Meal Planning

Once upon a time, I was really good at meal planning.  I had my handy binder full of our favorite recipes, a stocked pantry, an iron-clad budget, and a well thought out grocery list.  I shopped once a week and everything was beautifully streamlined.

Yeah.  I fell off that bandwagon quite a while ago.  But recently, I have started to realize how lack of meal planning can cause stress and some serious over spending.  I have been trying hard to get back into the game.  I also know that with our super busy schedule this semester, I am going to be very dependent on my crock pot.

The other day I ordered the cookbook Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook.  I also downloaded some cute meal planning charts from www.theprojectgirl.com  Although, since then I have seen a deal from Mamasource to get super cute meal planning (and other planning!) note pads for a fraction of the regular price!  Either way, cute paper helps keep us moving!

Here is the secret to my meal planning plan:  I handed that cute paper, a pen, and the cookbook over to my husband.  HE filled it all out (complete with "Chef Andrew" in the Sunday spot!) along with the information in the "grocery list" section.  Now my job is simply to execute.  And that's the easy part!

Packing up Sanity

 As I have mentioned, this past week my brother in law was married.  We packed the kids for an eight hour road trip to join the festivities.  Andrew was his Best Man and the kids all had various parts as well.  As the mama, I had the daunting task of getting every little detail and item safely to Minnesota and then to Wisconsin.  Any mother can imagine what this entailed!

Sometime back, I read about a packing tactic, which I chose to impliment for this trip.  Oh. my . word.  I will never pack another way again!  Here's what I did.

On paper, I divided out entire trip into events, for example "Friday Play" or "Friday Rehersal".  Many days had multiple events and therefore required multiple outfits.  (Because you can't really have a three year old wear her flowergirl dress to lunch four hours before the wedding, right!?) 

I purchased a package of gallon sized ziplock bag and with a Sharpie, I labeled one bag, per child, with each of my plotted "events."  So an example would be "Christopher, Friday Play" (actually, I just put a 'C' or 'G' instead of the whole name).  Then I put in EVERY SINGLE ITEM that went to that outfit.  Going with our example, into the "C Friday Play" bag, I put shorts, a t-shirt, socks, and underwear.  Somedays, the girls got hairbows or the boys got ties.  Whatever the event, everything was right there in the proper bag.  No more searching for last minute belts and matching socks!

This also made it a snap to match the kids on any given day.  Most days the kids had matching or coordinating outfits, so we always looked nice, even if we were just hanging out for the morning. Each morning, I handed each child his respective bag, along with their "PJ" bag.  The children dressed and replaced their pajamas in the "PJ" bag to be ready for the evening.

This packing plan drastically reduced the frenzy that generally accompanies travel and major events!  My only regret is that I haven't yet figured out a way to impliment this in our every day at-home life!

(This post has been updated and linked at We Are THAT Family - Works for Me Wednesday)