Oh The Things That Are Going On

 Prom.

End of the school year activities.

Graduation.

Travel Baseball.

Car Crash (everyone was OK).

Broken Washer (TWICE!!)

Picking up oldest from college (8 hours round trip)

College Orientation with the Middle (stayed in the dorm.  Ate in the dining hall.  12 hours of meetings.  I was EXHAUSTED)

Y'all.  It's been a wild ride.  Good, but busy.  I have photos.  But I need to download them.  

Up next.  Grad Party.  I feel very detached from this.  I should be panicked.  I don't even care right now.  It's going to hit me.  And it won't be good.  

Pray for me.  It's just so busy.  

A Whirlwind of a Summer

 Summer is not over!  But as of today, the high schooler returned for his senior year.  The 3rd grader goes back Wednesday.  And we return the college sophomore to his university on Saturday.  Even though summer is still with us, it seems to be behind us.  

It was a really good summer.  Baseball dominated the first part of summer.  From May (actually April) until early July, our days were full of baseball.  The season went ok.  The team he was on was full of really great kids.  But they all go to another school, and some of his school friends play on another team and he really wanted to play with them.  He tried out for the new team and made it.  So next year he'll be on a totally new team and he'll miss his teammates from his old team, but he's really happy to be with his school friends.

The older boys both worked at a grocery store this summer.  At first it was really busy and they worked a lot of hours, but as summer went on, customers weren't coming in as much and the available stock became less due to supply chain issues, so things became slow and hours were cut.  They weren't happy about losing money, but it did give them more free time.

We went on vacation.  To our usual South Carolina spot.  It was a really great week.  We all love it there so much.  We fished, swam, sunned, and just spent quality time together.  I wish we could do that more than just once a year.

It's been a rainy summer here in Ohio.  My flowers and garden are water logged.  My lettuce did well, as did the hot peppers, jalapenos, and green beans.  I got NO garlic (I don't know what I did wrong), and my peas, carrots, radish, green peppers, and cabbage did "meh".  Tomatoes and zucchini are coming in now so we'll see how those go.

We spent some time at the swim club this summer (I call it the lake).  It's really nice there and I'm glad we joined.  I'd like to keep going on the weekends until they close, but weekends are filling up fast.  

I went on a few college tours with the senior.  He's narrowing things down and we'll see how things go.  He seems a little disengaged in the whole process, but we'll see.  Maybe that's just how he's appearing on the outside.  I know he'll end up in the correct place for him.  God always put us where we should be.

So that's my update.  I'm sure I forgot some things.  But these are the big ones.

Freezer Meals for Busy Baseball Moms

 Like I said in my previous post, baseball season makes it really hard to plan meals when things are a moving target.  Once practices are done and they are only playing games, it should get a bit easier.  But until then, I really needed to up my meal planning game.  It took me from 11 am until 2 pm yesterday, but I was able to get several meal options in the freezer. 

The first thing I did was to make two 2 pound batches of venison taco meat.  My guys could eat tacos every day so this one was a no brainer.  I browned up the ground venison, added taco seasoning and once it was cooled, I divided it up between to freezer bags.

The next item up was to make hamburger patties to freeze individually.  The grocery store had ground beef and ground turkey on sale (not a fabulous sale but a sale nonetheless). So I bought 6 pounds of ground beef (80/20) and some lean ground turkey.  I managed to get 36 beef burger patties and 4 turkey burger patties (should have been 8 patties but one of my packages of turkey smelled TERRIBLE so I tossed it).  I froze the burgers on a sheet pan with a layer of wax paper between them.  Once frozen, I put them in freezer bags.

 

 Next up was two servings of  Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef and two servings of Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

So all together, that should give me 12-14 meals that I can pull out and use in a hurry.

I also had some bananas going bad, so I decided to make some THM Chocolate Banana Muffins for the Hubby and the Little Guy to have for breakfast this week.

There are many great recipes on Pinterest for freezer cooking.  I happen to be partial to Jamerill Stewart at Large Family Table and even though my family isn't as large as hers, I can modify portion sizes to fit our family of five.

I wanted to make this Keto Meatball Recipe but ran out of meat and time.

I have made this Twice Baked Potato freezer side dish in the past and they are fantastic.  I hope to be able to make them again some time after the Easter holiday.  

Do you have any favorite freezer meal recipes that you use?  Leave a comment below and let me know.  I'm always looking for new ideas.