I used to be a fly by the seat of my pants kind of kitchen adventurer. I used to find some outrageous recipe online or in my food magazine, decide I had to make it that second, go to the store, buy the groceries (which always included some random-hard-to-find-obscure-on-the-bottom-shelf-of-aisle-500 ingredient) and then go home to make this fantastic meal and eat at like 8 or 9 at night. That worked great when it was just me and hubby. However, now that babes has joined us, life is a little more zoo like. Cue the meal planning.  I am trying my best to plan all our meals a week in advance and do the shopping on Sunday. Waaayyy less stress and way better than staring at each other at 6:00 p.m. asking 'what do you want for dinner?' 'No what do you what?'  This also means finding less off the wall recipes that I can make quickly with a 5 month old 'helping' in the kitchen.

That's why I was so excited to get my very first Day Designer. Love does not begin to describe the feelings I have for it. I recently ordered the August Edition and I feel like I'm starting the first day of school again with my pretty new planner. This little beauty not only keeps my schedule for the day/week/month/year, but it also has awesome to-do lists, daily gratitude reminders, and a notes section. It is just gorgeous for the inner organized geek in me!

While I also keep track of things on my phone calendar, I always have a million notes going on in my head during the week. These notes, meal plans, to do lists, shopping lists, etc. always got written on scraps of paper, the back of envelopes or even in the 'Notes' app of my iPhone. But it never fails...my phone will die when I get to the grocery store or that slip of paper I wrote my list on is in the diaper bag which is so conveniently at home instead of in my work tote.

Day Designer also has amazing free printables including 'Goal Tracker by Month', 'Holiday Gift Ideas' and my new favorites: 'Weekly Meal Planner' and 'Grocery List'.

I.AM.IN.LOVE!

This week I used the lovely 'Weekly Meal Planner' and 'Grocery List' printables to plan our week of meals and my grocery list. I put the printables right in my Day Designer (that I always have with me now). Win win for all parties!

This week on the menu:

Monday: Leftover chicken (from this weekend) w/ squash and side salad
Tuesday: Picadillo over rice w/ side salad  from Skinnytaste (I made the Picadillo before babes was born and have had it in the freezer ready to use)
Wednesday: Zuppa Toscana Soup w/ crusty bread from Gimme Some Oven
Thursday: Chicken Tamale Pie from Pinch of Yum
Friday: FAMILY PIZZA NIGHT! (more on this family tradition later)
Saturday: We're out of town so no planning for me
Sunday: Spaghetti and meatballs (again, frozen from when Mark's dad was in town to make us authentic homemade Italian meatballs)

{p.s. none of this is sponsored and all of the product(s) were purchased by me. I just love to share what I love!}