New Blog

Hi All!

I started a new blog....here is the address:

www.busyyethappy.blogspot.com

Hope to see you there!

:)  Angie

Not the Year in Review

by Ang

I was going to post a nice long blog post reviewing last year, but that would involve a lot of writing and a lot of pictures.  And I am not feeling well tonight.  My allergies are awful and my head is pounding.

So, I'll just do another random update with some random pictures.  :)

*As I type this, my cat is laying on the couch cushion right by my head and he is snoring away.  REALLY snoring.

*We have had Hannah for one year and one month!  She loves Max.  The cats...not so much.

*My nephews are growing up.  Too fast for me.  This was 3 years ago:

*We're going on a vacation this year, but we're not sure where yet.  We want to go somewhere neither of us have been.  Time to look at the map.



*I can't believe tomorrow is February 1st.

*I can understand probably 60% of what is being said in French.  I understand all of the side questions that are asked at the meetings.  But I can't answer them.  Speaking it on your own is a whole different ball game.  It's definitely challenging.

*Go Ravens!

That's all for now.  Sorry this is another random-all-over-the-place post.  But it's the best I can do tonight!

It's Been To Long

by Amy

It's been so long since I have posted anything that I had to think really hard as to what our password was.  I can't believe I got it right.  I have loads of excuses.  As usual.  And I have nothing to substantial to even say.  I wanted to return with a phenominal post full of every interesting think I have done the last few months complete with beautiful photographs.  Would you be satisfied with just a few words and some phone pics?

Me and my boy

 

 I love this picture of my nephew.  It makes me smile.

 My handsome men

 Total glee

 They could all be related couldn't they? Only two of them are. 

 He taught himself how to tie a bow tie.  Coolest kid ever.

I always write a menu on the chalk board of what i'm going to make for the week.   I was sick with strep throat and my husband was in charge of meals. 

 

 Everyone was happy when i recovered.

Thats all for now folks. I really need to get better at this. Next time I will have a fabulous post with incredible pictures and detailed descriptions!  Haha.  I know i'm not fooling anyone.

Up and Running

by Ang

It's been a while, but I think we're up and running again after some minor maintenance on our blog.

I've written a 'Year in Review' post that I will put up next week, but for now I'll leave you with a few random thoughts and updates:

*It snowed here for the first time today this season.  And then it promptly melted in an hour.

*Our French lessons are going well.  We get more and more out of each meeting that we go to.

*I wish every weekend was a 4-day weekend!

*I just unpacked today from my trip to Nebraska.  I got back on December 25th.  Unpacking is not my strong point.

And because this is a random post, I'll leave you with some random pictures:

The pyramid entrance to the Louvre:

Row homes in Amsterdam:

The spiral staircase inside our apartment building in Paris:

Change

by Ang

This blog has been very quiet.  I can’t speak for my sister, but things have gotten way busier at our household and blogging (sadly) was the first thing to go.  But now that we seem to be settled in our new routine, hopefully my posts will become a bit more regular than they have been lately.

The biggest change that is happening with us right now is that we changed congregations and are now learning French!

This is huge.  I took 3 years of French in school and I learned a lot, however school was a long time ago.  And if you don’t use it, you lose it.  However, a lot of it is coming back to me.  I know the basic rules of pronunciation and can stumble through a reading and comprehend at least 50% of it.  So I have a pretty good head start.  But there’s still sooooo much that I don’t know.

I knew it would be a big adjustment, but I don’t think I fully realized how much TIME it was going to take.  Silly, I know.  Studying for the meetings takes at least 3 times as long (studying first in English, then reading over in French, then preparing a comment and learning and listening to the proper ways to say it multiple times if it’s a verse or just a sentence in a magazine, book, etc.).

Tuesday nights we (me, husband and mother-in-law) have a little French lesson at our house after dinner.  It’s usually an hour and a half or so.  But we have homework each week from our workbook that we are working out of.  I also try to print some extra handouts of various things (numbers, pronouncing that pesky French ‘r’, etc.), which require extra research and time.

