If all goes as planned, this will be the last menu I have to plan for the month of January! I have decided, in my insane fashion, to pack my 4 kids in the van and drive {by myself} to New York to visit a friend for the rest of the month. This all depends on the weather, of course. I am not driving to NY if blizzards are howling. If we make it to New York {and I hope we do}, I will rely on my friend Robin to plan the meals and I’ll share whatever yumminess Robin comes up with!! 
If we don’t make it…and spending 15 hours in a van by myself with 4 crazy kiddos very well means we just may NOT…well, thanks a lot for reading my blog!! LOL!
Anyway, on to the menu for this week:
Dinners ~
- Shepard’s Pie {from the freezer}
- Pot Roast in the crock pot
- Lemon Broccoli Farfalle {from the freezer}
- French Onion Soup & Homemade Crusty Bread
- Homemade Pizza {dough from freezer}
- Clean Out Fridge Leftover Night
Lunches will consist mainly of leftovers.
Breakfasts will come from my Pinterest Board.
Got a favorite tip for surviving a long car ride with children? I’d love to hear it!!
Linking up: MPM;
About Michelle
Welcome! I'm Michelle and I'm glad you're here. Simplify, Live, Love is a blog about simple life in rural Iowa. We are a self-employed, frugal, green, mostly homeschooling family of 6 working to go off the grid on a modern day homestead in Eastern Iowa. Please subscribe for gardening tips, green living hints, recipes, fun giveaways, and frugal ideas. Thanks for stopping by.
I made the 3 day car trip with the 4 kids. You can do it!! I allowed them to snack themselves into a food coma most of the time. I had my cooler in the passenger seat filled with baggies of snacks, water bottles, juice boxes, and peppermints (Ava gets really car sick and I read peppermint is supposed to help). I was constantly throwing snacks to the back and hollering “CATCH!”. Ava was in charge of handing out snacks to the younger children, she was the only one that was able to catch the flying bags!
They ate and napped, ate and napped, then ate and napped some more. I thought it was going to be horrible but it really wasn’t that bad! No meltdowns, no screeching. I couldn’t believe it.
I wish you luck!
We like audiobooks for long car rides. Right now we are working our way through the Chronicles of Narnia series, it’s available free from Ancient Faith Radio. The library is also an excellent source for audiobooks.
Oh – never heard of Ancient Faith Radio. Might have to look for the Narnia series there. My kids love those books! Thanks, Jessica!!
I should have left the link for you: http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/series/the_chronicles_of_narnia If you right click on the direct link arrow, then “save link as” you can download them to your computer as an mp3 file. If you use itunes you can subscribe to the podcast and download them that way as well. My kids are really mesmerized by the narrator, Chrissi Hart, she has a lovely accent that fits the series well.
Thanks, Jessica! That’s great.
Does your sheppherds pie freeze ok? Never tried to freeze it!
Hi Erin, you know, I actually didn’t make the Sheppard’s Pie {it was a meal I got at a freezer meal exchange} and was a little leery to try. We had it last night though and it was REALLY good! We all liked it a lot – and we are pretty picky.
When I was a kid we used to drive for two days to go on holidays. From what I remember we had snacks, games to play (like I-spy and finding words in number plates of cars), toys that we weren’t allowed to open until certain times of the day, and tapes of our favourite songs. We were a big reading family, but I couldn’t read in the car without getting very carsick, which was annoying. Audio books are a great idea!