Trader Joe's Haul and Menu Plan

Thought I'd share our Trader Joe's haul today.  I don't have any actual pictures of anything since Christmas took over my whole kitchen.  But I'll give a rundown of all the things we purchased and our meal plan for the week.  This is a fairly typical grocery list for us. I wrote the list but my husband actually did the shopping this week.  I tend to only write the real staples we need for recipes or important things I don't want to forget and then we kind of fill in the snacky stuff and extra fruit that looks good.  I find that I need to be specific about the fruit I want to have around the house when my husband does the shopping or he will pretty much just get what's on the list and nothing more. (I tend to add more fruit when I shop just knowing that we will need it for snack and lunches)

We're a family of five and have two gluten free people in our house.  Out total for this week was $142.02 including tax.  This was a short week for us since we were just coming out of Christmas. We will probably go to the store again New Years Eve to get food for that since we're not sure what our plans are yet.

Produce:
Organic Power Greens salad
Shollots
3 bags of organic cole slaw
green onions
shaved brussels sprouts
cilantro
red bell pepper
broccoli bunch
red seedless grapes
bananas
medjool dates
dried mango slices

Dairy:
Organic Whole Milk
Organic 2% Milk
Almond Milk
Parmesan Cheese
Shredded Mexican Blend Cheese
Organic American Cheese
String Cheese
2 Dozen Eggs

Meat:
Precooked "Just chicken Chuncks"
2 Packages Ground Beef
Bacon
Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage

Grains/Breads:
Organic Brown Rice Quinoa Fusilli
Mac & Cheese GF Rice and Cheddar
Sprouted CA Style Organic Bread
Gluten Free Whole Grain Bread
Pretzel Bagels
Cracked Wheat Sourdough Bread

Misc Snacks, etc.
Salsa Authentica
Organic Ginger Tumeric Herbal Tea
2 Jars Peanut Butter (salted)
Raspberry Jelly
Longboard Organic Tortilla Chips
Raises the Bar Dark Chocolate Bars
PB&J Bars


Frozen:
Hatch Chili Mac & Cheese
Farfalle with Cheese and Spinach
Fusilli with Veg & Basil Pesto
Ricotta & Spinach Tortelloni
Petite Peas
Gluten Free Waffles
Gluten Free Pancakes

Menu Plan for the Week:  I felt like I needed something "green" to eat after all the Christmas festivities.  I need to get ahold of myself and stop it with the sugar....right after I finish this bag of peppermint kisses......I think I'll do a "What I ate" day tomorrow to help get me on a good track. My husband is really wanting meatloaf and it's my younger son's new favorite food so I figured I'd at least make two out of the five of us really happy and make it. 

Dinners:
Orecchiette Pasta with Chicken Sausage and Broccoli
Chicken, Bacon, Date and Brussels Sprouts Quinoa Power Salad
Thai Crunch Salad with Thai Peanut Dressing
Meatloaf (My mother in law's recipe), Potatoes, Peas

Breakfasts:
Three Minute Egg White Oatmeal (My younger son and daughter LOVE this)
Regular Oatmeal
Waffles
Pancakes
Eggs and Toast (or eggs and waffles or pancakes)

Lunches:
Grilled Cheese
Salami Sandwiches
PB&J
Quesadillas

Welcome, Welcome!

Hello!  Welcome! Thank you for stopping by my blog!

I'm a 34 year old wife and mother of three: two boys who are seven and four and a daughter who is 21 months. 

Lately (the past couple of years) I have felt like I have been drowning in life's little annoyances and the fun things in life have really taken a backseat to just surviving.

My goal for this blog is to help me stay on track and get my shit together.  I'm going to try to build some good habits to ease some of the monotony and time suckers of the mundane things in life in order to make time for the fun things in my life. I want more time to play with my children, laugh, flirt with my husband, make some friends, and enjoy life.

 That's not to say that I'm going to be ultra strict and have a million to-do lists and optimize every second of the day.  No way.  Been there, tried that, not for me.  I will have "to-do" lists - but on those lists I want to prioritize things that will make me better as a whole and to carve out that time to form meaningful relationships with my family and friends.

I plan on writing about some of the following:
-  Cleaning:  flylady - I just started her cleaning method and I've seen some awesome improvements in my house
-  Outfits of the day:  I'm happy to live all day everyday in my 10 year old yoga pants.  However - I want to look put together when I go out.  There are a couple mom's at my son's school who look IG worthy every single day.  No joke.  I'm amazed by them.
-  Menu Planning.  I figure I do this every week so I might as well share what I'm doing in case it helps someone else.
- Grocery hauls - Two of us at my house are gluten free - so again - if it helps someone else than awesome.  I mostly shop at Trader Joe's
-  Day in the life - My hope here is to encourage myself to do something fun.  I'm sure there will be plenty of boring day in the life posts out where I don't do much other than clean my house in my old a$$ yoga pants and feed my children.  But my hope is that it inspires me to make an effort to do something fun and take the time to build those relationships that are so important to me. 
-  What I eat Wednesday:  A lot of the fitness bloggers I read do this segment and I love getting new ideas of what people eat.

Also - If I'm really, really brave I will start a YouTube channel.  Gulp. 

Here's the deal:  I'm a really, really private person.  I don't have Facebook and my husband and I don't allow anyone to post pictures of our children online.  SO - I won't post pictures of my children or my husband on here.  I will post pictures of myself though.