Week 53, Day 1

LAST DAY!!!!!!!!

Breakfast: leftover oatmeal for Dai, Phyllis and I but it was all gone by the time Cress got up so she had fried eggs.

Lunch: Cress and Phyllis had the rest of the chicken salad on two of the remainng hambuirger buns.  Dai had the last of the turkey lunchmeat on the last hamburger bun.  I had leftover Garden of Eden salad, an atulfo mango (they looked good but probably need a couple days) and some (a lot) Cheez-its.

Dinner: Pot roast with carrots, onions and potatoes.  Salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber with feta and toasted pine nuts on the side.  Cream biscuits.  Martinelli's and blueberry ice-tea. Mini wienies with bacon and brown sugar as an appetizer.  The wienies were on sample at Costco and someone nearby suggested the bacon thing so we will try that.

Week 52, Day 7

Can you believe it?! Tomorrow is the last day of this!!  It was an interesting experience, but I am glad it is pretty much over.  I wonder if I will ever look back and find it fascinating.  Or maybe someone 100 years from now, "They ate what?!  Who in their  right mind would eat that?!"  What I am sure of is tat it is a good place to put a recipe that I want to hand on down or to which I want easy access, but I will just put them in my regular blog going forward.

Breakfast: oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins plus your choice of regular or almond milk.  Cress prefers almond milk.  I think the other two don't much care.  I definitely prefer cow milk, but almond is better than soy.

Lunch: Cressida and I had chicken salad.  Dai and Phyllis had BLTs.  Phyllis had a sliced apple.  The rest of us had a mandarin orange.  We all had a few Cheez-its.  (I am trying to go back to no sugar.)  I was planning to have a BLT, also, but I burned the last few pieces of bacon and it was already going to be light on the bacon so I had leftover chicken salad.  We used church sourdough bread.

As a kid I remember thinking that people who froze bread were even poorer than we.  Now, I love freezing bread.  My kids' sandwiches are thawed by lunchtime.  If we sandwiches eat at home they are just toasted, either lightly or a lot depending on the kid.  Cressida really prefers not toasted.  She reminded me, "Mom, next time can you remember I don't like toasted bread for my sandwiches?"  I told her it was either toasted or frozen.

I love freezing bread because it lasts forever.  Yesterday, Lucky had bread on clearance.  I am sure it was close to its expiry date.  It was a good brand and cracked wheat or wheat berry and white hamburger buns. We are having hamburger buns tonight since I think they probably need to be used quickly (which means beef two nights in a row plus I plan to do a roast tomorrow!) but I just tossed all the sandwich bread in the freezer and I know it will last until the day that it is pulled out to be used.

Dinner: Hamburgers, pan fried rather than grilled because we still need propane. Beans and cornbread.  I tried a different recipe and used bacon fat in it - fresh from lunch.  That means you really cut down the salt that goes in the beans, so they were a bit salty.  Cress and Phyllis didn't eat theirs.  We are letting the rest sit overnight with potatoes to remove the salt so Jason can take them and the rest of the cornbread for lunch tomorrow.  We also had canned green beans.

I made it without sugar.  I did have four dates after dinner.

Week 52, Day 6

Breakfast: eggs and toast.  Jason got up and left early so he had cereal at work like usual.

Lunch:  I made chicken salad sandwiches for Kaitlyn, Dai and I.  Phyllis had her Cup'o'Noodles from Heather Castro and Cress had her microwaveable mac'n'cheese, also from Heather.  we cut up some apples and had Cheez-its, too.

Dinner: Two New York steaks, total precooked weight 1.25 pounds.  We were out of propane so we did them on the stove top.  We also had roasted butternut squash, sautéed mushrooms and Garden of Eden salad with it.

Jason got a cookbook called "Eat the Bible" for Christmas.  It has some recipes and some questions and scriptures and other stuff.  He thought that would be a good ready made FHE.  So, tonight, with much pleasure, we chopped, diced and sauteed together.  I had pre-cooked the wheat.  Hopefully we will do that often and try some new foods.  It is almost enough to make me sad I won't be doing this anymore next year.  Almost, but not quite.  I can always reference anything particularly memorable.   

Week 52, Day 4

Breakfast: cold cereal and bananas at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Lunch: We ate at Del Taco in Sacarmento after attending my brother's ward before heading home.

Dinner: Eggs and toast for Dai, Phyllis and I.  Jason and Cress had bean and rice burritos.  

Week 52, day 4 - at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's

breakfast: cold cereal with almond milk and hot chocolate for the girls. To be fair, I think grandma and grandpa have made them hot chocolate every day we have been here. I actually did not eat because it was almond or soy milk only. Well, I had some raisinettes and Pero.

Lunch: I realized it was lunch time and figured Granada was a bit frazzled so I made chicken noodle soup out of a can for phyllis and Kraft macaroni and cheese and green beans for lunch. I think Grandma Lisa didn't eat, but Larry did plus our family.

Dinner: hamburgers grilled by Larry. We had brought some produce that would have gone bad in our fridge if we had not brought it. One of these was Brussels sprouts and another was fresh cranberries. We made roasted Brussels sprouts that used the cranberries, maple syrup and some walnuts. The girls found walnut and pecan trees on our dog walk and cracked them for us when they got home. 

Week 52, day 3 - at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's

Breakfast: Larry made pancakes because the girls requested it and we are the leftover egg muffins because Lisa didn't want pancakes to mean the leftovers stayed there.

Lunch: Jason, Daitarih, Phyllis and I ate at a taqueria in Yuba city after our movie. Then we went to a little homemade ice cream place for dessert. Cressida stayed here with grandpa and he took her to Jack in the Box for lunch.

Dinner: leftovers from the taqueria, Jack in the Box and what was in the fridge. Very unorganized and eating was done in their own schedule.

Week 52, Day 2 - Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's

Breakfast: egg, sausage and potatoes muffins. Basically it is breakfast casserole in muffin tins. She has made some variant of it before but it is never very good. Usually dry. This was the best yet. We also had mandarin oranges from gheir tree, bananas and apple slices. We finished the cranberry, pecan, rye bread that Michelle LaVanaway made us for Christmas.

Lunch: not a formal lunch. Olives. Chips and dip. Candy from stockings, etc. 

Dinner: pot roast with onions and carrots, garlic mashed potatoes wih heavy made from the pot roast juice, steamed broccoli and steamed beefs. Dessert was either Christmas candy or cinnamon apples. 

Week 52, day 1 - at Grandma and Grandpa Hansen's

Breakfast: French toast, Larry's specialty

Lunch: bean burritos for everyone except Dai who had oeNut butter and jelly. They only have chunky peanut butter but even forewarned, she chose it

Dinner: Papa Murphy's pizza. We really like Hawaiian in our house, buy apparently Larry doesn't do ham so we got half Hawaiin and the other half chicken garlic and a cowboy pizza.

Also much junk food. Almond rocha. Chips. See's candy. Popcorn. And do on. Before dinner though we did have cucumber stocks do that's something, i guess. 

week 51, day 7

Breakfast: the girls got processed foods from heather Castro. They were thrilled and I think it was easy for her. So this morning thy had instant oatmeal packets. She put in two. The maple and brown sugar variety. Phyllis didn't like it. She had only made one packet to start so she gave her other unopened packet to Dai. I didn't eat.

Lunch: dim sum with Jason and a co-worker and his daughter. The last couple years we have gone to dim sum over winter break at a place up in Sunnyvale. I think it is officially a tradition. The first time it was just us the next we went with one of Jason's co-workers from NetApp. This time his coworker was Chinese so we tried some new dishes. Whole baby octopuses and chicken feet and sticky rice. Crews liked the sticky rice but the other two weren't big hits with the girls or Jason. I ate three octopuses at least. Cresida's tentacles, Phyllis's head, I ate most of cressida's tentacles jn a spind one that her tried and I had two of my own. I actually thought the chicken feet were so much. Rotter than my last experience with them that I ate mine and most of Phyllis's and Cressida's. We had never had sticky rice before. It is really filling. I ate half of more of Phyllis's and one of my own and the last couple bites of cressida's. She did like it but was full.

Dinner: not much. We were packing and getting ready. Jason had two bean and rice burritos. I ate more homemade almond rocha than I should have. Cressida ate th rest of the leftover carrots.

Prep ahead: we packaged and froze the pumpkin purée from yesterday and the chunks from the second half that we did not get pureed. Actually letting it sit all day really dried it out. It is almost like the canned stuff! Last time we learned that trick only a few hours before we had to start the pie, so it drained off some liquid but not as much. We took most of our produce  and  some bread up with us to Larry and Lisa's house where we I'll spend Christmas and the weekend. 

Week 51, Day 6

Breakfast: Jason ate at work and we ate lazily over the morning.  We had oatmeal and persimmons and some of Aunt Michelle's Christmas bread she sent last night.  It is a cranberry, pecan, rye bread.  Dai and Cress didn't care for it.  Phyllis ate theirs, except the crusts.  I put cream cheese on the two toasted slices that I had.

Lunch: chicken salad sandwiches on regular store bought sandwich bread, leftover steamed carrots and/or Brussels sprouts and Cheez-its.  The girls had some of their ginger bread houses for dessert and I am having leftover pie.

Dinner: bean burritos. We didn't bother to season and refry the beans even. We just cool them in chicken broth and use whole. That sure makes it easier and faster. We had lettuce and tomaotes and rice, even, if you wanted it.

Prep ahead: we roasted the second pumpkin. Dai looked up different instructions on line. They had us cover it in tinfoil. Let me tell you- don't do it. Toasts muchich more quickly uncovered. We puteed one half of the pumpkin. It is over half a gallon of puree I bet. We put in the salad spinner with a cheese cloth  to let the water drank off. We poured off quite a bit of liquid even just in the few hours before we went to bed. We didn't have time to puree both and we don't have two salad spinners to let it drain so we just peeled the other half, cut it up a bit, put it in container and covered in it plastic in the fridge. 

Week 51, Day 5

Breakfast: oatmeal for the girls.  Fried eggs and toast for Jason and I.  Cress and I also had a persimmon.

Lunch: I had church baguette toasted with cream cheese and a persimmon (our neighbor gave us a bunch.) I had a bit of a headache, so I am not positive but I am pretty sure everyone else had turkey sandwiches on some sort of church bread.

Dinner: Christmas dinner at my dad and Susan's place.  My brother Sam also came.  It was traditional turkey, gravy, stuffing, rolls, cranberry jelly and we did roasted maple bacon Brussels sprouts (recommended by Susan) and steamed carrots.  Dessert was indulgent.  Black cherry pie with whipped cream, brownies, Ghiradelli chocolates and snicker doodles.  

Week 51, Day 4

Breakfast: rice cereal for the girls and an egg burrito for me and Jason

Lunch: Turkey sandwiches for lunch with persimmons for Cress and I

Dinner: Soup and corn bread at the Tervalons.  We brought stuff to make cream biscuits, which were a big hit.  Also, others brought various hors d'oevres.

Week 51, day 3

Breakfast: breakfast burritos

Lunch:Dai had left over combo pizza, pickles ,cucumber, carrot, and salt water taffy. Cress had left over combo pizza, pickles, cucumber, prunes, and cookies.  Phyllis had left over combo pizza, cucumber, carrot, and cookies - and a third produce that she cannot recall.

Dinner: Dai ate at Kaitlin's. Phyllis ate at Gillian's. Jason played volleyball in Sunnyvale with his brother after work so he didn't come hone until after 10 PM. So, cress and I didn't really have a plan. We ended up going to Heather Castro's and they were eating and we are some of their food. 

Week 52, Day 2

Breakfast: Cress and I had breakfast burritos and apple slices.

Lunch: The girls all had leftover pizza.  Jason had burritos using the last of the taco beans.  Cressida had a mandarin orange, a carrot and xxx.

Dinner: taco bell

Week 52, Day 1

Breakfast: Cress, Dai and I had fried eggs and toast.  Jason said the farm eggs that I got yesterday are bigger and the shells are harder.  Jason and Phyllis had breakfast burritos.

