Wednesday, December 4, 2024

7 Simple Family Dinners

It makes me so happy to be able to plan ahead and put together delicious dinners during the week.  I meal plan on the weekends.  Grocery shop on the weekends and write out a menu for the week.  It's flexible, but it always feels good to have a plan.  It also ensures that we save money by eating at home.  I usually cook 5-6 nights a week and simple dinner options save me on busy days.  And you'll see that Sams is saving me these days.  

Let's talk family dinners - Meal #7 might just change your life.  It's our new favorite!!

1. Make your own pizza night was a hit.  I bought pizza crust (the kind that comes in a can - we used two cans) and we each made our own pizzas.  I had sauce, turkey pepperoni, cheeses, pizza salt, olives, veggies and noodles.  Everyone was happy with their topping situation and Leo opted to eat just breadsticks and veggies.


2. Soup night!  I made homemade vegetable soup with okra from our garden.  It was enough for two dinners when I added a side of bread each night.

3. Pasta night!  Try out a new noodle shape to make spaghetti night a little extra exciting.  I grabbed this pumpkin pasta at Walmart and it was so fun to eat.  It held sauce and meat very well.  I wish I'd bought more.  I made homemade fettucini sauce, meatballs and then everyone built their own pasta bowls.


4. Panda Express at home!  We had egg rolls, edamame, pot stickers, rice and grilled chicken with all the sauces.  It was delicious!

We got these from Sams and are obsessed with them.  They are a great quick lunch option on the weekens and we love them for dinner.  I serve them with soy sauce and yum yum sauce.


5. BBQ night.  I grabbed some pulled pork from Sams and all the sides from Sams.  It was so good with plenty of leftovers for lunch.  I accidentally bought the jumbo shells mac and cheese.  The kids loved it!


6. Chicken Alfredo.  This was fine - great sauce and noodles, but the chicken was a little meh.  My kids wolfed down the pasta part and picked around on the chicken.  I wish it ame without the chicken so you could just chop up a rotisserie chicken to add to it.


7. Grilled Chicken Salad bar.  We tried these grilled chicken nuggets from Sams and they were AMAZING.  Such good chicken that I was honestly shocked.  I cooked the nuggets for about twice as long as it says and they come out perfect.  Just make sure they are slightly browned.  Then I chopped up all the salad toppings I could think of.  The adults built proper salads and the kids just ate a plate full of all their favorite salad toppings with chicken nuggets.




What is your family eating for dinner these days?

Monday, December 2, 2024

Thanksgiving Break

Happy December!  How was your Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving break went by way too fast here!  We saw lots of family, decorated for Christmas, had a little sickness and got our first snow of the season.  I can't believe it's already December and we're wrapping up the year.

We made all the cute turkey/thankful/thanksgiving crafts and activities.  The kids loved it all and we had a blast straying from our usual school schedule on the two day week. We made turkey puppets.  The kids were so cute walking out to their parents at pick up with their turkey puppets.


We made pumpkin pie.  And we were all excited for Thanksgiving break!

On Thanksgiving morning we had our tradition of turkey cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Find Mom.  Sit on Mom returned!  We don't have many slow mornings during the school week so it was sweet to get extra snuggles with Leo each morning.

I was in charge of bringing pies and cookies to our Thanksgiving gatherings.  Yum!  We saw Kevin's family for Thanksgiving lunch.

Then headed to my parent's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Cute cousin crew.

Poor Fletch didn't feel well on Thanksgiving so we cut out early.



Cute turkeys!  Leo is very into funny poses for all group pictures these days.  The weather turned freezing so it was nice to have a chilly Thanksgiving.

We're in full Christmas mode now and the calendar is filling up quickly for December.