Jan 24-30 (week 4)

Today was our first day of e-mealz!  (journaling after completing one week)  This is simply amazing.  First of all, I hate cooking.  More than I hate cooking, I hate grocery shopping.  More than I hate grocery shopping, I hate planning meals.  The amazing EMILY QUINEY introduced me to e-mealz and my life will never be the same! (ok, that is a little dramatic, but seriously, I love this system!!)  You subscribe to their site ($5 per month), and each friday you download a week worth of meals.  Included is the grocery list as well as the cooking instructions.  We chose the meal plan for two to try it out and see how it went.  There was plenty left over for the kids too (but of course they wanted nothing to do with it.)  I grocery shopped over the weekend, and we started on monday.  I spent soooooo much less than I usually do at the store, and we didn't eat out once!!  <3 <3 <3 this!!

Since the Christmas decorations came down, the house looks so naked.  I whipped up a few little Valentine's Day decorations to fill the void.  More photos here!

This little boy amazes me.  We play with these puzzles all the time and Bryce never shows interest in the number and alphabet ones, (usually just the trucks and animals).  Suddenly---overnight---he knows all his numbers and letters!  Not really, but he can crank this puzzle out like it's nobody's business.  Yay Bryce!!

Just a POTD to remind me of what my kids eat these days.  Frozen waffles.  French toast sticks.  Nuggets.  Pizza.  PB&J.  String cheese.  Cereal.  Yogurt.  Bananas.  Grapes.  You know, nothing but the healthiest, freshest stuff around here.  oh...and absolutely no vegetables...oops almost forgot that one.  Yup, mother of the year.

This is Sydney's favorite face lately.  Oddly enough...she only does it to Dan.  It usually goes something like this:
{looks at him, makes face}
He doesn't see her
looks at me
{looks at him, makes face}
he doesn't see her
looks at me 
I tell her "say Dada"
"Dada!" {makes face}
Dada makes face back at her (FINALLY!)
looks at me, laughing
"Dada!" {makes face}
Dada makes face back at her (again)
looks at me
...we do this combo about 5 more times.

Went to Muskegon for the afternoon to celebrate Drew's 4th Birthday.  Went swimming, had pizza, cake & ice cream, and Drew opened gifts.  Bryce was LOVING the pool, and Sydney, well, she thought it was for the birds.  Typical.

I was lucky enough to snap this picture because this couch cuddling lasted all of 15 seconds.  They had both just woken up and didn't quite have enough energy to start arguing yet.  Hey, I'll take it where I can get it.  Love these two!

I'm linking up over at The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday.  Hop on over to check out more Project Life Photos!

Jan 17-23 (week 3)

Cortney had a meeting this morning, so Aiden came over for a few hours to hang with us.  We always love hanging with him. 

Aunt Diane and Lily came over today to see the Princess Diana Exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.  Unfortunately they don't let you take any pictures inside the exhibit, so this was all I could get.  :(  We went to the BOB for lunch after the museum. 

I received an email saying my 31 party order would be arriving Wednesday and I couldn't have been more excited.  {like, "every sound I heard I would look for the UPS truck outside" kind of excited}  Of course a watched pot never boils...it didn't get here until after 6pm.

Dan and I went to Chicago for a Northwestern Mutual Conference for a few days.  So nice to be out of the house without kids :)  Got to hang out and dress up which is always fun.  Borrowed this AMAZING dress from Cassie and could not believe how many compliments I received.   I felt like such a rock star!

There is nothing like room service breakfast in bed while watching anything I want and no one to whine at me!  Heaven!

Our annual tradition is lunch at Grand Lux Cafe on Saturday before we head out of town.  We had a nice window seat facing Michigan Avenue.  Soaked up every last bit of my weekend away!

Sunday un-fun day...Dan wanted to clean {of course}.  First he took Bryce outside to snowblow, then he moved all the furniture out of the living room and washed the carpets.  Sydney was such a big help!  We moved the living room around for a nice change.

Check out more Project Life Tuesday Bloggers over at The Mom Creative.  Click here!

Jan 10-16 (week 2)

Not the greatest pictures this week, but...that is life, isn't it? 

Just one of the many things we do to keep busy waiting for Dan to get home at the end of the day.

Breakfast for dinner tonight.  Pancakes?  Well that would just be boring.  Pancakes with blueberries and bacon...YES PLEASE!  Pretty much the most amazing thing ever.  I thought Dan was gross when he mentioned it.  I will never doubt his culinary experimentation again.

Children's museum with Janine, "AriaKai" (since Bryce refers to them as one person), and Becket. 

Date night to see Cirque du Soleil with Amy and Vince.  Since they do not allow cameras (and threaten to confiscate if they see you with one...scary!) I didn't get any pictures of the show.  We had dinner at Bistro Bella Vita before the show. 

Lost power for some reason from about 10 to 1.  Thankfully Syd's noise maker takes batteries so I was able to sneak in her morning nap.  Bryce and I made snowflakes since it was Little house on the frickin prairie around here with no electricity and nothing to do. 

Yikes, not sure why this picture is so grainy?  Went to Marcy's house for our "Rescheduled" annual Christmas Party.

Know what's awesome?  Getting together with your sister in law in September to make a ton of soups and such to freeze for the winter.  Know what's not awesome?  Discovering that your Ziploc freezer bag has failed you and you have thawed taco soup in every crevice of your refrigerator. 

