Happy 13th birthday

It's sadly amazing how quickly they go from this:

To this:

I hope you have a great day son. I hope you don't change as you go head on into the teenage years. Please keep your imagine and creativity, your generosity. Most of all your ability to shrug off problems and hardship as the early teen years aren't always the easiest.

What a Week It's Been

Monday, Well Monday was mundane. Nothing happened on Monday(except my good friend and best neighbor's daughter had her birthday...she's now in the double digits and preteening all the way). Tuesday was my birthday...yeah....I really don't want to be a year older anymore. I don't need the reminders that I'm aging. I don't really want to celebrate another birthday until I'm like 80 then it turns into "WOW! you've lived HOW LONG?" not the "Another step closer to being over the hill, huh". Okay so the peak of that so-called hill is still aways away beings that I just turned 31. I'm still a baby compared to most of the residents I care for at work and I don't have any grey hair(knocking on wood, crossing my fingers, spinning clockwise and throwing salt over my shoulder so that I didn't just curse myself) and just a few small wrinkles that probably I only notice. Wednesday wasn't bad...only thing happened Wednesday was that I was told what time to come in for my youngest sons surgery today.

Today(Thursday) is Hubby's birthday. Love ya hunny. It was also the day for my youngest son's surgery. He has/had chronic mastoiditis and had to have part of the mastoid bone taken out and the infection drained(mastoidectomy) and he had to have tympanoplasty (his eardrum repaired). He was really groggy after the surgery and the anesthesia has made him nauseous and he's been having trouble keeping food and drink down. I think it's starting to wear off though 'cause he ate some chicken nuggets and has kept them down for a hour and a half now. He has a lovely dressing and bandage motif going on. At least his head will be warm tonight. He hates it because it presses against his ear and stitches and hurts a little bit. His painkillers fixes that though so he'll be good through the night. Tomorrow sometime we can remove the dressing and just put a large bandaid over the stitches and incision area for a week. He can't get his ear wet for a month. This is a boy who loves, loves his baths so that may be a bit tricky. I'm thinking on getting him a shower cap, lol. Not sure he'll wear it though. Sometime in the next few months to a year his hearing should be restored as his ear heals. I'm just glad we found the problem and resolved it before it got worse.

Tomorrow I plan on playing WoW, cleaning house, and working out. Saturday depends on if Hubby works or not and Sunday is my oldest son's 13th birthday. I am sooo not ready to be the mother of a teenager...especially not one that I can practically look square into the eye with out bending my head. I'm afraid next year he may surpass me in height...shudder.

Menu Plan Monday

Here is this weeks menu plan:

Breakfasts:
Monday: Biscuits and Bacon
Tuesday: Overnight French Toast
Wednesday: Oatmeal
Thursday: Hard Boiled Eggs, Bacon
Friday: Pancakes
Saturday/Sunday: Cereal


Lunches: kids will eat at school and I grab a sandwich, soup or ramen noodles and Hubby grabs whatever catches his eye.

Dinner:
Monday: Burgers, Fries, was salad but now it's corn
Tuesday: Was Chili but I forgot beans, so now it's Chicken and rice and spinach
Wednesday: Steak, Fried potatoes, Peas
Thursday: Tacos
Friday: Chicken "Hot Legs" (sorta like hotwings but more meat, lol) Scalloped potatoes, green beans
Saturday: Spaghetti, breadsticks, salad
Sunday: My Oldest son's birthday so it'll be whatever he wants.


Next week is Thanksgiving so I've got to plan around that and I'll work on that menu probably Friday or Saturday. The kids and I liked having a menu printed out and on the fridge. They like knowing what they are going to have for breakfast and dinner and I like that I'm not standing in the kitchen at 5pm wondering what in the world I'm going to fix.

To see more Menu's go HERE.

Menu Plan Monday

The cost of my youngest son's surgery and my upcoming decrease in work hours because of classes has me thinking of ways to cut our budget. So I'm going to jump on the Menu Plan Monday wagon. I know that menu planning helps your budget because 1: your less likely to splurge on eating out if you already know what your going to fix for dinner, and 2: you make out your grocery list according to your menu and less likely to buy impulse buys.

So I made out a menu for two weeks but I'm only going to post this weeks up here right now.
Menu Plan for 11/9-11/14

Dinners

Monday: Fried Chicken,Mashed potatoes w/gravy,Green Beans
Tuesday: Pork Roast w/ potatoes, carrots, onion, celery
Wednesday: Beans w/ leftover meat from pork roast, cornbread
Thursday: Spaghetti, salad, breadsticks
Friday: Steak, Baked Potatoes, Green Beans
Saturday: Pizza, Salad, breadsticks

Lunches:

The kiddies all eat lunch at school Monday-Friday. Saturdays and Sundays are sandwiches or whatever is available. I'll eat either soup, ramen noodles or a sandwich and Hubby eats whatever he can throw in his cooler.

Breakfasts:

Monday: Pancakes

Tuesday: Oatmeal

Wednesday: Overnight French Toast

Thursday: Bacon and Eggs

Friday: Bread Pudding

Saturday and Sunday: Cereal

November kinda sucks already

It's only the first week of the month and it kinda sucks. I had a tooth pulled Monday, my mouth is still a little tender. My youngest son's ear has been draining so I kept him home Tuesday and Wednesday morning, bright and early, we went to the ENT doctor. Turns out he has chronic mastoiditis, an infection in the mastoid bone behind the ear. The doctor is going to have to go in and remove a portion of the bone and drain the infection. Then he is going to repair a hole my son has in his eardrum.
The doctor said it was a simple operation that he has done nearly 5,000 times. My son will be under general anesthesia and the surgery will take about a hour. The second floor of their office building is the surgery floor so it's all done in office. My son still needs a ct scan but I couldn't afford it and the office visit yesterday so I guess I need to see how much that will be and schedule it soon. The office visit alone was 200+ dollars. I'm glad we have insurance however crappy it may be 'cause this surgery would cost over 8,000 out-of-pocket if we didn't...as it is it's gonna cost around 800. Well off to work and worry, lol. Hope everyone has a great day.

I hope everyone had a good night last night. I don't have any Halloween pics to post because we didn't dress up. Well, I did dress up some for work but as a family we didn't dress up. Money was too tight this year for costumes for everyone so we just stayed in ate a ton of candy, watched semi-scary movies (kids are still to young for really scary ones) and bobbed for apples (that was fun to watch and had my camera battery been charged I would of had pictures), ate more candy, ate dinner at about 8:30pm (at least those of us who didn't have a belly too full of candy ate) and all in all enjoyed a good family night in. None of the kids fought or bickered or argued we just kicked back and relaxed. Hubby unscrewed the porch light because he was worried about trick-or-treaters. I don't think they do that on our street as it's dark and no sidewalks. Anyway we have a long driveway and I don't think anyone would want to traipse up it to darken our doorway.