Best Laid Plans

Last week I decided to try preparing all the meals for the week in one night and see if it made life easier during the week.  I only really need three meals as we usually eat left overs on Thursday and Meatless on Friday so we often get pizza.  Making or assembling meals on Sunday night is so much easier anyway because I have someone to distract the children, we aren't waiting for a meal to eat, and it makes for only one real mess for the week. Here's what I came up with for my first attempt.

Rotissere Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and gravy, and green bean casserole.



Pot roast with carrots and mashed potatoes.

Dijon Chicken with corn and mashed potatoes.

It only took me around two hours to assemble everything and about 45 minutes to clean and I think that included a break to nurse baby.  So ideally I would  just have to empty a freezer back into a crock pot or roaster and/or put something in the oven every night for dinner.

It worked out fairly well except for the minor detail of me losing the Dijon Chicken. I remember assembling it and I thought I remember walking it out to the deep freezer, but it was never seen again. I was talking to my brother on the phone while I was cleaning the kitchen on Sunday so I may have thrown it out. (I've done it before)  Thankfully I had some fajitas in the freezer and we didn't have to do take out or anything. I had made them a month ago trying out a crockpot meal. It's boneless skinless chicken, salsa, and bell pepers, and taco seasoning, cooked in a crock pot. Just serve over rice or on flour tortillas. It made so much I froze the leftovers for an emergency meal. I'm just impressed that I was able to identify it and use it as an actual meal.

Mr. Sloth and I finally got out do to some Christmas shopping. It was the first time we've been to the Mall of America by ourselves for a long time. I know it's been a long time because we couldn't find any of the stores we were looking for.  We spent two hours there and barely bought anything off our list. We got the number one thing we came for though, and that's what's important.

Before I talk about today, let me just say that every night I say that I'm going to get up at 5:45am and every morning I say I'm going to go to bed earlier. Neither dream ever comes true. I woke up at 5:45am once last week and it was great, but it was only once. Today I woke up at 5:30am after nursing baby. I put him in his swing and said, "Just ten more minutes". I woke up at 8:00am. Grrrr, so close!

So I woke up and quickly assembled a list of what the kids and I were doing for the day. First I was going to shower, then we'd shop for Mr. Sloth's presents and spend the rest of the day working on our homemade gifts. Plans changed. Mr. Sloth called while I was in the shower to let me know that the four digit deposit that he made on Monday only went through as a two digit deposit due to a bank error and we were therefore significantly overdrawn until he could get it figured out at the bank.  Blah!

It could have been worse. Thankfully Mr. Sloth discovered the problem when his check card declined getting coffee and not when I was out with all four kids in 9 degree weather because the first thing I had to do was put gas in the van and it would have been a nightmare. One of the downfalls of not having credit cards is not having back up in case of an emergency. (I'm very happy not having credit cards though)

So poor Mr. Sloth spent the morning in the bank looking for his lost money, days before Christmas like he was George Bailey, and I stayed home until the issue was resolved.

As my backup plan I decided to work on some of the homemade gifts with the kids. For some reason my ambitious side kicked in and I thought it would be a great idea to reorganize all of my baking supplies which includes bins of candy and sprinkles. Yeah, that was fun. I thought Pax was going to have a seizure trying to convince me to give him some of the candy. We barely made any progress on the gifts when I had to stop to make the kids lunch.   Mr. Sloth came home and let me know that our check card wouldn't work yet but he brought home some cash to get me through today.

So at 12:30pm, I started to load a crabby two year old, a four month old, a three year old, and a six year old into the van and head out into 10 degree weather in the busiest part of town, at the busiest time of day, during naptime. Bad idea. We get to Kohls and load up the triple stroller, get inside and grab a cart with a childseat in it. I now have two carts full of kids in a surprisingly packed department store. (Demand can push one cart by the way in case you are wondering how I pulled that off. Kohls is not triple stroller friendly by the way.)  I knew the stores would be packed tonight, and definitely tomorrow which was why I braved heading out at this time in the first place, so I was surprised to see it so busy.  I'm sure people were annoyed at me and my cart/strollers but deal with it people. My real problem was that Pax was screaming nearly the entire time for whatever toy he wasn't currently holding and Happy who was supposed to be picking out a toy for baby (whose name he drew in Christmas exchange)  was in fact picking out gifts for himself. And anytime I'd mention that we still had to get Daddy a gift he would suggest something he and Daddy could share.  I finally conceded to a failed attempt at shopping. I picked out a toy for baby, bought two boys neck (clip on) ties and a pair of dress pants for Happy and we left.

So now the plan is that I order pizza for dinner and Mr. sloth is coming home a bit early to take Demand and Happy to the Christmas Parade (It's a nighttime lights parade). I was going to stay home with Pax and baby and then get groceries later tonight. And while I love this time of year because I can do my grocery shopping at SuperTarget close to Midnight, I'm now trying to convince myself that tomorrow I can get up early and go and miss the crowds instead of heading out tonight after Mr. Sloth gets home.

Let's hope the upcoming Christmas plans go better than this past week.