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. 

A little spring decorating...

This post could also be labeled as "if you can dream it, my dad can built it". Truth. While some of this post does relate to my own cycle of continuously rearranging and redecorating, it has just as much to do with me showing off my dad's woodworking skills.

Remember when I posted my home tours from October? I think I even pulled some line like... the house is mostly the way I want it! Yes kinda true. But! I carried on with some new ideas this spring which I was eager to see through completion after we saw the whirlwind of newborn-ness and the holidays change to more content baby days and a new year! Needless to say I'm so happy with how it looks. How one's home "looks" or presents itself is not the most important thing by any means but its OK also to enjoy seeing pretty things in your own space and making it a cozy place for your family.

I'll start with the outside space. A cleaned and stained deck and fresh potted and planted flowers.

Here enters some of my dad's work! Our outside love seat! This couch is so great out here. We needed more seating and something comfortable so we got just that.

 

My dad helped me replace our old closet light fixture. We had a huge florescent light here and I was ready for it to go on day 1 of owning this house. After I took this picture I told John he had to move his bags at the top of the closet...OCD for life!!

Back in December, we got our Christmas gift from my parents: a new kitchen table with benches. Enough room for everyone!

 

I also decided to do something I've wanted to do since day 1 in our home and that was to paint the kitchen. It's the same color as the dining room and looks so much better. We also switched out the hardware for brushed nickel.

Our powder room. This one was by far the most time consuming but it turned out beautifully. I thought the bathroom too plain (so dramatic) but loved a certain ocean blue in bathrooms. Well I didn't want to just add dark paint in a small space so the board and batton idea came up as a way to break up the paint. We had previously changed out the light fixture to something more fitting of the space.

As some of you know, our living room shelves are insanely tall and at point I said I'm not worried about the top half! You have a have a much taller ladder to even reach them. Well apparently the time came to finally decorate them a little so I bought some (many) books from Habit for Humanity and turned them spine out so they all blend in. My dad made several bookends to hold them up as they previously kept crashing over. Not convenient to fix! But now they are all good. For the other shelves, I got a bouquet of wool ball flowers in put them in jars. Done. Now the top half of the shelves (which I never plan to touch again in the near future) are consistent looking and give the living room a more cozy atmosphere. Also a new wooden frame to rest on the mantel! Thanks dad! 

Also in the living room? My new cart! Yes.. my dad made it complete with galvanized shelves per my request!

In the playroom I added a rug under their table which helped with the overall layout of the room and hung some "new" wall art. These fairy tale prints are from a storybook I had from childhood.

Last but not least, is my little nook on the loft upstairs. I was at a lost for what else to do here (I had my desk set up in front of the windows since day one but that was it) but I finally got it. Cozy chair, side table, repainted lamp and open shelves all make for a nice reading nook. The chair is new but all else is recycled from what we had. My dad helped me cut and hang the shelves. I tell ya, natural wood is just so beautiful. After all these products, mostly all I like to see is stained wood. It's just lovely.  Anyway, with fresh flowers from our yard an knick knacks from my travels, I'd say this space is good to go. Happy reading and relaxing!

When Your Parents Come to Town...

As promised here is a post dedicated to my wonderful parents visit from about 4 weeks back.
We were so so happy to see them. I'm not going to lie, we had a mile long now-that-you're-here-can-we fix-this list. My dad has an arsenal of supplies to get things done with and my mom is just like me in that when we get our minds on doing something, it's no sleep until its done! Ellie of course was just happy for all the extra attention and love from Grammie and Grandpa. We all were!

So the miracle workers arrived Saturday and after a fantastic REAL BBQ (from NC) lunch, my mom and I got to work on painting the dining room. It was a peachy-cream color which I didn't even realize at first it was different from the rest of house. I had chosen (that morning I'll admit) a grey color for the walls. I taped off the trim and she painted. Then I painted. It only took one coat and so I highly recommend the paint from the HGTV collection from Lowes. There is just nothing to motivate you like a little help! I mean, John is a helper but he had zero interest in painting.

On Sunday, we worked outside. Like all day. My mom and I raked leaves and sticks all over the yard, my dad cut down a tree (yay!!!) and John power washed our patio, pergola thing...you'll see. Our yard will perpetually be leaf and stick city so it was great to finally clean and reset it so to say. It looked (looks) so good! My dad also brought a handmade wooden shoe rack to match our coat rack he made and while I was outside staining it, some neighbors came by to introduce themselves....and brought sweets. Love some neighborhood welcome wagons!

Sunday night, my mom and I tackled Ellie's bathroom. It was quite late but we got it mostly done. It was a bluish-green but we painted it white, which made it actually light blue. I quite like it though! I will be posting a little home tour and show pictures of all our house soon! Nothing crazy but it is what we have done to make it ours.

On Monday (MLK day) my parents, Ellie and I went out to a Waffle House breakfast where Ellie had a stage 5 meltdown. The jury is still out on what upset her so. But her rare treat of apple juice calmed her down so I could eat my grand-slam hungry-man breakfast in peace. Seriously we (Ellie and I) ate so much food but it was dang good. After a hearty breakfast, it was time to say good bye for now. Never easy but we are hoping to be all together for Ellie's birthday in a couple weeks.

Thank you, Thank you mom and dad for always being there and helping! We couldn't have done so much so quick without ya'll's help. And...special shout out to my dad who is taking my non stop orders for wooden pieces for our home!

That's all for now, 3 cheers for an upcoming Valentines weekend! Show some love ; )

Well, Well...Look Who it is!

I'm Hello All!

Admittedly I never expected to go almost a month without dropping in on the blog but alas! here we are almost a month later. The biggest reason for the stage curtains is the move. We moved on the 2nd of January and we have so so enjoyed the new house. Truthfully it still kinda feels like a dream sometimes. When we were going for this home I said to myself more than once, if we get this house it wont feel real until we actually move in.
The move itself was very smooth and went as well as possible. We tried to make it smoother by using to our advantage the fact that this home is so close to our 1st home. With a 10 minute drive and the fact that we couldn't move until a good 2 (3?) weeks after closing, we were able to move A LOT beforehand and we came a couple of times to clean rooms, cabinets, garage, etc. The holidays gave us the extra time until I could take some PTO.  Now that being said we were still moving random stuff on our own a week after the fact.

The day we moved, John's parents kept Ellie. John stayed at our 1st home while the movers prepared all the big, cumbersome stuff which really wasn't that much. I went to target to start some home shopping :) It was for the best...I had worked late the night before and just needed to get out of the way. We met back at the new house and let the moving begin. I had the rest of the week off work to get the house straight and to go back and clean the 1st home. It was a well planned thing to have me take vacation to unpack. Even with that time off, I handled the chaos of moving (an easy move at that! ) with the grace of a newborn giraffe. I just don't handle messy, out of order things well. Shocker I know. By the end of the week things were coming into view and 95% of boxes were unpacked, 70% of rooms set-up and some sparkling clean floors from top to bottom. The 1st home was quickly tidied and scrubbed for showings. Fortunately Ellie was my buddy the whole week, with the exception of two afternoons when she went to see grandparents so I could get more done, and we had a good time having extra time together. Little Ellie loves the new place. She just calls it "Ellie's NEW how-se!".

Pictures for inspiration

This sums up our first morning...stuff everywhere! Who doesn't want breakfast next to detergent?

Finally getting all wedding presents out of storage and putting to use! For reference we will have our 5 year anniversary in July.

Little buddy 💜

Going to fetch more from the other house 

Fast forward a couple weeks through my parents awesome weekend here (which I will dedicate a whole post to for sure-they helped us accomplish so much), working and a nice little snow storm and now we are going to have our first weekend together here since we moved and I'm pretty excited to say the least.  Hope you all are doing well and I can't wait to share some home pictures with you!

Parents!

Leaving for work as the snow fell 

Tiny Ellie yesterday not even breaking the snow as she walked 

P.S. Our 1st home is under contract now- send good thoughts that everything goes through!