Every Monday I enjoy starting off the week getting prepared with food, dips, and goodies to have throughout the week. It honestly saves a lot of time taking 1 day to prepare. I schedule most of the time while my son is still sleeping in the mornings and at nap times. I get up early and immediately start whatever my plans are for the week.

This morning I made chocolate chip cookies, breakfast cookies, pesto, hummus, hard boiled eggs and bacon wrapped hot dogs for dinner Monday night. Sometimes I will make bread, granola, breakfast cookies, zucchini bread, etc. My biggest goal is to prepare snacks for the week. Cooper still takes two naps a day for the most part. His second nap I started preparing dinner so by the time he wakes up I can play with him and do last minute dinner prepping such as boil water for pasta or rice. I usually prep to the point that everything is ready to go into the oven and all I have to do is preheat the oven and pull the pan from the fridge to cook it. I get salad prepped or whatever it is I am doing that night for dinner, I make a point to do it during his second nap and this has really helped make good use of my time.

My advice for anyone who has kids is to make good use of their nap time especially if you choose one day out of the week for your cooking and baking. Utilizing one day and one day properly will help allow you to get the “me” time you want and deserve. I also send my hubby to work with breakfast and lunch because he leaves early enough and has low blood sugar he needs to eat all day long. I always make enough dinner to send for leftovers so I don’t have to over think his lunch or make something else.

By properly using your time once a week you will see how much time it truly saves the remainder of the week. You can also make a few meals and freeze them so on busy days you pop them out of the freezer and directly into the oven. One day can save hours of cooking later in the week. J If you really need you’re “me” time on Monday, make sure and take it once the kids lay their heads to rest for the night.

Try it; let me know how you think and if this helped you!