Challenge Report (or, I am a failure)

Okay, I failed.
I think we ate out more this past week than we ever have, which was strange. 
I was fine on Monday, the busiest of days.  We had homemade pizza!
Then Tuesday came and we were running late again and ended up
eating Chinese one night, and one lunch…
Chick-Fil-A one breakfast, trying a new local Mexican joint another,
and then on Friday we were in Memphis so the
challenge couldn’t even work and we of course ate both lunch and dinner.
Oh well.
I swear we NEVER eat out like this.  
I told the kids this next week the challenge would be in full swing so not to even ask.
On the bright side today was the kids’ “graduation” from science classes at the 4H center.
They are so sad that the classes are over.  Emily’s class did a soil study where they collected information for UA’s County Extension office.  (The rock climbing and canoeing was a bonus!)
The data will be used in a study for the entire state so she was a little proud.  She also learned how to type blood, which I thought was pretty cool.
Max got to learn more about bats (they were studying habitats this year.)  He LOVES bats so that was a big hit also.  I’ve been so impressed with the classes out there.  They also do summer camps which are really fun!  Check out your local 4H offices!

Eating In!

The Green Phone Booth had a post about the Huffington Posts’ “The Week of Eating In.”
It starts today!

The Challenge?

See if your family can NOT eat out for an entire week.
Beyond that,
see if you can make your food from scratch (not a box!)

We are in!

We are in the minority I think because we don’t eat out very often.   I like to cook (sometimes) and like to know what is going into my family’s tummies.  Also, we are always disappointed when we eat out it seems. 

But…
on Mondays we ALWAYS eat out due to the fact that the kids have: school, dance, guitar, until 7pm, which makes us get home around 7:30PM.  Makes for a long day for little ones.  I’m going to attempt to throw some snacks in the van and then have pizza dough rising at home so we can make fast pizza when we walk in the door.  Not sure if it will work but we’ll try!

It seems that once you start planning meals, that the rest comes much easier.   No stress as to “What’s for Dinner?”  No questioning on the kids’ (and hubby’s) parts.
It’s so expensive dining out with a family of five, even if you are eating kids’ meals!  Eating out three times probably equals two weeks of groceries for us.

Some great sites for meal planning/recipes and such are:
Farmer’s Daughter
Feeding Five for Fifty
Make it From Scratch
Meal Planning
*My recipe blog isn’t great yet, but I have some recipes here.

Post a comment if you are in on the challenge!  Also we’ll have an update next Monday to see how it went (if I made it through today without caving…)