A crafting vacation...

No, I'm not going on a crafting vacation {unfortunately, I need that in a bad way!}, but rather I have had no time to do any crafting this week. Life has been very bogged down with school & soccer this last week.

For those that don't know, I am in school, majoring in Web Design. This week, for my Web Development Class, I began writing xhtml code {so cool}, to design a website! At this stage it's nothing exciting to show you, because I just followed a tutorial to learn the whole process! But the fun part is that I'm already being able to insert code into the html here on my blog & change things to look the way that I want them to!

You can see the crazy & fun things I'm learning in my Computer Photographic Imaging class here. The link is a blog specifically for the projects for that class! Let it be known that, in my opinion, Blogger is sooo much more user friendly than Wordpress. I'm sorry to all those out there that love Wordpress, but I am not one of them!

Three of my six children are playing soccer this season & we have practice 4 nights a week, plus games on Thursdays & Saturdays. So you can say soccer is taking up some time on our calendar these days! I just went to Miss C's game tonight {our 14 yr. old} and they lost, but she played the best I've ever seen her play. I love watching them play & I'm so proud of her! It just dawned on me that I still haven't even taken a picture at a game yet & we are 3 weeks into the season! That will change & I'll get one up here hopefully by next weekend!

Well, I hope to be back soon with some fun crafting/organizing projects! I have a big organization project in my craft room that I just finished, 3 cards that I made for events last week, and I did promise a tutorial on my rosette headbands, so watch for that as well!

recovering...

We just got home last night from my Pulsipher Family Reunion up in the White Mountains! We had so much fun & almost didn't want to leave! We got to see & visit with so many of my cousins that I haven't seen in a very long time. We have this reunion every summer, but some of my cousin's have moved out of state so they don't get to come as often.

This is a little tree frog that my nephew, Corbin found! Isn't he adorable?


And here's just a taste of how dirty all the boys got! This is my oldest boy, S-man! He is 8 & definately all boy! The boys (especially this one) were just in heaven being able to play outside all day & not sweat to death! S-man loves to play outside & still does even in our 110 degree heat so being up in the mountains where it was so much cooler was really nice!

Menu Plan Monday-May 11-16th

Dinner time at our house this week is going to be pretty crazy. Monday night I have a PTSO meeting/dinner, Tues. night is our 15 yo daughter's choir concert, Wed. night is our 13 yo daughter's band concert. Then Thursday night is our 15 yo's choir banquet, our 13 yo's Academic Night (where she'll be recieving an award) & our 11 yo daughter's band concert. Can you tell me how we are supposed to be in 3 places at once, I thought they were supposed to coordinate these things with the others schools since they are all in the same district? Crazy huh, so maybe now you'll understand the very simple meals we'll be having this week.

If you'd like to see how I run my menu planning system go here. I've been doing it this way since November of last year & it has helped me tremendously. I have saved so much more money at the grocery store since I've been doing this.

Monday: Bow-tie Alfredo (my boys absolutely love this & it's the simplest thing to make)

Tuesday: Spaghetti/garlic bread/veggies

Wednesday: Fried chicken/rice/veggies (nothing fancy here, just frozen fried chicken & minute rice)

Thursday: Grilled cheese sandwiches

Friday: Homemade pizza

Saturday: Navajo Taco's

The recipes that I've linked here are from the blog that my 4 sisters & I share. Feel free to head on over to Table for 5 to see lots of other great recipes & a few other fun things.

You may notice that I don't include Sunday's on my menu plan. This is because we have dinner with my family & rotate amongst my siblings who makes dinner, so I only have to make dinner on Sunday nights every 6 weeks.

Path-photo of the day

Path

I've participated in this Photo of the Day challenge before, but have been so busy that I haven't much lately! On this website they give you a word & you post a picture that has to do with that word. Today's word is Path. This first picture I just took last Sunday (our last day in Michigan) right in front of my Grandma's home. This is the sidewalk leading down her street. I loved the homes there, everything gave that small hometown feeling even though it's not that small.

This picture I also took in Michigan. This path leads down to the cemetary where my Step-Grandpa is buried. I never knew him but I wish I had after talking to my Grandma & feeling the love she has for him.

Visit their website at Her Space, My Space, His Space. They have some really beautiful pictures.

no crafting lately

Sorry I've been kind of incognito lately. With Christmas coming way to fast, starting a new class (English 102) & the kids being home for 2 weeks, who has time to craft? I'm going through withdrawals though. I need to do something crafty in a huge way. I'm planning to get some things done in the next few days & hope to be able to post some pictures soon.

I will be starting up some classes again pretty soon as well. I should have my craft room back pretty soon. For those that don't know we live in a very small house & in order to put up our "way too big of a tree for our house" tree we have to move our love seat out of our livingroom. So that means that my craft room gets taken over by a love seat & an end table, when there really isn't room for it in there. For some reason this causes everyone to think this is the place to dump their junk since mom's not using the room anyway. Really what happened is that the girls went through all their clothes & we needed to put them in the shed (which we get to through my craft room) but they couldn't put them in the shed because of the love seat being in the way. So everything just got dumped in there for the past month.

