And we are back in gear here! We were lucky to be able to spend a week home visiting family for my grandfathers 90th birthday!! It was so great to see family and friends that we have not seen in years! Then we spent last week trying to get back into the swing of things around here at the house again! This week we are back in full swing and holy goodness it is already Valentine’s Day week! How did that happen?? Part of our Valentine’s tradition for me and the hubby is that instead of a gift I always bake something for him. With just getting out of Christmas season and his birthday being at the end of February gifts for Valentines Day just never made sense! I have made some fun things over the years for him but this year with a 5 yr old and 20 month old to help out (not to mention being 35 weeks pregnant with #3!) we are keeping it simple! Check out some of the new recipes that I am trying out this week!!
Dinners:
Stuffed Shells with garlic bread
French Cranberry Chicken (New Recipe!) with wild rice
Fried Ham Slices with Cheesy Hashbrown Bake (New Recipe!) and Succotash (New Recipe!)
Roast Beef with Potatoes and Carrots
Roast Sticky Chicken with Creamed Brussels Sprouts and baked potatoes
Chicken and Dumplings (our 5 year old’s favorite!)
Desserts:
Easy Valentine’s Day Fudge (New Recipe!)
I am also going to try out those new Fundamiddle cupcake mixes adding pink frosting on the top 
What are you making this week? Anything new and fun for Valentine’s Day?
Most recipes found and revised from menus4moms
Posted to recipe planning website plantoeat
Check out more recipes and menus today and every Monday on orgjunkie.com
Buried in ham leftover from Easter? The this is the post for you! Did you know that cooked ham freezes great? Well it does! My favorite thing to do is after dinner is complete chop up the left over ham and bag it in 2 cup portions to freeze for meals later on. I am NOT a fan of leftovers and get really sick of eating the same thing every night, so freezing this ham for later helps kill this boredom thing for me.
Very Happy Easter to all of you out there! Hope everyone has a very blessed holiday surrounded by those that they love. We are having a small Easter here at our house this year. We don’t live close to family and we were not able to travel to be with them this year, so it is just us 
1. Recycle. I know this sounds like a no brainer, but how many times do you just toss out that can or box because there is not a recycling bin close to you. If they don’t have recycle receptacles at work then make an effort to bring your cans & bottles home with you. If you are a real go getter you could even set up a recycling station at your office for you to take home and recycle! And don’t forget to teach your kids about recycling! Reusing their yogurt containers for instance is a great way to get kids involved and for them to learn an important lesson! Check out this 
4. Gardening. This is a great way to involve your children in being green! Let’s face it, kids love to dig in the dirt, so let’s be productive while they are doing it! Even if you don’t have the space outside to put into a garden you can always do a small container garden or some herbs on the windowsill or even one of those upside down hanging tomato plants hanging on your porch! There is something to be said about growing some of your own food and of course it will taste amazing with how fresh it is! Another great way to get fresh produce if you can’t grow it yourself is to look for a local farmers market. Support your local farmers and get some great food at the same time!!
5. Composting. Hand in hand with gardening comes composting. What better way to reduce your trash then to find a way to reuse it? There are many different ways to compost and I would suggest researching and finding the best way for you and your situation. One of the easiest is to keep a small bucket in your kitchen to dump your scraps in then bring it out to a pile in your yard. Great ways to get children involved is for them to help you place scraps in the bucket, carry it out to the pile with or for you and help you turn the pile. Then of course using the compost on your garden.
