We bought a cow. Well, part of a cow. We split half a cow with some friends so we ended up with one-sixth of a cow. Well, one-sixth of a cow post-chopping up, so it’s not like I have a whole bunch of hooves in my downstairs freezer (although we did send my friend Erin home with a rather large bag of bones). The cow came from a very nice small family farm in rural Pennsylvania where she ate grass and wandered around fields and lived as happy of a cow life as she possibly could have until she came to live in my stomach instead.

I have very high hopes for my cow, although I’m sort of nervous to DO anything with the meat. Is it a crime to put stuff on it? Should I just barely cook the steaks and eat them straight up? Also, I’m going to need some ground beef recipes besides taco salad and spaghetti with meat sauce (although I’m pretty sure E would be fine with 30 nights of taco salad).

Since my freezer is huge, this doesn’t look like an overwhelming amount of food but it is…a lot of meat. Really, I could use ANY recipe for beef, since I’ve never cooked/heard of some of these cuts before. It turns out when you’re getting a large part of a cow you get stuff like “farmer’s steak” which Google isn’t really helping me with although it looks sort of like a london broil? I’m just scared to ruin what should be REALLY GOOD FOOD.

I’ll let you know in 6 months when we eat it all if I think this was a good $400 investment, but I’m pretty sure the answer is already YES.

I have instituted a no-falling-behind-in-the-housework rule for myself over the past week, therefore I have no energy left for the words.

Sunday:

Please notice the nice healthy cheese snack and ignore the cookies.

Dual couch nap! On a Sunday! Nirvana!

You know that commercial about doing two things at once? This is Evan’s version.

Monday:

Macaroni necklace making

Caroline is fake-napping because she is fake-sick so Evan is fake-doctoring her

Hey, you’re not allowed to sit like that. Stop. Immediately. Stop.

Tuesday:

I sleep in a drawer!

Gym warm up

We stopped at the boat store so I could talk to the boat guy & I found them “fishing”

Wednesday:

Spider walks

Practicing her beam/dunking skillz

I made a lot of dip this week

Thursday:

This is how I get to stay in bed an extra 30 minutes

Waking up to this instead of the dishes from last night is nice

Trying to climb onto the cutting table at the fabric store

Friday:

I can tell she’s my kid because she loves Home Depot

ATTACK OF THE GIANT CAROLINE

I got to eat about 30% of this – Caroline ate the rest

Saturday:

An ominous start to a road trip

Caroline’s favorite toy everrrrrrr

Tiny slumber party

That was exhausting. Only EVERY OTHER WEEK OF MY LIFE left to go!

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

Apologies for that title, I couldn’t help myself. Our friend Amelia turned four last week and her mom scheduled a party at Mystic Aquarium to celebrate. It turns out letting someone else do alllll the party work is kind of amazing. Especially when they also provide pizza and cake and live horseshoe crabs for the kids to play with. There was also a puppet show. Basically, I’m one thousand percent impressed and questioning everything about my current children’s-birthday-status-quo. You just set up the whole thing over the internet and someone else cleans up. 

A small fraction of the bazillion photos:

Our week started and ended with the same friends, although as of today they’re off to Guam and my children are left saying “Guam Guam Guam is faaaaaar away! Guam Guam Guam!” Guam is a funny word.

Sunday:

Guest room bed bouncing

Good girl waiting for the service to start

That’s a waterproof, impact resistant camera. I’m not a crazy person.

Monday:

Ginger photobomb

She’s making snow angels. Don’t tell her it’s not working.

Evan asks me to take this picture every night.

Tuesday:

I asked her to stay in the stroller. This was her compromise.

Being a product reviewer for 5 Minutes for Mom has its perks.

Who let the cat in the bag?

Wednesday:

Weekly allowance of Daddy

She’s rocking those glasses

Jellyfish love

Thursday:

I have a stick! In the house! This will end badly!

Guilty face

Apparently I was not the only one who didn’t feel like making dinner on Thursday

Friday:

Trapped behind a metal cage of emotion

TIME MACHINE PHOTO FROM 10 YEARS IN MY FUTURE

Toddler mono-kini = dead of cute.

Saturday:

15 minute cream cheese cinnamon rolls. 15 minutes to make them, I mean. 15 seconds to eat them.

Do I have something on my face?

Two cat pictures in one week?! Crazy cat lady alert!

 We’re going into week 2 of E’s crazy work schedule and so far I’m doing pretty well. The major reason I’m not freaking out is a spot opened up at Evan’s school for Caroline, so as long as I can get the immunization record from the doctor on Monday afternoon she starts school on Tuesday morning! My plan is to burn rubber out of the parking lot cackling maniacally and head for the gym on base, where I get 2 full child-free hours to take a class or restart C25K on a treadmill or just screw around on the elliptical trainer. Preschool isn’t cheap, but neither is a mental breakdown.

Also, I’m finishing up a few giveaway posts I’ve got in my queue, so if you like free stuff this will be a good month to be a blog reader. If you don’t like free stuff, come back on Wednesdays for nothing but cute ginger pictures.

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!