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project life | week 22.

This month, I chose to document the 22nd week of this year – the last week of May.  Even though I’m about three months behind – note I had a baby three months ago and I’m using that as my excuse! – I absolutely love the end result of having each of these weekly layouts in an album to document our daily lives.

[Left Page] First time smores.  Suggested baby name.  Grocery receipt.  The weather on the date our third child was born.  A mama/daughter date at Starbucks.  Fun with raspberries.

Probably my favorite piece of this weekly layout – a combination of BasicGrey's Paper Cottage collection and Marcy’s Simple Vol. 2 journaling cards.  So easy to put together and the colors worked so well with one another.

A close second on my favorite part of this weekly layout is this journaling card containing a quote from Camryn on what we should name our third child.  I love the dotted alpha included in thePaper Cottage alphabet stickers as they really make a statement when outlined with a black pen.

To add journaling to this photo pocket, I used a die cut and personalized it with our Let Them Eat Cake stamp set.  Stamps are such a great product to use in weekly layouts as they can easily be personalized using whatever color of ink you’d like.

I chose to use another of Marcy’s journaling cards to hold a grocery receipt for the week.  I personalized it by cutting a small circular sticker in two and placing them on either side of the card title.  Easy!

[Right Page] Pregnancy stress test #2.  A trip to the library.  Tags from new baby clothes.  A bag that was attached to the bottom of a balloon.  A birthday party attended by our oldest daughter.  Colleagues of my husband that visited us in the hospital.

You don’t always have to include embellishments within the pockets of your weekly layouts.  Here I chose to use a Paper Cottage Flair Sticker on the outside of my page protector to embellish tags from the first boy clothes I washed without adding extra bulk to the actual tags.

[Insert - Front] The birth of a child definitely deserves an insert!  I wanted to uses minimal embellishments to maintain focus on the photos.

Creating a personalized title card for my insert was easy using one of Marcy’s journaling cards and the Let Them Eat Cake stamp set.  I love that banner stamp and can’t wait to use it on other projects as well.

[Insert - Back] Yet more hospital photos.  I like that using an insert with a certain number of spaces forced me to select only my absolute favorite photos from the hospital.

The girls refer to Andy's sister as their Aunt Cuckoo (long story).  I embellished this photo by trimming one of the Paper Cottage Titles Stickers to size.  The sticker had a small bird on it which was perfect for what I was documenting.

I used another Paper Cottage Flair Sticker to embellish the photo of my son in his carseat before heading home from the hospital.  I thought the “Fly Free” sentiment was fitting and love how versatile these stickers truly are.

So glad to have another week done and excited to hopefully start another week soon.

hello from staycation.

 

hello from staycation!  we're doing all kinds of fun things like getting to eat dessert even if we don't finish our dinner, hitting the splash park and spending insane amounts of time with play-doh.

life is good.

 

wordless wednesday : post-grocery shopping.

 

my view as i put five bags of groceries away before lunch.

menu plan monday : 8.20.12.

 

dinner was a bit easier to pull together last week but i still haven't hit my stride.  i'm still in the "the crockpot is my friend" camp as it's nice to simply pull together a side or two and have dinner ready when you need it to be without much though.

meatless monday : egg tomato and scallion sandwiches.  on mondays, the girls alternate who gets to go out for a dinner date with their aunt cuckoo.  this means i'm left with only one girl to feed dinner and usually let them pick out whatever random thing they'd like for dinner.  usually something quick so that we can head to the park, play outside, etc.  this means that i usually pick something random for me as well.  this is my random selection this week.

i've selected monday as a night of the week for our family to eat a meatless meal as it tends to be more budget friendly as well as a friendlier option for the environment. my meat and potato eating husband tends to go along with this idea because i also make him a yummy dessert in addition to his meatless meal. what can i say, i'm nice like that.

tuesday : southwestern black bean, quinoa and mango medley.  can yout tell we're attempting to eat a bit healthier?  i could tell you the calories in many things i eat these days.  i love quinoa as an alternative to a higher calorie pasta.

wednesday : chipotle chicken taco salad.  yes.  the same salad that was on the menu last week.  so fresh and tasty we're having it again.  at least the adults of the house are.

thursday : leftovers.  

friday : pizza.  it's the beginning of our staycation!  andy's parents are arriving for an extended stay as we aren't making the long trek this year due to having a new baby.

 

last week's new recipe reviews

quiona puttanesca.  yum!  i doubled this recipe and loved having it around for a quick lunch or another dinner.  unfortunately, i think i was the only one who really enjoyed it.  camryn ate it, but i think it really was because she wanted a treat after dinner.  leighton was less than thrilled.  

chipotle chicken taco salad.  l-o-v-e.  ironically, this is what i made us to eat for our anniversary dinner.  ha!  i was able to pull this together in less than 30 minutes after the kids were in bed.  we both enjoyed it and i had leftovers the next day for lunch without it being wilty.  score!

ten years.

 

today we celebrated ten years together.  so very hard to believe.  our favorite four year old took our photo together with our anniversary cake, a tradition we started last year.  we got married on what would've been my dad's birthday so now i make his favorite birthday cake for our anniversary.  thank goodness for an even numbered anniversary as both the girls got to put in five candles.  there was an entire 9x13 cake but for some reason, it was decided that the candles should be lined along the top edge.  who am i to argue?

after the kids were in bed, we were able to eat dinner together and also watched our wedding video for the first time in ten years.  so fun to see so many friends and family that were there but also surreal to see cousins that were so tiny at the time that are now headed off to college.  ack!

and did i mention i still have a slice of our wedding cake in the freezer?  we each took a bite and it still tasted pretty good!  i'm rationing it so that when we reach our 50th anniversary, we'll still have plenty to enjoy.  andy's thrilled.