Saturdays are a full day now.  Service from 8:00 (we start early) to 12:30, then French class from 1:00 – 2:00 (although it usually goes until 2:30).  It is also out of town a bit, so it takes us at least 30 minutes to get home.

I have amassed a collection of ‘learning French’ books, mostly by hitting up the 50% off sales at Hastings on their used books.  We have a designated cabinet now in our dining room (we sit at the dining room table for our study) that is our ‘French’ cabinet.  I also had some that were my own from years ago.

Learning a new language is hard.  But we are really enjoying it.  We’ve been at it for one month now.  And it’s actually pretty amazing to see how much we’ve learned already.  We’ve got all of the numbers down which is super helpful when looking up scriptures.  It’s nice to follow along.  And our comprehension increases a little bit with each meeting.  I’ve talked to a lot of the friends who have been doing this for years, and their advice was to just throw yourself into your studies.  And listen, listen, listen.  We have one friend who has been doing this for 7 years (she is fluent).  She told us that to this day she still doesn’t know the French alphabet.  She learned the language by listening.  And reading.  But mostly listening.

So we're trying.  And hey, maybe in 7 years we'll be fluent too!

(p.s. - sorry there's no pictures.  I tried to upload some and I got the message saying we were out of storage!  So Amy and I will get it figured out and get more storage)

State Love

by Ang

So, I have been reading this blog for at least 4 years:

www.younghouselove.com

I don’t even know what led me to it to begin with, but it is a great decorating/organizing/lifestyle/misc. blog. The couple, John and Sherry, started off by blogging all about their first house ‘redo’. They blogged about the good, the bad, and the ugly and the ups and downs of DIY projects. But they also shared organizing tips, traveling tips, cleaning tips, and more.

Anyways, they soon outgrew their first house (they had a baby), so they sold it and bought another one.  And blogged about it.  And then wrote a book!!

So of course, I had to pre-order it, because I feel like I know these people personally.  They are just so down to earth and real.  I emailed them once about something and Sherry (herself!) got back to me right away and she was so sweet.  I just really like them and I LOVE their blog.  My book arrived on Monday, and I was NOT disappointed.  I haven't read it completely yet, although I've flipped through every page.  It ranges from super simple projects, to whole weekend (or longer) projects.  They have step by step instructions and let you know how much work, time, and money is involved with each one.  It's great!

I immediately flagged a few I wanted to try.  The first one I did was state art.
I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while now. It’s just so simple!

I started by printing 3 maps.  I used maps from nationalatlas.com, because they were the right size.  I then picked 3 different patterns of scrapbook paper from my stash that complemented each other, but were not matchy-matchy (they are all from the same Basic Grey paper line).

Using my cut-out states as templates, I traced one state onto each piece of paper and then cut it out. It was arts and crafts time at our house last night.

And then I popped them into a frame.  I had previously used this frame to hold my black and white postcards I got from Paris. 

Although I liked it, I am just not a huge fan of black and white...I like color!

So I took the postcards out and put them in my Paris book, and then popped the states in.

Voila!  A cute piece of art that is a little sentimental.  Nebraska:  where I'm from.  Illinois:  where my husband is from.  New Mexico:  where we live now.  I added a little heart to Albuquerque.  Awwwww.

The whole project took maybe 30 minutes. The cost was: zero. Nada. Zilch. I used everything from my own stash.

I was going to hang it next to our U.S. map, but I didn’t want that wall to get too ‘mappy’, so I hung it in our hallway instead.

I hope to do more projects from this book.  I'll blog about them if I do!

Do you speak this language?

 

 

KX 250 F

CR 125 R

RM 80

250 Trailblazer

 

If you don't know what this means, be grateful.  If you do...I pity and admire you. 

 

Because those letters and numbers are exciting and scary all at the same time. Heres what they mean...

 

Darren has a CR125 R

 

 

Hubby has a KX 250 F

 Micah has a RM 80

 And me?  I am the proud owner of a 250 Trailblazer.  No dirt bike for me.  They are to scary.  This is just my speed and size.  Isn't she pretty?

