2 Winner's and my weeks menu plan

I was talking to my friend on the phone recently and she asked me how I was doing with this whole diet thing. It was a hard question to answer. I feel like I've been a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. If I'm not doing extremely well with eating, then I'm pigging out on ice cream and not knowing what to fix for dinner because I feel so overwhelmed lately. Overwhelmed by all the contradicting information out there. Overwhelmed by trying to force my family to enjoy "healthy" foods. Overwhelmed by my kids whining at me because they are not eating what I make and they are hungry and grumpy, and quite frankly, so am I! So here's how I'm doing. The thing is, when I started this I said that the main reason was to help my daughter get over her constipation problems. She is doing wonderfully! It all started with one dose of mirilax, cutting way back on cheese (really, cheese was a huge staple at our house) and talking, talking, talking to her about foods that are pooper helpers and pooper stoppers and going when she needs to go. She is doing so well and I'm so glad. So now I am pretty much back to where I was before. I realized that we already do eat pretty healthy around here. I mean not to any extreme, but we eat home cooked meals, home baked bread, tons of fresh fruit, and really not much in the way of processed foods. And that's ok with me for now. Even if my bread is 60/40 wheat to white. That's the way we like it. That being said I want to share two delicious recipes that we will be incorporating into our snacks. The first is the granola bars that Mom already tried. I finally tried them today and WOW!!! They are so delicious not to mention so incredibly easy to make! And the possibilities with them are endless. So, no more sunbelt granola bars around here. The second is a wheat thins recipe I posted about on my blog about a year ago, but never actually tried yet. But they are amazing and easy too! When Audrey tasted one she said, "Wow! I like these crackers!" And then when Wayne tried one he said, "You made these??!" and then he kept asking me, "wow, how did you make these? These are better than wheat thins!" Here are the two links: Granola bars Wheat thin crackers I love how with the crackers you can make a bunch of dry mix and store it in your freezer, which brings me to my next goal. I have been so busy lately that it gets to be 5 or 6 at night and I haven't thought yet about what we are having for dinner. It's frustrating and stressful for everybody so I need to plan better, and that means planning meals I can make mostly in the morning, or doing freezer meals (hint, hint, Jessica!) or of course the crock pot. So here is my menu for the week (Oh, and I only plan dinners. Lunch is leftovers and breakfast is whatever):

• Tue: Cornflake chicken and potato salad


• Wed: Chicken tortilla soup (crock pot)


• Thur: Chile and twice baked potatoes (crock pot and I will make tons of potatoes whenever I can and then twice baked potatoes freeze well for future)


• Fri: Stuffed shells and bread sticks (the stuffed shells can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen)


• Sat: Pizza


• Sun: Roast (crock pot) and mashed potatoes


• Mon: Fajitas (from leftover roast)

Whew! I feel so much better about this. For now. I already have my chicken marinading in the fridge (in buttermilk with garlic salt and some pepper) so I can just shake it and bake it before dinner (we call it chicken nuggets and the kids love it). I also pretty much have the potato salad made already. So dinner will not be stressful tonight, even though I will be leaving when Wayne gets home around 3 to go get some dirt and stuff for my garden and will probably be working in the garden until 5!