Hellobee Boards

Agree with @Littlebug - we have a routine we stick too and I meal plan so I grocery shop on Sunday for the entire week, prep what I can, and make sure meals can be made in 30 minutes or under. I utilize my crockpot a lot so dinner id done when we get home.

I clean the house with DH on Thursday night, we split the chores and get it done in a hour. I do one load of laundry a day so that way its not a big pile on the weekends, all I do is sheets/towels on weekends. It works for us.

Yes to divide and conquer! Dh makes lunches and walks the dogs in the mornings while I get the girls dressed

@codeitall: we only have one toddler and we're still really fumbling around in the dark trying to figure this out, but for me the make-or-break thing is night-before cleaning and prep, for ME as well as for the baby. I don't always do all of this--it takes an hour and I'm exhausted-- but when I do, mornings are super smooth and not stressful.
-spend 5 or 10 minutes picking up the house and putting away clutter; this keeps me sane and we can find everything.
-cook/pack the baby's daycare lunch and prep his sippy cups
-pack anything else we need into his daycare bag
-look at the weather and pick out my outfit and iron it if need be, pull out what tights/shoes/coat I'm going to wear
-shower at night and fix my hair if I washed it

Our cooking and meals are still pretty hit or miss and we order a LOT of takeout. I cook 3 or 4 nights a week, always healthy, but we could improve on this. The thing I just can't get on board with is cooking all day Sunday; I know it's the smart thing to do but I get super territorial over that time

Get up early so that you’re all ready to go before you get the kids up. I get up at 5 so that when we get the boys up at 6 we can put all our focus on getting them up and going. We plan our meals on Sunday, order the groceries click and collect, and then pick them up after Sunday bedtime. I have a pretty solid collection of dinners that can go from ingredients to on the table in half an hour. Fridays are always takeout, and the cleaners come every other week. I pretty much do no other cleaning, just tidying.

I give myself a lot of room to change up the routine. It was easier when my son was in daycare, it is a new level of chaos with elementary school.

Laundry: I have a washing machine where I can set it to begin the load of wash up to 18 hours later. If I have to wash something during the week, I typically start the load so that it finishes as I come home so I can put it in the dryer. Otherwise, I only do laundry on the weekends. To help with that, I have a three bin laundry sorter so that I can easily do a load and not have to sort it (I am super picky about how I wash clothes). I also leverage the dry cleaner. My son wears a uniform, so I do the hanging laundry sorter in his room with a week's worth of clothes. I keep his pajamas in the bathroom so he can just get dressed right out of the shower.

My clothes: I spend time on Sunday night to make sure I have outfits for the week. I make sure I have tights, undergarments, etc so I am not wearing black underwear with white pants! I keep a pair of tights in my desk at the office, along with a bag of makeup, toothbrush etc in case I can't do my face at home.

I also keep food in my desk at work, like kind bars, cans of soup, shelf stable milk, cereal, oatmeal, in case I can't pack my food. I eat at the cafeteria too, and on some nights, I get an extra sandwich if I have meeting at my son's school. I prioritize my son's lunch because he refuses to eat the hot lunch offering, so he needs to have it packed. If he would agree to the hot lunch, I would for sure get him that.

I buy all my tickets online, so i always make sure I have a phone charger with me, in case I need to plug it in on the train to show my ticket. I keep a backpack for my work stuff and a tote bag for my food. I commute via public transport and drive, so I try to keep myself organized so I am not switching bags and forgetting things. I wear a cross body bag with a pocket for my phone and I keep my key fobs on a lanyard along with my parking garage badge. I haven't lost anything in years this way. We also eliminated a house key and went to a keyless entry system. I can also unlock/lock the doors remotely and the house is set to turn off the lights at certain times so I never leave the house with all the lights on or unlocked doors.

All bills are on autopay. I open the mail once a week, so I keep it in a bin on my husband's desk. He sorts it and files it. I also keep a sleeve of checks in my wallet in case I need to write a check for something at my son's school.

My son is in elementary school and that means homework and projects, so I collected a bunch of supplies, like poster board, stick on letters, etc so that he could do a project without a special trip to the store. I don't have time for that during the week!

I do one day for all my appointments. I go to the doctor, the dentist, the eye doctor, get my hair cut, etc. It is much easier than doing it one at a time and I make sure I get the self care I need. I do the same for my son on the day when he has his annual physical.

