the BIG move…blog style!

I cannot begin to tell you how very excited I am to have my very own domain (aka web address)  I have debated doing this for quite sometime, and was really inspired by a great friend of mine at She Seams Sew Crafty. She has been such a big help and inspiration! Today my website is officially up!! Come visit me at the new A Real Life Country Housewife blog!  Don’t forget to subscribe, like, email, all that good stuff, and please please please leave your suggestions for new posts. I want to write about things you want to read!

Love you all!!!

OH! and don’t forget the big giveaway ends tomorrow at midnight!!

Monkeebumz Grand Opening and Giveaway!

For most of you this will be the first time you are visiting my blog, and I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to reach you all, thanks to a few great friends! Some of you may know me in person, and some may not, for those of you who don’t please visit the “About” tab to learn a little about us!

I am extremely excited to announce, my dear friend Sherry has become fully compliant and opened up her own WAHM (work at home mom) shop making fleece covers on October 26, Monkeebumz! In honor of her grand opening she has teamed up with 6 other WAHM shops and 4 bloggers to bring one winner 8 great prizes!

If you don’t know what a fleece cover is, they are used as covers for cloth diapers. The fleece is water-resistant, breathable, and not to mention absolutely adorable!

Sherry sells two different styles, “longies” like you see in the picture above and “shorties” like you see in the pictures below! They each have a snap in soaker where the wet zone would be for extra coverage protection from leaks. and she can customize with ruffles, or appliques.

Aren’t these Mickey Mouse longies just to die for!

Unfortunately this particular print is not for sale, I know, I was bummed too.

but maybe she can make that up to you with a….GIVEAWAY!! These are some awesome prizes, each person has the ability to earn up to 39 entries! Yes you read that right, THIRTY NINE!  The prize is a total of 8 items for one lucky winner! Head on over to the “Giveaway” tab, or click the picture below to enter!

Catching up & eating healthy…er

It has been a while, again, since I’ve posted. Life has been CRAZY to say the least. We sold our house, as I said in my last post, and moved in with my husbands gracious Aunt and Uncle. We were supposed to close on our new house the first of October, but that never happened due to some issues, on the sellers end. We were finally able to close yesterday, the sellers still have 30 days to move out, but agreed it would be sooner than that. We shall see. So for now, we are staying in their basement, and doing our thing here, waiting anxiously for a phone call from our Realtor saying he has the keys!  It has been remotely relaxing, not having a house of our own house to take care of, but silly things keep happening. Like this…

I promise, we fixed her car seat straps before we left

While we were at my 28 week check-up, McKenna fell off of a chair and broke her arm. She got her “pretty” (<<that’s what she calls her cast) put on two days later, and will be able to *hopefully* have it taken off in a few weeks, but X-rays aren’t promising at the moment.  After this happened the appointment schedule got crazy-busy. I feel like I haven’t stopped in weeks, and then got in a rut of eating out/eating cereal, so Monday I decided, being pregnant wasn’t an excuse to eat “crap” and made a challenge for myself to eat healthier. I posted about it in Kristen, from When at Home’s, Facebook group, Thrive Intentionally, and some of you responded saying you wanted to join in!  At first I wasn’t sure how to even go about it, because I don’t have a huge following, yet, and have never done anything like this before.
So, this is what I’ve decided, I am going to keep track of how I do for the next week, with daily posts on my Facebook page of what’s for breakfast/lunch/dinner with pictures and hope that those of you who wanted to join, follow along and let me know how you are doing as well!  I have to leave a full disclaimer though, I am in no-way a healthy eater, we don’t eat a lot of rice, beans, quinoa, etc. We are a typical meat, veggies & potatoes kind of family, breakfast will occasionally be cereal and some yogurt, and lunch might even be out to my favorite burger joint once and a while…that’s just how we roll. What I won’t be doing is eating the same freezer meal for dinner, making the toddler lunch and eating her left overs, and we really won’t be eating out everyday for lunch, because I make myself believe that pregnancy is a good excuse to “crave” these things, when really it was just that, an excuse.  I will however be making the occasional blog post about how I’m doing, I won’t lie, I’m sure we will slip-up and have a McDonald’s McChicken, because really who can resist, but I can promise you, I’ll be honest about it 🙂 and maybe even take a picture for you to indulge on, but for now you can indulge on this…

