11/14 menu plan

currently eating

here is our meal rotation for all our breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners:

see this blogpost for more on why we love our meal rotation, how we created it, and tips (plus a freebie!) for making a meal rotation work for you. see how I menu plan here and where I find new recipes here.

currently cooking

sunday: 

breakfast: no cooking this morning - we’re off on a family morning hike

dinner: grill and chill  

monday: sandwich night (+ soup/salad, if we're feeling it)

why we love a weekly sandwich night

tuesday: taco-ish tuesday

  • sausage wraps (or sausage coins dipped in bbq sauce for me)

    • use grilled sausage from sunday

  • roasted potatoes (looooose recipe in above link)

  • cut citrus like this

wednesday: pizza, pasta, or rice

thursday: chicken, fish, or sausage

friday: takeout or leftovers

date night out - one of our monthly routines is a reminder to schedule a date

saturday: snack dinner saturday

  • leftovers

currently using

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currently meal prepping

i usually do a little meal prep on Sundays as a part of our Grill and Chill, but I may instead do a bit here and there throughout the week. (you’ll notice I allow space in my daily rhythm for potential meal prep.) at a minimum, I try to always do this - makes the whole week SO much smoother!

below is the list of what I hope to meal prep this week - it may not all happen, and that's okay! even 5 minutes of prep is super beneficial.

prep some dinner components:

prep some sort of dessert for the week:

prep some things to make breakfasts/snacks/lunches smoother - at a bare minimum, I try to always prep some sort of eggs, some sort of oats, and some sort of muffins/waffles/pancakes for our breakfast rotation, and I try to change up the recipes each week so that cooking stays fun for me and so KK is exposed to variety:

currently reading

the latest issue of allrecipes - my favorite magazine for dinner ideas!

one of my birthday traditions is to subscribe to a magazine or two for the coming year - the gift that keeps on giving. see my full list of birthday traditions here.

currently wearing

my beloved eyelash serum

currently streamlining

  • our shower caddy to include some light cleaning supplies. more times than I’d like to admit I’ll skip cleaning the shower on bathroom cleaning day, just because I detest doing it. but I randomly left a scrub brush in the shower one day, and Brett and I both - without thinking or talking about it - used the brush and did some light cleaning at the end of our showers. WHAT. mind blown. so we’re leaning hardddd into this newfound revelation and making our home work for us. aka keeping some cleaning supplies in our shower caddy. and now all of a sudden our arguably-gross shower has never been so clean.

currently loving

currently working on

  • being more intentional with our grocery budget. my WORD, groceries have gotten more expensive! excited to use this challenge to menu plan more creatively the next few months. (and to use this as an excuse to get back into trying new bread recipes. here’s where I find new recipes.)

currently sharing

always sharing our favorite routines, our favorite systems, and our favorite dinners on Instagram - come say hi! your kind words make my day. truly.

and know that when you share my page on Instagram with your followers, I do a happy dance. your support means everything, and your support allows me to spend time creating free content, like this menu plan. xo.

11/7 menu plan

currently eating

here is our meal rotation for all our breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners:

see this blogpost for more on why we love our meal rotation, how we created it, and tips (plus a freebie!) for making a meal rotation work for you. see how I menu plan here and where I find new recipes here.

currently cooking

sunday: 

breakfast: pumpkin shaped pancakes

dinner: grill and chill  

  • no grilling since we have family photos this evening, and I’d rather come home to a finished crockpot meal, so today we’re bringing back Slow Cooker Sunday!

  • pulled pork sliders, one of our favorite dinners!

    • here’s the slow cooker pulled pork recipe we use, but i omitted the oil, used a pork butt, and after shredding the cooked meat, i just tossed it in some bbq sauce instead of putting it back in the juices.

  • big bowl of fruit + frozen sweet potato fries

monday: sandwich night (+ soup/salad, if we're feeling it)

why we love a weekly sandwich night

tuesday: taco-ish tuesday

wednesday: pizza, pasta, or rice

thursday: chicken, fish, or sausage

friday: takeout or leftovers

saturday: snack dinner saturday

  • chicken nuggets + tater tots + big bowl of fruit

currently using

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Thank you so much for your support!

currently meal prepping

i usually do a little meal prep on Sundays as a part of our Grill and Chill, but I may instead do a bit here and there throughout the week. (you’ll notice I allow space in my daily rhythm for potential meal prep.) at a minimum, I try to always do this - makes the whole week SO much smoother!

below is the list of what I hope to meal prep this week - it may not all happen, and that's okay! even 5 minutes of prep is super beneficial.

prep some dinner components:

  • wash, prep produce

prep some sort of dessert for the week:

prep some things to make breakfasts/snacks/lunches smoother:

currently reading

the midnight library

currently wearing

this is the time of year I especially appreciate the two hooks we have in our room specifically for our robes. see the photo here.

currently streamlining

currently loving

  • our cleaning schedule. we currently don’t have housecleaners to make room for other priorities in our budget, so we created a cleaning schedule that worked for us - and I love it so much. I love breaking household tasks up into daily/weekly/monthly/yearly routines. it makes taking care of our home super manageable for me - everything is a bite-size chunk and not overwhelming. like, I know I clean the kitchen on Tuesdays and we wipe down that huge mirror once a month and we deep clean our bedroom in September. I truly believe there can be joy found in taking care of our home and investing in our haven.

  • our Sunday rhythm - we started this weekly ritual almost two years ago now and it has been life-changing.

currently working on

  • my water routine. i’ve been slacking lately, and I can totally tell a difference in my skin.

  • finishing our Christmas shopping. here’s why. (post also lists out the gifts we’re getting this year, if you need ideas.)

currently sharing

always sharing our favorite routines, our favorite systems, and our favorite dinners on Instagram - come say hi! your kind words make my day. truly.

10/31 menu plan

currently eating

here is our meal rotation for all our breakfasts, snacks, lunches, and dinners:

see this blogpost for more on why we love our meal rotation, how we created it, and tips (plus a freebie!) for making a meal rotation work for you. see how I menu plan here and where I find new recipes here.

currently cooking

sunday: 

breakfast: no cooking - out for a family adventure this morning!

dinner: grill and chill  

monday: sandwich night (+ soup/salad, if we're feeling it)

why we love a weekly sandwich night

  • build your own sub sandwiches with jimmy johns bread

    • get stuff for my turkey sandwich, and stuff for brett’s italian sandwich

    • I like to get stuff for our favorite sandwiches from our favorite sandwich places - checking menus gives me ingredient idaes

  • chips + big bowl of fruit

tuesday: taco-ish tuesday

wednesday: pizza, pasta, or rice

thursday: chicken, fish, or sausage

friday: takeout or leftovers

saturday: no snack dinner saturday

currently using

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Thank you so much for your support!

currently meal prepping

i usually do a little meal prep on Sundays, but I may do a bit here and there throughout the week. at a minimum, I try to always do this - makes the whole week SO much smoother!

below is the list of what I hope to meal prep this week - it may not all happen, and that's okay! even 5 minutes of prep is super beneficial.

prep some dinner components:

  • none - I’m resting + recovering from a cold

prep some sort of dessert for the week

  • yep! one of my favorite podcasters said this is an incredibly easy way to plan joy into your week and I SO agree.

  • none - I’m resting + recovering from a cold

prep some things to make breakfasts/snacks/lunches smoother

  • transfer some frozen fruit to thaw in the fridge for KK (she loves cherries and mango this way)

  • snickerdoodle muffins, freeze half of the batch for a future week

  • life changing soft scrambled eggs

    • yes, I’ve been known to make these ahead of time for the week. Project Meal Prep taught me how: “For [make-ahead scrambled eggs], it’s best to just slightly undercook your eggs. Maybe 30 seconds away from when you would actually want to eat them. You’re going to have to reheat everything and you don’t want hard overcooked eggs! They’ll cook a little more in the microwave during reheating.”

  • make a batch of oatmeal like this

    • excerpt from my “my breakfast and lunch favorites” blogpost:

    • up until, like, a year ago, i swore I disliked oatmeal. but it turns out I was just eating the wrong kind. my mom one day made oatmeal like this with good oats, and served it to me plain with a generous slab of butter stirred in. it was this savory risotto-like situation. it was heavenly. and from then on, I was a converted oatmeal lover.

    • so now I make a batch - at least once or twice a month - of the above recipe, and I portion them out into smaller mason jars like this. that way, when it’s breakfast/lunch time, I can grab one of the containers, heat it up, stir a slab of butter into the hot oatmeal, and enjoy. i thank Past Haley profusely whenever I find these gemstones in my fridge.

currently reading

the midnight library

I once read, “Overspending is a sign of unfulfilled passions,” and it stuck with me good. Anytime I notice I’m becoming too caught up in things I should buy, I check in with myself. Am I reading enough? Walking enough? Cooking enough? Swimming enough?

And the answer is usually no.

So I’m back to prioritizing resting + reading in the evenings. And not only does it fill my cup, I notice I’m much more content (as is our budget) - and aware/grateful of all I have.

Win, win.

currently wearing

my favorite robe. always.

currently streamlining

  • nothing. we’re recovering from our first family cold - and it, might I add, was an awful cold - and we’re just thrilled to be back to somewhat functioning, back on our daily rhythm, and back to normal-ish sleep schedules. lawdddd.

currently loving

  • that I’m done with weddings. whew. I love flowers, but I’m so grateful and happy to put my SAHM hat back on full-time.

    • it was important to us that I stay home with KK. and i wanted to have my own small floral design business that I could pick and choose my schedule, depending on my season of life. so right now with KK so young (and with the hopes of growing our family), i really don’t take many weddings at all. when I do take a wedding, I do it for fun and as a creative outlet, so I have a pretty strict screening process to determine which weddings I accept. I also love that at any point in the future I can add more weddings to my calendar if I so choose - or, alternatively, I can take an entirely different direction in the realm of florals. it’s all flexible and fluid, just how I wanted.

    • by not being overly busy, i have time for the things that are important to me. like raising my babies and spending time with family and reading good books and working out and running our household and cooking dinner. so while our income is smaller, our lives definitely feel richer. i’m so incredibly grateful for brett for providing for us, and he’s so grateful for all I do to take care of us and our home. design a life you love. that said, whatever you do that works for your family is absolutely fantastic. this just works really well for us.

    • we live completely on brett’s income. when we are intentional with both our time and money, we live so very comfortably. this is where having routines and a daily rhythm really helps us - we’re not spending our days mindlessly blowing tons of money (and time!) on things not in our budget, like, frequent trips to the drive-thru or daily Target runs. we spend our days going on walks and going to the pool and taking care of our home and prepping dinner and playing at home and reading good books and helping Brett grill and going to the park and making menu plans and checking our budget - a daily rhythm helps us stay intentional in so many ways.

    • all that to say, I’m so happy to be back to our slower-paced days.

currently working on

  • resting, kicking the remnants of this nasty cold, and savoring this season.

currently sharing

always sharing our favorite routines, our favorite systems, and our favorite dinners on Instagram - come say hi! your kind words make my day. truly.