Menu Plan Monday/Tuesday

I had originally planned to post this Monday evening, but instead decided to post about the Oklahoma tornado and prayers with my Little Man. A day late, but I hope it will still be useful to all. 

I've talked about meal planning before, but I thought perhaps readers would like to see how we follow the Real Food for Real People Challenge rules while for dinners each week. Would you do me a favor? If this post is helpful to you, would you leave a comment and let me know? If it's no help at all, I won't make it a weekly thing. Also, many of the recipes from dinners we've tried in the past and that we are planning to have this week are also on my Pinterest board "Dinner this Week," so if you are in need of inspiration, it's a great place to check out. I delete the duds, so it should only be recipes we are trying soon or have tried and enjoyed. 

Here is what we are planning to eat this week:

Monday - Quinoa Cakes, eggs with ham and cheese, and fresh organic strawberries.
Admittedly, I failed to get that second fruit/veggie in there. I had planned on blueberries in the pancakes, but we were out! 

Tuesday - Grass-fed beef and black bean cheeseburgers, sweet potato fries, red pepper slices.
It's pretty tough to find hamburger buns without high fructose corn syrup in them. I am going to have to find a better way, but for now we have wheat buns with HFCS and many other bizarre ingredients in them. Leave me a comment if you have a better brand suggestion! 

Wednesday - Vegetarian Nicoise salad from the The Fresh 20 Cookbook. Homemade sourdough bread or muffins on the side.

Thursday - Skirt steak and boy choy stir-fry with quinoa (Little Man is allergic to rice). Side of carrots.

Friday - Chicken enchiladas with corn and black bean salad. If I'm feeling brave, I may even try to make the tortillas from the recipe in the Fresh 20 cookbook.

Saturday - Hubby cooks or homemade pizza night.

Sunday - Undecided.

This post is part of Menu Plan Monday, hosted by I'm an Organizing Junkie, click here to see other menu plans and/or link-up.

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Prayers With Little People

Tonight was a weird night. The kids bedtime got pushed back. They got into a fight and Little Man got hurt. Hubs and I watched tornado coverage of Oklahoma. I thought the kids were upstairs, but I guess Little Man was listening to the coverage. He was worried. After he got hurt and recovered and we were rocking in the cuddle chair, he had a lot of questions:

"Mama, did the scarnado break people's houses down?"
Yes, honey, it did. 

"Mama, did it mess the kids' toys up?"
Yes, it probably did. (My heart is hurting for those poor children in the school that was destroyed)

"Was there a boy and a girl or two boys and two girls?" (He thinks everyone is a set of twins like he and his sister).
I don't know buddy. (I don't want to scare him... but there were so many children at that school... boys... girls... it's unimaginable) 

"Mama, why can't I see it out the window? Is the scarnado coming here?"
No, sweetie. It was very far away. It would take us days to drive there. 

"Can we drive there and take the kids some toys? We could go buy some and take them right?"
I don't think we'll be able to drive there sweetie. Maybe we could send some toys. We'll wait and they'll tell us what they need and where to send it. 

Do you know what we can do to help right now?

"What Mama?"

We can pray. Do you want to pray for those people? 

"Yes Mama." Then my Little Man folded his little hands and bowed his head.

I held him tight and we prayed. We prayed for safety. Recovery. Help. Healing. We prayed for families looking for lost ones and for firefighters, police, nurses, and doctors to help those who need it. We prayed for comfort and peace for those who've lost so much. We said "Amen." 

"Mama, maybe we could ask dem to come stay here at our house! They could drive here and... but wait, we don't have any extra beds. Maybe dey could sleep here (gesturing to the playroom) and use our kitchen. Do they still have a kitchen?"

Amazing, isn't it? The simple, honest, beautifully naive way a 3 year old thinks. Just invite them over. Give them a place to stay. A place to sleep. A place to eat. Toys to play with. Just give them all that I have to give. 

He's right, of course, that's exactly what we should do.