 Of course I had to get the gear before I could ride.  I felt like Darth Vader. 

 We went riding/camping last weekend.  This is my husband getting some air. 

 This is me.  With four wheels on the ground. Like my pink riding pants?

 This is Darren getting some air.  I can barely watch those jumps.

 I feel better when he rides like this.

 My boys

Hey look!  I'm moving! 

 Here is part of  the crew we went with.  There was two other girls there.  They are slow like me.  I'm hoping with time I'll get more comfortable with the quad.  I still never want to do any crazy jumps or hill climbs.  But I would love to keep up with the boys on the trails.   

I'm offically hooked. 

Mapping

by Ang

Ever since I got married, I’ve had a project rolling around in my head that I've wanted to do. I’ve seen it done before and always thought it was a neat idea. Finally about a month ago I finally did something about it. So I looked around online and in ‘real’ stores, got my supplies and got started.


A map:

Spray Adhesive:

A cork board:

And some map pins:

I trimmed the map, my husband taped off of the frame of the cork board, we took it outside, put a thin layer of spray adhesive onto the cork, then stuck on the map.  Easy-peasy!

And here is the final project!

I pinned all of the places that my husband and I have been together. At first I was going to pin the places that he has been, the places that I have been, and then the places we’ve been together. But I knew instantly that it would get way too cluttered (we’ve traveled a lot). I like this way better.

We've been to 7 states together.  We're hoping to add at least one new one each year.

It was a fun project, and I'm glad I can cross it off my list!

Office Details

By Amy

 

Hi!  I thought I would talk a little more about my office.  Just because I love it so much.  Then I promise I won't go on about it anymore.  I think my favorite feature is my picture wall.  I looked on Etsy.com for weeks to find things that I really loved. The center picture says.."You are Loved".  I liked it because not only did it remind me of that (sometimes my mind plays tricks on me) but I also wanted to tell everyone who came into my office that they were loved too. 

I liked the camera and book print because, well, I like cameras and books.  Haha.  And the baby cow print?  Adorable. 

The caged bird singing is another etsy find.

The Eiffel tour print is actually a notecard from a packet I got from Francesca's.  The boot I got at Hobby Lobby and the clock is something that I had but I painted the frame. 

 

 

 

 This picture is my favorite.  It's my dad and my Aunt on their Grandparents farm.  I matted them on some fabric that I had.  I love both of these pictures and i'm so happy that I was able to display them in a way that makes me happy.

Those cute little cowboy boots were my firstborns.  He's 16 now.  Sniff sniff.  But he still likes cowboy boots so YAY!  The blue barn is a Etsy print.  I bought the "A" at Hobby Lobby.  I spread bead glue all over it and dumped all my extra beads on it.  Sparkly!

 Nothing to exciting about the bookshelf.  Just full of office stuff and books. 

 When we moved in our house a friend of mine gave me a old window frame. I loved it but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I think it makes a great cork board frame! 

 This is kind of hard to see but its a street map of Paris.

The print is a painting by my favorite artist, Edward Hopper.  The picture in the purple frame is of my two favorite little people.  And the other is of my boys all decked out in their dirt bike gear.

 Pictures of my wittle boys.  (:  Ages 5 and 1.  I made the chalkboard with chalkboard spray paint and then painted the frame blue.  The quote I drew on there makes me happy.  It says "Shine on you Crazy Diamond!"

That's it!  The only thing missing is a window.  It would be really nice to have some fresh air and natural light in there.  But I'm not complaining.  It's near perfect just the way it is. 

Meals

by Ang

First off, I apologize for my absence lately!  We had a great visit with my family which I will blog about next time.  But I wanted to share my latest 'project' first.

I’m just going to come out and say it: I don’t enjoy cooking. I never have, and honestly, I probably never will. When I DO cook, I’m not bad at it…I just don’t enjoy it, therefore I don’t do it much. And I’ve always been the type that HAS to follow a recipe exactly. I can’t ‘wing it’ and just start tossing things in ‘according to taste’. That is a recipe for disaster! No pun intended. Ha ha.

