This is the post I was hesitant to publish, because it's just a nerdy post about me getting excited about food related organization. Ridiculous, I know. But, hey, I wrote it, I might as well use it...

For the past several years, my kids have gotten to pick one of a handful of fairly healthy, pretty easy options for breakfast. However, I was getting more and more annoyed with often making four different breakfasts in the morning and having kids hem and haw forever while trying to decide what to pick. So, right before school started, I announced a new breakfast policy. We were picking seven breakfast options, assigning them a day of the week, and that's what all three of the kids would be having. Joey handled the transition extremely well because I let him assign which day they would have each meal. He loved having control of that and didn't even complain about the change. Hannah is pretty sweet in general, so I knew she would be fine with it. For some reason though, I didn't even think about how Ellie would react. The answer? Not well. She FLIPPED OUT the first morning when she found out she didn't get to pick her breakfast. COMPLETELY LOST IT. The funny thing is that after the first day she was completely on board with our new system. So, here's our list for the week:

Monday-Apple with peanut butter or cinnamon
Tuesday-Peanut butter or butter toast
Wednesday-Tortilla day (cheese or peanut butter roll up)
Thursday-Smoothies (we might have to change this one come winter)
Friday-Oatmeal
Saturday-Waffles, Pancakes or French Toast
Sunday-Special toast (toast with jelly or honey)

Now that breakfast was taken care of, I decided to tackle packing school lunches. I really dread packing lunches in the morning, but it's been so much easier now that I got more organized. I made a list of four different categories and all the options within those categories. Now I just make sure I pack one from each category and I'm good to go. It was a simple change (and really not blog worthy), but for some reason it's made packing lunches so much easier and mindless for me. I also feel good knowing their lunches are fairly balanced:

Once my morning routine was improved, I then turned my attention to dinner. In general, my goal for dinner is to have a main dish, a vegetable and a salad. It's ridiculous how often I fail at that easy standard. Usually I can just get it together enough to have serve a vegetable or a salad. Just recently I've discovered a few simple things that have really helped me meet this goal pretty much every night. First of all, I found this pretty picture on Pinterest:

Picture courtesy of Simple Vegan Blog

I don't follow the recipe on that blog at all, but it looked like such a good mix to grill. Now, every Wednesday after I go shopping for all my produce, I cut all these veggies up and put them in a big bowl in the fridge. Then, throughout the week, I just grab some of the mix, toss it with a little coconut oil, sprinkle it with this delicious Creole seasonings (pictured below), and grill it in my grill basket. 

My new strategy for making sure I have a salad for dinner is so basic and obvious that it doesn't actually qualify as a "strategy." I just always make sure I have lettuce washed, dried and chopped in tupperware in the fridge. It makes throwing a salad together much less daunting for some reason. I also have been doing a better job at actually meal planning for salads and not just main dishes.

Oh, and our favorite salad recently? I use this dressing (with or without grilled chicken) with this salad with...wait for it...Fritos!!! Andy gets so happy when that is our dinner for the night! YUM!

I'm really excited about all these new food systems I have in place, and I hope I can keep them up. Sometimes I'm great at things for a while, and then I lose my momentum. (Just ask me about my daily cleaning schedule!)

So, there you have it, the most ridiculously boring blog post ever. :-)

It's funny, when I wrote that blog title, I was referring to how Ellie and I went to the Safari Park (formerly known as the Wild Animal Park) for the first time in a long time, but it also could refer to my unplanned blogging absence. Sorry about that! Part of the problem is that September was mostly spent getting back into the school/soccer routine, and part of the problem is that I was working on a blog post that I'm not crazy about. I still haven't decided if I'm even going to post it, but we'll see.

Back to the post for today. When the kids were getting ready to go back to school in August, I told Ellie that I would get us a zoo pass. We didn't have a pass last year because Hannah had half day kindergarten and the early pick up time didn't give us enough time to go, so we were looking forward to going again. Ellie actually doesn't remember the zoo at all, so she was especially excited.

This morning before school Joey told Ellie about a gorilla he saw dancing one time, so that was the first place she wanted to go. We saw a cute little baby gorilla, but no dancing.

Then Ellie wanted to head down to the lions. The funny thing about Ellie (probably due to her inexperience with zoos) is that whatever animal she wanted to see next, that was the only animal she was interested in seeing. She didn't understand the concept of looking at each animal along the way. She was a little impatient when I tried showing her any other animal. It was funny, but she seemed to figure it out a little more the longer we were there.

In spite of that, she was happy to make a quick stop at the water area on our way to see the lions. It might be October, but it's still roasting here!

I wasn't sure how interested she would be in the 30 minute tram ride, but she seemed to like it and didn't get too antsy.

For lunch we headed over to the playground to eat and play. Well, Ellie played. I enjoyed the peace, quiet and scenery in the shade. 