Lunch:  Dai and I had pizza.  She was home sick again, but she had no fever at lunch ,so I think she can go tomorrow.  Cress and Phyllis also had leftover pizza.  Phyllis had carrot sticks, an apple, and pickles.  Cressida had pickles, carrot sticks and a mandarin orange.  They also had a potluck at school, so I not sure if she ate it or not.

Dinner: Baked ziti, leftover cheesy bread, balsamic roasted brussel sprouts. 

Week 50, Day 7

Breakfast: the girls had rice cereal with almond milk.  I had a PBJ.  Jason ate at work, as usual.  He did get out early today though for a change.  That used to be his normal.

Lunch: Jason had leftover taco salad and carrot sticks.  Cressida had a half a turkey sandwich on church sourdough, a mandarin orange, pickles and some cucumber sticks.  Phyllis had a whole turkey sandwich on church sourdough, some pickles, some cucumber sticks and some carrot sticks.  Both girls got to take sugar cookies for dessert.  Dai and I had potato ham soup that Heather made for us.

Dinner: Papa Murphy's pizza.  Abuela and her boyfriend, Bret Ray, were with us.  They actually paid and we cooked.  

Week 50, day 6

Breakfast: oatmeal and I ate the last egg on toast

Cressida had half a turkey sandwich, prunes, pickles and tomatoes.  Jason had some turkey sandwich and the last of the black beans. I junkfood at work. someone made this great cheese dip. Dai had a PBH on church sourdough, tomatoes, pickles and a carrot.  Phyllis had black beans, pickles, tomatoes and a carrot. Cress had sugar cookies and fudge and the other girls just had sugar cookies. The cookies were made with the babysitter last Friday.

dinner: taco salad. I cooked the beans before I left to go grocery shopping. Jason got home before I did. He called to ask what he could do to help with dinner. So when we got home dinner was ready and the table is set. I am so grateful for his help.

Prep ahead: cooked brown rice for breakfast tomorrow

Week 50, Day 5

Breakfast: oatmeal still with almond milk, but I had boiled eggs on toasted church sourdough.

Lunch: baked ziti, green beans and toasted church rye bread.

Dinner: Carrot sticks, string cheese, turkey sandwiches on church sourdough rolls, the last piece of leftover pizza, dates, prunes and hot chocolate in a thermos.  In the car or at the temple grounds since we will go up there today.  We will leave about 4:30 and be back about 9.  

Week 50, Day 4

Breakfast: oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar.  We used almond milk because we are out of milk and pay day isn't until Monday and I am trying to wait.  We have float that could cover it, but it is the principal.

Lunch:  chicken salad sandwiches on church bread or church croissants.

Dinner: Jack in the box because Phyllis was supposed to be picked up at 5 to go to Christmas in the Park with Gillian and we were on our way home from the play at after 4.  Then it turned out it got cancelled.  Otherwise we could have eaten at home.  

Week 50, Day 3

Breakfast: Cressida had two fried eggs.  She likes them in-between over hard and over medium.  I made crepes for the rest of us.  Jason works from home today, so even he got some.

Lunch: Dai had half an apple, grapes and some heirloom tomatoes.  Phyllis had grapes, a half an apple and tomatoes, too.  They both had leftover pizza, too.  Cressida had a dental appointment.  After that I gave her some leftover crepes on her way back to school.  After school she ate a piece of pizza and more crepes.  Jason and I went to California Pizza Kitchen since he was working from home today.

Dinner: Jason and I went to his company Christmas party.  The girls had pasta with jarred Alfredo sauce, frozen meatballs, and canned green beans with the sitter.  

Week 50, Day 2

Breakfast:  rice cereal for the girls.  I went to breakfast with Heather Castro and Jenn Zhang for Heather's birthday.

Lunch:  Cress took a boiled egg and some saltine crackers - the whole wheat kind.  She also had half an apple, the last mandarin orange and some small heirloom tomatoes.  Dai had peanut butter and crackers, a half an apple, some heirloom tomatoes and a carrot. Phyllis saltines, a boiled egg, half an apple, tomatoes and a carrot.

