Update

I thought it would be good to have a final recap of our goals for this month, especially for the Eating from the Pantry Challenge. I'm excited to say that we still have $21 left in our food budget out of the $150 that we first budgeted! Woo hoo! And we even went out to eat several more times (temperature Tuesdays at Runza of course). I missed out on a lot of good deals but it was kind of nice not to make out a big list and price match every week. I am excited this week to get some good deals and replenish some of the basics (i.e. taco shells) that we have ran out of. This month we were able to use up many things from both the pantry (i.e. cans of veggies, fruit, beans, etc.) and the freezer (i.e. meat, bread, veggies) but I realized we still have lots of food that should be used up. For example, we started out the month with around 7-8 boxes of Hamburger Helper and still have around 7-8 boxes (we did eat 1).

Emptier than normal downstairs cupboard. (See all the Hamburger Helper?!)

Things I've learned:
1. Taking the time to plan a menu is so worth it! We eat healthier and it's less stressful when supper is already ready when I come home late.
2. I should not buy things we don't really love (i.e. Hamburger Helper) even if it is an amazing deal. This food ends up sitting in the pantry forever.
3. We should buy more fruit and easy things to grab for breakfasts and lunch. They are healthy and taste good too!
4. We need to start eating more cereal to use it up.
5. I love the crock pot! (But don't cook something in it for more than 6 hours....oops)

And now for an update on my other goals.
1. Read the Bible at least once a week on my own. ( I know this doesn't seem like much, but I am starting small.) Hmmm....I'm still struggling to make this one a habit. I just can't find the right time to do this.
2. Remember to take our Bible to church with us every time we go. Honestly, we haven't done well with this one either since we haven't made it to church much this month.
3. Listen to church on the radio when we can't go and take notes for Josh since he has to work. Check! I have listened to church every week we didn't go and took notes for Josh. When we couldn't go because of my school function, Josh even took notes for me!
4. Go to our small group every week. Check. Last week we had a fun football party!
5. Continue to pray with Josh before each meal and remember to pray on my own before eating. Half check. Josh and I always pray together and I've been doing better about praying on my own before meals.

New Year, New Challenges

I've never really made New Years Resolutions before. Maybe it was because I didn't know where to start or maybe (more realistically) it was because I was too afraid to fail. But this year, I really feel like there are areas that I would like to grow in. So, in an effort to stay accountable, I'm writing some of the things I want to accomplish on here so that it won't be as easy to give up.
First, a financial challenge for the month. Several other blogs that I enjoy are doing a challenge for this month so I thought we would give it a try.

Here are our own rules that we've been following for this challenge:
1. Spend $100 dollars or less on groceries and $50 or less on eating out.
2. Only buy milk, fruits, veggies, or anything that's an amazing deal as long as we don't go over budget.
3. Plan menus.
So far we've done pretty well. We did eat out twice at Runza (FREE Runzas on temperature Tuesdays...couldn't pass that up!) and we did buy 10# of 93% beef since it was only $1.78 per pound. So far we have spent about $75 total. Hopefully if we follow through with this we will save $75 this month compared to what we usually spend. This will probably go into savings. I've actually been amazed at how many meal ideas I have found that utilize all the things we have and my ability to substitute ingredients. Hopefully I can stay on top of all this with school starting. I did have a baking day where I made 3 meals of turkey tetrazinni and 3 meals of ham balls for the freezer. I also have been and plan to continue utilizing the crock pot, especially on nights I have class until 7.

Second, I've decided to make some spiritual goals. This is a little scary to me for some reason but I want to be better about following God. After all, He does deserve it!
1. Read the Bible at least once a week on my own. ( I know this doesn't seem like much, but I am starting small.)
2. Remember to take our Bible to church with us every time we go.
3. Listen to church on the radio when we can't go and take notes for Josh since he has to work.
4. Go to our small group every week.
5. Continue to pray with Josh before each meal and remember to pray on my own before eating.

