PL Catch-up

I'm still mostly caught up with Project Life, mostly just behind on actually posting my pages. Last week I had to take Wednesday morning off work to get an internet/cable issue sorted out. Justin had a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning so I figured I would stay home until either the AT&T guy fixed our internet/cable or Justin got home. Justin got home at 10:30am, AT&T guy showed up at 10:45am so I ended up getting two weeks worth of Project Life finished up and photographed to post during the 3 hours I spent waiting around my house. Then I let the pictures languish on my camera until Sunday.

Week 17 | April 23 - 29





Week 18 | April 30 - May 6



Just realized that I still need to do some journaling about those pictures where Claire is waving a stick at the flowers. She's pretending to conduct, like Leo from the Little Einsteins. She waves her "baton" at the flowers and says "Wah wah wah" and then I usually respond as whatever she is waving her stick baton at with a "la la la". This is kind of a big deal because when Claire had her diagnosis the therapists kept mentioning her lack of pretend play.


The last 3x4 journaling card that says "TORNADO" on it is actually a 4x6 folding card. The pictures inside are of the Tornado that was above Olathe, in fact it went right over one of my friend's houses and probably over my parents house as well. I did NOT take any pictures of it. I was busy hiding in the basement of a (different) friend's house and was blissfully oblivious to how close this really was to us until it was all over and I started seeing pictures on Facebook - that's why there is text on each picture that says "Picture from Facebook".


Because truly, those two pictures were taken less than a MILE from my house. That brick building in the picture on the right is where Claire was born.

Menu Monday

Another week and another menu plan. I know some people plan the same basic 7 meals every week, but that doesn't work for me. Each week is a new adventure in what I will figure out to fix for our little family.

Monday - Tortellini w/ marinara, bread and vegetable mix
Tuesday - Pancakes, sausage links, fruit mix (kiwi, blueberries, strawberries)
Wednesday - Smoked brats, tater tots, green beans
Thursday - Black-pepper chicken stir-fry*, rice, Asian vegetable medley, egg rolls
Friday - Pizza (take out)
Saturday - Grilled deli sandwiches (panini-ish), chips, raw veggies/fruit
Sunday - Enfrijoladas*, spicy rice, corn & pepper mix

Items with * are new recipes, so we'll see how it goes.

We have a fairly large number of things that we all like, but I like to try new things otherwise I feel like I eat the same stuff all the time. The Black-pepper chicken I tried at my local Chinese take-out for lunch last week and LOVED it. Now we'll see if I can make something that is close enough to the original. The Enfrijoladas were posted on Tasty-Kitchen (my favorite cooking blog/website) and they looked delicious - it's vegetarian though and my husband is more of a meat & potatoes kind of guy. But I figure if for every meal that I really want to try we do something that he really likes (Pizza take out, brats) then it's all good...right?

Project Life Week ???

April 16 - 22

This was a super busy week! Ended up with TWO inserts, one 6x12 (with three pockets) and one 8.5x11. There's also very little journaling. Almost all of the pockets are full of pictures.

Here we go - the full spread, see all the inserts!

As I said, we had a LOT going on this week. We finished painting Anaya's room (green & purple!) and Claire was cute.

Claire had a field trip with her class on Tuesday, so I took the morning off work and met them there. I'm glad I did because I got some great pictures of her with her "friends". There are only 4 girls in her preschool class and they are all almost a year older than her (since she's one of the youngest anyways). So all the other girls "mother-hen" her according to the teachers.

On Saturday, I throw myself a birthday party - I turned 30! I made a ton of mini cupcakes and had quite a few friends over, but managed to only take pictures of the cupcakes and the kids. So I included a few from earlier in the week when I was planning out the food.

On Sunday we were LAZY bums. Until about 3pm when I decided we needed to do SOMETHING. So I took the girls downtown to the new Sealife Aquarium that opened recently. We ended up buying a season pass since we'd decided not to buy one for the zoo this year. This will be the year of the Fish!

Pictures of us being LAZY on Sunday. And a little trip to the DMV that I had made earlier in the week - I didn't leave it to the last minute...I think I did it on Thursday, I still had TWO whole days before it actually expired!

Thanks for coming and having a look!

Week 12

Week 12: March 19-25

Here's the first page:

Here's the second page:

There's also an insert, but it's not done yet. I took my little one to see Disney on Ice so that will be on one side. Then I took the 12-yr old to see The Hunger Games and I'm waiting on some journaling from her to finish the page.

I think this is kind of cool though. We painted two rooms this weekend and I used the two paint swatches from the store as my journal card. I just trimmed them down to the right size and ran them through my printer like I do any time I print on journal cards. Now I have the writing about painting AND the actual paint colors we used instead of using up bigger slots trying to take pictures of the newly painted walls. Originally I was going to print my text on vellum or a transparency - but I was too lazy to go find one tonight.

Thanks for stopping by!

Project Simplify - Kitchen

This week, Simple Mom, has challenged us to clean & declutter our pantry & fridge. I shared a little bit about the current state of each and my plan of attach on this post.

First...the Pantry!

Here's what is looked like at the beginning of the week - not horrible, but not great either. When I was cleaning it out, I found 3 half used boxes of lasagna noodles. My lasagna recipe only uses half a box and instead of ever checking, I just bought a new box each time I made lasagna...whoops!

And after some cleaning. I really only did a lot on the top three shelves. The bottom shelves got a little more organized, but nothing major. The basket on the top shelf has some snacks for my toddler in it so that I can easily pull it down and let her pick what she wants.

