Family Dinner time

Our family dinner time is headed for real change here in 2012, as we look to try something different for a change. For starters, we are going to try and not eat out and instead prepare our meals at home together as a family more.

In doing this we are going to prepare only one meal that the whole family will eat and enjoy together. We will also plan these meals out in advance for the next two weeks and stick with it. That means no more sitting around and asking, "What do we want to have for dinner tonight?" and it also means we will not make something different for just the kids and us to eat.

When I was younger and it came time for dinner, I was called to the table and we ate what ever was made for the night. There was no pre-planning as far as I knew it and I found out what we were eating as soon as I sat down with the family. Surprise, you get what you get and you don't throw any fits in the end.

Truth is I never had any problems with this really and I wasn't too picky of an eater growing up. So getting my kids to understand that they have to try new things and eat better will be an experience perhaps, but I think we'll do fine and they seem to be receptive so far to this new idea.

To start things off we've themed our dinners and set something different for each day of the week. We've went ahead and decided to keep the same day themes for both of the weeks to help make it simple too.

The girls seem to like the idea of themed meals and are planning to locate music that ties in with each nights dinner theme. I think it should be a lot of fun for all of us. Good food, cool music, and great family time for the evening.

The creation of Sunday Specials should be very interesting and we've decided to select places from around the World. We dropped Six countries into a hat to start with and South African & Brazilian have been selected as our first two Sunday Specials themed dinners. I think these might be the hardest ones to come up with out of the six, but we'll rise up to the challenge.

Hopefully this will also help us get organized a bit where meals come in to play and help us save some money with the buying of our food in advance by eating at home. This should also bring us together more and I think we'll enjoy our meals as a family and perhaps learn about some new places and foods as well.