"Once a Month Cooking"

Well, I told you that if we tried this, I would let you know how it went- so here goes!
Yesterday my Mom and I decided to tackle this endeavor. At 10:30 am we went to the Superstore, with Lydia, and after a few moments of trying to share the book to find what we needed to buy, we realized that we should have split the list at home and filled two shopping carts at once. Next time...
And also, next time I won't take Lydia. She was pretty good if I let her walk behind the buggy or hang onto the side, but wouldn't sit in the seat, which was unusual. She ended up opening yogurt containers and dipping her fingers in (it got to be lunch time and we were still shopping!!) and was quite cranky towards the end, but who could blame her? The Superstore makes me cranky, too.
At 12:30 we rolled into the driveway with about $200 in groceries. We unloaded, and I gave Lydia lunch and put her down for a nap while my Mom prepped the kitchen. We started the most time-consuming part- the vegetable chopping! The best idea we had was to put a huge garbage bin in the middle of the room, where we would just toss the scraps, and a recycling bin for all the many, many empty cans.
We spent the next 6 hours preparing and assembling all the meals. We followed a 2 week menu and tripled it (for me, my Mom and my sister Rachel) We made...get this.... 33 meals!!!! That's only about $6 a meal, and we even had leftover supplies.
I could hardly stand after all of it, but thankfully Rachel arrived to help clean up and make us a coffee (:
Tonight we tried our first recipe, and it was great! The best thing is that each meal is supposed to serve 6, so our little family will get 2 dinners plus leftovers for Nick's lunch out of one meal.
After we made it all, we realized that all the dishes were either chicken or beef, so next time we'll try to add some with fish or pork.
It was a lot of work but a lot of fun. My Mom and I could joke and chat while we chopped and diced, poured and stirred.
We are already talking about "next time" - that says a lot! And since I got a freezer for Mother's day, which I've never had before, I can fill it to the brim with lots of yummy meals that I just have to thaw and heat. Yay!

In response to a comment:
A lot of the recipes, like "Herbed Chicken" said to put the meal in a plastic freezer bag, then lay it flat to freeze so they could be stacked. Those meals have to be thawed later and put into a slow cooker or casserole dish.
The others, like "Mexican Lasagne", had to be put straight into a 13x9 foil pan- we just bought a whole bunch of them at the dollar store. With some meals, you had to attach little baggies of things like mozza cheese or parmesan, to sprinkle on top- so it is all there and ready to go!
We also later thought it would have been good to write out the directions ahead of time to attach to the bags, but this time I didn't mind writing it all out cause it gave me a chance to sit down! (: