Meal Planning and our November plans

Whew, it has been a week and half of each of us scattered through various stages of sick; blowing noses, and administering medicine, and giving hot baths, and making soup for everyone in the house (me included) has left me drained...so my apologies for falling off the face of the blogosphere (pity party over).

Meal Planning has been on my mind lately for a few reasons, one of them being we just finished up our month of no-dining-out (100 small things task #74), so I'm taking it as a sign that I need to blog about it again.  I did a post a while back about how I got started if you want to check that out again.

I think there are stages to meal planning:
1. feeling overwhelmed at the thought of planning meals ahead
2. planning meals simply so you aren't scrambling at dinnertime every night
3. planning meals because you see money savings
4. planning meals to save even more money by not just buying meal ingredients but using the things you already have available
5. planning meals because it's the only thing that makes sense

Whatever stage you are at, know that it takes slow steps and consistency to continue on the meal planning journey.  And the most important thing to keep in mind is that YOU have to do YOU.  There is no method that suits everyone.  Meal planning isn't supposed to be another thing to add to your already filled parent plate - meal planning is something that is supposed to be helpful!

Here's how it works for me right now, as a stay at home mum to three little kids.  And after three years of meal planning, I have a stronghold in stage5 of meal planning:

Recipes: About ninety percent of my monthly meal planning recipes comes from pinterest.  The thing about pinterest is you can find anything your heart desires on there.  and lots of times, anything your heart desires is the opposite of helpful.  My kids aren't picky but they prefer certain types of food and many times its food that doesn't include a lot of spice and fanfare.  Simple, yummy, type stuff.  This helps me streamline the kinds of things I'm pinning to my meal boards because I know some things are just not going to fly with family meals.

While planning out the meals, I make sure to comb through the pantry, canned food cupboards, and the deep freezer to do an 'inventory' of things that need used.  In this way, I'm able to save even more money by using food that we have on hand but lots of time, gets pushed to the back of the shelves until they expire.

Shopping:  We do one big shopping trip at the beginning of the month for supplies for the month of meals that are planned.  I keep the running grocery list on a full sheet of paper as soon as I start noticing we need certain items during the month.  Throughout the month though, we obviously need to replenish daily used items (bread, milk, eggs, lettuce) and so we'll have to double up on those things throughout the month.  Otherwise, everything else is purchased at the big shopping trip (we get 90% of our food at ALDI).

Planning:  I only plan for five meals during the weekdays and then with leftovers or dinners at the grandparents houses, we usually can make it through the whole week with no trouble.  I mark down the meals in my planner because it's convenient and kind of my favorite thing.

We are meat-eaters, so I work to spread out various types of meals throughout the week.  Based on meat sales/prices help to determine what we will be eating over the course of the month too.  I try to stretch different types of protein too (beef, pork, poultry, seafood like shrimp and salmon)

I only plan out our main dish and go pretty loose on the side dishes.  We stock up on frozen veggies, those Knorr side dish, and anything else that might seem delicious as we do our big shopping trip to supplement as side dishes on the meal plan day.  We also have salad as an option at every meal because the momma must have salad all the time (we keep dried cranberries and croutons on hand for salad toppings!)  Lunch is for leftovers or throw-togethers (sandwiches/salads/soups,etc) and Breakfast is sometimes quick (waffles, cereal) or a chance to try pinterest yumminess.

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So for the month of November, here is what our month of meal planning looks like:

11/2-6
Monday:  Cheesy Veggie Chowder
Tuesday:  Slow cooker Cream Cheese Taquitos
Wednesday: American Goulash
Thursday: Loaded Chicken & Potato Casserole
Friday: Breakfast for dinner! French Toast & Sausage

11/9-13
Monday: Homemade Pizzas
Tuesday: Please-make-more Crockpot Meatballs
Wednesday: Broccoli & Wild Rice Soup
Thursday: Chicken & Stuffing (with broccoli)
Friday: Shredded Deer Meat

11/16-20
Monday: Ranch Porkchops
Tuesday: Tater Tot Enchilada Bake
Wednesday: Slow cooker Chicken & Gravy
Thursday: Crispy Shrimp Pasta Alfredo
Friday: 'fancy' hot dogs

11/23-27
Monday: Open-face layered tostados
Tuesday: Crockpot french onion dip subs
Wednesday: Veggie loaded Fried Rice
Thursday: TURKEY
Friday: Leftover Turkey Burritos

11/30
Monday: Turkey Pot Pie

What stage of meal planning are you at?  Do you have any family favorite recipes to share?
xxox

Week in the Life: Saturday

photos taken: 67

We woke up slowly on Saturday morning with each kid finally making their way to the king size bed where the moms were gathered talking and laughing since 7am.  Once everyone was up and ready to rock and roll, we headed downstairs for a delicious feast of a breakfast while the kids put together some donut spiders (thank pinterest!) 

