Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 32 and 33

Week 32:
During the first part of this week, we were still in South Carolina.  On Sunday afternoon, Jim, Drew, my dad, brother, brother-in-law, and nephew went to a minor league baseball game.  After the game, the kids got to run the bases.  Drew helped his little cousin, Ryan, run the bases.
The boys were very excited!

It was a hot afternoon, but everyone had a fun time, and I was impressed that Jim and my dad remembered to take a few pictures for me!
While the guys were at the game, my mom, sister, niece, Maddie, and I stayed back at my parents' house and had a dip and Frozen (the movie) party.  Each of the ladies made a dip.  I made Spinach Artichoke Dip,
my sister made Texas Trash Dip,
and my mom made S'mores Dip.  They were all delicious!
We all watched Frozen while we ate our dips.
When the guys got home from their game, they tried the dips too.  Drew loved the S'mores dip!
Drew felt very big when my sister let him feed her little girl a bottle.  It was cute to see him holding her (somewhat awkwardly) and giving her the bottle.
We had a great week with my family, and we were sad to have to say goodbye.
We spent the end of the week getting unpacked and back into a routine at home.  Jim's mom had missed the kids while we were gone, so they went over to see her for a few hours one afternoon.  Her apartment building has a few swings out front, and the kids love to sit on them when they go see her.
We went out for lunch at a pizza buffet on Saturday.  Jim had taken the kids there once before when I was at a bridal shower, and they wanted me to come along this time and experience it.  Maddie loved the pasta on the buffet.
Drew was excited to try a few video games after lunch.
Maddie rode the horse.
Here's what I did for Week 32:

Week 33:
I caught these two cat-napping on the couch one afternoon.
Our garden was really progressing this week.  We started getting some tomatoes.

Our bell peppers were growing well too.
Our church got a new game this summer, called Nine Squares.  Drew loves to play after church!
Maddie took good care of her baby.  She kept tucking her in
and wanting me to help her wrap the baby in her blanket.
This week, we had a lot of flooding in our area.  Jim got caught in the flooding after work.  He kept being rerouted, and after almost an hour of driving (his normal drive is less than 15 minutes), his car got flooded about a mile from our house.  He and some other drivers were able to push his car into a parking lot, and then he walked the last mile home.  We thought that the car would be totaled, but we had it towed to our mechanic to be sure.  Our mechanic was able to get the engine cleaned up and started.  It was very wet inside, and it smelled terrible, so we put it in the garage with the windows down to try to dry it out.  Some friends from church were going to be out of town for a few weeks, and they let Jim borrow one of their cars.  That was a huge blessing and help as we waited to see what would happen with Jim's car.
We were fortunate that our basement didn't flood.  Many, many houses in our neighborhoods had major basement flooding, and we saw lots of houses with huge piles of ruined things from their basements out on the curbs.
Here's what I did for Week 33:
Here are Weeks 32 and 33 together:
I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Three Things for Thursday

I thought I might start sharing a few random things here on my blog on Thursdays.  I might share links to recipes I have tried lately, a project I like, or something funny I saw.  These will vary, but I thought these quick posts might be fun.  Here we go!
1.  It has gotten quite cold and a little snowy here in Michigan.  We had our first little bit of snow last week, and we got a couple more inches yesterday.  
I saw this on Facebook a few days ago, and I thought it was pretty funny.

2.  Jim loves gnocchi, and I have made this Ham and Cheese Gnocchi a couple of times.  I leave out the peas and serve another vegetable on the side (since Jim doesn't care for peas), and it is delicious!

3.  We have had the same hand-me-down TV stand for years.  I have never really liked it and have always wanted to replace it.  I bought this dresser at Salvation Army a few weeks ago.
I am planning to repaint it using chalk paint and use it as our new TV stand.  I will post an update when we get going on that project.
So, there are my three things for this Thursday.  I hope you have a great weekend!  We are looking forward to a short week of school next week and a visit from my parents for Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 30 and 31

Week 30:
We started this week at church on Sunday, like we usually do.  I was in Maddie's class for Sunday School that morning.  Maddie loves to play basketball in her class, and she got a little creative that morning by shooting from the top of the slide.
 We picked Jim up from work a little early one afternoon, and drove over to Metro Beach on Lake Saint Clair.  The boys spent a few hours golfing at the Par 3 Course.  It was Drew's first time playing his own ball the entire time.
Drew did pretty well (he got a little overwhelmed with having to play his ball from wherever he hit it).  I love that Jim and Drew share a love of golf and that they enjoy being together.
Maddie and I spent a lot of time on the playground.  Maddie loves slides!
 She kept climbing up and sliding down.  It was a fun afternoon!
Maddie loves to "help," especially when it is something she wants.  When she wants a drink, she often goes and gets the jug of milk out of the fridge herself and carries it over to wherever we are in the house.  We have had a few messes.
Maddie likes to give/get a thumbs up when something good happens, and she often combines the thumbs up with a high five.  Here, she and Jim are doing a "thumbs up high five."
The faculty at Jim's school had a strategic planning weekend on Friday and Saturday.  Since Jim has become principal, he has really been trying to include the faculty in more of the planning and decision-making.  They had two great days of meetings and came away excited about the school year ahead.  I catered their lunch on Saturday, and the kids and I had a bit of an adventure as we had to drive through part of an auto show to pick up the subs.
 I also made fruit salad, potato salad, and chocolate chip cookie bars.
Here's what I did for Week 30:
I saved a few bits from the golf course map and our parking pass at the beach to use on my layout.  I love to use things like that and am trying to remember to grab things from places we go and save them.

Week 31:
Our church hosted a big choir and band camp this week.  Drew had been looking forward to going, but with our change in vacation plans, we ended up being gone for most of the camp week.  We were in town for the first day of camp, and the leaders said that Drew could come for the day.  He loved it!
 We left on Tuesday for a week with my family in South Carolina.  Drew and Maddie are very good travelers (we are thankful, because it is a long trip!).
While we were in South Carolina, Drew got to pick blueberries from my Dad's garden.  It was the very end of the season, but there were a few left for Drew to pick.
 We had several Wii bowling tournaments.
 We also did some shopping.  Maddie wanted to carry our thrift store purchases out to the van for me!
 We had a big kebab dinner with all the cousins.  My dad cooked the kebabs on the grill.
 We were able to get a picture of all the cousins.  SO cute!
 The dinner was delicious!
 Drew had been wanting to try kebabs, and we had put them on our summer list.  My parents helped us check making kebabs
 and homemade ice cream off our summer list.
Here's what I did for Week 31.
Jim and I spent a couple days of that week in Charleston.  I blogged about that trip here and here, so I didn't share the pictures again in this post.  For this week's Project Life, I made an insert about our Charleston trip.  Here is the front,
and here is the back.
Here are Weeks 30 and 31, along with the Charleston insert,
 and the Charleston insert flipped.
Here are Weeks 30 and 31, without the insert.
I hope to be back later this week with another post!