I have a whole lot of things in life that don’t run anywhere near as smooth as I’d like them to, but a healthy breakfast is one area where we have a great system  that ensures it happens every day.  I just love starting the day with a big, nutritious breakfast but we all know how quickly our plans for an ideal morning can turn south.  It’s taken a lot of tweaking and trial & error but now it only takes a few minutes at night and a few  minutes in the morning to get all six of us breakfast in the morning. For the win!

We all love hot oatmeal and smoothies and eat both pretty much every day. I even packed my Blendtec when we went to Florida to make sure we could still have smoothies! We make the oatmeal plain and let everyone add the toppings they want.  Since purchasing my Blendtec our smoothie habit went from a lot of days to every day (this did not help my Costco bill as we started going through a lot more greens and fruit, but better spent there than to the doctor!)

  1. Smoothie Jars

Staring to make smoothie jars changed my life. By just spending a few minutes about once a week to measure out frozen fruit into our trusty Adam’s Peanut Butter jars, it makes it super easy to whip out a smoothie in no time.  I used to put the greens and just about everything for the smoothie in a ziploc freezer bag, but this took more time and often resulted in a frozen block that was hard to blend.  The smoothie jars are quick to assemble and dump out, and because I keep bananas and greens ready to go in the freezer, it’s the perfect mixture of frozen and thawed.   (mason jars work too, but the straight sides and wide mouth of the Peanut Butter jars are amazing . . . if you are local I have quite a few extra). See my go to smoothie recipe and favorite fruit combos here.

 2. After Dinner Job

For years I wouldn’t start the oatmeal until long after dinner, usually after my kids were in bed.  This meant that when I remembered, there was often an internal groan at having to do it when I was ready to call it a day, and when I forgot, we were scrambling to do breakfast the next morning. Finally I got smart and started doing it either before dinner or just after.  Then I got really smart and made it one of my kids dinner clean-up jobs.  It’s easy to remember to tell the kids to do their part to clean up dinner and one automatically knows he’s in charge of the breakfast prep.

All that needs to be done is take one of the smoothie jars from the freezer and put it in the fridge and then measure out oatmeal and water and set the timer on the Instant Pot/ Rice Cooker.  [Instant Pot Recipe, Rice Cooker Recipe]This is generally a 5 minute task, depending on the kid.  My 5 year old still needs some help, and my 2 year old often demands to be part of the process (Met-meal, MET-MEAL!!!), but our rough mornings when something hasn’t gone as it should are getting farther and father apart.  Sometimes the kids help make the smoothie jars and sometimes I do them . . . definitely something I can do faster myself but they are getting better.

3. Eat and Enjoy

Then a few minutes before breakfast, I grab the smoothie jar from the fridge and the greens, seeds and banana pieces from the freezer.  Dump the fruit into the blender jar, fill the Adam’s jar half way with water (about 2 cups) and add that will the  banana pieces, seeds and greens.  Press the smoothie button and start unloading the dishwasher. Or getting your oatmeal.  Or hey, go back to bed!  For a smoothie that is easy to drink quickly on cold winter mornings, simply run the blender a second time (or an additional minute in a Vitamix).  I almost always do this, it’s much more pleasant than a smoothie that takes some serious effort to drink with a straw.

Speaking of straws, for a long time we used straws to help my kids eat their smoothies. It was good to help us get into the habit.  We also had a smoothie first rule, that helped make sure the smoothie cups didn’t get left behind full on the table.  Now we’ve been doing it long enough that smoothies almost never get left behind.

We get our favorite toppings out on the counter and usually top our oatmeal with almond milk, peanut butter, maple syrup, raisins, cinnamon and/or walnuts and lately, a little sprinkle of chia.