Monthly Menu Plan–January 2014

 January Menu Plan

I have talked before about our days of the week menu plans before:

Menu Plan Forms

Menu Planning

I have revamped it a bit to fit our needs for this new year.  I have not made any significant changes as this plan seems to work fairly well for us.

Menu Plan
Meaty Monday

Tortilla Tuesday

Casserole/BFD Wednesday

Pasta/Italian Thursday

Freezer/Pizza Friday

Bar/BBQ Saturday

Soup/Sandwich/Salad Sunday

Having a daily assigned theme helps me complete my monthly meal plan quickly.  During the week we can switch things around if it better suits our needs for that week or we can skip the planned meal and replace it with something else.  Having the monthly plan helps me to prepare and have the necessary ingredients for the meals.

Hubs and I are needing to make some changes in our diet due to some health issues.  But with this plan I can easily make a simple protein, potato or rice, veggie and salad meal for us as an alternative to what is scheduled.

Example:

Pizza or calzone night might be to high in sodium for us so I would make frozen fish, with steamed veggies and potatoes for us. I am also trying to have a lettuce salad available for each meal for us.

Meal planning is a must for our family, and the little effort it takes to plan ahead pays off tremendously.

Enjoy~

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Menu Plan Monday

Here is our menu plan for this week:

 Week of 10/21– 10/27

Monday – Hawaiian Meatloaf & Mashed Potatoes is on the menu but I do not have any ground beef or turkey, and I have allot of chicken and a few mangos I bought a few weeks ago to try this recipe: Mango Chicken – so we will be substituting this meal for Meatloaf and rice for the Mashed Potatoes
Tuesday – Chicken Ranch Wraps
Wednesday – Taco Casserole or Enchiladas*
Friday – Nachos
Saturday –Hot Dog Bar
Sunday – Cheesy Broccoli Soup


*double meal for freezer

This is what our Breakfast and Lunch Menu Plan looks like (click for larger version)
I also made a blank Dinner Menu Plan so I can write out ideas for meals under our daily themes.

Monday – Meaty or Mexican Monday –  Beef, Pork or Chicken Meal or a  Mexican Dish
Tuesday – Trusty or Tortilla Tuesday  - Make a meal that is tried and true for us or Burritos or Enchiladas from the freezer (this is our youth night so we leave early)
Wednesday – Casserole or Worry Free Wednesday – meals that are easy to put together
Thursday – Breakfast for Dinner Thursday – We make pancakes, french toast or egg dish with sausage or bacon.
Friday – Pizza Friday – We have a variety of homemade pizza options
Saturday – BBQ or Bar Saturday – See this post for Bar Ideas
Sunday -  Soup, Sandwich or Salad Sunday – Sandwiches and Salad in Spring and Summer and Soup and Sandwiches for Autumn and Winter

 

If you want your own copy click below for printable version you prefer – File also includes blank version:

PDF
DOC

That is our plan for the week.  Linking up to: Check it out for other menu plan ideas.

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Menu Plan Monday

I want to get back to posting my menus online.  This helps me when I am planning our monthly meals.  I can look back at old menu plans and I do not have to come up with all new ideas, this saves some of the brain work for me.

Our October Monthly Menu looks like this:
I post this on my Fridge and then write the weekly menu plan on my chalk board painted fridge. I love my chalk board section of our fridge.



This weeks menu is:

Monday – Ranchero Chicken
(did not get the chicken out) so I made soup and quesadillas with all the left over veggies in the fridge, needed to use them up.
Tuesday – Black Bean Burgers
Wednesday – Tater Tot Casserole
Thursday – Panda Express Noodles
Friday – Pizza Bread Sandwiches
Saturday – Chicken Sandwich Bar
Sunday -  Meatball Soup




I will be posting these recipes later in the week as many of them  are ones I do not have on my blog.

I have found that having a meal plan is essential for this family…  especially if they want to be fed.

Enjoy your week~
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Menu Plan

Week of 11/25 – 12/1

Sunday – Turkey Noodle Soup
Monday – Burritos & Rice
Tuesday – Chicken Enchiladas
Wednesday – Tuna/Pea Sauce & Biscuits
Thursday – Baked Spaghetti
Friday – Pizza Bread
Saturday – Chili Relleno Casserole

I have looked at many monthly menu plan subscriptions over the years.  I have tried a few but the thing I did not like about most of them is that they plan the meals…  and honestly (even though there were some really awesome meals)  we did not like all the meals, or they required ingredients that I did not regularly purchase.  We are usually on a food budget, and I like to use items that we find good deals on -  see these posts:

I have looked at the Plan to Eat menu planning program but I was not sure I wanted to for the $39.00 a month (I am kind a cheap when it comes to things like this.)  But the Pan to Eat Simple Menu Plan is on sale  until Monday, you can purchase a yearly subscription to Plan to Eat  for just $19.50 (which works out to about $1.60 a month). You can also buy unlimited gift subscriptions for $15.50.