The kids gobbled down their breakfast and wasted no time in getting to their playing while the Mums hung out in the pajamas for as long as possible sipping coffee, chatting, and playing with the three littlest kids.  We all got in some pumpkin cookie decorating, and visiting with Nana (Kate's mum) before finally getting ready for the day and packing up some picnic lunch for our afternoon activity. 

We made our way toward Weakland farms where we let the three littlest ones finish their nap while the big ones and the Mums snacked on our picnic lunch on the trunks of the cars.  Grey sporting those glasses and messy hair like a bonafied Ferris Bueller look-a-like (!)

After the little ones began to stir from their naps, we spent the better part of a chilly afternoon petting the farm animals, navigating the corn maze, and getting corn kernels into all of our nooks and crannies (hah).  The big kids led the way through the corn maze and then all of them had a blast in the corn kernel pit digging, throwing, and sinking (!) among all the other kids in there.  It was mayhem, but joyful kid mayhem at its best.

We said our goodbyes (until Sunday at least for the kids!) and then went our separate ways for the rest of the evening.  At home, I was able to successfully transfer the two sleeping big kids from the car to the couch without either of them waking up (worn down especially from their sleepover the night before), but the littlest gremlin was not having any more nap.  So I went upstairs to toss her in the bath and jump in the shower myself while she chugged down a bottle.  Then it was dinner prep and waking up the big kids to throw their little corn filled butts into the shower each too.  

I had just got them finished up with dinner while Brandon and his Dad arrived home from hunting that afternoon.  While the kids settled down in front a movie and the baby went down to sleep for the night, I hurriedly finished a blog post and then it was out the door to meet up for dinner with Katie and Karpy! 

I headed out in the rain towards our half-way meeting point; Pour on Center in Ebensburg for dinner and drinks together.  Pizza with argula and fried artichoke hearts:  a real life grown up dinner with food that's delicious and fancy.  We sat at the table and enjoyed some live music and talked about anything that our conversation naturally landed on for topics.  It was such a wonderful evening with my two favorite girls.

After a drawn-out goodbye and plans finalized for Sunday, they headed east while I headed west and stopped off at Giant Eagle to pick up party snacks that I promised to purchase for the upcoming Halloween class party in Greyson's class and milk.  Giant Eagle at 11pm at night is blissful; not kids, only a few other customers, no lines.  Is this my new shopping time?  Haha!  By the time I got home, a little before midnight, everyone but Bullet was snoozing and I headed up to bed myself to read a little before drifting off to sleep.

photo series debrief:  whew!  that was intense, so intense in fact that looking at my life so closely through the lens of the camera really got me cherishing all the beautiful, chaotic, and simple minutiae of my life.  By the end of the week, I was really struggling to grab my camera to take the photo instead of just soaking up all the moments.  Not that I don't normally soak it up, but the extreme focus on capturing it all really brought to life all the beauty in our life that sometimes goes uncelebrated because of everything else that goes on and needs done.  

I feel grateful that I have filled my photo album with a lot of ordinary moments of our life right now too.  They will serve well in our family yearbook next year to preserve what it was like to live our life as it is right now in the moment.  For that, I'm very grateful to have participated in the series. 

I've been struggling with writing a blog post since the series (I miss two days in Blogtober!) and that's because I've really been keeping it close to our family and what we have going on.  I've been limiting social media and really focusing in on our family and our house. It's been kind of chilly and rainy and B is on vacation and nothing else really seems more important than cozying up with our little family and laughing at each other's jokes.  Brandon's response to my sad declaration that I didn't meet my goal on blogging every day for 30 days said, "So you blogged for 27 days in a row instead? that's not so bad, babe."   I'm gonna have to agree with him on that one :) 

Sunday night gratitude

you guys, so I'm down to twenty minutes before this whole day is over and it's been a long, busy one.  A great one, but long and busy and maybe i'll get to my Saturday week in the life photo series make-up tomorrow, or maybe not.  and we just watched the walking dead (!!!!!) and I'm feeling a tad emotionally drained (hah, but not kidding), and also I'm ready for bed.

So let me just say this, after a great weekend with my two best friends and all of our kids playing, laughing, tattle-telling, arguing, make-believing, giggling, whining, sharing, and loving each other...

I hope with the deepest heart hope, that my kids will grow up and come to know friends like the friends that I have in Katie and Karpy.

I am so grateful for our friendship and for you in my life.
love forevs.
and evs.