A ham/egg/tomato salad on a bed of fresh, local, green leaf lettuce. (unfortunately the last of the local lettuce I will be eating) and yes I covered it in ranch dressing, because even though that isn’t the healthiest, it’s healthier (then say Arby’s I was craving)

Now for my first ever pregnancy update!!!
We are currently 30 weeks in! woohoo!! I had my appointment this morning, my blood sugar test came back good, my weight was 4lbs more than 2 weeks ago (20lbs total) This alone is a huge achievement from my pregnancy with McKenna (i weighed in at L&D 68lbs more than my pre-pregnancy weight) The only exciting news we have is that I am measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule (and have been for a while now) She has refrained from changing my due date, but said to be prepared in the likely case that I do go early. The date range she has estimated is December 18 to January 1, who knows, maybe we will have a Chiristmas baby!

Now, go hug your kids, kiss your husband, and remember; God has a plan!

Currently|| Vol. 1

I first found the Currently link up on When at Home and then went to A Mama Collective  then went on to read 20 more Currently posts by other bloggers, and finally decided to give it a shot! Since I am so very new to this I love seeing how everyone puts their own spin on it!

Here goes nothin:

Thinking About|| Fall! It is a brisk 50 degrees here on average the last week, and I absolutely love it, the furnace has already been of good use at night time, and a pot of chili has already been devoured.  But with fall comes our big move, only 15 days until we move out of our current home, and in with family, and then into our new home 30 days later ❤

Reading||  I should totally be reading something inspiring, but I’m not! I do however read my daily devotionals from Proverbs 31 and the daily email from The Abundant Mama Project, each morning! I am also, still, on the list of 75 people waiting to rent Growing Up Duggar from our library!

Eating||  The easy answer would be, well at 6 months pregnant, I am eating everything but really, I am eating a lot of pickles, turkey wraps (with lots of ranch) and honey crisp apples!

Loving||  My little family. I still can’t believe that in 6 short days, my husband and I will celebrate our 1st anniversary, in 3 months we will be welcoming baby number two into the world, and 4 months after that, celebrating our oldest’s second birthday!!

Watching||  The honest truth, we are watching a lot of Tigers Baseball lately!! But I am so excited for all our favorite shows to start this fall! Chicago Fire & PD and Sleepy Hollow.

Listening To|| Laura Story, lots and lots of Laura Story…she has become one of my favorite artists these last few months, always puts me in a great mood, and reminds me what’s really important.

Thankful For|| Being able to see my beautiful siblings in Nebraska last week, I miss them already, and we had such a beautiful time! It was a long drive, but it went well. Hubby caught a walleye of a lifetime, and we got to make so many memories with our nieces. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip!

Cleaning fish with my sister, Jess, and her oldest, Haylie

Mike enjoyed lots of naps

My sister and I with our girls. My all-time favorite picture from our vacation

Rise & Shine Challenge: Days 1-4

Pinterest lead me to this wonderful post about a 10 day challenge that I was way too curious not to check out, put on by The Abundant Mama

Even though I found this challenge Monday, and it started Sunday. it came just in time for me, the sale of our house made it feel like my life was about to fall out underneath me, I just couldn’t seem to get “on-top” of my day, they were just running away from me. Not only that, I was not paying enough attention to myself, and my health was running away from me as well. 

I had originally decided to do this on my own, maybe with a few mommy friends, but that didn’t work out for me, so the only way I felt I could keep my self accountable was to share it with all of you! Instead of doing 10 posts for 10 days I am going to break them up into 3 posts, and hopefully some of you will join in with me as well! 

Like I said, I found this late, so I played catch up on Day 3, are you ready?   Me either 🙂

Day 1 &2:: “What is morning to you?”

