{My Pride and Joy}

Since it was pretty chilly here on Easter, I didn't get a chance to take any good pictures of the kids in their Easter outfits.  Well today we had gorgeous weather and I knew I had to take advantage.  I got a ton of great pics of Cameron, a few good pics of Ella and some cute ones of Ashlynn.  Unfortunately, Ashlynn was not cool with the sun in her eyes, so I had to take her pics in the house and Ella just wanted to give me her cheesy smile.  So I had to try and get her to talk to me for a little while why trying to take pics.  Of course by the time I got her to mellow out, Cameron was running loose in the neighbors yard and Ashlynn had decided she wasn't cool with sitting in the sun, so that didn't last too long.  I'm hoping that I can get a few more decent ones on Sunday when they're dressed up for church.  Overall though I'm quite happy with the pics I was able to get and at least I have new pics for the hallway now.

Who knew that our old (and in desperate need of new stain) fence would make the perfect photo backdrop.

Woohoo For Curb Appeal

We did quite a bit in the two and a half years that we lived there.  So lets start with the front.  When we first moved into our home it looked like this...

 In fact this is the picture from the MLS listing.

Here is a picture that we took on one of the many walk throughs.  As you can see the planters were overgrown with who knows what (whatever it was was stinky when it got wet) and the house lacked any sort of curb appeal.

Slowly making some progress.  We started by tearing out the growth and railroad ties.

 I love my boxwoods!

 Clean and simple with a nice pop of color.

The tree in the front yard was my favorite... Ella and I used to lay underneath this tree and play when she was a baby.

Starting to look good.

 The shutters helped a lot.

What we finished with.  There was so much more I would have loved to do if money wasn't a concern... a new door, maybe a porch, different railing, new concrete, new roof, blah, blah, blah... We did do quite a bit though... new windows (sniff, sniff, I still miss the brand new windows), house numbers, light fixture, mailbox, shutters, planters... sigh...

I Can't Believe It's Already Been Two Years

I don't think I've ever blogged here about our first home, but today seemed the perfect time to do so.  Two years ago today we moved from our first home (which we still miss) into our new or not so new anymore home.  We needed to move for many reasons, the biggest of which was that we needed more space.  The home was also fifty years old and in need of some serious love (which really just means lots of money).  We talked many, many times about doing some serious remodeling and adding a large addition, but the reality was that with our neighborhood we would never get our money back out if we needed to sell for any reason.  So when I was pregnant with Cameron we started considering the possibility of moving, but never found anything that we were happy with until one day we saw another home that would work for us,  it had the space we needed, it was in the area that we wanted to stay in, in fact it was the same neighborhood just two streets over.  So we decided to put an offer on the home a couple of days later.  Five weeks later, we sold our home and four weeks later we moved into our new home.  It was kind of a crazy time for our family to move especially since I was eight months pregnant, but, we managed to get through it.  So here is a little tour of our first home.

 Welcome to Our Home

 Living Room

 I sure miss the hardwood floors.

 Dining Room/Breakfast Nook

 Kitchen

 Upstairs Bathroom

 Miss Ella's nursery

 Master Bedroom

 Yes, I installed this closet organizer too.

 My old craft room

 The Basement

Our backyard was huge and had a lot of potential to be great.

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures of my favorite projects.

How'd I Do... April Goals

I meant to do this post yesterday, but Sunday's are sort of a crazy and exhausting day around here and I was determined to go to bed at a decent hour last night.  My kids actually slept all night too, so I got a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep last night.  Pure heaven is all I have to say about that.  I couldn't believe how good I felt when I woke up.  Anyways, I don't know where the month of April went, but I can't believe it's already gone.  So here we go with another month down:

Homemaking-

Re-arrange rooms.  I feel like this is going to be a huge undertaking.  Here's the plan:

    Toy room becomes guest room

    Guest room becomes food storage room

    Basement living area becomes toy room

We didn't get the rooms re-arranged last month, but that's okay.  I knew it was going to be a huge project.  We did manage to get the basement living room mostly cleaned, the guest room cleaned and the food storage closet as organized as it's going to be for now.

Re-arrange front room - This room looks so much better now.  We re-arranged the furniture, added a rug (finally) and got the new desk.  Now I just need to finish off the gallery wall.

Cooking-

Try three new recipes - Creamy Bacon Fettucine, Three-Cheese Baked Spaghetti and Double Lemon Poppyseed Cake

Clean out inside freezer - It's Finally Done!!!  Let me just say there were some gross things in there.

Make three freezer meals - This definitely didn't happen.  Most days I was lucky enough to get dinner on the table.

Mothering-

Practice patience - I really tried, but oh I need some more practice.

Sign Ella up for preschool - Done!  This was really sad to do.  It made me realize how big my baby is getting.

Have an art project once a week - We didn't get a big art project done each week per se, but we got a couple of Easter projects done and the kids did lots of coloring and played with lots of play-doh.

Work on ABC's and 123's sight recognition and sounds with Ella - We'll work on this in May although she's getting pretty good already.

Creating-

Sew nursery curtains - Big Fat Fail!

Sew matching skirts for my girls - One of these days when I have free time to sew something other than a straight line, I'll attempt this.

Financing-

Finally get our new desk - Yay, it looks so good!  Pictures coming soon.

Figure out the cost of shelving in the food storage room - I need to do this so I know how much to plan on, but this project won't be happening for another few months anyways, so no rush.

Enriching-

Read a book - Fail

Go to the gym twice a week - Fail

Catch up on my magazine reading - I got started, but never finished.

So there's the month of April.  For being such a busy month, I was able to get quite a bit done.  May isn't going to be any better though, so I'm going to keep my list short and sweet.

April's Goals:

Homemaking-

Start re-arranging rooms

Hang frames for gallery wall in reading room

Cooking-

Try three new recipes

Start working on gathering recipes for family cookbook

Mothering-

Work on ABC's and 123's sight and sound recognition with Ella and Cameron

Practice Patience (you can never have too much patience)

Creating-

Host a baby shower

Financing-

Stay in budget

Enriching-

Finish catching up on my magazine pile

Blog twice a week