Home Sweet Home

It has been about a month and a half since we have been back in Spring Hill and in so many ways it feels like we never left!! The hardest thing so far?  Getting Charlotte to stop saying "my old... such and such" and just call it her library or park or grocery store.  haha The only "old" thing she has in SH is her old house she spent her first 2.5 years in. We talk about that house and drive by it often :)

One thing I was worried about is that life for many friends in SH would have moved on and we would feel left behind - I'm very thankful that that isn't the case!  Yes, kids are grown up a little more and life has changed, but thanks to social media and the fact that we visited SH and The Bridge so often while in AL, it really helped to bridge that 11 month gap.

Something I was really looking forward to getting back into when we moved home, was doing 'life' with friends and family on a daily and weekly basis.  Boy have we!  When we moved to Huntsville, I was done unpacking and decorating in about 3 weeks (I had no reason to leave the house!) Now with this house, I'm not even finished and we have been here over 6 weeks!  Charlotte and I have had play dates, park visits, library story time, gymnastics, bible study, House Group, visits with Nan and G - and we have LOVED every minute of it!!  We also love having Jeff working from home again :) On his slower days, we have enjoyed lunches out, trips to the park, shopping, and just hanging out as a family.  It's great to be home.

Even though the house is not 100% done (and probably won't be for months or years with all the things we want to change!) I am finally at a point where I'm happy to share pictures with the world wide web.  I know many of my friends across the country, and across the world, have been wanting to see our new digs!  I'll post some here, but most will be over on Facebook, so visit the album there too :)

Some details on the house: it's a 5 year old, 2 story house with a  french country style exterior. We have 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a bonus room, and loft. Charlotte is very excited to have her own playset outback too!  We have enjoyed our neighborhood so far -all the homes are unique, it's a great location (just about a mile from our old SH place) and a lot of  young families live here.  All the room colors remained the same except for Jeff's office. I may want to change some at some point, but for the most part, I'm glad we only had to do some touch ups - even that took a full weekend.

We are currently in a bit of a unexpected battle over the remainder of the neighborhood with the developer - there are only 30 homes built and another 70+ lots left to go - and he wants to build rental town homes/aka apartments!  That's a whole long story but there ya go!  Totally not excited about this coming about a month into our home ownership, but it's been a great way to meet the neighbors :)

Anyway, on to what you want: pictures!! I'll walk you though the house

First up - the front of the house





Walk through the front door into the Living Room, I love the 2 story ceiling with loft! We still need window treatments, want to change out the furniture, and will eventually hang a tv down there, but I'm happy with it now! You can see the dining room behind... the empty dining room! Need furniture for that one too :)  (everything looks very yellow in the picture, it's a tan paint)





The next room is the kitchen. I like that it is open enough to the living and dining room but my dirty dishes aren't "in your face" when you walk in the door!  We love bay window and our new kitchen table and chairs and the new fridge! And yes, still need window treatments (you'll see a theme soon...) Pardon the crock pot and paper products, our House Group was at our house the night I took the pictures.  (and yes, this room is a yellow/golden color)







Down the hall from the kitchen is the half bath and garage.



 

Then further down the hall is our Master bedroom.  This room needs a total re-do!! I love the new bedding that we got (it's chocolate in color, has a "ruched" effect) and the tray ceiling with rope lighting.  We need furniture, window treatments, artwork, and maybe new paint.  Total project room.  I do like the master bath, it is a chocolate paint color with subtle glossy stripes.  I have drapes to hang and need to add a few more decorative touches.





 

Heading upstairs!! Love the view from the top.  It also is great for sound - I was a little worried about the 2 story thing, I really loved how connected we all felt with our 1 story in AL, but it is so open I still feel connected whenever we are upstairs or down.  And speaking of sound - one of Jeff's favorite features?  In home audio! I love having speakers throughout the house so we can enjoy it room to room.



 

At the top of the stairs, on the other side of the half wall, is Charlotte's playroom. Another reason I love this floorplan - all the toys are upstairs and out of the way but I can hear her and talk to her when I'm in the kitchen and such.



 

First room down the hall is Jeff's office.  He chose a great blue/grey color for the walls.  It's very cozy :)  All he needs is some window treatments - and maybe a new high tech desk.



 

Next up is Charlotte's room!  It was already painted the lime green color, and it perfectly matched the bedding that we got for her 3rd birthday/big girl room.  How adorable!



 

We have a full bath upstairs, need to find another piece of artwork but otherwise I'm happy with it.



 

Across from the bath is our guest room.  I'm so glad to have an official guest room!  We have had a sofa bed in the loft, and a twin bed in the playroom in the last 2 houses.  I have drapes and side table/shelf thing to put in still, but for now all my pictures for the hallway are laid out on the bed until I hang them up! :)  The guest room will be better put together than our master!



 

Finally, our favorite room!  Our rec room/theatre/TV room/bonus room. Jeff wants to get a projector, we still have window treatments to get, and some new chairs. Oh, and our door! The entrance is a doorway that has a step down in the hallway, so it's an odd 8ft or so high.  Our solution is hopefully going to be a sliding "barn door" type thing. I'll def post pics once it's done!  But, I LOVE our couch and the bookcases we put behind it!!





 

That's it for the inside , the final pics are of the back (unless you visit my FB album!) - We inherited the swing set from the previous owner, Charlotte calls it her playground :)  I enjoy the fenced in backyard - I can send her out to swing and slide while I am cooking dinner with the windows open.  I know it seems silly, but I love our back patio - it is raised like a deck, but is poured aggregate with a vinyl railing so it is totally maintenance free (which is totally what we need!!)



 

So there it is! Love our new house, being back in Spring Hill - can't say it enough :)  :)  :)

 

Trip #1

I never seem to blog enough so then I have huge "round up" posts - guess you can settle in and catch up!!

The past 2 weeks, Charlotte and I have made 2 trips north!  We are looking forward to a couple weeks at home before Jeff travels to Brunei (on the island of Malasia) for a work trip for about 10 days.  When that happens, Charlotte and I are planning to take some long trips to KY and TN to keep company with friends and family :)  Anyway, back to our first trip.

Jeff had a long week at work, plus a lot of freelance video work to do the week of Feb 20th, so that Thursday - Saturday, Charlotte and I decided to visit Spring Hill.  It actually worked out perfectly, that Thursday morning, my grandmother fell in her home and had to be taken to the hospital.  My dad was in Seattle and my mom was stuck at work, so since I was actually heading up to visit her that morning, I took a detour to the hospital instead.  Since spending hours at the hospital wasn't great for a 3 year old, my dear friend Allison let me drop Charlotte off at her house to spend the day.  I was glad I was able to be with Nana in the ER., she was dehydrated, among other things, so she was pretty loopy and weak.  Though it was not the exact way I wanted to visit her, it was the best thing I could have done for her. After she was moved upstairs to her permanent room, I left so she could get some rest.

At that point, C had just laid down for her nap, so I went ahead to Encores Consignment sale to  stock up on clothes and toys for the upcoming season.  I do this twice a year, and was really glad I could schedule a TN trip during the sale. Before we left, Charlotte was very patient with me and let me try on all of her summer clothes that were 2T so I could make a list of things she'll need. :)

I aways take pictures of the clothes that still fit, so I can match the new stuff!

My mom got off work and picked C up at Allison's house so I had a little more free time to myself!!  After Encores, I went to get my haircut. I had it straightened with my new Wet to Dry straightener so wanted to get it dry cut so I'd know what it would look like straight.  During the haircut, I was told I have thin hair, seriously?? I always thought of my hair as think and wavy - it is as a whole, but apparently each hair is actually thin.  The hair dresser said I need to use a leave in conditioner to make it silkier and shinier. I always wanted that, but thought my dried out/somewhat frizzy hair was just how it is.  After she put on that conditioner, I was sold! My hair looked and felt so much better.  I never buy the products they suggest but I did this time.  How did I go 28 years and never know this!?  Yay for new hair! haha  Afterward, I headed back to my parents house to spend the night.  Mom and I were both worn out and watched Water for Elephants - it was a wonderful movie!

The next day, we meet Allison and her kiddos Hazen and Laney at Let It Shine Gymnastics.  On Fridays, they have open play for an hour, for $5 bucks the kids get to jump on trampolines, try out some of the gymnastics equipment and have a good time getting some energy out!!  Charlotte loved it all!  I am hoping the next trip to Spring Hill will be on a friday so we can go again!!

Falling in the foam blocks

Running down the super long trampoline

Rolling down the mats

Mom took Charlotte home afterwards and let me have even more "me" time!!  I wasn't as successful at the Encores sale as I had hoped, so I visited the consignment shop in town "Here We Grow Again" and found a few things there. My next stop was Goodwill - and I always find good stuff there!  Clothes for C, a shirt for jeff, and of course new toys.  I can't help but buy stuff for Charlotte. I never find anything for myself.  I guess that is part of being a mom!

We spent Saturday with my Dad and just had a little trip to the library (as Charlotte calls it, her "old" library) to play with the trains.



All in all, it was a busy but wonderful visit home!