Well, that's all for now. Time for bed!

The end of 2009

Christmas certainly was exciting and different this year. Instead of spending the day with family, Josh and I spent a quiet day at home by ourselves since we were in the middle of a blizzard. We were extremely thankful for a warm house, food to eat (even though they were leftovers!), and time to celebrate Christ's birth. We even caught up on some cleaning! We will be postponing our Christmas gathering until tomorrow, pending the arrival of my parents. Here are some pictures of our holiday excitement the last few days.

Big rawhide.

Kobi jumping the huge drifts.

Josh is excited to start scooping.

New tunnel for the piggies.

Romeo was in mouse heaven.

Fall is here.

I keep getting worse and worse about blogging on here! Sorry about that.
Well, summer is officially over and my first REAL semester of graduate school has begun. This is my biggest semester and I feel it already. The homework never stops but I am still enjoying it so far. Things are always interesting. Josh also moved stores and is now working in a different area of the store. This means we (when I say we that really mostly means Josh :) ) have been getting up earlier. Josh has to be to work around 3:30 AM.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to go to Kansas City to hang out with two of my good friends from high school (Lisa and Lindsey) and their families. They both have new little, cute, adorable babies so it was fun to play with them too. We also took Kobi and he had a fun time playing with Lisa's dog Rev.

Today I plan to clean, decorate our house for fall, and finishing reaping the last of our garden harvest. We'll see if I accomplish it all! I should be doing homework but since it's my day off...

So cute!!!

Aw, they're friends already.

Tired boy.

Another tired boy.

Kobi did not want to stay.

Animals!

Since I feel I should be fair and not just talk about Kobi all the time :) here are some pics of other awesome animals we've spent time with lately!

Aww. Romeo hiding from the camera.
Bella was really excited about the hay I gave them.



Josh petting the billy goat.

I caught a feather-legged chicken!

Super Retriever Series: Superfly

I realize I've been seriously slacking on the blogging so I'll try to catch up. These are only from last weekend...only a week late right?


Last weekend we had the opportunity to enter Kobi in a dock jumping competition! It was sponsored by Scheel's but the event occurs at several places all over the country. Kobi competed in the amateur series since he'd never jumped before. There were around 40 dogs that competed! The first place winner then got an automatic spot into "The Pros"! Since Kobi absolutely loooves water and we taught him to jump off the dock at Okoboji a few weeks ago, we thought he might do alright. Well he did better than just alright and ended up getting 4th place with a personal best jump of 17 feet, 1 inch! He just missed getting a medal. We were so proud of our puppy! :) You can check out the SRS website here for more information and pics.

Saturday's daily deals

My sister and I decided to go shopping at No Frills yesterday since there was several really good deals.
Here's what I got for $30.96:

10 Kraft Macaroni & Cheese .29 each after $2 coupon when you buy 10
4 Ragu $1.13 each after 2 .75 coupons off 2
2 pasta FREE when you buy 2 Ragu
Skippy PB .73 each after 2 .75 coupons off 2
2 loaves bread FREE when you buy 2 Skippy PB
4 Canned corn .50 each
5 Shredded cheese .98 each
4 Lipton Rice/Pasta sides .73 each after 2 .50 coupons off

Approx. 7 lb. 93% ground beef (can't really see in pic) at $1.88 per lb

Okoboji Trip

Mini-golfing session. I got last but it was fun!

Roasting marshmallows and making hobo pies over the campfire.

This picture is to prove the guys were helping the women with the food work! Haha just kidding boys! You did a great job.

We had lots of fun on the boat (hint hint to you Bob!), especially Kobi who tried to jump out at every chance he got.

Even Kobi went tubing!

Kobi learned how to jump off the dock to retrieve his ball.

Kobi wasn't cooperating very well during the family picture but oh well, everyone still looks good!

Birthday Shopping (Thank you!)

