Food, Jumping, Perfect Mothering, and Rain

For quite awhile now I've been fascinated with the idea of cooking for a month, or at least cooking ahead a little. I checked out a cook book called, Don't Worry, Dinner's In The Freezer. It was inspiring, but daunting. Even if I have one meal in the freezer, I feel a great relief during a stressful day, but that means one day of cooking that is beyond stressful.
On Saturday, after an early morning trip to the grocery store, I tried my own version of cooking for a month. I fried up 10 pounds of ground beef, cooked a 12 pound ham, cooked 2 completed freezer meals, and sliced veggies for 12 freezer bags. I wanted to get chicken cooked and diced as well, but didn’t have the time. I would say that what I accomplished will last about a month in my not-so-organized cooking world. Now I can at least skip a step in cooking the meat.My children wouldn't leave me alone for this task, so I took several breaks and the ordeal lasted all day. I was finally cleaning up the kitchen after they were in bed, and had a back ache and was weary to the bone. I am so excited about all the prep I saved by cooking ahead, but was it worth it? Time will tell and maybe next month will have me doing a similar project... perhaps a baby sitter would be a good idea. If you have done this cooking-in-mass and have some good advice, I would love to hear it.

While I was trying to cook, Mandy tried playing the "jumper." Emma thinks this is a swing and tries to push her, do under dogs, encourages forced jumping... yes, you can say it with me, "Poor Mandy." Mandy was screaming at her sister and then happily played by herself in the living room while Emma gave the jumper a try herself. I'm am sure no “perfect mother” would allow this sort of activity, but it kept her completely out of my hair for about 20 minutes. At that time, she started complaining her bottom hurt. If any of you 1 child families would like a doorway jumper, it is yours for free. As you can see, it causes too much trouble in my house.
The door jam is still OK, in case you were wondering. That is the beauty of a 60 year old house, quality built with at least 15 layers of paint holding everything together. Fun times.

Sunday after church, we headed up to Olympia. My cousin Phil was visiting his parents for a month away from his ministry in Zimbabwe with Samaritan's Purse. He gave a presentation Sunday night and we were excited to hear about his projects. So you don't have to Google Zimbabwe, it is the country right about Mozambique (where we were last year) on the south-eastern coast of Africa.
It was fun to spend a little quality time with my parents as well and Emma always has a good time. In this picture, Emma is showing the color she wants to paint her room. I want to paint her room green and pink, but my mom reminded me what good it does to try and convince children they like colors they don't actually like. My sister and I had a pink room when we were kids and both hate pink to this day. Notice the color of my mom's curtains? My mom loves pink.

I captured this scene from my kitchen window a couple days ago. The weather forcast was "chance of rain." It rained about 30 seconds after I took the picture. So, we're home again, back to the rain and real life and it's time to think about something to eat tonight. But I am not worried, because dinner is in the freezer.