A little preparation goes a long way!

I'm always happy when I find things to help our mornings go easier. Mornings set the whole tone of my day and if they're rough, my entire day tends to be rough. Unfortunately half of our household has rough mornings on a daily basis. And it's not me and Keira. I have had to work hard at letting John do his own thing at his own pace in the mornings. But when he's messing with MY morning routine because he can't wake up, that's not good. Scharae hates getting up. Keira wakes up like me-ready to have the day start.

During the school year the girls eat breakfast in the car. They're up at 6:30 and on the way to school at 7:15.   Their bodies both prefer to sleep until closer to 8-or later-each day. Even Keira, my morning girl, has to be pushed to get out the door on time and to eat. They really aren’t interested in food that early in the day! Usually breakfast is Honey Nut Rice Chex from a baggy (dry) with string cheese. Maybe a banana also. But rarely does it all get eaten. If they had time to eat oatmeal they'd probably devour it most morning but we’d have to have them up by 6 to give them time to wake up enough to eat it and still be on time.

I’ve been having some fun with different baked oatmeal recipes. I’ve made 4 so far and they’ve all been wonderful. The last one I made was one that said it could be made the night before and kept in the refrigerator until ready to bake. When I took it out in the morning I thought it looked delicious and stuck my finger in it-yep! It was mighty tasty all cold and sweet and berryful. But it had raw eggs in it. I guess I could just make it again without the raw eggs and never bake it? Or I could do something that is MADE to be left unbaked:

Refrigerator Oatmeal! There are a lot of flavor combos out there. I bought some fresh raspberries yesterday so I made the raspberry vanilla. I left the raspberry jam out of the stuff I made tonight. I am lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest where raspberries are huge and taste like they’re supposed to-sweet with just a hint of tart-and don’t need any extra sugar or flavor. I can’t wait to give these a test run in the morning! If John and the girls go for them these might be my new go-to for the school year!