Since I had gotten a gift card from Josh's family to the mall for my birthday (thanks Bob, Merry, & Ann!), I decided to do some shopping yesterday and today. I was pretty excited about my clothing finds since I will need dress clothes for school. My sister and I went yesterday and I found 2 pairs of dress pants at JC Penney. They were marked down to $10 and then 20% off that. $8 each! Also, I found a nice brown purse originally $42 and with the mark downs it ended up being $16. Next, we went to the Limited (a store I always want to shop at but usually don't because it's a little pricey). However, they actually had a large section of clearance. I found a nice pair of khaki pants that fit me really well but were still marked $25 (over my price range). I thought I would ask them to check the price (you never know!) just in case. They were still $25 but the cashier said she'd let me in a secret that all of their clearance would be an additional 50% the next day. Woo hoo! So I put them on hold. Today Josh and I went back to get them and I ended up finding three nice shirts for $5 and a suit jacket (originally $168!!) for $15. And I still have money left!

Vietnam Traveling Wall

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Vietnam Traveling Wall, a replica of the wall found in Washington D.C. The wall stopped in Geneva; it's only stop in Nebraska this year. Visiting was a very powerful experience, as it stretched approximately half a block either way and contained some 58,000 names of young men and women killed or missing in action from the Vietnam War.

The wall began and ended in one corner.

Visitors had traveled from states away to visit here and some looked for names of a loved one. This man was very emotional as he sat looking at a name.

Plaque representing the women of the war.

Visitors had left mementos of loved ones.

3 men from Fillmore County had died in the war; 2 within days of each other.


Flags representing each person killed from the state were formed into the shape of Nebraska.

Target Daily Deals

The day wouldn't be complete without a trip to Target! This was a really good money saver and I wanted to share it!

Here is the breakdown:
Josh needed a new flagpole since ours broke :(. This one was 75% off making it $5.
I've never tried the 'Kashi' brand of cereal or bars but it was an awesome deal!
2 boxes of Kashi cereal on sale for $2.66, used 2 $1.50 coupons, $0.50/1 coupon, and B1G1 coupon = Free plus $0.94 overage!
2 boxes of Kashi bars on sale for $2.50 (although one rang up at $2.16), used 2/$1.50 off one coupon, and $1/2 coupon = $0.33 each
2 boxes sandwich/quart bags priced at $1.99 each, used $0.50 coupon = $1.49 each
4 small cups of Edy's ice cream priced at $1.19 each, used $1/1 coupon = $0.19 each
Market Pantry frozen pizza priced at $3.19, used $1/1 coupon = $2.19
French's Dijon mustard was $1.87, used $1/1 coupon = $0.87

Total before coupons was close to $30, actual total was $9.41!

Daily deals!

I did our weekly shopping today after the ads (finally) came so I could price match everything! I ended up spending a little more than I wanted, but I couldn't pass up some of these great deals. Thankfully, Fareway had already changed their prices to match other stores so check-out went a lot faster. Here's what we bought at Fareway:

Here is a re-cap of some of the especially good deals:
10 boxes of Kellogg's: Priced at $1.98 each, used 4 $1/2 coupons found from in-store machine, then I will send in the Kellogg's $10 rebate after buying 10 items = $0.60 per box
10 lbs 93% ground beef: price match from Super Saver at $1.78 per lb. = $18.25
6 Blue Bunny Yogurts: Priced $5/10, used $1/6 coupon from in-store promotion = $0.33 each
Approx. 5 lb. bag of apples: $1.99 found in bargain bin
3 1 lb bags of baby carrots = $0.77 each
Bananas for $0.49 per lb. = $0.46

After using a $5/$50 coupon given to me by my super-nice sister (Thanks Roxanne!), the total for my groceries was $52.18. Not bad considering the meat was nearly $20 of that!
What deals did you find this week? :)

Yay! Produce from our garden! Anyone need romaine lettuce?? We have lots. This is the second batch of green beans!

Kobi relaxing.