...to look ahead to next week

...and begin planning our meals.

List's are my thing.

I have them everywhere.  There are several different notepads all over the house.  When I think of something that I need to do or buy I am pretty good at jotting it down.

This does not mean that I am very good at taking the list with me to the store.  Nor does it mean that I am very good at completion of the lists.  Stray, uncrossed-off items may possibly get transferred to a new-shiny list several times before it is completed or it just slips off the next list.  I always have very good intentions.  Sometimes though, the statute of limitations expires with an item and it is no longer applicable (e.g., bring new family a meal and said family has already moved.)

I have tried lots of different list systems.  One of my favorites was this sticky-pad-note-system with all different sizes of sticky notes.  The problem was that I like uniformity...and when I started using all of one particular size of sticky notes, and then not the other sizes of sticky notes, it gave me little heart palpitations because the use of the pads was not uniform.  Seriously.  I have a sickness I know.

The problem with all of my little note books scattered throughout the house, in my purse, in the car is that the heathens in my life write in them.  This MESSES THEM UP PEOPLE!  I can't stand writing on lists that have scribble scratches underneath them.  Then I have to flip thirteen pages to find a clean-back-side of a random page, (which by-the-way also bothers me) to start writing on the back-side of a page.  Weird.  I know.

I digress.

My story is about menu planning.

I am not quite sure why it has taken me so long to hop on this band-wagon.

I started consistently using a menu when our new nanny started.  Mainly because I am a control freak and I felt like she was serving macaroni and cheese too much.  The second reason I started, is well because I am a control-freak and because my children were helping themselves to whatever high-fructose-corn-syrup, red-dye-laden snack they could find.

(Yes, I know, I know if I did not buy the junk-foods they would not be able to reach for the junk-foods....this is a task for another time...)

If someone had told me that by posting a menu we would not have any more 'what-is-for-breakfast' battles I would have started this years ago.  Seriously.  It happened quite by accident.  One morning Abbey asked what was for breakfast and I simple said, "Let me see what the menu says".

Apparently THE MENU is now the dictator of all things food in our home.

The funny thing is I never meant for it to be the bible of what is being eaten in our home this week.  But sure enough, I watched Will run in the house after school today and check to see what was on the menu for snack, before he opened up the refrigerator.  He was even super excited because today was 'choice'.

As for dinner time grumbles?  Well, there are still plenty.

I make sure to add plenty of their favorites.  Waffles is on the menu twice.  I don't think cereal is very good for them (especially the ones they like) but that is still on there once a week.

As for shopping, strangely I have found I don't have to make as many trips to the grocery store each week.

My goal of having a bit more control over what my children ate was achieved.  A little more variety, a little more healthy.

I only wished I had heard of this secret sooner.

This week's menu: