Meal Plan Tuesday

I've had great feedback on my Meal Planning post, so I thought I would do a small follow up.

Saturday morning Husband had to go into work, so the kiddos and I had a lazy day. We literally did not get out of our pajamas until 3pm. For Booger, that meant she spent the day in a t-shirt and her underwear...Chunk actually spent the entire day in his onesie, but he's a baby so who knows the difference, right? I put him in a fresh one before bed, so I can still call myself a good mama. Don't mind the fact that he hasn't had a bath in probably a week...

I let Booger watch TV or play her puzzle games on my iPad while I couponed and made lists. I wrote out all the meals (listed below) for the week and what ingredients go into each.

Here's a printable version for you! Meal Plan List

After that, I went and made another list separated into sections. I know my Target pretty well by now, so I tried to make the list in order of the store. Produce, then meats, then canned/boxed, etc.
Here's another printable for you!   
Grocery List

After plugging in the staples and extras not associated with dinners, I went back to my dinner list and added all the items from there. If there were multiple, aka avocados are in several dinners, I put tally marks next to the item. That way, in the store, I know how many of each item I need in order to have enough to cover all meals. We do tend to go back to the store after a week to stock back up on produce.

This week, I decided to switch things around. We're trying to get away from processed food like Goldfish, fruit snacks, etc and eat more real foods. We are by no means perfect, and still like our "junk", but we try to do better where we can. Especially with Booger. She loves fruits, and will eat some veggies, but also loves her graham crackers, fruit snacks, cookies, etc. A treat is a treat, but I'm attempting to do away with things in packages.

So this time, in addition to the dinners, I made ideas for breakfasts, lunches and snacks too. For breakfasts, I added items like English muffin breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos. Those I am planning on making today and freezing. That way, we can pop them into the microwave and have a nice healthy meal with minimal work.
Some other things I'm planning on making ahead:
** mac and cheese (freezing into smaller batches for Booger for lunch and dinners)
** trail mix (bought nuts and raisins, adding some popcorn, cheerios and maybe fruit at the time)
** cheese and crackers (bought block of cheese, going to cut into squares for snacks)
** meatballs (easy to add for pasta nights, or even for a lunch for Booger)
** pancakes (put into the freezer and popped into microwave for breakfast)
** popsicles (for snacks; made by blending fresh fruit; using a popsicle mold we bought from Ikea a few years back)

It'll be quite a bit of work, but will pay off in the end.
Here are some of the ideas I put together for Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks.

And here are the dinners I planned for the next few weeks:

Now, to go update my Menu chalkboard!