Then we went to the bird show which Ellie really liked. Two birds swooped right over our head which thrilled her, and she loved the African Grey parrot that "talked." At the end they had this cute little horn bill that would take a dollar out of your hand for a donation if you held it in the air. Ellie did it and was so excited when he took it. She shouted out, "It wasn't even spicy!" Ha! She meant she didn't feel anything sharp like his claws or beak.

 The petting zoo was another highlight.

She loved getting to brush the animals. She was cracking up because this one kept snapping his head back to look at her when she brushed him.

 We had such a fun time and can't wait to go back! 

The kids have been begging to go to Phoenix recently, so we thought Labor Day weekend would be the perfect time to go drive out there. Then I realized that I had already committed to doing a devotion for a bridal shower at our church that Saturday. Andy decided he would just take the kids to see his parents for the weekend and I could just stay home. 

What?! 

Yes, please! 

Andy and the kids had a wonderful time in Phoenix, as usual. Andy was sweet to share pictures with me all weekend.

 Fancy dinner!

 Fanta in wine glasses!

 What-what!!

It's good to be at Grandma and Papa J's!

 Yum!

 They even went to McDonald's after church on Sunday and got Happy Meals! No wonder they love Phoenix. Somehow this was the first Happy Meal Hannah had ever had. I guess she has mean parents!

After three days, it was time to head home with a mid-way stop at Taco Bell. Joey is hiding under the red blanket.

Meanwhile, I had a glorious, GLORIOUS time at home!

After the bridal shower on Saturday morning, I ran some errands and then got a pedicure!

This was what most of my meals looked like for the weekend. This and frozen grapes. Yum!

I had a few projects I wanted to get done with my time. On Saturday I spent about eight hours straight reorganizing my recipe books, including (nerd alert!) wiping down dozens and dozens of page protectors. It was so nice to get that big project done!

Sunday afternoon I went to my parents' house. We went to the beach together, and then went out for dinner.

We shared a few delicious tapas.

And this was our Nutelle creme brulee!

Monday I worked up a sweat getting some more projects done around the house, so I headed down to our pool for a quick dip and some shallow reading.

I ended the weekend by going to the movie theater and watching War Room. It was so, SO good! I highly recommend it!

I also recommend getting your husband to take all the kids away for a three day weekend! It was the perfect amount of time and it felt absolutely amazing! And I was even happy to see them again! ;-)

Now that the kids are back in school, I should probably do a final camera dump of our summer.

 Date night! Joey and I picked up Dominoes Pizza and watched cartoons together (his pick)...

while the girls went to Red Robin with Andy. They wanted to go to McDonald's but Andy bribed them with the promise of root beer floats!

 Joey wanted us all to dress in our wedding clothes for church a couple of Sundays after we got back from Chicago. We were a big hit at church!

 Beach time!

 The kids rediscovered their love of the beach!

Hannah and her best friend from school, Kahren.

Do you see Ellie?

There she is!

Goodness, I love this girl!

Hannah and I enjoying the waves.

 Cameron and Ellie love to play games and puzzles together. This is their version of Dominoes. At one point, Cameron drew an orange color and Ellie said, "Oh bummer, you got orange." Cameron said, "Oh bummer. No wait, that means I win!" To which Ellie said, "Oh! I lost!" and then they moved on to the next game. It cracked me up!

 Hannah went to a fancy birthday party at a salon and got her hair done, so then she treated Ellie to some pampering.

 Ta-da!

 We are so blessed that both of our girls live next door to their best friends!

Someone was really excited about her new skill!

 My mom borrowed Joey for a couple of days at the end of summer to help organize all of my brothers' old Legos. Joey really enjoyed this "chore!"

 The day before school started, I put up a new "After School" list for Joey and Hannah. Ellie saw it and said, "Awww, that's so cute." I think she appreciated my font choice!

Today was Joey and Hannah's first day of school!

 First grade and third grade.

And proud little sister.

And our neighbor Chloe.

We love Chloe so much, it felt appropriate to have her in our "first day of school" pictures!

Hannah's teacher this year is Mrs. Schmidt. She's actually a friend of our family so Hannah knows her really well. Hannah really, really wanted her for a teacher!

Joey got his beloved first grade teacher again for third grade! Another answer to prayer! And one of his best friends, Adler (Mrs. Schmidt's son) is in his class.

After we dropped the kids off at school, Ellie and I headed over to Chick-fil-A to redeem a coupon for a free breakfast.

After Chick-fil-A, we explored our brand new Hobby Lobby, and went to the library.

When we came home, I painted Ellie's nails and then she got busy with one of her favorite activities: playing with Joey's legos. So much more fun with no one else around!

Here's something funny. While the kids were having their first day of school,

Andy was at Disneyland...

and California Adventure!

Google has these "bonding" work outings and this time it was a bunch of engineers hanging out at Disney for the day. Yes, Andy does have the best job ever!

The kids came home and reported they both had a wonderful first day of school. Hannah said the school day felt long (this is her first year going all day), but in a good way because she loved it! Joey came home eager to do his homework. I'm sure that feeling won't last, but I love the beginning of school enthusiasm!