Anyways, I have had three consistent problems with cooking over the years:

1) I don’t meal plan regularly, so when I don’t have a plan, we eat out.

2) When I DO meal plan, I will go to the store and get everything I need, but when I get home from work, the LAST thing I want to do is cook for an hour (or more, because most likely I forgot to take the meat out of the freezer).

3) What to make, what to make, what to make. I get in a rut.
So I needed a solution to not only save us time, but also money. Enter this program:
www.5dinners1hour.com

I stumbled upon it through another blog. The idea is just how it sounds. You cook 5 dinners in one hour. And then store them in the fridge for consumption that week. I was intrigued, so I signed up.

At first I was a little skeptical…I didn’t want just casseroles with all processed food. But when I got my menus for the month, I was pleasantly surprised! BBQ roasted salmon, slow cooked beef tacos, almond crusted chicken, slow cooked Mexican vegetable soup, orange teriyaki chicken bites, tangy baked chicken, etc. Those were just a few of my monthly selections. All served with vegetables, salad, rice, etc. I chose a weekly menu and went to the store. Ooooh and this is another really good part. Each weekly menu comes with a weekly grocery list, that is categorized by area of store (frozen, produce, bread, etc.). It was incredibly helpful.
Each weekly menu comes with 5 meals, although I eliminated one of the meals (tilapia….my husband can’t have tilapia), so I only made 4 this week: Deviled Legs, Hot Ham Cornbread Sandwich, Orange Teriyaki Chicken Bites, and Slow Cooked Italian Sausage Soup. Sounds good, right? I could have made the 5th meal too, because they always give a substitute for fish (like use chicken). But I decided to start off with four for now. Also, each meal serves 4-6, but that will work just fine for us, because we will have lunch leftovers the next day! I even bought some nice Pyrex containers to take my leftovers to work to re-heat.
So today after work I came home, and set out all of my stuff (which is recommended….set out EVERYTHING you will need, which is listed on your weekly menu, even down to the utensils!) and filled up my sink with hot soapy water.
And then I got to cooking! That part went really well. I timed myself, and it really did only take an hour! And the food looks really good. My plan is to do this every Friday so that we will have dinners for the weekends (which is our biggest ‘eating out’ time). I am so excited that I don’t have to think about dinner until next Friday! And even then I don’t really have to think about it….i just have to take my list to the store. Next week’s menu: Slow Cooker White Beans and Ham, Almond Crusted Chicken, Hawaiian Beef, Italian Sub Sandwich, and Slow Cooked Mexican Vegetable Soup.

Sorry there's no pictures....I took one of all of my pretty food ready to go, but I'm having some computer issues and can't upload it right now.  So you'll have to use your imagination!

The Office Reveal!

By Amy

 

In my defense...I have tried to write this office post twice before and everytime when I was almost to the last picture my computer would stop uploading and I would have to start over.  So this time I didn't chance it.  I only uploaded five pictures and I will do another post with details this weekend. 

So!  I have a office!  My very own room to decorate however I wanted to.  My own little space.  Our basement is really just one big room and our desks were in the corner.  My husband got tired of the kids using his desk as a dumping ground for various things.  So he decided that he needed a office.  With walls.  And a door.  So I just sort of suggested..."Hey!  Can I have one too?"  And being the sweet man that he is...he said yes.  So here is the before picture....

 

 

See the brick wall?  That's where my office starts.  He covered the brick with paneling so all the walls look the same.  Bascially where the weight bench is?  That's where my office is now. 

 The outside isn't finished yet.  And I need to paint and put knobs on the door.

 My desk...I will post more detailed pictures in the next post.  But you get the idea. 

My most favorite part is my picture wall.  And the red chair comes in second.  A fabulous craigslist find for forty bucks!

The other wall has a book shelf stuffed full of odds and ends.  Like I said...I didn't want to take my chances with uploading any more pictures.  I will try to post more tomorrow.