What a productive weekend for us! I wish every weekend were a three day weekend. I feel both like I got a ton done and I still got to relax and rest.

First, Dave and I finished organizing the guest room, downstairs, and our bedroom. I also organized the refrigerator, freezer (indoor and outdoor), and pantry. I even put some pictures up in our room and Dave cleaned the entire house by himself and started making some storage units for our living room.

On Monday, my brother Isaac and his wife Kalee came over. Isaac put together the baby’s swing and stroller for us. My mom and step dad came over along with my grandparents and they all helped me make 40 Crock Pot freezer meals so hopefully I won’t have to cook at all this summer! I can’t believe my due date is in 9 days!!! I still have some closets I want to organize and I have yet to pack my birthing bag…I guess it just hasn’t seemed real until this point. I better get on that.

What our counter looked like after all of the assembly was complete.

A lot of people keep asking me about how I planned and made the freezer meals so I figured I would share some more details. Below are links to the recipes I used. I spent a lot of time planning and searching the web for gluten free recipes (or recipes I could easily make gluten free since Dave has Celiac disease). To make it easier, I found 20 recipes that looked good and made 2 of each one.

Planning, I must say, was the hardest part. After I found the recipes I wanted, I compiled all of the ingredients into a spreadsheet, combined the ones that were the same (multiple recipes called for chicken, onions, broth, etc.), and I doubled everything (since I made two of each meal). I then went shopping in my own kitchen to cross off what we already had so I knew exactly what we needed to buy.  And by me shopping in the kitchen, what I really mean is me sitting on the couch shouting out different foods and spices to Dave who then checked if we had them.  Overall, the list of ingredients we had to buy wasn’t as long as I expected – mainly just meat, veggies, a few spices we don’t use on a daily basis, and a couple of things we had on hand but not enough of. The meat was definitely the most expensive part but we bought all of it frozen from Costco and it wasn’t too bad (especially considering we got 40 meals and some leftovers out of it).

It was a good thing I organized the fridge, freezer, and pantry beforehand because we had a lot of food after our big shopping trip.  The hardest part of my weekend was the grocery shopping. I am so thankful I have David to help me. Walking around Costco at 38 weeks pregnant is no easy task my friend, especially when you have more than normal to buy. We also had to go to Fred Meyer to get some of the ingredients we didn’t need in bulk and by that point I was so exhausted and was having a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions from walking that I opted to use a motorized cart. I felt like such and idiot and couldn’t stop laughing at first and David was all paranoid telling be to stop because he didn’t want us to get kicked out of the store. Anyways…below are the recipes. If you have any questions leave them in the comments!

Chicken Recipes
Butternut Squash and Chicken
Honey Pineapple Chicken
Ranch Chicken
Orange Chicken
Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches
Salsa Chicken
Chicken and Tomatoes
Creamy Italian Chicken
Ugly Chicken Dinner
Lemonade Chicken
Lime Garlic Chicken
Chicken Broccoli Alfredo
BBQ Cranberry Chicken
Honey Bourbon Chicken
Apple Sauce BBQ Chicken

Pork Recipes
Pepsi Pulled Pork (BEST Pulled Pork recipe out there and did not require any prep work so I just bought the ingredients.)
Sweet and Sour Pork
Pineapple Pork

Beef Recipes
Cheese Burger Soup
Ginger Beef

Our freezer full of food!