congratulations to my sweet man

 

Congratulations to my darling sweet man for being promoted to UK sampling manager today, I am so proud of you.

 

 

 

Monday - burger chips and onion rings

Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognese

Wednesday- lamb shanks roast potatoes sweetcorn and carrots

Thursday- soup and bread

Friday - Pizza and chips

As I have changed to doing my shopping on a Saturday my menu will only go to Friday this week

Have a lovely evening and take care

To remember

This morning my thirteen year old, who has recently joined army cadets, took part in the remembrance day parade.
It is the first time I have ever actually been to one, I have watched them on the television before but never actually been to one. My daughter and I proudly watched as he marched past not in uniform, as he has not received his yet, but in his school clothes. It was a very heart wrenching ceremony and seeing all the elderly servicemen wearing their medals made me realise just how lucky we are.

We did not do any further shopping today as my son was quite tired, both physically and emotionally after the morning so I have decided to make some cookies for their lunch for school tomorrow and maybe for the rest of the week as we have the ingredients and its better than buying more things.

Monday - sandwich (either cheese or chicken), apple cut up and soaked in lemon juice, cookie, bag of crisps and a drink.

Tuesday - sandwich (chocolate spread or peanut butter and jam), apple, cookie, bag of crisps and a drink

Wednesday - sandwich (cheese or chicken), cucumber slices or cherry tomatoes, cake or cookie, banana and drink

Thursday - croissant, crisps, cucumber or cherry tomatoes, apple and drink

Friday -  sandwich (Tuna or egg), banana, crisps, cookie or cake and drink

Sweet man has cup a soup and pot noodles at work and I am going to take ham and egg salad with an apple or banana.

For breakfast we have either cereal, toast or bagels.

And I have almost finished organising our meals for next week so I will update you on those tomorrow.

I am now off to cook dinner. Have a lovely evening and take care.

Weekly Shop 07/11/15

Hello lovely people,

I don't know if you have noticed recently but I am trying to rearrange how we organise things around here. We used to shop each day at our local ASDA store but this was working out very expensive and it meant that I was cooking quite late in the evening and honestly I am too tired when I get in from work.

So Saturday has become our shopping day, and its something my daughter and I do together which is very fun and enjoyable and means we get some quality time together.

Today we shopped at Lidl, Farmfoods and Aldi.

I thought it might be nice to list what I have bought and how much they cost.

Lidl

Loose bananas £1.05 11 bananas
Cherry plum tomatoes 29p
Cucumber 29p
Large tomatoes £1.29
Iceberg lettuce 45p
Lamb shanks in rosemary and red wine x 2 £3.74 (1.74 each)
Butter x2 £1.64 (82p each)
German sausage selection £1.49
Chicken slices £1.39
Coleslaw 59p
Choc crunch cereal £1.19
Nougat pillow cereal £1.69
Nutella chocolate spread £1.49
Chocolate twist x2 90p (45p each)
Stoneware rolls x6 £1.50 (25p each)
Plain fresh bagels 76p
French croissants £1.23
Baking paper 99p
Beef Mince x2 £3.18 (1.59 each)
Chicken breasts £11.58 (5.79 each)

Total £36.47

Aldi

Crinkle cut chips 95p
Sirloin steak x2 £6.98 (3.49 each)
Pork sausages 89p
Apples x 2 £1.08 (59p each) 20 Apples
Onions 79p
Baking Potatoes x2 1.08 (59p each) 8 potatoes

Total £11.97

Farmfoods

Milk 4 litres £1.50
40 packs walkers crisps £3.95
Mini cracker tub £1.00
Apple juice 69p

Total £7.14

I also like to pop into either B&M or Home Bargains to pick up some other bits for the children's lunches for school but the traffic was too bad today so we might pop down there first thing in the morning.

I am trying the cereal from lid for the first time as I normally buy Krave and Crunchy nut clusters, the cereal from lid looks very similar but is almost half the price so I am going to give it to the children and see if they notice the difference. I will let you know!

