What National Ag Week Means to Me

My Dad and I - He has taught me what I know today!

This past week was National Ag Week. The week is about recognizing and celebrating the contribution of agriculture in our everyday lives. The National Ag program encourages every American to:

• Understand how food and fiber products are produced. 
• Value the essential role of agriculture has in maintaining a strong economy.
• Appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.
  

Living on $40 per week (grocery budget) - Week 3

This week deemed to be more of a challenge living on $40 a week for groceries. Rather than shopping by myself in hopes that I could buy some additional things, I sent my husband. Typically, he is better at self control when shopping than I am. I tend to be an impulsive shopper. Impulsive shoppers are the type that marketers love because we pick things up that are marketed to us throughout the store. Marketers tend to put things in certain places to catch our attention and hope that we pick them up. Well, I tend to do just that but on $40/week grocery budget, you can't do that! We ended up with a total of $38.50, only $1.50 to split between the kids. At this rate it will take forever to add up their college funds!

Little-C enjoying her ice cream cone!

This week Dave purchased the necessities for our family such as; milk, bread, lettuce, pancake mix, pasta, syrup, spaghetti sauce (Ragu instead of Prego since it was cheaper) and bagels. He took little-C with him but he didn't use the mini-cart. She rode in the in the extremely large cart with the race car so she could pretend driving the car through the store. Dave went on Sunday afternoon and thankfully they had samples at Hy-Vee. Little-C was able to sample crackers, icre cream and a cinnamon roll. What an excellent idea!  Dave was able to feed little-C for free!! As you can tell from the photo, she was thoroughly enjoying her ice cream cone.

R-man's food consisted of mixed vegetables, sweet potatoes & apples, mango's and applesauce. Keep in mind that I always flavor up the applesauce with cinnamon. If I can have a little flavor in my food, then so can he! 

This week, I learned that living on a budget is:

1. Getting extremely difficult and part of me will be glad when lent is over!
2. More challenging than I thought it would be, especially when making baby food.
3. A good thing when wanting to stick to a certain dollar figure. Laura talked about the envelope system in her blog! This is something great to implement into your families budget.

Although we only have three more weeks to go, our family may be continuing this budget since we are thinking about moving to a new home. We don't want to move anymore things than we have to! 

Importance of Giving Back

I'm sure you know how great it feels to give back to your community and the ones you love. Recently, good friends of mine were asked to be the March of Dimes Ambassador Family for Central Iowa. Mike & Melissa Vogel have an amazing story to share! Before you watch this video, I would recommend that you grab a tissue because you'll need it. Well, I did anyway! Life is precious and after watching this video, I'm sure you'll feel the same.

Watching their children grow up has taught me a lot about the importance of a good health care system and the importance of the March of Dimes. Being an ambassador means that they'll use the Vogel family to help raise awareness and funding for the March of Dimes. The Vogel's will also be leading the March of Dimes Walk for Babies on May 10th!  Please join us if you are able!

Giving back to families in need, especially in Central Iowa, should make you feel proud! The Vogel's have a goal of $13,800 so I encourage you to help them reach their goal today! Afterall, can you imagine spending 138 days in the NICU with your children?

To read more about the challenges the Vogel family overcame as they waited for their babies to be realased from the NICU after 138 days, click here.

Weekend Wrap Up

Wow, the weekend is over but I feel like we got a lot accomplished. On Friday night, I enjoyed a great night out with my girlfriends. We laughed a lot but we all needed it! We are all working mother's or work with mother's who have children. Honestly, it's a great time away from the kids and our husbands! We all love them dearly but sometimes a mama needs time to herself!

Melissa, Janet, Sarah & Kate at Table 128

Weekend Wrap Up

Chocolate sheet cake for 1st birthday

This past weekend was productive!  I took Friday afternoon off to bake a few cakes before heading out with some friends on Friday evening. For those of you that don't know, I absolutely love to bake and decorate cakes. I consider baking and decorating cakes my stress reliever. This week, I had to make a sheet cake and a smash cake for a 1st birthday!  It was fun and they absolutely loved the cakes they received!  
On Saturday, we met with a realtor as we are contemplating on selling our house and building a new one in Ankeny. Everything seems to be going well so we will see what this spring/summer has in store for us!

