Meal Plan #1

I am by no means an organized put together person. One thing is for sure though, I love a good meal plan. I seriously do not know how people do it without one. Even though there are days or weeks where we don’t have a plan and I can tell you that the struggle is a real challenge trying to decide what to make for dinner. On most occasions, I try and have a meal plan laid out for 2 weeks at a time. It makes it easier when it comes to grocery shopping but without fail we go to the grocery store more than every other week. We have lived off a meal plan for years now and it works well for our family.

When trying to put a meal plan together I try and stick to the following but by no means is this our holy grail. Some nights I just want to try something new or I want Mexican more than once a week, etc.

Sunday: Traditional Sunday dinner

Monday: Pasta

Tuesday: Mexican

Wednesday: Left Overs

Thursday: Salads/Sandwiches

Friday: Crockpot meal/International

Saturday: Eat Out/Left Overs

So here we go this is what was on our meal plan last week

Sunday: We had my parents over for dinner, both of their birthdays are in the month of February so we had steak, baked potatoes, green beans, and bread. The grocery store Chad and I shop at sell bacon wrapped filets 2 in a pack. You can easily pan sear the steaks in butter (or coconut oil) with just a little salt and butter. Chad has been on a ‘fresh’ green bean kick so I will purchase the green beans from the produce section recruit Grady to help trim the ends off the green beans boil them until soft, drain. And then drizzle with butter and salt.

Monday: Sausage with peppers. One of my favorite food blogs of all time is the “Girl who ate everything” I have gotten a lot of great recipes from her including this one

Tuesday: Chimichangas with Mexican rice. I have to be honest here, 8 times out of 10 I always forget about the sides so normally we will just have Chimichangas and no rice!

Wednesday: My favorite night of the week! This night is normally when we try and do a load of laundry and tidy up the house a bit plus get some extra play time in with our babies. When I was little my parents nominated Tuesday to be our take-out night with was great and I always looked forward to it. So Wednesday I have nominated as our night off of cooking.

Thursday: Caesar Salad sandwiches with chips. Did I mention I love the Girl who ate everything blog. Yea, I wasn’t kidding. So confusion, I do not like having the crockpot on all day at the house while we are not at home so if there is a recipe that calls from shredded chicken I will normally make it in the crockpot on the weekend and either freeze it or store it in the refrigerator. I will put chicken breast in the crockpot with chicken broth and cook on low for 4-6 hours

Friday: Pita pizzas, I bought whole wheat pita bread at the store and simply added marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperonis. Chad put some of the Caesar chicken on his. I love making anything that Grady can help me with so these are perfect!

Saturday: We went out and got Rib Crib. One of my favorite salads of all time is from Rib Crib. The smoked chicken salad. It is yum yum good. But of course, you can always do any other salad of your choice.

We also try and cook breakfast for the week on Sunday but ever since Audrey was born our breakfast as more times than not been a bag of oatmeal. This week we had eggs and toast for breakfast!

There you go a simply meal plan for us busy individuals.

Audrey - 6 months

This month was a dousy. There’s been a lot of tears shed and some frustration. Audrey and I caught the flu and just when I thought she was back to normal she decided to refuse to eat and it was a struggle to nurse and bottle feed her. I took her to the doctor and she ended up having a double ear infection. I felt awful that I didn’t bring her in sooner and on top of that she had lost weight from the last doctor’s appointment when we got her checked out for the flu. It’s been a very stressful month and I just hope that we are done being sick!

Sleep:

We decided to start sleep training this month and taking away the pacifier at night. Well that lasted about 3 nights and then she got sick. She started throwing up and at first I thought it was because she was upset but then every time she ate she would throw up again luckily it didn’t last long and by early morning she was able to keep a little bit down. We decided to give sleep training a break and to keep her in our bedroom until she got better. We gave her binky back to her but kept her unswaddled. Every so often she will give us a good night but more times than not she is up quite a bit, I’m hoping she is just catching up on what she lost and that it won’t last long. We have her doctors appointment in a few days so we will check on her weight and return to sleep training given the ok. Naps have been inconsistent as well, she likes to cat nap throughout the day instead of giving us a solid hour and a half nap. Our schedules on the weekends haven’t allowed us to get out much and we are pretty much house bound to work on her naps however Chad is going on a work trip in the middle of March and I need her sleep trained by then!

Eat:

I have no desire to start baby food however I know I need to soon. We will check with our doctor at our appointment but so far, I have peas and sweet potatoes in the freezer! She’s pretty interested in food when we are sitting down for dinner that it will be fun watching her discovery what she likes and doesn’t like. As far as breastfeeding we are still going strong! Audrey gets pretty distracted when brother is around and she’s trying to eat she tends to just want to watch him rather than eat. At the beginning of the month she was biting me pretty bad and I just knew she was teething, whelp still no teeth but I swear I see something sometimes.

When she decided to refuse eating and lost some weight I got pretty discouraged and down on myself. I know I can’t help her getting sick but it really affects me when people say she is tiny or small, I feel as if it is a reflection on myself since I’m the one feeding her.

Development:

Audrey finally rolled from back to tummy(February 7th to be exact)!! And now she is rolling everywhere. She still hasn’t sat up but she is trying so hard to. The other day she was in her rock n play and sat all the way up in it, almost scared me that she was going to tumble out of it. She absolutely loves to laugh at anything her brother is doing and will look for him in the room. She is also starting to play more with toys and loves the Oball. I’m pretty sure she’ll start to crawl soon as well. She has scooted but gets a little top heavy.

I cannot believe my baby is growing up so fast! This month was hard, difficult, trying but it was also rewarding watching all her new milestones

January Recap

Well here we are at the end of January, the first month of 2018 has ended. I sought out 2018 as this was going to be the year of change and possibly my best year. Well I have to report that so far 2018 is just BLAH… We have come so close with certain “changes” in our lives this year but they have quickly either been sweeped from underneath us or not the changes we had hoped for. I know all of this is going to take some time but patience is not one of my strong suites. I’m also a planner and want things to work out in the most perfect plan! Quickly learning (again and again) that it’s not my plan but his. Despite both Audrey and I getting the flu and my attempt at being more positive January actually wasn’t that bad.

January Highlights:

We booked a trip to MEXICO!!! Chad turns 30 this year and since we haven’t been to Mexico in 3 years (cue pregnancy and newborns) it is long over due. We will be going in May so we are in full force bikini body challenge.

Speaking of bikini body we have a long way to go but we started on the 21 day fix (beach body program) and I have lost a total of 8 pounds I am so happy and proud of myself and although I haven’t seen that number on the scale since before Grady was born I wish it was more. Is it just me or does anyone else just want immediate results especially when it comes to weight loss. I have a goal in my head and it may not be feasible or healthy to lose 25 lbs in a month but I want the results stat.

I have struggled with balancing this month I feel like I am still recovering from the holidays, being sick, sleep training, and list goes on and on. The beginning of 2018 might not have been all that I had dreamed of but we had some pretty amazing milestones if I say so myself.