Dinner: Papa Murphy's pizza.

Week 50, Day 1

Breakfast: Rice cereal for the girls.  Eggs and toast for me.

Lunch: The girls took boiled eggs.  We also had apple halves for everyone.  Dai also took a carrot and pickles and two carrots for Phyllis.  Cress had pickles and tomatoes.  

Dinner: leftover hamburger soup before heading to Grandma Susan's to decorate ginger bread houses.

Prep ahead: I made a new batch of fudge today.  I did one that called for marshmallow creme.  (That stuff is so good!) But it was too crystalized, so I need to work on that.  

Week 49, Day 7

Woohoo! Only three weeks to go!

Breakfast: Cressida had brown rice cereal.  After we got Cressida off, Jason made sausage gravy, cream biscuits and scrambled eggs.  I love biscuits and gravy.  I would order it at various places and sometimes I would be happy with it and other times not so much.  Eventually, Jason suggested that I ask for a sample before ordering.  So, that is what I will often do now.  Not that we eat breakfast out as often as we used to do.  So, when Jason was just about done with the gravy, he asked me to tell him if it needed more pepper or salt (knowing pepper is key to me.)  How wonderful to have a man who knows me so well.  Dai, Jason and Phyllis had a church pastry.  Phyllis declined at first, because it is too much sugar.  Then she took part of one.  Then she had part of another - so basically she had a whole one but she in consciously aware a little better, which is good. We each had half a banana, too.  Phyllis had rooibos tea with half and half and I had Roma with half and half.  Now we are out of half and half.  We had a lot of half and half and cream leftover from Thanksgiving that we were trying to use up.

Lunch: Cressida has rice and beans, a mandarin orange (only about 7 or so left from what Grandpa Larry brought to us,) three pickles and half an apple.  Dai has two boiled eggs, a mandarin orange, the other half of the apple and some pickles.  Phyllis has rice and beans with an egg on top (please break it when you put it on top so it doesn't cook to hard,) two huge carrots and some pickles.  You can tell that summer and our CSA have ended.  Our produce options are much less interesting now.  Jason took leftover hamburger soup and the last two cream biscuits.  Cressida and Phyllis took sugar cookies and Dai took some of the first batch of fudge.  Jason took all but two pieces of the first batch of fudge to work with him because it was such a hit yesterday.  He also took about 3/4 of the new fudge with him to work today.  It is creamier than the first batch but the flavor is more artificial.

Dinner: Taco Bell

Week 49, day 6

Breakfast: the girls had brown rice cereal. I had eggs from Gillian, half a banana and sour dough toast from our church loaf.

Lunch: I had and apple and black beans and rice. I will miss the egg, but it beats buying lunch. Cressida had a peanut butter and jelly Sandwich, half an apple (they are huge!), pickles (the kind everyone likes again), and the other half of my banana from breakfast. Phyllis and Dai had black beans and rice with the egg since theirs was packed hot. Phyllis had a carrot, pickles and a banana. Dai has picked, a mandarin orange and the other half of cressida's apple. Each girl had fudge for dessert.  Jason took some fudge to work, too.  For lunch, Jason took the last of the pintos for a burrito.

Dinner: I made hamburger soup using the broth from the meat we did on Thursday and it had some beef left in it. Usually I do part barley and part brown ice in the soup but I was out of barley so I only used brown rice. Huge pot of soup with only about 2/3 cup grains. I love that soup! Jason made cream biscuits and we also had roared butternut squash. We had fudge for dessert.

I had a second biscuit. Cream biscuits go really well with my homemade orange marmalade.

Prep ahead: I made a different fudge tonight. It is called jello pudding fudge and yes, it has pudding in it. 

Week 49, day 5

Fast Sunday

Breakfast: Gillian McWilliams, who spent the night, and Cressida and Jason had oatmeal.

Lunch: Cressida, Jason and Gillian had bean burritos. I am so grateful that we usually have beans on hand.

