How was everyone's long holiday weekend? Did you get the day off or not? Because Josh works for a bank, he almost always gets the holidays off (like my dad did at the post office), which is nice, and we just spent the day getting a few things done around the house like cleaning out the fridge, putting together a bookcase, washing sheets...buying books...

To be honest, I struggled with the weekly menu this week. I just couldn't come up with anything, which is why I deep cleaned the fridge. I really needed to see what I had to form a proper menu this week. Sometimes it's that easy or simple. You take a few extra minutes in the short-term to make something a little bit easier in the end. I was able to make my menu after that and bonus - it all sounds good!

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Hey, friends - Happy Valentine's Day Week! I hope you all had a nice weekend. Since some of us are still under the weather over here, we just took the weekend easy. Didn't really go anywhere. Just stayed home and read and rested and got a few chores done.

How many of you are going out for a nice Valentine's Day dinner Tuesday night? Josh and I usually (not always, but usually) wait to celebrate our Valentine's Day dinner a little later (to avoid all the crazy), and this week is no exception since he is not feeling well right now. I do, however, always make a "fancy" dinner for the whole family at home, though. I like being with my kids on Valentines. I think it's nice.

Here's what we're cooking this week:

Thanks for bearing with us last week as we had just gotten back from a short trip to Washington and hadn't had time to put up a weekly menu. If you read my January newsletter, you probably got a good idea of how short the trip was. We're home now, though, and so is the weekly menu!

Just so you know, we've got a new recipe coming to you this week (yay) and I'll be working on reshooting a few older recipes on the blog that WE LOVE!

Here's what's cooking this week:

I hope you all had a nice weekend. We're headed out of town this coming weekend to celebrate a wedding - I'm a little excited because I'm going to get to visit Leavenworth, WA on the way back, which has been on my bucket list of places to visit for years. I'll be sharing pictures next week online, I'm sure, as well as on our newsletter!

That's right, you're hearing it here first! We're going to do a monthly newsletter, sending it only to email subscribers. We'll be sharing kind of an update of the things our family is enjoying and doing, recommendations and reviews, books we're reading, that sort of thing. Stay tuned for that at the end of the month. And subscribe to our email list, if you don't already!

Here's this week's menu! I think this week has a nice variety of options for you to choose from and none of them call for expensive ingredients - although, let's be real: All grocery items are expensive right now. Don't even talk to me about the price of eggs.

Happy 2023, friends, as well as Martin Luther King Jr Day today! I hope you all have been enjoying your new year thus far. I know we took quite an extended break. It's been a busy few weeks for us with flying to California for Josh's grandfather's memorial service (also, Cub's first flight - he did very well!). We've had some family in town and we've been trying to spend time with them before they leave, Grace going back to school, and just trying to settle back into life.

It is always an adjustment after any kind of break!

I'm going to jump right into the menu for the week. I hope you're hungry!

If you're new here or it has been awhile let's do a quick refresh on what a typical menu here at Catz looks like. I suggest seven dinner recipes to help plan out your week along with one dessert and one breakfast recipe - that I recommend usually for your weekends. Some of these recipes are inspired by what I'm cooking for our family; other times, they are recipes that have actually made it to my own personal menu for the week. Either way, I always try and provide a variety of recipes that will help you plan out meals for your family and invite you to sit around the dinner table instead of the couch or just grabbing fast food.

Of course, we all live in something called "real life" and sometimes we just really want to sit in front of the tv or maybe it is more convenient to grab dinner on the way home from one of your kid's sports practices. That's okay, and we certainly do it, too! The whole idea around the menu is to help you create some moments in your week when you all have a designated time to sit around the table and find out about each other's days. It is something my mom always worked hard at doing as I was growing up - I always enjoyed that time and want to create that for my family as well.