 

another weekend, another check on the summer bucket list.

 

on saturday, we checked another item off of our family summer bucket list and headed to the zoo.  with andy being on call, aunt cuckoo was more than happy to help me wrangle the three of them.  sadly, this was our first trip of the summer.  we're so lucky to have an amazing zoo that is absolutely free.

 

 

it was this sweet boy's first trip to the zoo and he was awesome.  he spent part of the time in the stroller and the rest in the moby.

 

 

my favorite furry guy at the zoo.  we got there right as the zoo opened and he's usually pretty elusive but we were lucky and he paraded back and forth for us several time.

 

 

aunt cuckoo was the lucky one selected to ride with the girls on the carousel and the train.  definite highlights for the girls.

loved being able to check off one more thing on our list.  at last glance, i think we'll be able to get everything done but three.  not too bad, i'd like to think!

the before and after.

 

last weekend, with andy on call, we didn't see him as much as we'd like.  he was home saturday night for dinner and as a treat, we decided to load everyone up and head to culvers.  we all love culvers.  the fact that the flavor of the day was m&m swirl - a favorite of the girls' - was icing on the cake.

so after dinner, we took our custard outside as it had been such a gorgeous day.  the girls were chatting it up and sharing their scoop and then...

 

 

someone was trying to scoot the dish away from their little sister and it dropped to the pavement.  and then the drama and waterworks began.  as i already had my phone out from the previous photo, i also was able to snag this one.

andy thought i was a mean mama for doing so, however i think i changed his mind a bit when i told him i won a $25 culver's gift card with that after photo.  culver's happened to be having a contest over the weekend where they selected a photo each day that someone had posted on twitter about their flavor of the day.

being the nice mama that i am, i'm planning on buying her a replacement dish with my winnings.

menu plan monday : 8.13.12.

 

i'm still trying to figure out when the best time to plan our weekly menu is.  thus, the lack of a posted menu the past few weeks.  that and the fact that andy and i are dieting - good times.  

meatless monday : quiona puttanesca.  the girls love quinoa, the only downside is the the mess created by both of them when eating it.

i've selected monday as a night of the week for our family to eat a meatless meal as it tends to be more budget friendly as well as a friendlier option for the environment. my meat and potato eating husband tends to go along with this idea because i also make him a yummy dessert in addition to his meatless meal. what can i say, i'm nice like that.

tuesday : easy lemon chicken.  a family favorite.  especially when served with israeli couscous.

wednesday : leftovers.  

thursday : chipotle chicken taco salad.  a great low calorie meal for lots of veggies.  might have to make something else for the girls, although camryn tends to love salad so we'll see.

friday : lentil burritos.  let's just say if my meat loving husband requests a meatless dish, it has to be good.

 

two more checks on the summer bucket list.

 

last weekend we were able to check off two more things on our summer bucket list.  first on the list?  swimming in uncle bob and aunt sue's pool.  check!  the girls love swimming anyway so being able to swim with daddy, papi and go down a slide were just icing on the cake.

 

 

also on the lsit?  visiting grandma bunny, andy's grandmother.  who got the lovely nickname after giving camryn several stuffed bunnies when she was younger.  so the name stuck.  and she even signs cards to the kids that way.  love that.  this was bunny's first time meeting carson.  she wasn't smitten one bit.  in fact, i'm convinced they called one another to plan their color coordinated ensembles.

we had a great time catching up with family we don't see near enough and enjoying a gorgeous day outside.

get up and go day.

 

we're big pbs fans in our house.  in fact, the girls don't really know that there are other channels available to them.  which i won't lie, is nice.  they're huge fans of word world, super why and wild kratts so when the advertisements for "get up and go day" started airing, they were slightly excited.  they knew that on august 3rd, mr. steve was coming back to madison.  lucky for me, andy's parents were in town for the weekend, so i had an adult for each child at this super busy event.  another plus?  it's absolutely free!  it only cost me $1.87 for parking for a morning of fun.

the girls were over the moon when they spied super why as soon as we got there.  we stood in line to get our photo snapped - where i happened to run into a friend from our birthing class with camryn - and leighton spent all weekend telling everyone that super why wears gloves.  (ahem, part of his costume.)  who knew the "real" super why wore gloevs!

 

 

oh, iphone i love thee.  i was wearing carson in my moby - hello personal heater on a 90+ degree day! - so it was great to be able to snap photos easily with one hand.  love this shot of the girls with nana and papi.

 

 

oh the simple joys of childhood.  suprisingly they didn't fight on who was going to be bert and who was going to be ernie.

 

 

one of the bubble stations that they had set up.  luckily little bubble solution was ingested by leighton.

 

 

another favorite shot from the day.  yet more bubbles.  we're big fans of bubbles so this was a hit.

 

 

another highlight was getting to climb into a firetruck.  one of the firemen was awesome with the girls and sat and listened to leighton jabber endlessly while we waited our turn.

thanks again to nana and papi for helping to make our outing such a fun - and stress free for mama! - event.