We found a house!

We found a house in Huntsville!  We spent many hours, looked at tons of houses, and had to decide between renting, buying, or building.  We finally decided that while it's more fun to buy, especially a brand new house like the ones we were looking at, it would be best to rent for a bit.  We'll get to know the area better, make sure the job is gonna stick ;), and save up some more money for a better downpayment.  We would also have the flexibility to then build the house that we really want in the subdivision we really want and have plenty of time to get that going.

All that said, we are looking forward to the house that we are going to call home for the next year!  It isn't perfect, I think we'll have some creative space planning things to decide, and it's a little further drive from things than I'd prefer, but it's a really nice place.  It is by far the cleanest we have seen (and boy did we see some icky ones!) it is cute as a button from the outside, its got a great yard, deck, and long driveway for Charlotte to play on, and has some great features like a fireplace, hardwood floors, tray ceilings, big bedrooms, and a lot of storage.  It's a little smaller than our house now - 2100 sq ft vs our current 2600, but it's 4 bedrooms, 2 bath, and has a nice sunroom. OH, and one FANTASTIC thing I'm finding in Alabama - most homes are 1 STORY!  I am so looking forward to being on one level and not having tons of stuff piled on the stairs to go up or downstairs. :)

Here are a couple pictures - of course it will look different with our stuff in it :)

Isn't it cute!  109 Tanglefoot Huntsville AL 35811

It's 1.23 acres... Jeff's gonna love mowing this one!

Kitchen is a bit smaller and not open to the living room, but it's nice and clean and laid out well.

Nice LR with hardwoods, tray ceilings, and fireplace. Our biggest challenge is gonna be figure out furniture placement :)

Stay turned for our next blog post: we'll take a trip on our Car Carousel!

We're Moving to...

Huntsville Alabama!

Now some Q&A!

What's in Huntsville Alabama you ask?  Jeff's new job!  Jeff has been fully self employed with his video work for the past 2 years and while we have thoroughly enjoyed this season of life with him home every day, it's time for a change and a little more stability :)  After looking around at multiple jobs around the country, we feel pretty lucky finding a job that is just an hour and a half away from where we currently live in Spring Hill, TN!  We are still going to be close to our family and friends and dear city of Nashville and that is a big advantage to Huntsville.Now for some Q & A!

So what's this job?  Jeff will be working for Baron Services, a Huntsville based company. I'm gonna steal this tag-line from their website because they explain it best: Weather monitoring technologies and applications for broadcast, public safety, aviation, marine, ground, and government.  All that said, you've probably seen their technology and don't even know it!  They have a great video team within their marketing department, and Jeff is excited to be part of a creative team instead of going it alone like the past few years!  Baron is a family company that will only continue to grow as long as there is technology and weather, we look forward to becoming a part of this great company.

Jeff has had a great saying while we have been making this decision over the past few weeks: We are excited to go but sad to leave. I think that nails it to a T!  If you know me, you know I HAD to make a Pro/Con list and we had so very many things make this list.  We are looking forward to the change and excitement of learning a new city and moving to a new home, the financial stability, no more child-care work for me, the benefits (like health insurance!), the fact that it isn't too far away from friends and family, and Jeff's excitement to join a creative team like this.  Huntsville also seems like a great city - it's the 2nd smartest city in the US with tons of bioengineering, aerospace, NASA, and on and on.  It's also made several top 10 lists of best place to live, work, retire, raise a family, and on and on.   It's big but not too big!  The Cons list was of course longer: leaving family, friends, missing our church, having to do the actual move (so much work!), moving a 2 year old from all she knows and loves, potentially being unhappy with our new place, and on and on!  But even with the cons list being longer than the pro, we felt like there were enough major pros to accept this position and move on with our next season of life.

So when do we leave? What comes next?  Well, we are not sure exactly.  Jeff and Baron have talked about the option of starting sooner rather than later and doing some work at home and commuting 1-3 days a week.  We have to look at the ins and outs of that actually working out.  We also have to find a place to live!  We have lots of options open to us right now between renting and buying - and yet more pro/con lists of course.  Jeff and I hope we can get down there 1-2 more times in the next week to two and really make that decision so we can move onto other decisions - like what to sell, what to pack, what about our dog Brady, and on and on and on!  The decisions are a little overwhelming right now but we hope that we can take it step by step.  In general, we are thinking that we'd move in about a month.

So what can you do?  Pray for us!  For these decisions we have to make, for our stress levels, for what this my do to our 2 year old, and for our family and friends that are sad about this transition.  Also, if you have any advice about moving with a toddler, or any knowledge about the Huntsville area, I'd love to hear it!!  We also need more boxes and packing paper if you have any laying around your garage or if you see a neighbor moving in let me know and I can take the boxes off their hands!  We haven't decided what to do about the actual moving - like hiring movers, do it ourselves, etc.  So we may be calling on our church family to help us move... thanks in advance?!?  And finally, we may or may not be able to take our dear Puggle, Brady. So if you would love a sweet 5 year old pug/beagle mix, we may have one for you.  If you are interested in our house... my parents will be looking to either sell it or rent it, so let me know!  I hate leaving them in a possible lurch like this.

Thank you all for being such wonderful friends and loved ones and thanks in advance for supporting us through this new phase!

*photo Credit http://www.Huntsville-Homes.com all rights reserved.

Then and Now! June

So I got inspired by my friend Parker and her blog to do a "then and now" post to see what we have been up to the last couple Junes - here we go!

