Taking Control of Dinner!

So, the last few months have been chaotic! We seem to have a lot more activities in the evening and I'm working more hours.

With all of this extra chaos, I have been having a hard time getting meals planned and on the table each night!  And, for those that know me well, I always start each week with a menu plan. Lately, though, that hasn't been enough!

This week I decided to menu plan as usual, but took some advice from a fellow blogger, and prepped as much of our meals at the beginning of the week. I also updated our "favorites" list to include more crock-pot friendly, grab and go meals. I keep this list in the front of my recipe book and refer to it when I menu plan each week. It really helps when I'm feeling a little less creative about what to cook!

Here's our menu for the week:

Monday - Baked Potato Bar & Salad
Tuesday - Meatball Grinders with chips and fruit
Wednesday - Breakfast
Thursday - Sandwich Night
Friday - Dinner at Friends
Saturday - Best Ever Burgers
Sunday - Pizza Night

After dropping the kids at school today, I headed to the grocery store and picked up the few things I didn't already have on hand. When I got back, I did something I have been putting off for a few weeks.  I cleaned out the fridge. You don't even want to know what kind of science experiments I found! I knew I would need to start with a clean slate/fridge to make sure I was successful this week:)

After the fridge was clean and all of my groceries were put away:

• I cleaned and prepped all of the veges for each meal.  
• I even prepped some fruits and veges for snacks and lunches.  
• I cleaned and prepped the potatoes to go into the slow cooker.
• I prepped the extras for our potato bar (cheese, sour cream, bacon, etc).  
• I made a batch of my meatballs and packaged what I would need for meatball grinders
• I packaged the rest for the freezer.  
• I made a big pitcher of lemonade (mostly so my youngest will stop asking for a soda every night with dinner).  
• I packaged up the Banana Crumb Muffins I made last night for a quick, grab-and-go breakfast.

It only took me about an hour and forty-five minutes to get it all together. And, now my meals are as easy as grabbing the right bags and cooking things up! I am feeling so good about how much time this will save me this week!  I'll let you know how it works out:)

Do you have ideas for keeping your sanity preparing meals for your busy family?  

I would love to hear them!

Ok - I'm off to tame the laundry.

Really wishing there was a laundry fairy about now!

- The J9