Now questions on dinner...

So I probably should have this figured out already, but I wanted to get some feedback about meal preparation. As I've said earlier, Tim makes most of our dinners because 1) he's a really good cook, and 2)I'm a really lousy cook and I just don't like cooking much. But it's not fair that he has to work hard all day, then come home and make dinner, then give Kaylin her bath and get her ready for bed, with no break until like 8pm. So, I know I need to step up and start doing my wifely duties (okay, just kidding, but you know what I mean). But really, I want Tim to be able to rest a bit and have dinner made when he gets home so he can have more playtime with Kaylin and we can have more time together to just be together.

I don't have a lot of experience planning and cooking meals (It didn't help that growing up wasn't much different--my mom didn't cook much, we usually had the same meals over and over--or frozen food, so I didn't learn much in the cooking department). One of my frustrations is that I never plan ahead, and usually start thinking about it only about an hour before Tim gets home. Because I don't plan ahead, we usually don't have much on hand and because I don't have a lot of experience anyway, I scramble around trying to come up with something. I've tried before to plan out meals a week at a time, then go to the store and shop for it all, but it always ends up being so expensive and I never know for sure what we're going to do for the week and a lot of the food ends up going bad and is wasted. Kaylin's allergies is an added complication and most of the time we have to prepare two meals, which is tough too.

It seems like it shouldn't be as complicated or stressful as I feel like it sometimes can be, women (and men) cook everyday, and seem to have plenty of variety in their meals.

So what do you guys do? Do you plan out meals a week at a time, or a few days, then go shopping? Or is it a day-to-day thing? (Like me?) What do you find helpful--using cookbooks, the internet, etc. What does your planning look like and could you give any tips? And how do you keep your children (if you have any) occupied so that you can cook? (I know, probably another blog topic altogether.) When I'm attempting to cook, Kaylin's either eating her meal (by herself, which I don't like) or wandering around "exploring" as she likes to do so much.

Sorry for the long post, but I'd love to hear how everyone else handles this part of their lives. It's too bad that something that seems so unimportant, (but I know it isn't) can be stressful and cause for dissatisfaction. Hope this all makes sense!

Questions on fabric

For all you crafty types and quilters out there, I need your help. I am about to embark on a craft project and need a lot of small pieces of different types of fabric. I've never been into quilting so I don't have too much experience buying fabric and was wondering if I can buy scraps of fabric or if most stores only sell by the yard? I don't want or need that much fabric for this project; I guess I could just visit some stores, but I thought I'd get some tips here first. Thanks for your help.

Teeth??

Just a little update on Kaylin's teeth: they're still not here! I can see one that has already poked through the gum a tiny bit (but it really hasn't come up much more than when I first saw it), and the second is still under the gums. I first noticed the teeth over a week ago, and was hoping that they would have come all the way up already. I think I need to be a bit more patient! Guess they might take as long to come all the way up and out of the gums as they did to actually first appear under them!

For those of you who didn't know, Kaylin is almost 14 months and completely toothless! I'm excited to say, however, that today I noticed two little "buds" under her bottom gums. She's finally getting her first teeth! We are so excited that she will be able to chew better so that we don't always worry that she's going to choke. And we don't have to worry that there are any developmental issues, which means no xrays! I have no experience with this so I don't know how long it will take before the teeth come all the way up. I hope soon. And I guess this explains the sleep issues at night, the extra fussiness during the day, and all the extra nursing--but regardless I'm just thankful that her teeth are finally making their appearance! (Pictures to follow...when those teeth come all the way up.)

Happy 4th of July! (Belated)

Breakfast!
I'm all ready for the fourth!
I love playing with my grandma's necklaces! (And they look so good on me too!)
My Aunt Dani croched this very cute Fourth of July top for me!

Look!
Okay maybe I didn't like that very much!

More pictures of Kaylin

Crawling through a tunnel at Fairytale Town in Sac.
She likes putting on our sunglasses. We looked through the rearview mirror and this is what we saw--she had put on my old sunglasses and had fallen asleep with them on.
My sister Karen is in town for the summer, and here we're on the train at Nut Tree in Vacaville.
It's hard to get Kaylin to smile in pictures now-a-days, but all I had to say here was, "Kaylin, itsy bitsy spider..."

Kaylin absolutely loves water!
Relaxing after dinner.

Any recommendations for books?

I want to find a good book on raising children in a Christian home, and I've seen a few on some other blogs (Kate, Brianna). How do you like the books you're reading and would you recommend them? Maybe you're not finished with them yet, or have some others you could recommend too. I'd appreciate any leads. As a side note, my computer is acting weird when I try to leave a comment on some of your blogs (maybe all of them?). It gets stuck and freezes so I can't leave any comments. So I think for the time being I may have to leave comments on my blog.

Kate--I wanted to ask you if you're teaching Charlotte baby signs? The original Baby Signs program was started at UC Davis, so everyone is very big into it here. There's classes and playgroups (the classes are a bit too expensive, so we haven't attended any, and you can't attend the playgroups unless you go to the classes). We've just been doing a few signs here and there with Kaylin (I ordered a book--starter kit--from Amazon), and she seems to be picking them up now really well. (She didn't seem to start doing any until about eleven months.) So congrats that Charlotte is doing them at so young an age! Anyway, just wanted to comment about that, and thanks for sharing the video--very cute!