Meal Planning

Let's talk meal planning for a moment. This has been the bane of my existence for quite some time! What's for dinner? What's for breakfast? Do we have any XXX?

You see, I love love love to cook and bake. I love to try new recipes. I love almost all foods, I am not a picky eater at all. My husband on the other hand thinks fish shaped like a log in a box is "real" fish and that hamburger is the greatest meat on earth! Now add 2 little boys into this mix. One who thinks chicken nuggets/strips are the bomb diggety end all be all food, and a wee one, who at 18 months, still has trouble chewing so we are still on soft foods.

I would sometimes get so frustrated with my menu planning that I would just give up...until...... I discovered a recipe/food/meal planning binder a few years ago along with freezer cooking. Helloooooooo, where have you been all of my life? I have always been frugal when it comes to shopping, I would carefully plan each trip, write down all sales items and go through my coupons like a mad woman (more on my coupon binder later). Then I discovered freezer cooking! I also discovered that I had recipes EVERYWHERE! What a mess!

I decided to get my recipes/meal planning more organized! I can tell you this has helped me tremendously! No more wondering what's in the freezer, no more guessing what's for dinner. No more, ooops I don't have that spice to go with that chicken.

Just like with your home binder, just grab any binder you have laying around the house! I happen to use a leather one from a job I was once employed at, it has nothing to do with cooking or meal planning, but it is large enough that I won't need to upgrade anytime soon! Don't forget to grab those dividers! I have several categories in my binder so I used about 2 pkgs of dividers.

I make room for my:
Monthly planning sheet
Weekly planning sheet
Food Categories
Freezer/Pantry
Shopping Lists

First tab:
This is for my monthly planning sheet. I sit down and decide on all meals for the month ahead and write them on my calendar. Now this doesn't mean things won't get moved around or scratched off the list at any given time, but it gives me an idea on what we can have for meals and what I need to look for when it comes to shopping. You can get a copy of my monthly planner here.

Second tab:
Is my weekly menu planning sheet. Most of the time I take this directly from my monthly sheet with no changes. However; things happen so I always use the weekly sheet to make any changes on, plus I can put this on the fridge and no one asks me "hey, what's for dinner?" as they can read the menu themselves. No sadly, this still does not stop that infuriating question :) Grab a copy of my weekly menu planning sheet here.

Then I have my food category tabs. Lots of tabs here! Here is a list of the tabs I have in my binder. You will want to set your binder up with what works best for you. You may not like to freezer cook or don't even own a crock pot (to which I say why not??).  The first sheet in each section is a sheet for my favorite recipes in that category. I keep a list by name, cookbook/source, the page number, and any comments I want to leave for myself. This is so much easier than combing through the mass of cookbooks/magazines I have looking for that great Monterey Chicken recipe! You can find it here.

After these tabs I have my freezer inventory, my pantry inventory and my shopping list.

Having everything together really helps in the meal planning process. With the monthly plan, I can just write down our favorite dishes and plan my weekly menus based on that. And with freezer cooking, I never have to worry about not having something for dinner. Grab a binder and get started, you will thank me later!

Next post will be all about freezer cooking!

Until next post, have a wonderfully blessed day!

Shelly

Sunday is our slow, relax day

I normally try to leave Sunday as our day of relaxation. The day to wind down and prepare for the next hectic week. I get my menu and grocery list together for the next week. Get all of my planning sheets filled out with the information that I have and try to tackle some task in the house, normally laundry, how does multiply so fast? I swear it breeds like rabbits!

Today, I'm cleaning out the purse along with the 52 week declutter challenge. 52 Weeks to an organized home. Join the challenge!

Today's dinner is going to be pizza pockets so I can get the whole family in on the preparation and what we don't eat or bake will go into the freezer for a later meal. I love freezer cooking and will post some of my favorite recipes for the freezer in upcoming posts!

I hope you have a wonderfully blessed Sunday, this day is for you!


Shelly

Organization

Yeah funny title I know. I am probably the most organized, disorganized person you will ever meet!

I am a list person. I have lists for EVERYTHING! Literally, everything! I discovered a new way for organization a few years ago and I have been pleasantly surprised how easy it is to keep up with and how much it has changed my life! What is it? BINDERS!!

