easy

I am a mother of two lovely little men, Abe & Ike. Ike is nearing his 4 month birthday (already!) and Abe is nearing his 2 year mark! Ahh! Insane. ...insane: both a fact that my boys are growing so fast and commentary on the pace of our day-in, day-out life. I have a couple of strategies to keep the insanity at bay. Sometimes it works and sometimes it backfires terribly. As time goes on, I am working pretty diligently at staying on this side of sanity!

The boys' bedtime (and naptime) routine is one of the two major things that keeps me on this side. Right now, Ike is still pretty unpredictable, but Abe really needs to be in bed by 7:30. Before Ike was born, if I started dinner by 5:30, I could have Abe bathed and in bed between 7 & 7:30. Now the window has shrunk from having 2 hours to go through the steps of our dinner-to-bed routine to about 45 minutes. And I've found that it's best if I KISS -- (MUAH!) Keep It Simple Sweetheart. I love a good challenge, but I don't have time for challenge right now. So I KISS and it's really been working. Another reason to KISS is budget. The simpler the meals, the quicker they are to prepare (hypothetically) and the cheaper they tend to be.

Sample Menu:

Sunday - pasta alfredo with baby portabellos & grilled chicken
Monday - black beans, corn & rice
Tuesday - egg salad sandwiches & ceasar salad
Wednesday - tuna melts & squash caserole
Thursday - buckwheat, chicken, baby portabellos, carrots, onion
Friday - ceasar salad with grilled chicken
Saturday - lentils with onions & rice

To satiate my desire for challenge, I made the the pasta alfredo from scratch. Fun, not too time-consuming, and super-tasty!

Budget really is a huge concern in our house! So we have to have meals that we love and we have to mix it up, keep it fresh, if we are going to avoid the temptation of McDonald's Monopoly and Chic-Fil-A milkshakes. It can be done! We did successfully this week and I've got quite a few things in mind for next week! Here's to healthy, simple meal planning!