Lately in Spring

Hullo everyone! Just wanted to drop in and say hi. We are indeed still around. Things just seem more low key around here. We've mostly kept to home (aside from 2 little trips) and enjoyed 2018 so far. Weekends have turned into my time to do most of my school work, unless I know there is a lot planned for a weekend. So though we do stay around more often, I feel like we have been out exploring our own area more and more. Spring does have a tendency to offer ALL the events and things to do.

I'll just share a few pictures from the past couple of months and let them to the updating :)

Sister Sunday :) I have begun this tradition of trying to capture the girls together everyday. They are just too stinkin' cute together. Also usually about to fall apart since right after church is nap time. 

Baby Logan was born on 3/1! We have 2 nephews now!

Visiting JoJo back in March at rehab. One of the sweetest women I've ever met. We didn't know it at the time but this was the last time we would get to see her. She and my grandma passed away to the Lord about a week apart. John and I are both thankful we got to have our grandmas as long as we did and that our girls got to know them. 

On a different note, the girls got a handmade swing set thanks to Grandpa! Ellie asks to swing just about everyday.

John and I took a week belated birthday trip tTho Blowing Rock, NC while my parents were with the kids. It was quick but much needed and so pretty there!

                                              Our humble cabin for the night.

  Dyeing Easter eggs together. Evie was more than happy to dump all the eggs into the dye cups lol

This picture was all the little grandbabies together as we got ready to leave for my grandmother's service. Our whole family (except some spouses and other great grands who stayed behind-including Ellie thanks to a stomach bug) was there together to honor her. I still can't believe she is gone sometimes. 

Evie with her eyes on the prize :) We did visit my parents church for an egg hunt before heading back to SC. Evie had no problem taking part!

Evie and Reid! Ready to ride!

 This picture pretty well sums up Easters at JoJos. Everyone gathered together in her house, eating before the big egg hunt. I love that we still went to her house to celebrate. She LOVED welcoming her family into her home. 

Easter girls!

   These are just snapshots of some of our favorite spots in the house right now. Cozy places to play, read and just be together. I set a little "library" for the girls on our loft and it's a great way access books which may otherwise fall to the bottom of the box. The toy/guest room is self explanatory for it's fun-ness. The girls are at such a good age though (almost 18 months and 4) they can honestly have fun almost anywhere with a little imagination. 

Christmas and New Year

*-+Happy New Year to all! I like the idea of the new year, not necessarily the idea of a new start but just the calm that is after the Christmas season but still having time off ;)

Here is a little about our month of December, holiday décor in home and what's to come in the new year...

December started with a trip to the tree lot for a little dinky tree for the girls ornaments on the loft. They liked it and I missed having a real tree for the past several years. We also had a snow weekend the next weekend. It didn't stick around but it was beautiful while it was coming down.

After we decorated...
             
                      
  
                 
 

  

John and I got to go to the ACC game in Charlotte...at least we saw them win that game.

We traveled to NC for my cousin Roxie's wedding and to celebrate Christmas with my family. It was a privilege to be a bridesmaid in the wedding party and to also have Christmas with my parents, aunt, uncle, brother, sister in law, grandma and little nephew!

The next weekend was already Christmas. We drove to see some special light displays here in Greenville and the girls met Santa for the first time. We just said Hi and took a picture, no reason to even bother trying to sit in the lap! Evie's babbling when she saw the lights was so stinkin cute. I'm so glad I got a video!

On Christmas Eve Eve (yes you read that right) we went to celebrate with John's parents, brother in law and sister. We had a great meal and of course fun with presents.

Christmas Eve was spent at church twice, once for service and once for Christmas Eve service. WE got such a treat at the 10:00 AM service when the choir, pianist, 3 violinist and 1 cellist played Handel's "Messiah". It was incredible.  That night I cooked my first festive meal for my own family and light candles and had a nicer than normal meal together.

Christmas Day came and so did Santa ;) After we opened Santa gifts and ate the traditional cinnamon rolls, we changed and went to JoJo's to see all our aunts, uncles and cousins. I ended up going and it worked out well. ( I was on call with work but never got called! yay!)

