This post is Day 3 of a 31 Day Journey through my Pinterest Boards. Click here to see more!
Today’s Pin idea came from three different pins plus something my husband said. It all starts with the vacation we recently took to Yellowstone National Park and Idaho Falls (for his sister’s wedding). I am always sure to book a hotel that includes breakfast in its cost. This is very cost effective for our size family. I love when the breakfast is even better than we expect! The kids loved breakfast time. Hardboiled eggs, waffles, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, cereal, juice galore, pastries, muffins, and on and on it went. Each of the five hotels was slightly different, like the one that had “Egg McMuffins.” Oh yummy. That was my favorite.
As we were leaving our last hotel, my husband commented that the kids would be disappointed in only having cereal each morning. He said they’d want me to make breakfast each morning. I said fat chance to that. I’m not a morning person and really prefer to let them be in the kitchen on their own.
As I was contemplating doing this 31 Days challenge, I was looking through each of my boards, and while I was in my Organization Board I came across three pins that sparked an idea.
What if I did do continental breakfast each morning? Could I find a way to make that work?
Would they even like it? How would I limit them from eating all the fruit in one day? (Hard problem to have, right?)
I went to the exchange here on base and perused their very small selection of containers. I decided that one in particular would probably fit in my fridge and in the cereal cabinet. After I did breakfast for one week, I decided to add in snacks. So for this post, you get a 2 in 1! Here is how the cabinet looks now with the non-fridge items:
This is the bottom cabinet of my pantry. The top shelf is cups and the snack box. The second shelf is the breakfast box and 2 cereal containers.
And in the refrigerator, it looks like this:
The small container on the left is for snacks and the large one on the right is for breakfast.
So here’s how it works. I have a sheet in the kitchen that tells them they can have:
1. Small glass of juice
2. 1 or 2 hardboiled eggs
3. one fruit or one fruit cup
4. one bowl of cereal, one package of oatmeal, one bagel, or one piece of toast with peanut butter
5. small bowl of yogurt with granola
Additionally, they can only have one item at a time, and may not choose a second item until they finish with the first. I’m happy to say there has been no wasted food! Here’s the inside of the fridge breakfast container:
Inside is rice milk, juice, yogurt, cream cheese, hardboiled eggs. The box in the pantry has bread, oatmeal packets, peanut butter, bagels, granola, fruit cups, fruit. The cereal boxes sit next to it.
And then for your bonus: Snacks! In the fridge there are cheese sticks, yogurt, pickles, and carrots. Plus apples are in the drawer.
The pantry has granola bars, raisins, applesauce, craisins, fish crackers, and popcorn.
That’s not a very good picture of what is in there. Sorry! I love this set up and so do my children. No more searching in the pantry for items. And they love that it isn’t cereal every single morning of the week.
I even made a lunch shelf:
We eat left overs a lot for lunch, but if there are not any, or not what they like, then they have some choices on the new lunch shelf. Yes, even my 3-year-old can make her own sandwich and get her own breakfast.
I use Plan to Eat for my menu planning, and I have added “Breakfast Buffet” and “Snacks” as meals. I add them one day into the week and it adds all the above items to my grocery list. Then all I need to do is see what I’m out of or I can change things up and add new items. Do you have suggestions for me??
So what do you think? Yea or nay for your household? I hope this “organization” lasts for a long time. I’m so glad Roy’s comment along with the three pins sparked an idea for me.
