Phone Picture Catch Up

My reading post had phone pictures in it, and I found some others on there that showed some of the things we've been up to the past couple of weeks. It's felt really busy and hectic lately, and Friday afternoon I was having contractions every 2 minutes that had been almost constant for two days - my doctor said he was giving me ONE CHANCE to go home and take it easy, and if I came back contracting like that, he was putting me on bed rest. Yikes! I'm only 21 weeks, so we are going to work hard on taking it easy for the rest of the summer.

For the past weeks, the girls have had swim lessons every day at the end of the day (when it's 300 degrees outside!)

They got their certificates

but honestly, they didn't learn anything. They didn't learn anything last year either, so I am DONE with these expensive group lessons. I know they are so close to learning, they just need a good teacher and some one-on-one attention, so we're looking at private lessons now.

But they've had fun just going to play in the baby pool - they could go down this slide a thousand times, if I weren't dying in the heat and let them

It's been miserably hot for weeks already. So last weekend I needed the kids to run around and play INSIDE, without trashing our house. So I met a friend and her kids at the Wonder Place, a fun indoor playground.

I did make good use of my crock pot those days that we had swim lessons. The lessons were from 5:00 to 5:30, so it was 6:00 when we got home - dinnertime! And they were starving. So it was great to have dinner all ready for us when we walked in the door. Two of my staples are crock pot ravioli and lentil and barley soup.

Crock Pot Ravioli

1 bag frozen ravioli
1 jar pasta sauce (we prefer Prego Traditional)
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup water
shredded mozzarella cheese

Pour half of pasta sauce in crock pot, then add ravioli, remainder of pasta sauce, tomato sauce, and water. Cover with mozzarella cheese. Cook on low 4 to 5 hours.

Crock Pot Lentil and Barley Soup

1 cup lentils, rinsed

1/3 cup pearl barley

1 cup chopped carrot

1 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

3 1/2 cups vegetable broth

2 1/2 cups water

14 1/4 ounce can stewed tomatoes

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Add all ingredients except vinegar to crock pot and stir. Cook on low for 12 hours or on high for 6 hours. Discard bay leaf and stir in vinegar.

Because bed rest is staring me down and will come sooner or later (hopefully later!) I am making meals this week that I can double and freeze for when I can't cook. I'll share those recipes soon, because it's a great way to get two meals while only doing the work once, and in my case will help us continue to eat healthy, homemade meals when I can no longer cook (or don't want to, like when Wyatt is in the NICU).