 Hop on over to the Mom Creative and check out more project life pictures.  From the looks of it, there are a ton more people on the bandwagon this year!  Love it!!

Good Stuff

This post is mostly for me to refer to...
I was blogstalking and found some great project life ideas. 

Simply Autumn
(does interesting things with her journaling cards and such)

Mish Mash
Setting up her album.  (incorporated "one little word" )

Willette Project Life
wasn't afraid to just throw some verticle photos in there. 

Ali Edwards
This is her 2010 album, but she always incorporates cool things in her pages.

also...here is the "days of the week" brush for photoshop- click here
-or- free font download if you don't have photoshop- click here.  (scroll down to free font)  You can just type this out on your photo in Picasa or something similar.

The Mom Creative
inspires us all to stay on top of our albums with her weekly link up

Becky Higgins shared this video "thank you" from a friend...amazing!  I'm totally stealing lots from this video :)

Jan 1 to Jan 9

Our last Christmas party!  Drove over to Dad's house for the afternoon.  Dan chatting it up with Uncle Russ and Uncle Garry.

Frantically trying to get my 2010 Project Life album completed.  I don't want to start my 2011 album feeling totally under water.  Almost finished with my journaling, and my last few pictures just came in the mail this weekend. 

For whatever reason...Sydney is obsessed with this crazy reggae song from Yo Gabba Gabba, "Banana".  She goes nuts whenever it comes on.  Silly girl.

M.O.R.E.  S.N.O.W...blah.

We are all still trying to get in the groove of the "big boy bed" around here.  Bryce plays in his room when he should be taking a nap.  When it finally got quiet up there, I was curious so I took a peek.  This is what I found.

She still loves the sink while I'm trying to get ready.  As long as it keeps her happy and quiet, I don't really mind. 

Friday, Jan 7

Dinner at the neighbor's house. 

no picture?

Went over to Mee-ma and Papa's house for the afternoon.  Bryce was so excited to drive the tractor and go sledding even with the super cold temperature.  Thankfully the sun was shining :)

Kind of lazy day around here.  worked in the nursery at church, then came home and took down the tree and all Christmas stuff (finally!)  Dada and Bryce were playing blocks and built a super cool robot.

Holy Crap, I made it!

I am amazed that I actually completed this album!  One whole year of pictures taken every day {ok, with a few missed days here and there}.  I am so glad that I decided to do this project.  I captured so many little memories that I would have never remembered otherwise.  I was feeling really down on myself for neglecting to scrapbook much since having kids, but this is the perfect way for me to incorporate it with sooooo much less time, money, effort.  I know two people that I (think) have encouraged to do this project in 2011.  I hope they are able to finish and enjoy it as much as I have.  Good luck ladies!!!

To take this one more step in the simple direction, I think I am going to go digital.  eeek!  I can't believe my own ears!  I just realized that since I am currently only up to August in my journaling, it might be easier to eliminate all the extra work of printing pictures and hand writing the journaling.  I know, I know, this is hardly scrapbooking, but the ultimate goal here is to capture the memories, right?  Becky's site makes it soooo easy!  I am just so happy that I was able to see my kids grow so much bigger over the past 365 days, to remember what they were into at a certain point in time, to see the seasons change and how we kept busy during each one, and of course all the little things in between.   I LOVE Project Life! :)  Thank you Becky Higgins.

Dec 21-Dec 31

My kids were nice enough to take unusually long naps today.  I was able to get the floors washed and cleaned much of the rest of the house.  So thankful to have them out of the way.

Jeff, Emily, and Ben came into town from Pittsburgh for Christmas.  They stayed at our house on the way to Muskegon.  We piled all the kiddos in the tub after dinner to burn off some of their excitedment.

Started the Christmas festivities (and traveling) at Mom's house.  Practicing more of my bokeh...that I apparently suck at since Bryce is not in focus and the lighting is very poor.

The whole fam damly...plus and minus a few.  Everyone over at mom's on Christmas Eve morning for a wonderful brunch.  Went home Friday evening to get the kids in bed, relax a bit and get ready for Santa!  Dan wasn't feeling too well, so I had some wine, enjoyed the fire and of course, A Christmas Story marathon!

Christmas Morning!  The kids had a blast.  It was so fun this year because Bryce understood (most) what was going on.  I neglected to get everyone new Christmas jammies out of laziness.  Headed over to the Peterson's later and celebrated with the rest of the family.

Monday was back to work.  The house was a little out of sorts, so we cleaned while Dan went into work for a bit.

Bryce decided at nap time today that he was done with the whole crib thing.  I had to put him back in there twice, and he never ended up napping.  We decided to take the plunge and turn the crib into a toddler bed.  To my surprise, he did great!  Never tried to get out! 

Got a sitter and had an amazing dinner at Bonefish Grill with the Nieuwenhuis'.  Two of my favorite things, bang bang shrimp and good company!  Great night...and a little too much wine...oops, it was worth it!

We had crazy warm weather today.  Last day of December and it was 55 degrees???  So what did we do, grilled cheeseburgers on the deck of course!  We laid low {very low} for NYE this year.  It was very nice.  boy things sure change once having kids.

...and TA DA!!!  That's it!  One whole year of pictures.