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Weekend Check-in: March 7

What I'm Cooking
Quick cinnamon biscuits. Very tasty. I subbed white whole wheat flour, as usual.

Glazed orange scones. Because we needed some bright citrus on yet another snowy morning!

Slow cooker cheesy spaghetti with turkey sausage. This was a huge hit in my house. It has the creamy comfort food feeling of lasagna, but with a fraction of the work and even fewer calories (thanks to cottage cheese and ground turkey). The recipe calls for only 8 ounces of pasta, but I think I could have used a full 12-ounce box. It was very saucy.

Pizza using this crust, but with white whole wheat flour. I do not love whole wheat crust, but this was one of the better recipes I've tried. I use Ragu pizza sauce, because it doesn't have any sugar, and pizza sauce is one thing I still haven't gotten around to making myself.

Poor man's steak. I really liked this -- an interesting twist on traditional meatloaf. Plus it made enough for four meals, for our little family! I used homemade cream of chicken soup for the topping, and bread crumbs from scraps of bread we keep in the freezer in place of the cracker crumbs (since I didn't have any crackers on hand).

Peanut butter and jelly popcorn. We often have popcorn for dinner when Isaac is gone for some reason, and I like finding ways to sneak in some protein. It's made with white chocolate, so not at all healthy and much sweeter than one ought to consume for dinner, but it looks fun. Levi and I agreed that the jelly popcorn was way too sweet, but the peanut butter was delicious.


What We're Reading
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Clearly. This has been our lunch-time read-aloud for a few weeks now (since we only manage to read a few times a week), and we only have one chapter left. They've all been interested, but this week for the first time Levi and Owen were really engaged and asked for another chapter. It's fun to watch them get excited about the story, and we already have the next book in the series on hold at the library!

My e-mail inbox. I have long subscribed to a newsletter from the MOB Society (Mothers of Boys), but don't often end up reading the e-mails. I finally got tired of the 100+ unread messages in my inbox and decided to start going through them while I wait for the next Alaskan Courage book to become available. :)

What I'm Doing
Surviving. Chasing Silas and Toby all morning (they're both into EVERYthing), schooling Levi all afternoon, trying to make time for Owen in between, and then all of the meal prep and housework and laundry. Nothing's bad, and I don't actually feel overwhelmed. On the contrary, it feels good and right to be busy in this way, not idle (or not often, anyway), working with my hands to keep my household running. But it is tiring, and I wish Toby would sleep through the night, and I wish I had more time and energy to serve people outside my household, too. This is my season, though, and I'm grateful to have a spirit of contentment (for the moment . . . it can slip away so quickly, you know).

That's all I've got for this week. I might just try to sneak in a nap before the time change. :)

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