Here’s what’s cookin’ at the Felio house this week. Check out the original Menu Plan Monday for more ideas or to participate yourself!

Monday: Chicken parmesan w/ marinara sauce over pasta, green beans

Tuesday: Vegetable beef soup, baked potatoes (since there aren’t potatoes in this soup), homemade rolls from freezer

Wednesday: same

Thursday: same

Friday: Dinner out with a friend, unless I change my mind and decide to cook something

Saturday: Burgers, potato wedges

Sunday: Chicken quesadillas, fruit

Saturday’s and Sunday’s menus are dependent on David’s being able to grill on Saturday. If the weather won’t cooperate, then I can make lemon-pepper chicken one night and breakfast for dinner the other.

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Anna is 10 months old today. Oh my goodness, how this year is flying by! Anna is very active right now—she’s pretty much constantly crawling or pulling up on things or trying to climb me, which made it a little hard to get good pictures today, but I got a few.

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Look, Anna likes doing laundry just like her Mommy! Right now she’s better at taking things out of the dryer than putting them in, but she’ll eventually learn both. :)

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I’m trying something new here. There’s this blog called Organizing Junkie that hosts Menu Plan Monday, where lots of other moms post links to their blogs where they’ve shared their menu for the week. I thought it sounded like fun and a great motivation. (I’ve been menu planning for a while, but I’m not always consistent with it, and sometimes I only plan 2 or 3 days’ worth right before I go to the store, thinking I’ll figure out the rest of the week in a few days. But my week goes much smoother when I plan a whole week at a time.) I’ll try to include some recipes as well.

A word about my cooking habits: I don’t cook a new dinner each night. The whole “cooking for 2” thing is one of the silliest ideas I’ve heard. I cook for 4 or 6 and we eat it until it’s gone, so I only have to cook a few times per week. So usually my menus will consist of just a few meals that will last the week.

If you’d like to join in, click on the links mentioned above to get started. I’d love to see what my friends are having for dinner and get some new ideas! And check out what’s on others’ menus by visiting some of the links here.

Monday (same thing we had Sunday): Broiled chicken sandwiches, oven-baked sweet potato wedges*, fresh pineapple

Tuesday (guests for dinner, so probably not much leftovers): Roast chicken and potatoes, green beans, homemade rolls

Wednesday (unless there are leftovers from Tuesday): Lemon-pepper chicken breasts, sugar snap peas w/ orange-ginger butter, rolls

Thursday: Chicken tacos w/ fixins, fresh fruit

Friday: same as Thursday

Saturday: Homemade pizza, salad

Sunday: same as Saturday

* * * * * * *

*Recipe (sort of): Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Wedges (more…)

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Anna is so not interested in her toys right now; instead, she’s having a blast crawling around and exploring and getting into things. She’s realized she can go wherever she wants to now, and she’s lovin’ it!

The other day she crawled under the support bar on the legs of her high chair and then stood up under it. It was great fun… until she realized she had no idea how to get out. But Mommy came to the rescue. :)

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Here she is, after pulling up all by herself to play with her musical table toy:

And crawling on video:

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If you like chicken and rice, you probably already have a recipe that you use. It’s probably very tasty. And it probably has cream-of-something soup in it. But there’s something in those soups that bothers David’s throat, so I’ve learned to cook without them for the most part. I found a recipe online a while back and tweaked it a bit, and it has now become a household favorite (even Anna will eat a little of this!!!):

Chicken and Rice Casserole

• 1/3 c. margarine
• 1/4 c. flour
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 1 c. chicken broth**
• 3 c. shredded cooked chicken*
• 3 c. cooked rice (I use brown rice)
• 1 c. sliced mushrooms, optional

Melt margarine in saucepan. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper; cook until bubbly. Add milk and chicken broth a little at a time, whisking until smooth. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil; boil and stir for 1 minute.

Mix sauce with chicken, rice, and mushrooms; pour into 2-quart casserole dish. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

* For cooked chicken to use in recipes, I buy the bone-in chicken breasts when they go on sale and cook them for several hours in the Crock Pot. (You can brine them first for more flavor if you like.) They are just falling-apart tender when they’re done, plus you get some broth to use. You can then freeze the extra meat and the broth to use later.

**If I don’t have chicken broth, I use chicken bouillon and reduce the salt in the recipe to 1/2 tsp.

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Well, Anna is fully mobile now and has claimed the whole house for herself, and has left Sasha wondering about this new critter that can get around just like a puppy. I’d say she started “real” crawling right at Christmas; my parents had said several times that she would be “crawling by Christmas” and they were right. Christmas Eve was the first time she took more than two or three “steps” up off her tummy, and by Christmas Day she was in full crawl mode.

It’s funny—for a while, she always stayed in whatever room I had put her in; it didn’t occur to her that she could leave one room and go to another if she wanted. Then one day while she was playing on the floor in her room, she ventured out of the door and into the hallway, and life hasn’t been the same since. It’s so cute to see her coming down the hallway from the bedroom to the living room, grinning from ear to ear, obviously quite proud of herself.

She also started pulling up to her feet, although I’ve only actually seen her do this once. Usually I look away for a moment, and when I look back, she’s up on her feet. She doesn’t like the performance pressure, I guess.

All this activity is apparently making her burn a lot of calories—she’s only gained 2 ounces over the past month! Are ya kiddin’ me?!? That puts her at 14 lb. 14 oz. After her last check up on 12/1 when she had gained a whole pound, I thought she was finally ready to start growing again after taking a little hiatus. All through December she seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, and I was sure she must have gained at least another pound. But it was just wishful thinking. We’re looking at ways to get some more calories in her. But don’t worry—she seems to be perfectly healthy in every other way; she’s just little. She’s certainly strong—there’s no doubt about that!

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We entered Sasha’s photo in the Conway Animal Welfare annual calendar contest, and she was one of 13 winners to get a full-size picture! Way to go, Sasha! (I noticed our friends James and Shannon have one of their ferrets in there as well!)

If you want a copy, you can get them at the Conway Animal Welfare unit, the police station, or a number of businesses around town (see list here). Cost is $5, and the proceeds directly benefit the animals housed there.

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