Tomorrow, I will show you my food plan for this week.

Have a nice chilled evening.

Take care!

christmas update

Hi, it is time for another Christmas update.

Do you remember last weeks cleaning was in my two youngest boys room and I said  that this is likely to take me two weeks again the same as my daughters bedroom. It is definitely going to take another week. So this week I will continue to clean and clear my little boys bedroom. As I said before this room should really be decorated but that is not something I intend to do before Christmas so cleaning is the best I can manage.

For food this week I am going to make some fudge cookies for freezing and the plan is for the children to have these as a treat on Christmas eve with hot chocolate a couple of hours before they head off to bed.

The main meal that I plan to cook and put away as a December meal is Chicken and vegetable casserole with dumplings. This is a hearty meal and perfect for when its really cold. It can also be put in one pot and left to cook so its nice and easy.

For presents this week sweet man has taken over and ordered a couple of presents for me. Yay!
I have also been getting some ideas and today, my daughter and I popped into Sainsbury's and saw a couple of little things that my mum has mentioned to me in the past. So we are discussing whether we should make her a stocking this Christmas of little things.

This weeks extras that I am going to add to the shopping list is a box of lager for sweet man. We don't really buy very much alcohol for Christmas but I do like to have beer, cider and a couple of bottles of wine for sweet man and any family that may fancy a drink.

The children are going to make a start on writing their Christmas cards this week as they have about thirty each that they write and that is a bit too much for them to write in one go. They tend to write ten each week.

Let me know how you are getting on with your Christmas organising, I look forward to reading it.

Take care x

Menu Plan Monday

Hello dear friends,

Its Monday again and time to organise a menu for this week.

Monday -Honey and mustard pork steaks with rosemary roasted new potatoes

Tuesday - Chicken in a sage gravy with mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables

Wednesday - Soup and home-made bread

Thursday - chicken pie, roast potatoes and vegetables

Friday - Omelette (using up items near to sell by date)

Saturday - Lasagne and garlic bread

Sunday - Lamb shanks, roast potatoes and steamed vegetables

Bargains I have bought today

Two containers of fresh fruit 10p each
Large bowl of fresh fruit 60p
24 fruit shoot bottles £3.00
Shampoo £1.00
Conditioner £1.00

The fruit will go into the children's lunch boxes tomorrow, the fruit shoots will also go into the children's lunch boxes this week and next week and I will keep the bottles to refill them as the children's drinks bottles are all falling apart.

I hope you have managed to organise your food for the forthcoming week.

Take care

Sunday update

Afternoon dear friends,

I hope you are having a nice day.

I am, I have just watched one of my favourite programmes that has been on a summer break and has just come back on...Blacklist. Its one of the few things I like about winter, I can't stand the cold, dark evenings but I do like that the television is good again.



 

This weeks spending is fairly good.

 

Lidl £22.56

Lidl £28.33

ASDA £8.50

Sainsbury's £10.33

 

Total spent £70.22

 

This week we are under budget, our initial budget was trying to stay within £100 although my aim was to make our budget £80.00. This week we are even under that figure. I'm not sure whether we are under budget because we have been off school this week so I have had more time to cook things from fresh.

 

If that is the case I really need to try and fit more cooking into my time. Also my family have enjoyed having home made food to enjoy and sweet man has made his colleagues jealous with his sausage rolls at lunchtime.

 

Tomorrow we are back to work and I'm not really looking forward to it, whilst I do enjoy my job my most favourite thing is spending quality time with my gorgeous children.

 

My daughter and son have their glasses ready for school tomorrow so I thought I would show you how cute they look.

 

 



 

 

We have decided they are our Clarke Kent and Felicity Smoak. Whilst I am not really a Superman fan I do like Arrow and Felicity Smoak is one of my favourite characters. Have you noticed its been all about the Tele today?

Well seeing as it is Sunday evening I guess I had better go and give the kids a nice warm bath and get them ready for bed before I sit down and are you ready for it? Watch Zoo. (ha ha)

Take Care xx