Dinner Time
One of the hardest challenges for me with being a wife and mom in general is getting dinner done on time. I’ve looked at other women’s meal plans at times and it is extremely depressing. Somehow they manage to make a homemade meal for every single meal every day and still do a full day of school, work from home, take each kids to different soccer times, baby sit their grandma, and even serve for 3 hours in their church calling all in one day. Okay, maybe that’s what it feels like to me looking at pinterest. The first key to really accomplishing anything pleasing to your family and Heavenly Father is to stop comparing yourself to others. Also just in case you feel like your the only mom who doesn’t have life together then you can add me to your list. However, I’m not trying to give us as women an excuse to be lazy and sit on facebook for hours. We please the Lord when we are good stewards of our home and beautiful families. Here’s how I hope to help you make dinner time more smooth sailing and have food on the table in time to please you and the Lord.
“A prudent wife is from the Lord. Slothfullness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.”
Meal Calendar
The first thing I decided to do was buy a cute calendar. For some reason, money speaks a lot to me. If I spend time on organizing I am more likely to follow through. I looked at lots of different calendars on the internet. I decided that this one would fit my decor in my kitchen the best and was the friendliest price for me.
Meal Planning Binder
The next thing I did was look at meal planning. I’ve been wanting to write down all the different things I could make in different categories to help me remember what I can actually cook. Often I’ll get the thought of a dish I haven’t made in months and I wished I would’ve remembered. I decided to seperate each of these catagories and put each dish on sticky notes. I also printed off a sheet on my computer with a table so there was a spot for one dish in each rectangle. I then had one meal per sticky note.
Daily Plan
After that I wrote the numbers 1-31 on a piece of paper, leaving enough room to add my sticky notes. Following that I go through my list of things I can make a choose what I want to make during the month and add them to particular days. This especially comes in handy for our co-op days when I know we won’t be home all day. I can buy frozen pizza or canned soup just for days when I won’t have time to make anything.
Shopping List
You might not know how amazing walmart pick up is yet. I encourage you to try it. That is the final thing that really helps me each month. I can go through and add all these ingredients that my meals require to my cart. Then I can pull up to walmart and not have to shop for 10 hours with 4 kids running around trying to get stolen and break everything in the store. If you’re like me and like to go into stores, however, this gives you time to do the fun shopping that you actually enjoy.
Picking off the calender
Do you have to eat everything on each day you plan it? No, you don’t. However, this has helped me lately to have something on each day so we don’t eat the same thing all the time. It has also helped me know what meat to set out at lunch time to thaw so I can cook as soon as I get the bulk of my kids through our homeschool day.
Summary
I hope these ideas of what helps me will help you to. It’s so nice to have things a little more together. Even if it’s not all together at least your kids can be in a better mood because dinner is done. Eating dinner on time is probably the most important thing about getting my kids to bed on time. This truly helps our home function so much better. Hopefully, it helps you to.