I have a gift closet...it's really a chest of drawers, but it has paper, bags, tissue, ribbon, tags and gifts. I stock up on things like adult coloring books, pencils, puzzles, small games and things so that I could give a gift to a friend of mine or my son's without having to make a special trip to the store or make an online order. I buy one gender neutral, non character age appropriate gift (this year it's Dr. Microbe) and if we get invited to a friend party, that's what they get.

I say "no" and don't feel guilty about it. Our weekdays are hectic and I like to wind down on the weekends, so I often will opt to stay at home, particularly in the summer. I often invite friends over and that is how we pass the time. I choose one "big" activity per quarter, like a play, amusement park, trip to NYC with my son so he feels like we're doing special things, but I really want him to be able to enjoy and recharge and not get caught up in being busy all of the time.

@LCTBQE: totally agree! @gingerbebe:'s responses are super helpful and realistic too

Mine aren't particularly life changing, but one thing I just started doing that I like is meal planning for the month. I printed off an empty calendar and plugged in meals. I found that I added easy meals for Fridays, fun new meals for Saturday's (since I love cooking and want to try new stuff), and slow cooker meals on Sunday. The Sunday meal is meant to give us leftovers for Monday. The rest of the week I do an egg dish, ground beef or ground turkey or chicken meals. It takes out the weekly stress of meal planning for me.

Sorry the pic isn't great but you get the idea!

We both work out of the home, DH is a partner at a law firm so he has a bit more flexibility bc his hours are flexible and can be done from home as needed.

For us, here are my takeaways:

1) Outsource where possible. We have a cleaning lady, lawcare service, dog walker, day care. We've recently hired our cleaning woman and lawn care, these were areas we saw slipping and more arguments about - so for us, we'd rather outsource than stress and/or fight!

2) Meal Prep/Plan - figure out what works for you. When I started my new job 2 months ago I was so rattled by this because we were losing some of our flexibility. I found that writing out a list of our go to meals was a huge help. Personally what works for us is for me to make two meal Sunday. Then during the week I prep two more meals in the mornings. DH gets dinners going when he gets home with the girls. For us, delivery services like HelloFresh dont work - but maybe they would for you? I do make great use of curbside shopping from local grocery stores...this is big time helpful for me on busy Sundays.

3) Lists lists lists - I keep a plum paper notebook for all my crazy lists, and a paper planner as well. It helps me keep my head in order.

4) Give your kids chores. We do a lot of night before prep - and our DD1 (4yo) has her chores. Usually picking out her outfit, her sisters outfit, feeding the dog, etc. Every little bit helps!

Lastly...give yourself extra time in any schedule. It always takes longer than you think...

I wish I had kids that slept in like everyone else!

Our ingredients for less stressful days:
Pack the diaper bag the night before

Pack lunches the night before (most successful when I make a big kale salad because that’s hardy and lasts the week; other days I do it in the AM because I don’t like soggy salad)

Get up before the kids: DH never does and it is a HUGE point of stress. I get up at 5:15, drink coffee and make lunches or do chores until 5:45-6, go running and get back home by 6:30, and then a combo of showering, making kids breakfast, and getting kids dressed until 7:30-7:45. My kids are usually up between 6-6:30 so if DH was up he could get them ready buuuut too bad. Out the door by 7:45.

Never make dinner on a weeknight. Praise all of you who are able to prep food for 30 minutes in the evening but my kids need to eat right away usually. My mom makes dinner twice a week which is fantastic, Thursday’s we give the kids leftovers and DH and I eat late, Friday’s DH feeds himself and the kids while I grocery shop (something easy like homemade pizza or broiled chicken, veggie, sweet potatoes because he gets home early like 5-5:15, or leftovers). Monday is a crapshoot because we are usually getting in the door around 6 so we need leftovers. When my mom is out of town so not there for dinner those 2 days I try leftovers, freezer meals, making something in the AM like tuna, or eggs. We eat the same foods over and over.

Such good tips! My number 1 tip is grocery delivery - not having to spend time on the weekends grocery shopping makes such a difference! It also forces me to meal plan-I do two weeks at a time.

Aw thanks everyone that's so kind.

RE: meal prepping. If you're into weekly or monthly menu planning, I'm a big fan of weekly templates - like Soup Monday, Mexican Tuesday, Pasta Wednesday, Leftover Thursday, etc. That way you can fit something different on each day, but mentally you know what to fill into that blank on each weekday. I used this especially when I did monthly menu planning. Once a month, I'd just go dig around and find 4 soup, 4 pasta, 4 sandwiches/burger, and 4 crockpot recipes, plus 4 pizza topping variations, and we'd have our game plan for the month. I don't plan like this anymore, but it was very helpful in a certain season of my life.

