Week 1 Menu!

I mentioned that one of my resolutions was to simplify by preparing recipes for the week and freezing them. I thought it would be fun to share my menus each week! (Since these aren't really creative meals, I'll skip the recipes for now. If you'd like one just let me know!) 

Saturday was so much fun! We got up and made pancakes. Anna-Kate told me that I made the best pancakes because I made her baby pancakes! haha. (Basically one day she was helping me make pancakes and she noticed that I dripped batter and she thought I had done it on purpose to make her itty bitty pancakes. So now we have to do that every time!)  

After breakfast we got ready and did our weekly grocery shopping. It was a little crazy but we got done just in time for the kids to take naps! 

That was the perfect time for us to make our meals. It took around 2- 2 1/2 hours to make 6 meals. Here's what we made: 

Chili

Shepherd's Pie

Cheesy Tuna Noodle Bake

Ritz Chicken

Vegetable Beef Soup 

Pot Roast (Assembled everything together so we just have to throw into the crock pot and season) 

Bowtie Pasta Alfredo (I was worried the alfredo sauce wouldn't freeze well so I decided to just make this one the night of. It's a very simple recipe- the alfredo sauce takes about 10 minutes to make.) 

We are loving having our meals prepared!  We have an expensive habit of eating out a few nights a week, so having a meal that I don't have to prepare is a lot of help.  Yesterday was a snow day so we chose chili. It was so good! We had Shepherd's Pie. I made the mistake of pulling it out of the freezer a little late, so it was still frozen when we got home. We wound up heating it at a lower temperature for a longer time. It worked but I will definitely remember to pull out dinner the night before! 

The only bad thing that I've noticed is that our meals are just too large. We have about half the meal left over. I even cut the chili recipe in half! We are considering making two weeks worth of recipes and just dividing all of the them in half so we have a month's worth of food. Obviously that would mean we wouldn't have too much variety that month and I'm a girl who loves food...so I'm still just thinking about it! We are just trying to figure things out! 

Anyone have any recipes, suggestions or tips? I'm pretty new to all of this and would love to hear some ideas! 

New Year's Resolutions!

This year I have a few resolutions I want to share here so maybe we can stick to them! ha. They're really not all that big. 

First, I want to simplify. Derek is starting a new job, Thomas just started daycare (yes, sad but true. more on that later) and we are no longer preaching in Lepanto. I just feel like there are so many changes going on. I have a tendency to want to do everything I can and be busy but this year I'm trying to say no to myself! ha. I really love being super involved. Along the same lines of being simple around here I want to keep our routine simple and easy.

I'm going to try to cook our meals for the week on Saturdays and then just freeze them. Then we don't have to worry about rushing around and trying to cook dinner while the kids are under our feet. I want to work on getting everything laid out the night before so that our morning routine goes smoothly. 

My second resolution is to fully commit to paying off our debt. Keeping my first resolution in mind, I just want to have the first step done. That is saving a certain amount as quick as we can. Derek and I are already working towards that and I am so excited! 

I just have one more resolution. That is to figure out what I want. ha. Sometimes I feel so lost and I know it's normal but I feel like it's time to do something about it. I want to make progress towards finding myself. 

That's that. I'm not really one to make and share my resolutions but here's to a New Year!