Simplifying life - freezer cooking....with kids

Momma here. After reading stay-at-home Moms who blog about the wonders of freezer cooking (basically making a bunch of one thing at one time and freezing it in meal-size portions) I decided to give it a go. I have almost entirely given up casseroles (this alone has simplified my cooking world and kitchen mess immensely). But this freezer cooking thing, I'm a believer! I did a freezer cooking afternoon in December that looked like this. It took me 2 1/2 hours and I made:

3 meals of Southwest Chicken Soup

4 meals of Marinated Chicken Tacos

3 meals of Honey Mustard Grilled Chicken

3 meals of Herbed Chicken

3 meals of Popcorn Chicken (our version of chick-fil-a chicken nuggets)

PLUS, in that same timeframe I chopped up enough ham for a month's worth of breakfasts for Thomas (i make him 3 omellettes at a time and he re-heats them each morning) plus bagged the rest of the ham into several-day portions for sandwiches and such. That's 16 main courses (all i have to do is bake them or put them on the George Foreman grill) and the ham in 2 1/2 hours. I did it again in January, no pictures that time, and made over 30 meals of 10 different recipes (chicken and beef that time) in 2 afternoons (i make 3 meals of each recipe usually). I kid you not, this is so easy. All I used was a bowl for each marinade, a whisk to mix it up, 2 plates for working on the chicken, a knife, and a cutting board. I cleaned up in literally 5 minutes and had all that to show for it!!!!! I do it now with waffles, muffins, oatmeal, fruit, pancakes, cookies, turkey (cook the turkey, debone it, bag it up in meal-size portions), all kinds of things. It really has made dinners so much easier. In January I left some of the chicken unmarinated, but I did prep it into cubed chicken, some tenders, and some breasts to use for the recipes that can't be prepped ahead of time. Even this saves so much stress in my late afternoons.

What do my children do while I'm doing this? I do most of it while they're napping, but when they wake up it might have looked like this IF Thomas had been home:

But since he wasn't (notice that beautiful turkey stock jarred up on the counter behind Tyson), it looked a little more like this:

and this:

But it was worth it! My deep freeze is stocked with a wide variety of chicken and beef from pre-seasoned and shaped hamburgers to Sweet & Sour Chicken to Southwest Rubbed Chicken. It took some work up front to sort out my recipes and get a stack of freezer-friendly ones with a variety of flavors that we like, but it's AWESOME!