Dinner: black bean layers. When we broke our fast, Dai and Phyllis had a bean burrito and a piece of toast from whatever their church bread was -Dai got a seed covered baguette and Phyllis got a raisin bagel. Phyllis had cream cheese on hers. They also had s bean burrito. Then we started making sugar cookies. I started black beans (we found some in the bucket into which we had been going to put the pinto beans) and rice w little after four, when we started the cookies. So dinner wasn't full easy until 7. It could have been ready by 6:30 but we were frosting cookies when the rice got done so we didn't stop to finish the beans right away. After I pressure cook the beans, I add all the spices and onions and such and set it for a stew cycle in the pressure cooker. So, Dai and Phyllis weren't hungry. Only Jason, cress and I ate. We had black bean layers. We used these eggs that Gillian's mom gave us. They had such lovely orange yolks! Store bought ones are more yellow than orange.

Prep ahead: We made sugar cookies and frosted them. It is Jenn Zhang's sugar cookie and cream cheese frosting recipe. We delivered 4 each to the following families: Kaitlin Schwab's family, Sister Marr (Phyllis's Primary teacher), Sister Rocks (cressida's Primary teacher), and Sister Rodriguez ( dai's Primary teacher.)  After we got home and put the kids to bed, I made a batch of dark chocolate fudge. It is firmer than I would expect but pretty tasty. Yes, I ate some sugar cookies and fudge. I have a couple oyher recipes that I want to try: one that uses chocolate pudding and another than uses marshmallow cream. 

Week 49, Day 4

Breakfast: All but Jason had croissanwiches - fried eggs and bacon (except Cress) on a croissant.  Yummy!  I got four croissants from Heather.  That is what I wanted to do with it.  Jason had a breakfast burrito - but it included bacon.

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwiches on church sandwich bread.

Dinner: Turkey dinner at the ward Christmas parry.  We took Gillian McWilliams with us.  

Week 49, Day 3

Breakfast: Leftover oatmeal.  Cressida doesn't like leftover because you have to "break it up."  I offered Cressida sugar and raisins and she said, "Only raisins."  Then she asked if raisins were basically just sugar.  So, we talked about it, because the answer is yes, but in a less refined form. Cressida had the last of the raisins.  Phyllis skipped sugar.  Dai had oatmeal with brown sugar.

She decided that she will go sugar free until winter break.  I reminded her that there would be a party at school and asked how she would handle that.  It didn't seem to phase her.  We shall see how it goes.  We talked about not being preachy - so hopefully it goes well.  I will ask her how she feels about day 10 (if I remember.)  That was the day I really noticed a difference.  Phyllis read the mini bagel bag and realized that it had sugar.  She asked me to make homemade bread since that has honey.  I will.  She read the box for the cream cheese and saw "xantham gum" and just about freaked out.  We talked about that I cannot make cheese, so she just had to eat store bought cheeses and that so many things have preservatives.  Let's just focus on sugar to begin with.  I pulled out some wheat bread from the freezer that may or may not have sugar - but it is from a bakery so has no ingredients list for her to inspect.  Have I created a monster?

Lunch: Cress and Dai had bagels and cream cheese.  We are getting low on produce.  Cressida had pickles, prunes and a mandarin orange.  Dai had a couple mandarin oranges and prunes.  Phyllis finished the pickles.  This is good because Dai didn't like that particular brand but Costco didn't have theirs. Recently they had theirs again so now we can open those. I ate Vietnamese food for lunch.

Dinner: bean burritos with all the trimmings.

Week 49, Day 2

Breakfast: oatmeal

Lunch: Cressida had a mini bagel with cream cheese, a mandarin orange, a tomato and some carrots.  Dai had a mini bagel with cream cheese, another bagel with cream cheese and 12 chocolate chips for dessert, two mandarin oranges and a tomato.  Phyllis had the last of the onion bagels with cream cheese, pickles and mandarin oranges (under duress.)

Dinner: Cross cut beef shanks slow cooked with beef broth, herbs and tomatoes, spaghetti squash (prepared in the pressure cooker,) salad, but it turned out we were out of both tomatoes and cucumbers so it was just lettuce, and potatoes.