Everything to do with our home, family, medical history, travel, moving, schedules, the list goes on and on, is now in a binder of some sort! It really is a great way to get organized, stay organized and keep on top of all things that is life!

Let's be honest here, life is crazy. School, jobs, family, sports, shopping....with so much going on, it's no wonder we are all stressed out. I've taken it upon myself to lessen our stress levels with the use of binders. If you search home management binders a plethora of websites and blogs will come up. There is no shortage of information on this topic! It's so abundant because it works.

I'll start with my home management binder.

I just grabbed an extra binder I had lying around and began with printables I found online. Then I learned how to make my own (and I am having the time of my life with this, more about that later).

I added a cover to the binder so it would look pretty and so anyone who needs any information from this knows which is our Household binder.

 You can download your own copy of this here!

Then I added some very pretty dividers with tabs.

I have tabs for:

Monthly Planning

Weekly Planning

Daily Planning

Our Family

Contacts

Cleaning

Daily Cleaning

Deep Monthly Cleaning

Monthly planning tab:

I keep a monthly calendar here and I have our schedule on it. There are too many things going on for me to try to remember!  I coordinate all of our calendars from this main calendar. You can download your own blank calendar here.

Weekly planning tab:

This is where I can see our week in advance. Things change from week to week, day to day, so to keep even more organized, I print out weekly planning sheets that others in the family can view as I tack them to my cork board. Print out a weekly planning sheet here.

Daily planning tab:

Yep you guessed it, it's all about each day. I have a sheet for each day of the month in my planner. I sit the night before and take a look at my weekly planning sheets to see whats on the agenda. I have a space for to contact, to buy, and to do also on this sheet. There is also a mini task calendar so I can keep track of any appointments or schedules for that particular day. Download the daily planner sheet here.

My next tab is Our Family. 

Here I have basic information on our household with member information, notes on each family member, and some page protectors to hold any paperwork that is absolutely needed for each family member. I have created sheets that are specific to our home, and you can download them. These printables are for a family of 4 in pdf format. I also have them saved as word documents and you can add to the files as is necessary for your family. If interested in the word document version, please email me, I'd be happy to send you a copy! Download the family information sheet here. Download the family notes sheet here.

**UPDATE** The next tab is a contacts tab for household accounts. I don't do a family/friends contact sheet as I have everyone's info either saved on my phone or on Facebook. This contacts sheet is more for utility companies, so the hubs can find the cable number quickly if the cable goes out ;) You can pick up a copy of the household contact sheet here.

I then have my cleaning tabs. 

I like to deep clean in sections of my home and not all at once. I honestly do not have the time for an all at once deep clean! I do have a daily cleaning list, which keeps things tidy.

You can download the daily cleaning printable here.

Here are my monthly cleaning sheets.
First week of the month: entrance and dining room.
Second week of the month: kitchen.
Third week of the month: bathrooms and kids rooms.
Fourth week of the month: master bedroom and office.

I learned a lot of what I know from some great websites online. My absolute favorite can be found here:  Learn household management skills and techniques
Lots of lists and a yearlong declutter/cleaning challenge schedule!  

I have many more binders to share :) And printables coming for those also. I'm working on making other printables to match different seasons and even holidays!

So that's one part of my organization, I hope it's helped you a little bit if you are stressing with how to get everything in your home together!

Have a very blessed day!

Shelly

Our life

This is our life in a nutshell.

We are grandparents :) Love love love the grandbabies! We received legal temporary custody of our 2 beautiful lil boys on Feb. 11, 2014. Life has never been the same, and we wouldn't want the old life back for anything in the world!

We have tried to create a family and home life that is fun, stable, loving, caring and full of adventure since our boys came to live with us. Things get crazy, schedules are quite full and there seems to be no time to slow down, but we are living life to the fullest!

Our boys are our world. Life is all about them! We don't know when this journey will end or where we will end up, but while we are on this ride, we intend to make the most of it!

Changing things up

So I thought it was time to change things up here :)

I love to blog! I love to keep a diary of things going on in our lives and this is going to be our personal space. We are a family, and I am no longer afraid to show that!

Lots of fun coming soon! Stay tuned!