8 is Great + Our Week in Meals #131

Good morning, and happy Sunday! The boys finished their last full week of school, Casey turned 8, and I’ve spent a lot of time baking birthday treats over the past few days. All of the highlights, along with our easy dinners, are included in today’s roundup of Our Week in Meals!

For those of you who are new to the blog, Our Week in Meals is where I share a little bit about what we’ve been up to over the past week — as it relates to our dinners each night. This series gives you a glimpse “behind the scenes” at some highlights from our life, shows you how I balance a busy schedule with feeding my family, and offers a few new ideas for your own weekly meal plan. Now let’s back up to last weekend…

Mother’s Day started in the best way: with an early breakfast at IHOP with my favorite boys!

I’ve got an early-rising crew, so we were at the restaurant in Culpeper by about 7:30 a.m. — before the crowds rolled in! Let’s just say that I ordered plenty of coffee!????

While the kids enjoyed piles of Cupcake Pancakes and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes, I dug into a Belgian Waffle, sausage and fruit. Keith’s Double Blueberry Pancakes were great, too!

Back home, I took my favorite puppy for a walk in the misty rain.

Can’t beat the fresh air after a big breakfast!

The younger boys had swimming lessons after lunch,

so we also stopped at Starbucks while we were in town. I needed to buy some gift cards, and of course there was a snack break included!

Finally, the best Mother’s Day treat: an easy, stress-free supper that required almost zero effort on my part. We had this Dump-and-Bake Chicken and Mushrooms (which I made in the Crock Pot) with pasta and French-cut green beans on the side. Recipe coming to the blog soon, but in the meantime my fellow mushroom-lovers might like to try this Dump-and-Bake Chicken and Mushroom Casserole!

Monday was another cool, rainy day. Other than a short (wet) dog walk and a quick stop at Yoder’s Country Market, I stayed holed up at home getting work done indoors.

I was excited to see that Yoder’s now sells sliced pimento cheese at the deli counter!

Of course, I paired the cheese with roast beef, mayo and pickled red onions for a delicious sandwich at lunch that day. Side note: the Dill Havarti cheese from Yoder’s is also a staple in our fridge (so good)!

Plus part of this new Snicker’s bar for dessert, which was included in a Mother’s Day package from Keith and the boys. The Maple Almond Butter flavor was DELISH.

The boys were supposed to have soccer practices that evening, so I planned a dinner that I could easily make in advance. In the end, soccer was cancelled due to the weather, so we enjoyed our meal at a normal hour (instead of eating at 4:30 as we rushed out the door).

This was my Baked Western Omelet, which we had with toast and fruit. Breakfast for dinner — or “brinner” as the kids call it!

After 3 full days of rain, it was so nice to see the sun again on Tuesday morning.

I met my friend at the gym after the boys went to school, and then returned home to get some work done at the computer.

Late morning, I walked up the road to my neighbor’s farm to pick up another batch of cheddar scones, as well as a few bags of lettuce from her garden.

Teddy was very interested in those baked goods!

The wild flowers make every walk smell amazing these days! Wish I could bottle it up to enjoy year-round…

Casey requested homemade chocolate chip cookies to share with his class at school for his birthday, so I spent the afternoon baking a double batch of the classic Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies. Stashed in the freezer, the cookies stayed fresh until I needed to deliver them to the school on Friday.

I like efficiency (or…I’m just impatient), so I made the double batch of dough in my mixer at one time. Let’s just say that I almost killed my Kitchen Aid — that was A LOT of cookie dough!

I made a concerted effort to use up some of the food in our deep freezer this week (because I want to defrost the freezer when the weather warms up). As a result, Tuesday evening’s dinner included leftover Slow Cooker Turkey Chili from a few months ago (swap out the ground beef in that recipe for ground turkey). I figured we better enjoy it while experiencing some cool weather, because the temps are about to rise and nobody wants chili on a humid day in July!

I made cornbread on the side, served the boys their meal, and then I headed out the door!

Since it was our last meeting of the year, the PTO board members got together for a girls’ night dinner at Miranda’s Southern restaurant in town.

I had the fried fish sandwich with a house salad,

and my patient friends even waited to eat while I snapped photos of the food!????

Cheesecake with Strawberry Topping

Wednesday morning’s exciting adventure involved an appointment for my car to get an oil change at the dealer. I will say, though — it’s kind of like a mini vacation every time I go there. They’ve got massage chairs, really good coffee (not the standard nasty gas station stuff) and free freshly baked treats from the nearby Ole Country Store!

I made myself a caramel macchiato and watched HGTV for a few minutes while they worked on my car. Not bad!

Spencer’s very happy about the fact that it’s haymaking season in Madison. There’s nothing the kid loves more than watching a round baler at work!

Such a beautiful day for a dog walk…

Both Casey and Spencer had soccer practices that evening, so we ate a very early supper before heading over to the fields.

I made Ethel’s Curry Chicken Salad, which was a nice, light option to balance out some of the chocolate chip cookies we’ve been enjoying! The boys don’t consider salad a “meal,” so they had their chicken on sandwiches with smaller salads on the side. Everyone was happy! I also added feta cheese (since I had it), skipped the peas, used pickled red onions, and swapped out the raisins for chopped dates (again, that’s what I had). Tasty!

I spent Thursday morning at the school painting faces for the pre-K Fun Day. Spencer asked for a tractor on his cheek (not a surprise)!

After lunch, my friend Mollie came for a walk near our house, and then Gibbs’s friend came home from school with him for the evening.

I fed the four boys Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, garlic bread and veggies with Ranch dip for dinner,

and then we all headed back to the school for the Ice Cream Social. There are so many fun events at this time of year, but it makes for a CRAZY schedule (and a tired mom). ????

After dropping the cookies off with Casey’s class on Friday morning, I met my girlfriend for a walk and then came home to spend a couple of hours baking.

Don’t be too impressed, though — I had some help from a friend (x2):

I made a batch of cupcakes to take to Casey’s soccer team on Saturday…

as well as Casey’s birthday cake for Saturday evening. He requested “a yellow layer cake with green frosting” — so that’s what he got! It’s a good thing that 8-year-old boys aren’t picky, because my cake decorating skills are not exactly on an elite level.????

Friday afternoon Frisbee…

I took the night off from cooking, and instead we picked up pizza and subs from Giovanna’s.

Saturday was Casey’s 8th birthday! He didn’t want a big party or any over-the-top celebration, but he did have a few food requests throughout the day — starting with his favorite glazed doughnuts for breakfast!

We all went to Casey’s soccer game that morning, where he celebrated with cupcakes with his teammates.

My in-laws joined us for Casey’s birthday lunch request: Subway subs.

This was the Italian BMT (filled with Genoa salami, spicy pepperoni, and Black Forest Ham). Love that combo!

The rest of our afternoon included a stop at Lowe’s Garden Center to buy herbs for the garden, as well as a trip to the grocery store.

Casey wanted grilled hamburgers for dinner that night, so I made roasted asparagus (one of his favorite veggies) and crispy oven-roasted potatoes on the side.

Followed by birthday cake, of course!

And that’s a wrap! I hope that you all had a great weekend and that you’ve found a few new easy recipes to add to your own meal plan in the week ahead. Thanks for stopping by!

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