Happy first week of summer, friends! It sure feels like summer around here to us - it's currently 90 degrees! Can you believe it? I would love to be out in it, but my allergies are preventing me at present. Basically if I go outside right now, I die. I know, sad. Thank goodness for AC, though! Keepin' us comfy inside.

Real quick, before I launch into this week's menu, my friend Phylicia Masonheimer (many might know who she is if you follow her on Instagram or listen to her podcast Verity) is launching her pop-up shop this week...and it starts Friday! Some of the things she's selling are the fan fave "theologian" t-shirt and one of the new items happens to be a custom "theologian" coffee blend by Tag coffee. I've been drinking it the last few days and it is really good. Josh drinks his coffee black and he really appreciated the lack of bitterness. Make sure you guys take a look on Friday and grab a few things!

Okay, onto this week's menu. Here're some recipe ideas for you this week!

I'm sitting here in our living room right now. It's past 5pm and I'm watching all of the birds come to the feeders for what I assume is their last big meal before they begin to hunker down for the evening. We have a tree in the far corner of our yard, and I just watched a woodpecker climb up the tree so it could get to the suet feeder that's hanging from a branch, and it occurred to me while I was watching that woodpeckers climb trees in a very odd way. They remind me of watching a kid trying to figure out how to climb a rope ladder for the first time. The bird has to sink it's beak into the tree before it can bring it's legs up. I know that's super random, but I just found it to be very interesting.

Bird watching was never really something I spent too much time doing until we had a rental house years and years ago. Suddenly we had trees to hang feeders on and our whole family kind of fell in love with the pastime.

That was quite the random train of thought I just shared...but, in a way...that woodpecker was meal-planning. How's that for a transition?

Here's what's cooking this week!

I hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day, friends! This is such an important day for our country, memorializing all of our fallen heroes. Both of my grandfathers served in past wars, as well as Josh's own grandfather who passed just two years ago. Though thankfully none of them had to offer the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield, I'm so grateful for their legacy of service, and even more so for those who gave all for our freedom.

Memorial Day in my mind always marks the unofficial kickoff to the summer grilling season. We actually grilled ribs last night - Josh had them on the Traeger for about six hours yesterday afternoon, and they turned out pretty darn amazing.

Here's what's cooking for the rest of the week:

Hello friends! It's good to be back after being gone for a few weeks. After Grace's birthday week + heading out to the beach for a few days, my menu planning was out the window. So it's definitely good to be back and in the swing of things again.

Menu planning tip: when I sit down and begin working on my menu, one of the things I look at is the weather for the week. The weather has the power to influence my menu a lot. Do I want comfort food? Will it rain or be dry? Hot enough out that a big salad will work for the family or cold and we want soup...? See what I mean?

This week's menu was definitely influenced by this week's weather. We're having a bit of everything. Rain, cloudy days, sun, and a high of 70 degree temps.

Here's what we're making this week:

Hey guys - we're back! We had some things going on that we needed to tend to as a family, and even took a quick trip to Sunriver (aka our favorite place on earth), to unplug a bit...and it was so good for us.

But now, we're back, and in time for Cinco de Mayo! YAY! This may be my favorite holiday! Make sure you check out our insanely huge long list of Mexican-style Recipes that you can make for Cinco de Mayo on Wednesday.

Speaking of Cinco de Mayo...can anyone else believe that we made it to May??? Weren't we all just experiencing the big freeze of 2021 in February?

Enough with that, here's what's on the menu this week!

Hello friends, how was your weekend? Josh and I just got done cleaning one of our rugs and the hallway because one of our kids left a blue crayon on the floor and our robot vacuum found it and drug it over our laminate and our rug in the office - so essentially something that is supposed to help clean up messes actually made more work for us. That's what I call a robot fail, lol! No worries though, it all came up really easily and only took us about 10 minutes to clean up. If your robot vacuum drawing on the floor with a crayon isn't a first world problem, I don't know what is.

On Saturday, we celebrated one of my sister's birthdays. She turned 30 on Friday and we threw her a small 90's-inspired Friends-themed birthday party! It was so fun! We had certain foods that were in the tv series for dinner like, lasagna, Tollhouse cookies, cheesecake, and I made the English Trifle (without the meat!). I didn't really know what an English Trifle was until I googled it - apparently they are a very popular dessert and I can see why! It is so easy! I used this recipe from The Recipe Critic but subbed out the strawberries for blackberries and left off the nuts. It was very good and so so simple!

Here's what's cooking this week: