frumladygit
In my home (im unmarried) my mother cooks for Shabbos on Thursday and Friday, she does some shopping during the week and my mother works but she doesnt have to deal with little kids.
Heres some ideas:
Sit down with pen and paper and plan your Shabbos like so
1. How many people are you cooking for?
2. How much food do you really realistically need. (No you dont need to make 3 different main dishes!!!!) Keep things basic + a few extras that you want to add but dont go overboard
3. Figure out when to do the shopping and how to get it done in as brief amount of time as possible.
4. Figure out when the best time would be to do your cooking so you get the most done without the kids on your head or underfoot.
5. See if you can cook in bulk and put away in the freezer so that you make one big soup that can last a month…
Now as for the mess, do you have any older kids to help clean up?
Does your husband help out? He can do some of the shopping as well as helping out with the cleaning up around the house and picking up toys.
Im sure others can contribute to what I started here…