So I decided to go for it and give it a try. 
I like that you can enter in all your own recipes, and quickly add ones from other web sites or Pinterest… which I have been getting allot of recipes from lately.  You are able to plan for all three meals plus snacks. (not just dinner)  I will post next week how I liked using it.

linking to:

Enjoy~
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Menu Plan–September

I know we are already in the 2nd week of September, but I am just getting around to finishing my September Menu Plan.  We have been “winging” it this past month and eating from the pantry and freezer to the point of it being completely empty.

During August I tried a menu plan that was already put together from another site: August Menu Plan.   I like that it was put together for me, but I realize that those kind of plans do not work for me.  I quite often, did not have the items needed to make the meals, so I would end up making something totally different.  So, I am back to making up my own plans.

Some of the things I look at when making my monthly plan are:

1. What leftovers do I have in the fridge that I can make into a meal 
2. What meats do I have in the freezer that I can build meals around.
3. What pantry items do I have that can be used.
4. What do our budget or finances dictate for this month.

When I plan around what we have I am then able to save money, be more creative with what we have but also I can just “fill in” what else is needed.  This is helping our food budget. 

Here is this months Menu Plan:


looking forward to being back on a solid meal plan as we work into our full time school schedule.
              
Enjoy~
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Homeschool Philosophy

With a new school year starting, I have been reflecting on our homeschool philosophy.
Do you have a homeschool philosophy?

Philosophy - any system of belief, values, or tenets; a personal outlook or viewpoint

Here’s a list of some of the more popular philosophies and methods. of homeschooing:

Charlotte Mason

A CM education is the style following that of its founder, Charlotte Mason. Its schedule features short lessons (10 to 20 minutes per subject for the younger children, but longer for older ones) with an emphasis on excellent execution and focused attention. Narration, “living” literature, nature study, artist picture study, and habit training are some of the unique aspects of a CM education.
To learn more about how to implement a Charlotte Mason style education, you might like:

Classical

The heart of a classical education lies in the trivium – the grammar, logic and rhetoric stages. These coincide with natural learning abilities during childhood. For most families, classical education includes a dedication to in-depth studies of Latin, mathematics, the arts and sciences, and a deep understanding of world history and its effects that lure them in. Many classical homeschoolers follow a four-year or six-year cycle of repeating science and history topics.
To learn more about how to implement a classical education, you might like:

Unit Studies

Unit studies are a popular homeschooling method because they are typically hands-on, literature-based, and can be molded to fit into other homeschooling philosophies. Individual topics can encompass all of the scholastic subjects or be very specific to only cover science, history or a literature selection, for instance.
Unit studies can be found on the Internet for almost any subject you or your children can desire. Simply type “(topic) unit study” into your Internet search engine .

Traditional

The traditional method looks very similar to how you were likely taught in school. Children use textbooks for all subjects, complete worksheets and take regular tests. Oftentimes, traditional curricula is also available via DVD, CD-Rom or the Internet. Some people choose to integrate some traditional subjects with another philosophy.

Relaxed, Unschooling, Delight-directed

Generally, these terms imply that the parents have consciously adopted a lifestyle which includes few textbooks or workbooks, and no grades, tests or labels. The child is encouraged to learn at his own pace through hobbies and interests that the he wants to pursue.

Whole-Heart Learning

Whole-Heart learning encourages the use of “living” books rather then text books. This type of family will set goals for the family as a whole and again for each individual child. This lifestyle homeschool has a firm belief that the heart is the key to all learning.
To learn more about implementing a whole-heart approach, you might like:

Biblical Principle Approach

The Principle Approach is a philosophy and method of education based upon Biblical reasoning and a Biblical, Christian worldview which requires considering and pondering the purpose of everything in God’s universe.
To learn more about implementing the Principle approach, you might like:



Taken directly from: The Curriculum Choice
Other good sites for Homeschool Methods and Philosophies are:

Homeschool Curriculum for Life
Homeschool Learning
eHow Mom
Homeschool Curriculum Advisor

I would say that we are a combination of Charlotte Mason, Unit Studies,  & Whole Heart Learning. I am a big fan of the Lifestyle of Learning approach – especially as they reach high school. (utilizing the things they are interested in – their bents, and building a course around that) - I will share more about how I do this later in the school year. I have also been adding some Montessori activities into our Learning Center.


When choosing methods, curriculums or styles for our family, I have developed some touchstones that are important to our particular family.

     Touchstone: As a metaphor, a touchstone refers to any  physical or intellectual measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested.

These touchstones are our filtering system to see if a particular method, curriculum or style will work for our family.  I love that I can review this each year, or during the year if something isn’t working.  When ever I review this, I am reminded of why and how we homeschool. 

Linking up to:

Grateful for the opportunity to homeschool~
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Back to School – Our Routine

  A Day in the Life Week

I wrote a post awhile back about how I am more routine oriented. With that in mind we use the acronym FLOW to order our day.

Progress is born out of FLOW…
We use FLOW as an order to our day.

F – Family Needs
L – Learning Environment
O – Ordered by Routine and Habits
W – Workboxes

With the leading of the Holy Spirit we utilized our family’s needs, create learning environments, establish routines and habits, and utilize workboxes for our school subjects to allow our day to flow with order.

Over the years our family needs have dictated our schedule or routine. We had many years were a new baby came every few years and this changed our needs as a family. I have had to learn to be flexible over the years and know that depending on what “season” we were in as a family needed to be taken into account in our daily routine. If I tried to implement a schedule or routine that did not met our families needs as a whole in that season, we would all be miserable and Mama was stressed to the max - and everyone knows that if Mama isn’t happy, no one is.

One of the reasons that we decided to homeschool was to help our children develop a life long love of learning. We have tried to establish a home environment that encourages learning. When looking at curriculum or tools for teaching the academics, I want resources that will also aid in this desire to learn. I am very visual so I like to “see” what we are learning about. I have many posters, charts and lists posted around our learning environment to reinforce what we are studying. See my post on our school room.

Our day is ordered by routine. Here are copies of my girls morning routines:
     

The last few years we have been working on establishing some solid habits and have included this in our curriculum. I have made habit posters that are posted on our Calendar Wall. I will post a new one every 2-4 weeks. I have also made small icon cards that go in their chore chart so we are reminded to work on these habits.

         

I have made a list of habits I would like us to develop. Some of these are necessary ones and some fun ones we would like to add to our life. I have also been working on changing the term we use for “chores” to “royal duties.” I have shared that our home is part of God’s Kingdom and we all have a royal purpose in helping our King.

 

We use a modified version of workboxes as a way to use our curriculum. Here is our workbox schedule. I have found it works best for us to use this system for our key subjects. I am using folders for each “box” or subject. I will be posting in full detail how we do this sometime in September.

                      

Even though I move better in the FLOW of a routine, I still like schedules and make one each year.  The time frames on the schedule have always been a goal not a slave driver.  I use to have to tell one of my children, “we are not a slave to our schedule,” when she would become frustrated that we were not doing what the schedule said at the time it said it was to be done. 

Now in a perfect world, with a perfect family this is what I would envision our day to be like, but since we have neither of these, it is somewhat of a dream.  But, I like to dream and having this as a goal helps me move forward!!!

We actually had a very light summer school schedule this year which has helped us maintain some routine. We will be starting full fledge after Labor Day.

Check out other homeschooling moms and their homeschool days!

Embracing His strength in this new school year~
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Back to School - School Pictures

 Student Photo  Week

Over at ihomeschoolnetwork.com they are hosting a Not Back-to-School Blog Hop.

This week is student photo week.  I have not taken our back to school pics yet, since we will not be officially starting school until next week.  But last year I made these for the 3 girls: 

   

The inspiration for these came from Pinterest and 1+1+1 =1.

I will be making new ones this year after we take our back to school pictures. I will post them next week along with some record keeping ideas that have worked for us.

I also love these School Memory Kit  ideas.

  from: Confessions of a Homeschooler

   from: all for the boys

  from: i heart organizing

  Hope you are enjoying the start of a new school year~

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Monthly Goals - The SMART Way

       Years ago, when I was setting some New Year's Goals, I can across this Acronym for setting Goals.  SMART.  S - Specific; M - Measurable; A - Achievable; R - Relevant; T - Time-Bound. The following article helps explain how to set each of these categories.

Developing SMART goals

Paul J. Meyer describes the characteristics of S.M.A.R.T. goals in Attitude is Everything.

Specific

The first term stresses the need for a specific goal over and against a more general one. This means the goal is clear and unambiguous; without vagaries and platitudes. To make goals specific, they must tell a team exactly what is expected, why is it important, who’s involved, where is it going to happen and which attributes are important.

A specific goal will usually answer the five "W" questions:

• What: What do I want to accomplish?
• Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
• Who: Who is involved?
• Where: Identify a location.
• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

Measurable

The second term stresses the need for concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal. The thought behind this is that if a goal is not measurable, it is not possible to know whether a team is making progress toward successful completion. Measuring progress is supposed to help a team stay on track, reach its target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs it on to continued effort required to reach the ultimate goal.
A measurable goal will usually answer questions such as:

• How much?
• How many?
• How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable

The third term stresses the importance of goals that are realistic and attainable. While an attainable goal may stretch a team in order to achieve it, the goal is not extreme. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance, as these may be considered meaningless. When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. The theory states that an attainable goal may cause goal-setters to identify previously overlooked opportunities to bring themselves closer to the achievement of their goals.
An attainable goal will usually answer the question:

• How: How can the goal be accomplished?

Relevant

The fourth term stresses the importance of choosing goals that matter. A Bank Manager's goal to "Make 50 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by 2:00pm." may be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Time-Bound, but lacks Relevance. Many times you will need support to accomplish a goal: resources, a champion voice, someone to knock down obstacles. Goals that are relevant to your boss, your team, your organization will receive that needed support.
Relevant goals (when met) drive the team, department, and organization forward. A goal that supports or is in alignment with other goals would be considered a relevant goal.
A relevant goal can answer yes to these questions:

• Does this seem worthwhile?

• Is this the right time?

• Does this match our other efforts/needs?

• Are you the right person?

Time-bound

The fifth term stresses the importance of grounding goals within a time frame, giving them a target date. A commitment to a deadline helps a team focus their efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. This part of the S.M.A.R.T. goal criteria is intended to prevent goals from being overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. A time-bound goal is intended to establish a sense of urgency.
A time-bound goal will usually answer the question:

• When?
• What can I do 6 months from now?
• What can I do 6 weeks from now?
• What can I do today?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

Why I want to share my goals -

• To keep me accountable
• To share a piece of my life with you as I strive to be a better Child of God, Wife, Mom, Friend, Homemaker, Teacher and the many other roles I have each week
• To have my goals consistently written down so I can gauge progress more accurately
• Create healthy habits in my life
• To encourage you to share your goals with me as you continue to grown and learn.

How did you do this week on your goals? Feel free to share your list of weekly goals.



Making progress, one step at a time~
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Recipe Binder

I shared in this post about my recipe binder.
I wanted to share more details and show you pictures of this Binder


I take my monthly menu and post it in this Binder in a sheet protector that is attached to the inside cover of the binder

All of the recipes are put in the binder in sheet protectors in the order that they appear on the menu.  This way I can locate them quickly.



I store my Binder on the side of one of my counter tops.  Its stays there so I can find it!! 

  
When I need a recipe I pull it out and attach it to a clip on my cupboard so I can follow it as I make the recipe.
  
You can find this recipe for Pizza Ole’ here.



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Project: Simplify 2012!

I am participating in Project: Simplify—March 5-30, 2012 over at Simplemom.net. Check out her web site for details.

This year’s hot spots

I asked you all on Facebook which areas you’d like to tackle most. Without further adieu, here’s this year’s to-do list:

• Week of March 5: Kids’ stuff—toys, clothes, and the like
• Week of March 12: Kitchen and/or pantry
• Week of March 19: Closets, countertops, and drawers (oh my)
• Week of March 26: Choose your own adventure—you pick your most-needed hot spot

http://simplemom.net/project-simplify-2012/

I have been wanting to organized our craft area since last summer, when I had to move all these things from an area in my oldest sons room to the garage. So, I I decided this would be the first area to tackle. My missionary daughter is a wonderful motivator and helped me get this area under control. It took us two days, but it was worth it.
Here are some before pictures:
 
Pretty bad, huh.  Things have gotten tossed in this area since this summer.
Here are the after pictures:
 
There is a box on the floor to the right that needs to go to co-op for donation. Other than that we are done, and we can now find what we need and actually work on the table area.  I feel like making some crafts…

Enjoy being organized~
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