Valentines Baking: Sweet and Bittersweet

Jeff and I have never been huge gotta-celebrate-Valentines-Day people (ironic since our first official date was on Valentines Day - you'd think we'd be ones to celebrate!) Oh, and today would have been Charlotte's birthday if she miraculously came on time, ha :)

This year, we had a MOPS (Mother's Of PreSchoolers group) Valentines party, and had to bring snacks inspired by the day of love ;) Since our meeting is 9-11am, I wanted to do something a little more breakfast friendly, so got a mix of Banana Bread Muffins.  I found this great idea on Pinterest (of course!) on how to make your muffins or cupcakes heart shaped and voila, Valentines Ready!  All you do is stick a marble beside the muffin paper in the tin, and when the muffins bake up, they turn into hearts!





They weren't perfect looking hearts, but they did the job.



(It isn't baking related, but at MOPS we decorated onsies for the local hospitals NICU!  Aren't they adorable!



We had a mix of iron-ons, stamps, and puff paint.  It was great fun and a good cause!)

We ended having so much food and so many leftovers, I had a ton of them to take home (the mix made 24)  And we won't eat that many muffins!  So I decided to send them to work with Jeff.  I was afraid they would dry out overnight, so I tried this Pinterest idea to put a slice of bread on top of your cake (I figured it would work with muffins) and the bread will dry out but your baked goods wouldn't.  It actually worked! So I sent Jeff off with the bowl of muffins this morning. :)



Our romantic plans tonight will include a spaghetti dinner with Charlotte, and then watching Breaking Dawn once she goes to bed. (you're jealous, I know)  But I did want to do something special for dessert.  We have a heart shaped cookie cutter that we use for Charlotte's play doh, so I cleaned it off and decided we could bake heart shaped sugar cookies.  I also wanted to make Jeff's favorite Peanut Butter Pie for our movie time.  So that was my plan this morning...

First up, Peanut Butter Pie.  Got the recipe out and realized I didn't have the cool whip needed.  Scratch that plan. I looked on Pinterest on my Yummy Board for something that I could cook using ingredients I already have, namely that  grahman cracker crust originally meant for the pie.  I found this great Chocolate Chip Cheesecake bar I figured I could put it into a pie shell instead of the 8x8 pan.  We got out all the ingredients, Charlotte helped my measure and dump stuff in.  I got through the first 5 ingredients and realized I had more than doubled the amount of brown sugar needed.  No way to salvage, so I dumped it out and started again.



This time I triple checked my measurements, but apparently was paying so much attention to that, I forgot to read the directions. I was supposed to stir it all together, THEN add the flour, THEN add the chocolate chips.  I had it all in the bowl together and tried to mix it.  Did not work well at all.

I gave up at this point. Charlotte even gave me a hug cause she knew I was frustrated.  I wasn't gonna attempted it AGAIN, I don't have enough butter to do this over and over!  I may attempt it again while Charlotte naps and I can fully concentrate. Blah.  Looks like we may only have sugar cookies for dinner... oh wait, those had their own FAIL!

I used Betty Crocker Cookie Mix for the sugar cookies (I swear by her dry mixes! They make great cookies and all you add is butter and egg!)  There is a version to make cut out cookies, so I added the needed flour to the mix with the butter and egg.  Turns out, I was supposed to put the flour in alone with the dry mix, combine those, then add the egg and butter.  I figured they would still work.  We laid out the dough and did our heart cut outs!



Sadly, they weren't solid or thick enough to pick up from the cutting board (yes, I dusted it with flour) and put on the pans. So, change of plans again, we rolled them up instead and baked them regular.



After they baked, we sprinkled sugar and pink sprinkles on them and called it done.  Still tasty, but not very cute :(



 

Well, it's time to go fix lunch. It may seem silly to have blogged about all this, but I was frustrated!  and my 140 character limit for Twitter just wasn't going to cut it.  Maybe I'll just give up on baking anything that does not come out of a box.

 

Charlotte is 3!

*Warning! This post is all about Charlotte so it is very looooong!

Can you believe it?!  I can't!

3 years ago we went into the hospital to be induced?



3 years ago we brought home a 5 pound 9 ounce 19 inch long tiny squirming thing??



3 years ago we went from being Jeff and Jordan to Charlotte's PARENTS?!  Amazing.



Speaking of Amazing - our kiddo is soooo amazing!  She has such a sweet spirit, is absolutely hilarious, is very well behaved, and a pretty smart cookie too.



Her favorite things lately are reading books, singing us songs, doing puzzles, playing with cars and trains, Candy Land, and just recently got into playing pretend with her babies.  Charlotte loves to play outside in our huge drive way, go for walks/rides, go to Target and the library, and eating out at restaurants. Her favorite foods are mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, french fries, any breakfast foods, and fruit.  She loves all things tech/electronic: playing games on PBS.com or Disney.com, games or books or shows on the iPad or iPhone, and watching movies like Toy Story, Bugs Life, Tangled, Winnie the Pooh, and shows like Dora, Max and Ruby, Calliou, Curious George, and on and on.