Next...the Fridge!

Here's the before - I needed the clean out some leftovers and the shelves were way overdue for being taken out and washed.

And the after. I ended up throwing away about half of the condiments because they had expired. We mostly use ketchup or mayo, so the mustard that I get when we're having people over ends up hanging out in the fridge forever. Also, why did we have four jars of salsa?!?!

Week 2 is DONE and my fridge hasn't looked that good since we got it!

Project Simplify: Pantry & Fridge

This week, Simple Mom, has challenged us to clean & declutter our pantry & fridge. The organization of my pantry & fridge comes and goes based on how much my husband or one of the kids decides to "fix" it. My husband pretty much thinks that means pushing everything to the back of the pantry. My step-daughter moves things to where she thinks they go - although I have mostly broken her of this habit because then I can't find anything. And the three yr-old puts EVERYTHING on the canned goods shelf, because that is where she can reach.

A before picture of each place...

I actually do have quite a few plastic containers meant for holding some of this stuff, I've just gotten lazy recently and haven't been using them.

The leftovers need to go and it's probably time to check through the condiments for expiration dates.

Plan of attack:
Throw away any food that is expired.
Pull everything out of pantry & clean the shelves
Return items to pantry - put things in the plastic tubs instead of being lazy
Pull everything out of fridge and quickly clean the shelves (maybe just move things around so as to not worry about spoilage).
Return items to fridge in orderly fashion.

We'll see how it goes...

Week 10

Week 10: March 5 - 11

Wow! It's already week 10 and I am still keeping up with this project. I'm definitely loving the process of picking & editing my pictures on Sunday or Monday night and then picking them up the next day. Unfortunately the Target that I normally use is going through a re-model so I had to order from Walgreens this week. The pictures from (my) Walgreens are a teeny tiny bit smaller than 6 inches and they are darker. If the Target photolab is still closed next week I'll have to try some where else.

Since I knew I was going to fill most of my slots with pictures this week and not have much room for journaling, I did a little journaling a couple of my pictures. I downloaded a couple of the fonts that I saw on The Lilypad Blog and used them this week. Love it! I really feel like this week is a better mix of kid pictures and life pictures. Although I suppose I really ought to include a few of my husband eventually!

I also love the insert that I made this week. I'm really loving Becky's 6x12 page protectors - this week's insert is about our trip to the zoo. The bottom of the 6x12 insert will have another picture, but I decided that I wanted a different picture instead - a collage of some of the animals we saw.

Thanks for stopping by!

Project Simplify - Kid's Clothing

Simple Mom is hosting Project Simplify this month and the first hotspot was kids' stuff.

That worked out well for me because the consignment sale that I like to consign at is the last week of March, so this got me going with my organizing & pricing early! However, in the interest of being honest all of the clothing that is NOT in their rooms is now in tubs around the perimeter of our master bedroom.

Here's what we started with in each girl's closet:

After Pictures:

I didn't get as much accomplished as I wanted too; the week somehow got away from me - it was suddenly Friday! But the clothing that doesn't fit is all out of their closets. And most of it is priced and ready to go for the consignment sale later this month. And soon, all of the "winter" items that I have to hold on to until the next sale will be folded and stored nicely in tubs...maybe.

Week 9

Week 9: Feb 27 - March 4

I had to go back and count the number of weeks to figure out which week this was. I have done all the weeks leading up to this week, I just haven't posted anything about them. Maybe eventually, but probably not.

I have a couple of things I have noticed as I have worked on Project Life this year. Almost my entire layout every week is of my daughter, well every other week is also about my step-daughter since she's only here every other weekend. I feel like I ought to make at least one of two of the pictures be not kiddo focused. I'm not sure what I want to do instead though because let's face it, I LOVE the pictures of my kiddo. Last night I took a picture of our dinner, so maybe that will make it into the week 10 layout as my non-kid picture. I just feel like since this is our only scrapbook right now, that maybe it shouldn't entirely revolve around a 3 yr old - although that is pretty accurate as to what my life is like right now.

Normally I leave my date cards alone. This is my third year of Project Life and I think this is only the second time that I have EVER put anything on "date" card. And the first time was last week when I put a picture on it. This week I used some number stickers from the Cobalt core kit and wrote a couple lines about the corresponding pictures which are marked with white number stickers. The corresponding pictures are all in the insert.

I still want to put something on the picture of Claire & I playing with the iPad. We had just gotten a new app, an amazing app that we both LOVE, Draw & Tell by Duck Duck Moose. It is awesome. Anyways, I'll probably add a label of some sort.

Close up of the journaling on the "date" card.

The paper for my insert is some cardstock from the Turquoise kit. I'm not a huge fan of pattern paper these days so I didn't buy the Cobalt paper pack. This is actually the first sheet out of the Turquoise kit that I have used.

Week 5

I have had a really hard time the past two weeks getting motivated for Project Life. I put Week 5 together last Monday, but didn't get around to taking pictures of it until the 8th, and here it is the 16th and I'm just posting them when I should be posting Week 6, but it's not done yet because I just ordered the pictures tonight!

Anyways, here's Week 5: Jan 20 - Feb 5

I think I like having 4 of the smaller slots open for journaling, that seems to be the right amount for the number of stories that I usually want to tell.

The little tag that says 'You make me happy' is a punch out from the top of a Burger King kid's meal.

Linked up to TheMomCreative.com.