I know Menu Monday is a concept meant to make dinners in busy households a little smoother, if only because you’re aware of what you’re doing before you open the pantry at 5 o’clock and I love that, I really do. I love only having to think about what I’m cooking once a week when I write the list and even then I just put together ideas and requests I’ve jotted down. While I do love serving something everyone loves (that hopefully looks pretty snazzy as well) to my fam every night, breakfast is my favorite meal to prepare for the Wee Ones.

I’m always up looong before them (occasionally, Wee One #3 will surprise all of us and get up when our alarms go off around 5am) so I have way more solo time to prep and set the table than I do in the evenings. Generally, they all wake up hungry. If they didn’t, they tend to develop an appetite when they smell whatever is going on that day. 🙂

To me, there are two important things about any meal but I try to be especially mindful of them at breakfast. It has to be packed with as many nutrients as possible and it has to be appealing enough for them to actually eat it. I mean, a bowl of Red River cereal is crazy good for you, it’s about as enticing to most people as a bowl of birdseed (my Daddy and one of my besties, Gill, however will happily sit down to a bowl of birdseed and go ‘mmmm, birdseed’). So, with that in mind, I set the table as pretty as I can with our hilarious extended vacation mismatched silverware and plates and fill their plates with fuel for the day. Kids need energy to squabble over board game rules and cover themselves head to toe in sidewalk chalk, dontchaknow!

As you know from last year, I’ve gotten sneaky with a lot of my cooking and baking so there are untraditional ingredients in a lot of their muffins and breads, but they all work in their favor and the kids either don’t know or don’t care so I keep at it. I generally serve it buffet-style. So I set out plates full of food and then each kid gets their own plate to pick and choose what they want. One of my kids will eat and eat and eat at each meal AND snack all day – my other two have supermodel appetites so they wont each as much at a meal, but they’ll come back half an hour later and ask for a snack so I just offer them breakfast again and again till lunch!

Breakfast this Week (July 16 – 22)

Sunday – Berry Smoothie (with spinach and parsley), Cinnamon Buns, Monkey Bread and maybe Apple Fritter Muffins