Living on $40 per week (grocery budget) - Week 2

R-man helping Mommy shop

This week was a little more challenging when grocery shopping because our entire family needed a few essentials.  I was extremely close to my $40 this week so the kids will only get a few dollars to split between them. I must preface that my $40/week does not include any meat related items. Our family is very fortunate that our parents raise beef cattle so we have a supply of beef, when needed.

This week I didn't take little-C with me shopping but I had R-man. I thought my husband could use a nap while our daughter was sleeping so I took him shopping with me. The entire time we were shopping at Target, he didn't say a word. I think he thought it was 'cool' that I didn't bring him inside in his carrier - I allowed him to sit in the cart like a big kid!

The smile on his face does not do it justice with how happy he was. Sometimes I would ask him, R-man are you having fun and he would let out a little squeal and smile from ear to ear.  Okay, I had my answer even if I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me.

Quick Cheeseburger Bake

Quick Cheeseburger Bake

I love quick and easy meals and this is one of those meals that is quick to make and easy to serve your kids!

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef, browned
1/4 c. onion, diced
1/4 c. milk
1 c. frozen mixed vegetables
1 10.75 oz. can cheddar cheese soup
2 c. Bisquick
3/4 c. water
1 c. mild shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
Brown the ground beef with the onion.  Drain, then mix together milk, frozen mixed vegetables, Bisquick, cheddar cheese soup and browned ground beef.  Set aside.

Mix together the Bisquick and water. Press into a greased 9x13 pan then top with the cheddar cheese mixture.  Top with the cheddar cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Serving size:  12-15

Living on $40 per week (grocery budget) - Week 1

Every year when lent arrives I always contemplate on what to give up. This year, I decided to give up alcohol, which is really not a big deal but I also decided to try and feed our family on $40/week. My husband thought I was crazy when I told him about the idea but I thought it would help me budget better when I went to the store. On Tuesday before lent started, I decided to stock up on a few things just in case we had friends over!  I didn't want them to go hungry. When Ash Wednesday arrived last week, it was time to put this budget into high gear.

Shopping at Hy-Vee

I usually do my grocery shopping on the weekends, so Sunday little-C and I headed to Hy-Vee. Knowing I was only on a $40 budget, I only took my license so I could drive to the store and $40 cash - I left everything else at home. I received the cash idea from my friend Laura. She has a great post on her blog about the "envelope system"- check it out! 

Once we arrived at Hy-Vee, little-C grabbed a min-cart and off we went. We picked up some pears, apples, squash, bananas, sweet potatoes, frozen blueberries and frozen cherries. As we approached the checkout line, I had a bit of a panic attack because I thought...what if I don't have enough money to purchase the groceries in the mini-cart. I asked myself, could there really be over $40 in the mini-cart?

Weekend of Excitement

Little C enjoying the cows.

This past weekend, I thought I was going to be super productive with cleaning the house, organizing the kids clothes, laundry, baking and cooking meals for the weekend. However, when we arrived home on Friday evening after the gymnastics meet we noticed it was a bit chilly in the house. Dave checked the furnace and suddenly realized it was no longer working.   

We decided to put on extra layers and we were hoping someone was able to fix it on Saturday morning. It was 62 degrees on Saturday morning when we woke up. 72 degrees came out first thing on Saturday morning and told us we'd either need to spend $1,500 to fix our 25 year old furnace or replace it with a new one. We decided to bite the bullet and replace it with a new top of the line furnace. However, the new one couldn't be installed until Monday.

True Cyclone Fans

R-man (6-months) & Little-C (2-years)
Thanks to Kari Bruck Photography

Dave and I both attended Iowa State University (ISU) and are dedicated Cyclone fans when it comes to sporting events. We are proud season football ticket holders and we certainly hope this season is better than last year. Little-C went to her first football game when she was about 9 months. She was mobile at the time so sitting idle for a period of time wasn't in the cards. I watched most of the game from the hillside, which wasn't all that enjoyable. Hopefully she enjoys it more this year.

Both kids have been to several ISU basketball games this year. Little-C is always searching for "bird" (aka: CY) and R-man is just in awe of all of the lights and action. Being able to watch the ISU men perform in several nail bitter games while taking in "Hilton Magic" has been awesome!