For meal kit services that have to be cooked quickly, I've tried them all and Gobble is the beast. HelloFresh and Blue Apron are more like you have time and you want to cook a fun meal and have an hour to burn. Gobble pre-cooks parts of the meal and its supposed to get you a family friendly meal in 15 minutes. I think its closer to 20-25, but still good to change things up and its nice to have as an option when you know things will be hectic a certain week.

Costco has very good prepped entrees you can pop in the oven. Their alfredo, ravioli lasagna, mac n' cheese, and meatloaf and mashed potato dinners have all been good and handy to keep in the fridge for one meal mentally done for the week.

@codeitall: We have fairly structured weekends as well, but in a different way. My whole family just really likes routine, so we just stick with it!

Saturdays, we "sleep in" until 730am, then we have a "Continental breakfast" - i.e. the boys ask for yogurt or cereal (again, hangry first thing), then when they see Daddy is having a full breakfast with eggs and what not, they want some too. So they get some scrambled eggs and frozen turkey sausage and fruit in addition to whatever they asked for. Breakfast usually drags out an hour and then the boys get some outside time or TV time while I clean up and figure out what to do with them for the day! Our boys need a lot of physical activity, so we usually take them to a park, but with the weather, its become trickier. This weekend we took them to an indoor play gym and other times we've taken them to museums and what not - anywhere they can run. Sometimes we eat out, sometimes we come home, but nap is always at 1pm. We usually do family nap (meaning DH and I sleep too) and we get up around 4-4:30pm. Boys will have a snack and I will start making dinner. I would say 2 Saturdays a month we have friends come over for dinner. They usually come over around 4:30pm since they know we nap until then and they keep the kids occupied while I get dinner situated and then they hang out with us until the kids' bedtimes at 730pm. Sometimes they stay after bedtime for adult conversations, sometimes they head out once the kids go to bed, and sometimes they just watch the kids and let us go out on a late date! If we're free that evening, DH and I usually do some chores like folding laundry or grocery shopping. I also usually stay up a little later on Saturday doing meal prep for the week. Its my nice quiet time to knock out some meals and snacks, listen to music, etc.

Sundays we get up at 730am and have the big breakfast, but then get dressed for church. We have 930am service, we're out of there by 11am, and then we usually take the kids to a park if the weather permits and picnic there. If not, we often head to Costco and pick up a few things and either feed them lunch at the food court or bring them home after they've run around the joint. We usually also get gas there. Then its nap time and DH and I usually take the first hour of nap to do weekly chores like taking out the garbage and cleaning out the cars a bit from all the weekly detritus. Then we usually take a nap, eat dinner, and then let the kids watch some TV while we prep daycare bags, lunches, and wipe down the kitchen. I generally like the house to be a little tidied up going into the week so I don't feel so stressed out. Once the kids are in bed, DH usually does some work in his office until late (he runs his own practice, so he usually spends Sunday night setting up for the week) and I make sure we have dinner set for Monday. I do a fridge inventory (clean out bad food, take stock of my leftover situation, look at my freezer, and pull things out of the freezer to thaw, etc). I look at my pantry and write up a rough meal plan for the week and stick that on the fridge. Based on that, typically each weeknight night I know what we're having for dinner the next day and get make sure everything is either ready to reheat or that I have every thing set up to cook it quickly when I get home.

As for freezer meals, I generally find its just easier to have meal COMPONENTS batch cooked and frozen in portions. So if you're making taco meat, make double and freeze half. Same with pulled pork, shredded chicken, plain seasoned ground beef, meat sauce, and chili. I almost always make extra Spanish rice and basmati/jasmine rice and freeze it as well. This way at least one major component of your meal is knocked out and you just need to add 1-2 other things.

If I have plain ground beef pre-cooked flat in a freezer bag, it can be hamburger stroganoff, skillet shepherd's pie, spaghetti, tacos, vegetable beef soup, fried rice, Thai basil beef, or chili in 20 minutes or less and my family doesn't complain its the same thing over again.

@caterw: @gingerbebe: yessss I want you to have an advice column called Dear Ginger and there could be a section in the drop-down menu for board categories called "gingerbebe"
Implementing pasta Wednesday tomorrow.

@Mrs D: Lol hardcore...more like boring eaters! this actually started when my husband was in grad school, I would make 5 different meals for each day, so we would always eat the one thing for dinner and then lunch the following day. But DH said he couldn't handle eating the same thing two meals in a row like that. But the same thing for lunch or dinner is fine, because its not directly 'next' to each other! Go figure.