Menu Monday

Grocery prices in California are outrageous.

However, no matter the place...I suck at grocery shopping.
(Caleb and I find wayy to many thing to throw in the cart.)

Since moving to Virginia I've really tried to cut down on our grocery spending.  I've cut it in half, but it's still not the greatest.  But real menu planning has been a big part of that.  I used to go to the store with no list and just go down every aisle trying to remember what I needed.  Now I (try) to have some sort of plan before going in and it helps tremendously.

So here's my plan for this week...please please please feel free to comment with your dinner plans...i'm desperate for new ideas.

Sunday:  Buffalo Chicken burgers with raw veggies

Monday:  Taco Rice

Tuesday:  Crock pot Hungarian goulash 

Wednesday:  Brats and white shells (I just disovered Johnsonville makes brats in patty form, yay!)

 Thursday:  Leftover goulash

Friday:  Chicken Parmesan burgers with side salads

Saturday:  Homemade mac n cheese

Just because she's cute :)

I feel like I put way too many pictures of Arya on facebook...so I thought i'd spread it out to my blog

She's just too cute

This is how I found her in the morning sleeping away

Her first little skirt (thanks Auntie Mo)

Since birth Arya has thought her big brother is the best thing ever...Casen wasn't so sure.  But just recently he has decided he loves being a big brother and asks to hold her and play with her all the time.  It's pretty cute :)

okay mom, i'm done with pictures

Apartment # 4

And last but not least
the kitchen

It's my favorite kitchen so far.  It seems so big compared to the other ones we've lived in.

Granny Smith apple green is my new favorite room color...since painting isn't an option that's what color i'd like to keep in the kitchen until we are finally able to have something other then white walls!

The door to the left of the oven has a big pantry, which is really handy

And that's our apartment in a nutshell :)

As you walk in our apartment down a little bit to the left is this door.

The door you can see inside this doorway is the main bathroom, but we made it the kids bathroom since most of the time we'll be without guests and it will be all theirs.  Since it's the kid's bathroom, we went with a little more fun decor.

 Sometimes the dollar store has the cutest stuff :)

To the right hand side of that doorway is Casen's room.

 He has a lot of toys!

 He has a big closet as well

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get around to taking kitchen pictures and odds and ends like the balcony and around the complex.

Apartment # 2

We finally have all of the rooms finished and I have pictures taken of everything but the kitchen so I can finally finish up the apartment posts :)

Our bedroom is my favorite room in the apartment!  I love how it turned out.  Our camera is showing its age (I think we're at year 5) so the pictures don't really do the room justice, but you'll get the idea anyways.

 As you walk through the door you see you enter our room.

 This is the view from the door.

I know our curtains aren't the prettiest....
unfortunately the sun rises right through our window, so black out curtains were our only option.

We decorated our room around the things Caleb and I love.  So we ended up with Smallville, Patriots, and our wedding :)

We ended up getting a 2 bedroom apartment because it was much more affordable for us
so, for now, Arya is in with us.  I'm up with her in the night anyways so it works out better regardless.  And our room is plenty big enough.

So this is Arya's section.

Then you go down this little hallway

And to your left is our HUGE closet.  (Excuse the mess...we don't have outdoor storage with this apartment.)

And then the door you see in 2 pictures up is the door to our master bath.  I am loving having two bathrooms.

And that's our master suite :)  I'm loving it!

Under Construction

Please bear with me.

I'm attempting to redo my blog myself...and I don't know much.

So if you come to the page it may look a little funny for awhile.

I think I successfully designed my own header...now I just need to figure the rest out :)

Apartment # 1

I decided I think i'm going to split the apartment pictures up into sections, first of all since our kitchen still has a few things that need touching up and we're waiting on our bedroom art to come in the mail, secondly, because that'd be a lot of pictures crammed into one post.

So, here's the view when you open the door to our apartment

When you walk in directly to the right is a small closet and then the kitchen and then a little farther down to the left is this

Those sliding doors are hiding our washer and dryer.  The other door you see leads to the kids bathroom and then to the right is Casen's room.  I haven't taken pictures of those rooms yet.

Our living room is big.  It wouldn't matter so much except the put the cable on either end of the room long ways.  When we first got here we had the couch on one end wall and the tv on the other, but it was really just too far away and the room looked off and way too empty.  So we decided to split the living room.  When you first walk in is just a little walk way.

The door on this wall leads out to our balcony and the doorway you see leads to the master bed and bath

And then the couch kind of splits it into our living room

Neither of us love the futon, but it's extra seating and it's handy when people come to visit...just not so pretty to look at :p

We still have a few things we'd like to do...have a few more pictures to hang, we'd like to get a rug for in front of the couch...but you get the idea anyways.