During dinner, Phyllis asked if I was moving them to a sugar-free diet.  I replied that I was not but it opened the door to talking about food.  We talked about grass fed meat, we talked about the Western pattern diet, preservatives, refined grains and such.  We talked about how to avoid falling victim to the Western pattern diet.  We talked about how much sugar the average American diet includes.  We talked about preparing our food from whole foods rather than from store canned or from boxes.  We talked about eating lots of vegetables.  I explained that we started doing a CSA because it isn't just the quantity of vegetables but also the variety that mattered.  We talked about diabetes and heart disease and tooth decay all being linked to the Western pattern diet.  It was fun because they brought it up, not me so I wasn't preaching but in some ways I was preaching to the choir because that is how they have grown up largely.  We read the labels on a few things.  We talked about rolled oats versus steel cut.  We talked about brown rice versus white - Dai definitely prefers brown but I explained that it was a conscious decision to change our eating habits when we had kids.  I am so grateful for their healthy attitudes about food and that I am not forcing it on them, they are thinking.  Of course, I am telling them what I think is important and because I am their mom, and they are still little they believe me, but it is still a good feeling.  

Week 49, Day 1

Breakfast: I had fried eggs and toast.  The girls had breakfast burritos and Jason, like usual, ate at work.

Lunch: I had a bagel with cream cheese, tomatoes and caper, some leftover butternut squash and fennel, and vienna sausages.  I ate at home after work - I was so hungry!  Cressida had a bagel with cream cheese, small tomato, mandarin orange and celery sticks.  That celery looks awful to be honest but we need to try to use it up.  Dai had a turkey sandwich on rye, a mandarin orange, a small tomato and cucumber.  Phyllis had baby carrots and some celery but she didn't think it looked good so she brought it home uneaten.  Can't really blame her.

Dinner: pinto beans and cornbread and a salad with only tomatoes, but cheese and toasted pine nuts as an option.  I also made balsamic because we were down to just the ranch and salsa ranch.  We also had steamed frozen corn.  

Week 48, Day 7

Breakfast: breakfast burritos made by Jason. We had to leave early because we had a dentist appointment for the girls. Out dentist is in Sunnyvale very near to Jason's work. Since it is raining pretty good, Jason rode in with us. He will ride home will a co-worker. We left an hour early due to commute hour traffic but compounded by the rain, it might not be enough.

Lunch: Jason took leftover soup and salad. Cressida has two mini bagels with cream cheese, Dai had a ham on the and Phyllis had a PBH on the last two leftover pumpkin pancakes. Dai and cress had a mandarin orange, some grape tomatoes and a third of an English cucumber. Phyllis had English cucumber, grape tomatoes and carrots.

Dinner: Oatmeal.  When I told the older two that we would have oatmeal for dinner (Cress was still at gym), they actually cheered.  Thank you for their enthusiasm.  It make oatmeal feel like less of a cop out - and I did make it on the stove.  But 3 cups of dry outs is only four bowls of oatmeal.  Need to make more in future.  I made this cream cheese mix to go in it.  Brown sugar, almonds, vanilla, cream cheese.  The recipe called for too much vanilla but it was OK.  Cress mixed it in to hers.  Dai just had raisins and milk.  Phyllis liked it, mixed it in and then decided it was a no go so she didn't eat.  

Week 48, day 6

Breakfast: Breakfast burritos.

Lunch: I had leftovers: baked ziti, creamed leeks and and green beans. Jason had leftover baked ziti, too. Cressida had half a peanut butter sandwich on church bread, a Mandarine oranges, a banana, and grape tomatoes.  Dai had a ham sandwich,  some mushrooms, a mandarin orange and grape
tomatoes.  Phyllis had a ham sandwich on church bread and half an english cucumber, half a CSA bell pepper and three mushrooms.

Dinner:  We had the missionaries over today.  We had turkey soup that I made yesterday, a green salad with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and mushrooms made by Dai and crescent rolls from a store bought roll.  Totally cheating, but I had a headache and was glad of the ease.  I could have had cream biscuits as quickly and easily if I had asked Jason, but I did not think of it.