Anyway, I took the tree down today & we moved the love seat & end table back into the livingroom. Yeah! So once I take the gumption to get the kids in there to help me clean all the messes that they made, then I'll have my room back again. Oh, on top of all the clothes being dumped in there, my 3 little ones decided to get several games out & play in there & didn't think they needed to put them away, so there are game pieces everywhere in there! Of course, I've avoided that room for the past month since I can't get to anything anyway, so I didn't even know they had done this until we went in there to get our life back to normal today. That is going to be really fun to clean up. Wish me luck & I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve! (I will be scrapbooking/crafting while everyone else is playing games ;)!!!

Menu Plan Monday

Hello everyone, here's my menu for this week. Sorry I didn't post last week, it was a crazy week & we weren't home most nights for dinner anyway, so our dinners were nothing spectacular. I'll try to post pictures through the week & add the recipes, so check back if you want those.

Monday~ tostada's ~~these are very simple. I just fry corn tortilla's until they are crispy, then spread refried beans (I like the spicy jalepeno beans) over them. Add cheese on top & bake at 450 for about 12 min. Then you can add whatever toppings you like. I like lettuce & tomato's & don't shoot me--ketchup. My weird husband likes ranch on his (he puts ranch on just about everything), some of the kids like ketchup, some like ranch (my husband has brain washed them) & some like sour cream.

Tuesday~ chicken spaghetti casserole

Wednesday~ BBQ at my brother's house for New Year's Eve!

Thursday~ Cheesy Potato Soup

Friday~ Pepperoni Pizzadilla's

Saturday~ Breakfast (cheesy hashbrown casserole, scrambled eggs & bacon)

You can see many more menu's from other people at Menu Plan Monday!

I've decided to post these menu's on the blog I share with my sisters since that one is dedicated to recipes/crafting etc., so next week head on over to Table for 5 to see my menu there.

Menu Plan Monday

I just found this great site called I'm an Organizing Junkie & she does something called Menu Plan Monday. I started about 2 months ago making a monthly menu plan & so far I've loved it. I go into Google calendar to create my month of menu's. This has made making a grocery list so much easier & I end up spending less at the grocery store because I know exactly what I need for each meal before I get there.

A lot of these recipes have been family favorites for years (ie. enchilada's & homemade pizza) & some are new ones that we are just trying out. I will try to post next to each recipe (if need be) where the recipe came from & I'll provide links if they are available. So anyway, here's my menu for this week:

Monday: Spaghetti Sauce Casserole (my sil, Kristi's recipe)

Tuesday: Homemade chicken noodle soup (my sister, Heather's recipe) & dinner rolls

Wednesday: frozen pizza (Wednesday's are crazy at our house so we do something fast & easy)

Thursday: Yogurt chicken & funeral potato's (I'll be changing this as I just made this tonight as a last min. change of plans).

Friday: Mock taco's (old family reunion recipe)

Saturday: Breakfast (scrambled eggs, hashbrown casserole & bacon). The hashbrown casserole recipe I got off the Simply Potato's bag & then I tweaked it a bit.

Sunday: (we have dinner with my side of the family & we rotate who makes dinner--it's Bridgette & Katrinna's turn).

I'll try to post recipes on our sisters blog as I make them this week. (I'm not guarenteeing {is that a word?} anything as I'm starting my Eng 102 class tomorrow).

Simple Mom giveaway

There's another great giveaway over at one of my favorite sites, Simple Mom. Go check out what she's giving away!

Simple Mom giveaway

This has nothing to do with stamping, but I wanted to tell you about this great giveaway. I recently (a few months ago) found the great website called Simple Mom. They have the greatest ideas for so many different things. Right now they are having a giveaway for reusable bags, like the kind you use for groceries & many other things. I stared using these reusable bags a few months ago (although I'm not the greatest at remembering to take them with me) but this is a great & very simple way to "go green".

To get in on the giveaway go here:
http://simplemom.net/reusable-bags-an-easy-colorful-and-free-way-to-go-green/#comment-13095

The last few weeks...

This is before, well actually in the middle of our big project. Two weeks ago we started our big house project.

We tore the carpet out of our livingroom & hallway. This was a big job. Getting all the mat underneath that was stuck on where the glue was was the biggest job. Then getting all the dirt off the floor was a lot of work as well.

The next morning we started painting. I really like how it turned out. Then the big job came...putting wood flooring down. My dad & I did most of the livingroom & then my husband helped me with the hallway! And as you can tell from the pictures, my youngest boy helped me as well. He actually was a lot of help! It was a lot of work but it's already proven to be so much nicer! I love it! We still haven't put the baseboards on yet, but the floor part is done!

So this is why I've been MIA the last couple of weeks. My craft room was overtaken by the livingroom furniture so I wasn't able to get in there to do any crafting. Finally after a week & a half I got sick of it & needed to get some projects done for teachers end of the year gifts so we put some of the furniture back & now I'm actually able to walk into my craft room again.

I'm hoping next year to be able to put the wood floors in my craft room. Wouldn't that be the dream!