meal planner...

A couple of months ago, I had finally had it with dinner time.  I was tired of making a meal only to have each and every child turn up his or her nose and proceed to pour a bowl of cold cereal, pop in some toast, or grumble all night because they were hungry.  So I printed up a weekly calendar and let each of the older kids plan a week of meals - the catch was they could only list meals made at home (no eating out) and they had to eat whatever they planned.  It was actually quite successful - plus it made grocery shopping easier - simply because I knew what I was going to be preparing all week long - it wasn't a day-by-day thing. 

It was a complete coincidence that I was given an assignment to create a meal planner for the Making Memories blog.  (or was it?!?)  I put together this fun meal planner binder for the blog, and now we've been putting it to good use here at home! 

There are several sections: menu calendar,

shopping list,

favorites (one page for each person to list their favorite meals),

coupons, and recipes...

 

I created the meal calendar and shopping list on the computer so I could just print out a blank sheet for each week.  I'll save the used pages in the binder to use in the future - an easy way to organize shopping lists for each week and have a menu to go along with it.  I'm already loving how organized I feel by using this system!  If you're interested in the calendar/shopping list, you can download my blank templates here just let me know (either by leaving a comment with your e-mail address or e-mailing me) and I'll send them to you - apparently, the link I had set up to download them isn't working right... 

Please check out the Making Memories Blog for more information and links to the supplies I used.

And if you have any fun recipes to share (especially for picky kids), I'd love to hear your ideas! 

Have a happy Tuesday! :o)