Breakfast Tuesday

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Hey-yo. Since school started, we've been grown-ups around here. That means for the last month we've done chores, kept the house clean, practiced piano, stuck to a budget (as much as possible), and cooked at home. We've also been rockin' the family prayer (morning & night), family scripture study, and FHE. We've finally found a groove that works for our family and it's been great to reap the rewards of organization! Meal planning has been easier than I thought. Having tried it off and on for years, I finally figured out what works for me. I used to hate feeling tied down to a menu, but then I would be panicky and overwhelmed by coming up with dinner without a plan. Now I've figured out how to plan quick, healthy, filling, and cheap meals that come together in minutes.
The kids get off the bus at 4pm. They have an hour to play and then we start chores & homework. Right at 5pm, Cosette descends into a grumpy tantrum and demands to be held. That means I have to help with homework and make dinner with a screaming whiner. I've realized dinners need to be super easy, have few ingredients, or be made in the crock pot. Following these rules, we've had four weeks of dinners at home that haven't made me crazy! It's been great to sit together as a family and eat dinner together every night. Or at least sit together since there's always someone who won't eat what we're having. A typical week goes like this:

Monday: Freezer meal (we have piano lessons at 5pm)
Tuesday: Breakfast for dinner
Wednesday: Crock pot meal (scout night)
Thursday: Salad night (chop up veggies, lunch meat, leftover chicken, etc from the fridge and have a salad bar)
Friday: Soup or Casserole that can be doubled to make a freezer meal for later
Saturday: Usually leftovers
Sunday: Panini/BLT's with soup or salad

It has been awesome. As you can tell from the title of this post, our favorite night is Breakfast night. Oh my gosh, we've had some yummy stuff! I've tried different pancakes every week and everyone actually eats the meal. Here are some of our faves:

Cinnamon roll pancakes (holy good, want to eat a million good)
Pumpkin pancakes (seriously, these taste like pumpkin pie The kids liked these so much, they wanted to take leftovers to Regan's house for dessert)
Hootenanny pancakes/German pancakes
Ham & egg cups (these are so filling and yummy. A great addition to any pancake dinner)

Tonight is belgian waffles with strawberries and cool whip. Or if things go south, I made a triple batch of last week's pumpkin pancakes and I can just defrost them, heat in the oven and we're good to go! My plan is to come up with menus for a couple more weeks and then start from the beginning and repeat them all, which should take even less time for planning every week. I'll try and come back periodically and post our favorite recipes over the weeks. See ya!