get her wheezing checked out. We walked out of there with a nebulizer for her. She just looked so pitiful with the mask on. I’m thankful though – she took it really well. Hopefully that will continue, since she’s supposed to get a breathing treatment every 4-6 hours around the clock for the next 4 days.

So enough about our sickness; I’m going to bed. ;)

Samuel called me outside the other day to show me some purple flowers that were growing in my flower garden. Isn’t this crocus beautiful?

It’s so funny. There are three crocus plants in my garden. They’re beautiful, and always the first of my flowers that bloom. The weird thing is I never planted them, and have no idea how they got there. All I know is they’ve been blooming since we moved back from Indiana.

It sure is nice to enjoy them though!