She knows her colors, shapes, a lot of the alphabet, how to count, and is starting to recognize numbers and letters, and is continuing with her sign language. Crafts and art are starting to become more fun now that she can be more hands on.  We've got the name, birthday, and most of the address down now.  With us moving, she also is starting to understand how we all live in different cities and states.  She is also starting to help around the house - cleaning up her toys, helping with her bed, getting ice in our cups for dinner, and carrying things to the table.  This is of course just a small list of all the amazing things that our amazing 3 year old can do.



We have not had our 3 year check up yet, that'll happen next week.  From what I can tell, she is perfectly healthy, still tall and has filled out a little more so isn't as much of a stick :)  She also had her first dentist appointment a couple days ago.  Charlotte did fantastic!   They have a huge indoor play place inside so that definitely helped her feel more comfortable!



It was an option to have them clean her teeth and she did let them do it and had no issues.  We got a clean bill of health - no cavities or any issues there.  The dentist did alert us to potential future issues.  Have you ever noticed the gap in her front teeth?  Apparently that's cause from gum/tissue coming down too far and pushing those teeth apart.  She may have to have a frenectomy to remove that tissue and braces to close the gap, unless her permanent teeth come in and push that tissue out of the way. Fun huh?  She also inherited her momma's small upper jaw.  This means her upper teeth on her right side sit on the inside of her bottom teeth when she closes her mouth, instead of coming down on the outside.  I had the same issue and had to have an expander and then braces in high school.  It's crazy that C is just 3 years old and we are already looking down the road at orthodontics and possible oral surgery.  Double Ick.  That may be too much information for you, but there you go anyway!



On to Charlotte's party! C's birthday was on Monday (the 23rd) so we decided to have her 'party' the Saturday before.  We weren't planning on doing anything big - we don't really have a lot of friends down here yet, and it would have been tough to do something in Spring Hill with our TN friends.  We decided to keep it simple with just a family get together.  We had more family able to come down than we thought! Saturday Jeff's parents, brother, and his family drove down from Bowling Green KY and met us at the Mellow Mushroom here in Hutnsville for lunch!  We had a great time eating lunch together, then headed back to our place to hang out.  Charlotte had so much fun with her cousin Reese who is just a couple months younger.  They ran and played and scram all day :)  The balloon curtain that I made from Pinterest was a big hit too!

It's hard to get a good picture of 2 active little girls!

Visiting with Grandad and cousin Avery

I didn't have anything major planned, but we did do an art project - making butterflies out of their feet! They had fun picking their colors and getting their feet painted.

My parents joined the party that afternoon about 3:30 - just in time too, the girls were ready for cupcakes!  I have to admit I'm pretty proud of Charlotte's cupcakes! They were baked in sugar cones and I frosted the top with cupcake frosting in a spray can - it was so much easier! Top it with sprinkles and they looked just like ice cream cones.  Love it!





Then it was time for presents! Charlotte got 3 pairs of shoes - she is a shoe-aholic - lots of cute clothes, a Woody doll (to match her Jessie from Christmas), PJs, an art easel, and a few more things.  After a little more play time, it was time for the BG folks to head back north.  We were sad to see them go after just an afternoon of playing together, but Jeff and I are so grateful to them for making the big trip all in one day so they could celebrate C's 3rd Birthday with us. Thank you all!!


My parents spent the night and we had a great breakfast the next morning, and then took a drive!  We were excited to head up to Monte Sano here in Hutnsville and enjoy the view of Huntsville and maybe taking a walk on the trail.  Unfortuantly, it was very very cloudy and rainy.  We did enjoy our drive though - it was crazy thinking that we were actually driving through the clouds!

This was our "view" but all we saw were clouds! It wasn't raining but we got wet just from being in the clouds.

We had to get out and walk around at least at little bit for this active girl!

That afternoon, Jeff and I gave her our present!  A big girl room!  We converted her crib to the full size, so she got a new mattress, bedding, art, lamp, etc.  She looks so tiny in that big bed but she loves her new room.












All in all, Charlotte had a great birthday party weekend!  On her actual birthday C and I had MOPS that morning, then Jeff came home from work early.  After her nap we headed out for a Jeep ride with the top down on the beautiful 60 degree January day!  A trip to Target to spend her birthday money, diner at Zaxby's and a movie night with Cars 2 wrapped up her day.



What a beautiful kiddo.  Jeff and I are so blessed to be her parents.