Morning to me right now is typically sleeping in, and checking Facebook (when I had my smartphone) My perfect morning would be completely different. It would be waking up long before the baby does, reading the bible while I ate breakfast, getting a load of laundry done, doing dishes, and reading a set of devotions, all before she awakes!  The tips that were given were these: 

-start where you are

-take your sleep seriously

-rise early

-seat a daily intention

-practice mindful mornings

After answering the question and reading over some of the things she had to say I set up my plan for day 3. I had decided on waking up at 7:30, making breakfast, read the bible and do my devotions, then take my time in the shower. Laundry next, then dishes, and pulling out anything that’s frozen and needed for dinner at night. 

Before I had started this I didn’t have any devotions that I went to on a daily basis, so I did some research and found Proverbs31 I read some of her previous posts and really fell in love with them so I subscribed for her daily emails.

Day 3 Report:: It went okay really, I woke up at the time I wanted, but we had plans to leave for a horse show at 8:30 so I did not give myself enough time to get the chores done before we left, but I did get to read my bible and devotions and eat breakfast in peace 🙂 The day kind of got away from me when I fell asleep for a nap and forgot to set my alarm and woke up with only minutes to spare before meeting my husband at the fairgrounds for dinner and tractor pulls. Whoops! 

Day 4 Report::  Lets be honest, today was a serious fail. We were out way too late last night at the tractor pulls, only to forget that we had inspections today (b/c the house is sold) at 8:30 am. I set my alarm for 6 leaving myself plenty of time to clean up what I needed and be out of the house for them to come do their thing. I woke up at 7:30 to my alarm still going off, but on vibrate instead of ringer (doh!) and my house a complete mess. I managed to tidy up the house a bit and leave by 8:28 with no shower and still in my pajamas. Oi, it was awful. We got home in time for nap, woooo, so I sat down to do what I should have done this morning (bible, devotions, emails, etc.) The Rise & Shine email today fit perfect, and the challenge like a glove. 

If this would’ve happened yesterday, today wouldn’t have been such a disaster. Tomorrow I have no plans of leaving the house, yay!! So here is my list for tonight: 

-hubby’s lunch

-bring laundry downstairs

-start one load wash before bed

-wash dishes

-quickly tidy

-set out clothes

This list will hopefully help me stay relaxed tomorrow morning. I initially had planned to do my dishes and wash laundry in the morning,  but I cannot do more than one thing at a time with our water pressure so this will help me be able to take my time in the shower and relax, and only have to put wash onto the line, and put dishes away, cutting my chores in half in the morning. 

I may not have a crew of kids to get off to school, or a herd of animals to feed, yet, but those days will soon be upon us and starting now will make my life so much easier in the long run. Please leave me your comments, I would love to hear if anyone else is doing this as well! Also, check out my new Facebook Page, and give me a like to see even more updates. 

Now, go hug your kids, kiss your husband, and remember God has a plan

The Downgrade

Getting rid of a smart phone has been on my mind a lot lately, I had been tossing around the pros and cons, and wondering how I would really ‘deal’ with out it. And then, I did it. One day woke up at 2 am to a Facebook notification, thinking today’s the day, this “thing” needs to go.  I started with taking all of my pictures off my phone and putting them on my laptop, this is the one thing I will miss the most, the phone had a wonderful camera and it was always on my side so I never had to go run and look for one when McKenna did something funny.  Then I found someone to buy my phone..I knew that if I kept it around it would tempt me and I would end up switching back for the convenience. 

But the dirty truth, I caught myself on it constantly, for no reason. I would be sitting in the living room, laptop on the couch next to me, cartoons blaring on the TV and my daughter tugging at my pants, with me telling her “No, go play” and then one day she replied “mum!” I looked down at her with those bright blue eyes and smiling ear to ear with a pipe cleaner hanging out of her nose and I thought to myself, Instagram is truly not this important, the Facebook updates I’ve read 4 times now, not important, the little girl at my feet wanting me to play patty cake and tickle her with pipe cleaners, THAT is important! The hot dog dance, and the shake-a-booty parties, those are important, not following the latest mommy on IG and making sure I don’t miss a beat on Facebook. 

It has been 3 days since switching, it doesn’t sound long, but it sure feels long. When I am at home I am 50 times more productive, when I am out I am 100 times more lost. I find myself forgetting to take along things like the address and directions of where I was going because I am so used to GPS on my phone, or wanting to show someone the latest house I found on the Realtor website, only to pull out my flip phone and laugh at myself. 

