free...and the not so free family day!

Saturdays have become our family days. After football practice is over of course.

Finding free, or very inexpensive things is my goal for family times now. Not because we are cheap (well... I am), but because we don't need to spend a lot of money to do something as a family. The kids don't see it as, so today was better because we spent more money? So why should I limit my thinking and searching skills? (that's what Midwest Living magazine did to me. It made me a master of searching and scouring the internet. For a whole 3 months, I had to plan and find activities for the editor-in-chief to do on his family trip for the mag. I've got to find ways to use those skills...)

So, last Saturday, we did the free Homemakers 'carnival' day. Ok, so I didn't use my skills on this one. I saw it on a commercial.

The only problem, it rained. We decided it would still be worth it to grab a cookie and look around the store. Fortunately, they still had the balloon artist there (and yes, he was a LEGIT balloon ARTIST) and FREE SUBWAY for lunch! SWEET!

So here is our wonderful time at Homemakers...

 Nevaeh's dolphin. We waited an hour for these balloons. The kids did AMAZING. We played games and colored and ate cookies. 

 Gray's lion.

 Eating our free sandwiches! Not only did they give us free sandwiches, they gave us 8 free 6 inches because not as many people showed up. 

Then, that night we had a movie night snuggled up on our bed. There was popcorn everywhere, but it was worth it. Although, the movie night didn't go as planned (Gray sat for 2 minutes then was done with it), it was still fun. 

On the flip side is our expensive family day. 

The one and only Iowa State Fair!!!

Although, this year, wasn't a break the wallet day. Thanks to the Cunninghams, they passed my name along, to be in the commercial for next years fair. We got free tickets to get into the fair. Talk about a dream come true... I LOVE THE FAIR.

Also, we found a food vendor that has $1 fries, $2 hotdogs and $1 drinks. So thats what we get the kids. I ended up not eating because we didn't have time. The commercial took 1 1/2 hours to do and by the end, the kids were cranky and ready to go. So we didn't really enjoy the fair this year.

On top of that, Jason had to wait in line for an hour for the bacon corn dog so I was fed up too with the kids by myself for that long, on one of the busiest days of the fair. Which, by the way, he did not like. 

But here are some photos, before the chaos ensued. 

 Papa Steve, my dad. 

This is in honor of my cousin, shantell doornink. AKA Punky.

These are so bad... but sooooooooooo good! Deep Fried oreos.