September Goals

September was another successful month of accomplishing goals!  It feels so good to do this and really helps me think about things that need to be done.  I made this a resolution just for this year, but I may just continue it into next year since it's working out so well.  My house project was to organize the pantry.  I bought some food at a case lot sale and needed to rearrange some things to make it all fit.  Well, Scott was awesome and did it for me!  I think I still want to buy a small canned food organizer and maybe some crates to put small items in.  I "finished" Kylie's baby book. I say finished like that as there could still be some things to record or put in the book, but all the pictures are in.  Scott and I had our date night when we went to my high school reunion and a movie out in Missouri.  Kylie and I were able to see Scott play soccer early in September.  His team has tied as many games as they've lost.  Hopefully his team will win a game before their season is over.  My craft project for the month was to glue some broken things back together and glue seashells (from Bass Lake) onto a picture frame.  We didn't have a friend get-together, so I think the one at the end of August counted as the one for September.

Weekly activities went great.  We went to dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday and to the zoo the first week of September.  This time at the zoo, we checked out all the shows that they have (which is 3).  The sea lion show was pretty disappointing, but the bird show is always fun.  The first time I saw them do training with the elephants, it was pretty cool, but they didn't have the elephants do as many tricks this time.

The sea lion show.

There's a bear bathing in the water somewhere.

The tiger is so fun.

I missed the big yawn he did.

Elephants!

Having fun at the bird show.

The next two weeks of September activities were done in Missouri.  Those are all on separate posts.  The last week of September was spent hanging out with our friends Bryan, Natalie and Max.  We had dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe and played this game called Fibbage.  It's like Balderdash in which you make up a lie.  This one was better though because you only had to put in one word instead of the thinking up the whole lie yourself.  Then you guessed what the true statement is.  You get points if people picked your lie and then points if you picked the right one.  You also couldn't put in the correct answer, so you had to think of a lie.  This was fun too as you used your smart phones to play the game on! It showed the statements and options on TV, but you typed in your lie and picked your answer on your phone.  We had a blast playing this game.  Bryan and Natalie always have fun, new games for us to try.

I'm still doing great on my meal plans.  I'm so glad I'm back into cooking in the kitchen again.  I never would have thought that being out of the kitchen when I was pregnant and after having Kylie would affect my motivation to cook.  I'm trying something new and I planned out meals for two weeks! I've never done this before, but I'm trying really hard to work on our grocery budget.  I'm only going to buy items that are on sale and price-match as much as I can.  I'm also looking at buying things I don't usually get.  This week, chicken thighs were on sale for $.89 a pound! That's an amazing deal!  I've never cooked with chicken thighs, but for such a great deal, why not?  I can find recipes for anything online.  I had a great haul with my last trip only costing $65! It was $5 over my budget, so I'm impressed.  The only thing I bought for full price was the deodorant and that's because my coupon wouldn't print out.

What you can't really see is all the produce and meat I got! Those are always the more expensive items.

So, my goal is to never buy anything for full price, even household items.  I also got a Costco card too!  There was a great deal with getting a membership there as well.  There won't ever be a discount, but I got a $20 gift card and will be getting coupons for a free rotisserie chicken, free apple pie (takes care of dessert for Thanksgiving!) and free 30-rolls of toilet paper.  I'm going to limit my shopping there to once a month.  I went one day and just walked around and wrote down the prices for things I would most likely buy there to see if it's actually a good deal.   I really hope this two week meal plan works out.  I really want to be good about sticking to a budget and bringing our food bill (including eating out) down.  Sorry, that was a long paragraph that was supposed to be about my meal plans.

I didn't work out the first two weeks of September.  I only worked out 2 days the third week, but the last week I worked out for 6 days!  I've started another program, but I think I'm going to stick with this one for a while.  I know that I fell out of the Jillian Michael's 30-day shred, but I am committed to do the whole 90-day Bikini Body Mommy challenge.  Each week's workouts will get progressively harder, but the intensity is the same.  The workouts are short and I like that. I know that there's no reason or excuse for working out.  I can do this!!

I am excited for October goals!  I'm ready to do some fun fall activities (like going to a pumpkin patch) and for Halloween.  I'm making Kylie's costume this year so I'm a little nervous about it, but also excited.  I think she'll be an adorable Elsa (is anyone surprised?).  I want to get it done soon, so she can wear it to activities before Halloween (especially since we probably won't go trick or treat on Halloween as Scott works that night).  Things are going to start becoming busy with all the holidays coming up! I'm so excited, I love the holidays!