As we get into 2018, we look forward to another year with our family, having fun, taking trips, helping, serving and I will be going back to school. I said "never again" after nursing school but here we are. I start at Clemson University on Thursday to become a family nurse practitioner. Here's to hoping the next 2 years go smoothly as possible! I'm going part time at work, full time in school to get it over with ASAP ;) There are several reasons for this but mainly of course for my family.

Here's to productive, happy year!

Sunday Dress-up

Ellies's fox dress is from Julia Faye designs on Etsy. Mine is thrifted Anthropologie.

This was from last Sunday, a most lovely Sunday! It was the annual hanging if the greens at Church and it was beautiful. If you follow on the blogs Instagram page (@sweethughesblog) - duh- then you probably saw this scene of everyone coming together at last and decorating together! Seriously I bet the whole church waited in the asiles to participate! And with a full house! We were in the balcony cause Ellie has decided she dislikes the nursery now. It breaks my heart to see her upset at church of all places so John and I had to take turns (1 each) ushering her out. Nap time it was! It was fine and we (I) had hot chocolate later. We are looking forward to the anticipation of more advent candle lighting and December Sundays.

The Good and the Blah

Hi everyone,

Hope all is well! Just here to check in. The past few weekends have been a little interesting...some good, some just, well, full of lower swinging moments.

Let's start with the good. Three weekends (whoa) ago I had the opportunity to head up a very special event at our church. I and our missions circle hosted a "brunch for babies" to support infants in DSS care in Greenville county. I was able to plan and organize it and but the mission circle began to the project (the "pillow case" project) a while back which puts together toiletries and some comfort items in pillow case bags for children who are removed from homes. It is one of the most beautiful projects I have ever seen and is so touching. As always our church really shows up to such events and many, many items were donated (we asked specially for wipes, diapers and formula.)

Yesterday our wonderful church did their annual "feed the team" where they feed the local high school football team on senior night. This was the first time I went but I'll definitely be back because it was so fun and very chill. It was nice to feel like we were helping the kids and supporting them.

Just one more reason this church is so awesome is because of stuff like this. Helping such a diverse group of people (and so, so much more) and just being so laid back about it. No frills, just helping.

Last weekend we got to go to NC for a (literally 24 hour) trip to celebrate my cousin getting married. Taylor -n- Taylor. They are getting married the same weekend as Jeremy and Sarah so we won't make it but we still wanted to celebrate and congratulate them. It was a lovely brunch and we are so glad we got to go and see our family.

A different but good note,

John and I are putting our home on the market. We feel like we are finally ready and so in preparation for that we are getting our house cleaned out. We have an idea about how to stage and hopefully the right one. In order to make it happen we moving out extra furniture and stuff. As we were walking through with our realtor I was realizing how much crap we have after I thought we were semi-minimalist. Ha. Nothing like a move to how you how much you DONT need. Hmmm let's see if I remember that. So! this weekend was/is finally about getting ready. We got a storage unit today and moved stuff. Tomorrow is more of that, cleaning the yard and cleaning the house. Busy (yuck-that word) but good!

Now the blah-

We had to postpone our preparations for the house cleaning at the beginning of the month because John and I got a stomach virus which we are pretty sure Ellie had too. (She got sick in the middle of the night a few days earlier poor thing). It was very short lived, the barfing part, but the side effects took the whole weekend to get over. Gosh I forgot how much those suck. When you were a kid it happened all too often and just seemed all whatever I'll bounce back but oof as an adult! I was dragging and feeling bad for 3 days. Anyway clearly we are fine and we are lucky that's all we had to experience.

Thursday I hit a huge pot hole and bent the rim of my wheel. So that was an expensive "whoops". I'll be driving with my donut until at least Tuesday. Right on.

Aaaand...
Tonight was lovely with a cookout at John's sisters house and some fantastic food after working to clear out the house earlier. Now it's Clemson football and late night relaxing. Ellie is sleeping soundly after being on and off a little grouchy :) I try to be patient with whining but I have a way to go. She is great though. Such a little entertainer while we are out.

Hope all is well with you tonight and if not that tomorrow will be a better day! Happy Saturday night!