All these things really mean nothing, when I get back to the basics, I am happy to have my daughter hugging my leg while I canned pickles yesterday, and helping me make the crust for our apple pie..those moments last forever…all those other things only last a moment. 

Go Hug Your Kids, Kiss Your Husband, and Remember; God has a Plan

Groceries for 3 under $150/month

I have been working on getting this in the books for about a year now. We have a strict one-income budget and I hate spending so much money on groceries. As it has been a long drawn out process I can’t wait to share this month’s plan.

I apologize for the poor photo quality from my cell phone 😀

I start with a blank calender I print off of excel, it’s not pretty but it works to start out the planning with.  I go through all the recipes I have pinned to my Pinterest account and pick the ones that look most appealing at the moment (aka quick and easy) 

Then I make my grocery list (this one has been revised because you couldn’t read the first one) but, you get the point. Write down all the things you’ll need for each meal in its specified category, if you’ll need more than one-start tallying. This is the most important step: SHOP YOUR CUPBOARDS. More than likely you have that little can of tomato paste you need but normally would say “eh its only 75 cents” – that starts to add up! 

Now, it’s time to shop! We shop mostly at Aldi’s and a little at Meijer. I make my husbands lunches every day, obviously because it is cheaper, but he is a Mountain Dew-a-holic, and since Meijer almost always has sales on it, that’s where we go, as well as for laundry detergent. This week 3 – 12-packs of pop was $10, and I had a rain check for Arm & Hammer power paks for $2.99/27ct pack. They ended up only having the bonus backs so I got 10% more (32 paks) in each bag for the same price.  We ended up spending $86.60 for everything except our ground burger.

Aldi’s Haul

Meijer Items

For all our ground beef we typically try to stock up by buying half a steer and having it butchered, but we were fresh out of that; and we are selling our house so we aren’t planning on doing another steer until we move. So, for now, we buy from our local meat market; they sell ground beef for $3.49/lb about the same as Meijer sells it, and it’s so much fresher, and freezes much nicer! Occasionally, I can even get them to give me a deal on buying so much at one time. 

With the total of beef ($34.90) and groceries/detergent we spent $121.50 to feed three of us for an entire month. That in mind, the only things I found in my cupboard to use were enchilada sauce, diced tomatoes, and one can of tomato sauce.

In the end my meal plan all ends up, written out nicely, in my handy dandy notebook. I carry this thing with me everywhere so I never have to worry about the toddler ripping it up into little pieces like last months calender. When I’ve finished a day I will put one line through it, that way I can still read it for ideas with next months plan. As far as breakfasts we basically have the same thing everyday. It is always 2 eggs each with some sort of fruit (typically bananas) and toast or cheerios. As well as each meal we have some sort of fresh produce, usually some type of berries or grape tomatoes. I don’t write these things down on our list as we get them from a local farm but I do add them into my total spent! I just really don’t like supermarket produce other than for bananas and potatoes. Snacks are where I feel we save the most money, I only buy snacks for my husbands lunch, we do not eat them at home, and I buy one box of graham crackers to have in the diaper bag for on the go if I forget to pack something else. But typically snacks are fruits or fresh baked breads/cakes/brownies/cookies etc. So much cheaper!

Hopefully I’ve inspired some of you to try it for yourselves 😀 

Now, go hug your kids, kiss your husband, and remember; God has a plan!

Meet the Fam! <3

Eeeek! I hope you are as excited for this adventure as I am! I can’t wait to start publishing the posts I have planned for you guys, but first lets do some intros!!

 I’m Amanda, a 20-something stay at home mom (SAHM) to our beautiful, 15 month old daughter McKenna. My husband, Mike, works full-time as a semi-driver by day,  a tow truck driver by night ,and we are expecting baby #2 in December. I decided to start this blog months ago, with hopes of being able to reach other SAHM’s and help them live intentionally and feel complete with the simplicity of their life.  I can’t wait to hear everyone’s responses to my future posts and suggestions on what you want to read from us 😀

 

Now, go hug your kids, kiss your husband and remember;

God has a plan.