Meal Plans & Goals Progress

I've got a busy week ahead here. My little baby boy will be turning ONE on Friday! I can't even believe it. I think I might cry. Literally. We're having his birthday party on Saturday with family and close friends, so lots of preparations this week for the party. I made the lasagnas a few weeks back, so I'll just have to thaw them on Friday to bake on Saturday. I'll be able to prep the spinach-artichoke dip ahead of time, and the salad, too. So it'll just be a lot of baking - the dip, the lasagnas, and the garlic bread - on Saturday. I think I'll really be loving my double oven with all the baking! :) I had wanted to do homemade ice cream for the party, but I think I'm going to just have to break down and buy some. I think its just too much with everything else going on. Oh well.

Last week, Meijer had organic mushrooms on sale again, so I stocked up. I'll be doing another batch of canned sliced 'shrooms this afternoon. And I'll be using some in a spinach and mushroom lasagna today, too. I don't necessarily fancy having lasagna twice in one week, but I've been wanting to try this recipe for awhile now and figured I'd better do it now with all these fresh mushrooms on hand.

Sunday ~ spinach and mushroom lasagna, salad
Meatless Monday ~ spanakopita, greek salad
Tuesday ~ leftover lasagna and/or spanakopita
Wednesday ~ chicken tortilla soup from the freezer, homemade artisan bread leftovers again
Thursday ~ honey balsamic lamb chops, roasted potatoes and veggies pizza at my parents' house
Friday ~ baked all-natural pork chops, crockpot corn risotto, salad leftover pizza for Kevin, veggie "fried" rice for Sara
Saturday ~ Carson's Birthday Party! Spinach-artichoke dip, potato chips and french onion dip, meat lasagna, veggie lasagna, salad, garlic bread/sticks, cake, ice cream.

So last week, I began working on my getting healthy/exercising goal. I was able to fit in one Pilates and one Tae-Bo video workout during the week. And I managed to get a 15-minute walk in on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I'm going to hope for the same this week. I also am trying to cut back on the amount of pop that I drink. Sara Ross and I figured out that if I were to cut out pop entirely - and replace it with water - that I could potentially lose 50-60 pounds in one year... without changing anything else. That is just insane! I know that pop is my biggest downfall and its going to be tough to cut it out, but I'm working on it. I'm not buying pop to keep at home anymore - except for the special occasions (Carson's birthday) and every once in a while. And I'm working on cutting out the pop I normally have in the morning (kind of like my coffee). Then I'm just left with my big fountain Coke during the day. I'll slowly cut back on that, too. But I think that one will be the hardest for me to drop. So we'll see how it goes this week.