So June 2008 - when Charlotte began her existence and we didn't even know it!  Jeff and I went down to Destin and Panama City Beach for vacation and for Jeff's sister Ashley's wedding on the beach!  I was a little emotional and not feeling the greatest - who knew, it was because I was pregnant!



A couple weeks later, we bought a test - voila!  (funny story, this test was taken in Super Target!  We had one at home that we did but didn't want to just take one so we both called in sick to work, headed to Target, bought the test and a drink and off I went! lol  We have always loved Target so I guess it's fitting! Plus, we got to go straight to the baby section and get all goo-goo baby crazy!)



June 2009 - Charlotte made her arrival in January and is now 5 months old! She was such a very very happy child and pretty easy to take care of too! (and still is!)

And of course being June the pool was open so we spent lots of sunny days relaxing in the cool waters :)

June 2010: Charlotte really had fun this year in the water since she was able to walk around with the sprinklers and go down the slide at our rec center pool!

And here we are at June 2011! We haven't made it to the pool yet this summer, but I know Charlotte is gonna have a blast when we do get to go!  For now we are enjoying being indoors in the AC and playing with fun toys like the tent! (and the iPad of course!)



And a new favorite food: Cantaloupe! but it HAS to be on a big fork like momma and daddy!



So far June 2011 has been a good one! We are looking forward to a week of vacation that will include a trip to Owensboro and Bowling Green Kentucky, and some good ol' summer fun!

What about you?  What was June like last year or the year before that?  Amazing what changes a year can bring!

$1 Summer Movies!

I am very excited about a cool thing to do this summer - go to the movies!  Charlotte has yet to experience the whole "lets go to the movies" thing - tickets are so expensive we didn't want to chance her not liking it or being too loud and having to leave!

I think this is the perfect way to introduce her to the theatre - Carmike Cinema's Summer Kids Series! Tickets are just $1 per person and the theatre will be filled with other kids and parents so she won't have to be so very quiet!  Even if we do have to leave, we have only wasted a couple bucks and not $20+  They even have a $4 kids bucket with popcorn, drink, and fruit snack.  How cute!  Movies will be shown Thursdays at 10:00am - perfect timing to fit in that afternoon nap still.

We have tons of friends that want to go too, my sister is home for the summer, my Mom usually has Thursdays off, Jeff can always steal away from his work for a couple hours, and of course I have Thursdays off!  Looks like you can find us at the theatre most Thursdays :)

You can go here to find out more about this great program, I went ahead and called our local theatre Thoroughbred 20 in Franklin/Cool Springs to get exact movie dates. Starting Thursday June 9, they will go in this order:

Hotel for Dogs

How to Train Your Dragon

Kung Foo Panda

Madagascar 1

Madagascar 2

Megamind

Monsters Vs. Aliens

Shrek 1

Shrek 2

The Last Airbender

Obviously some of these movies are too old for my 2 year old daughter, but I think there are quite a few we can go too!  If you have any opinions on them (especially for a 2yo girl) please chime in!   If you are local and would like to go to the movies with us sometime, let's chat!  Charlotte and I would love to have movie friends.

So to recap: $1 per person, per show at 10:00am on Thursday's starting June 9!  Whoohoo!

Regal Cinemas is also having a $1 movie program, called Summer Movie Express, on Tuesday and Wednesdays at 10:00.  The Regal Cinemas that is closest to me is not showing these movies, so we would have to go to Green Hills.  A possibility if we really want to see one of these movies, but  I think we'll be good with the ones in Cool Springs :)  You can go here to find out about their program and what theatre is closest to you!  Here is a peek at the Green Hills line up:

Nana and Poppa Visit!

Charlotte and I had a very long but very enjoyable morning yesterday!  We got to spend some great time with Nana (my Dad's mom) and Poppa (Dad's dad)!  We used to go up to their house every Wednesday evening and meet my Dad and we would all have dinner together.  Both my grandparent's health declined over the past few months so we had to stop these Wednesday visits.

My grandmother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and has been going through treatments and surgery for that for the past few months.  She has handled it all with the best spirit and hopefully just one more surgery then a titch of radiation will be needed and she'll be cancer free.  My grandfather has a myriad of issues relating to his heart, diabetes, and spinal stenosis. Because of these issues, plus the fact that my grandmother cannot care for him any longer, he is currently residing in a long term health facility.  Unfortunately the facility he is currently in is in Smyrna, about 30 minutes away from Nana's house.  Because of these things, we haven't been able to visit as often, but hoping to remedy this soon!  Now that I have my Wednesdays off (and soon will have Thursdays too) I'm looking forward to making the visit to Nana's and the trek to Poppa's more often.

Anyway, back to yesterday!  We played some at Nana's with all the toys in the toy box, then loaded up in the car and drove to Smyrna.  Charlotte was a little freaked out at first as we wound through the halls towards Poppa's room, but after a few minutes in Poppa's room and making friends with a little bunny stuffed animal he had on his window sill, she warmed right up.  We got to spend some great time with Poppa!  He is looking and acting better than he had in a while, he was actually sitting in a chair vs. the bed, carried on conversation with us, and ate his lunch well too. (all things that haven't happened that well in the past few months)  We stayed for about 30-45 minutes until Charlotte was ready for lunch and Poppa was almost ready for an after-lunch-nap.  All in all, it was a great visit and I was so happy to see Poppa doing well.

For those of you that know Nana, you can see how much weight she has lost! She is a whole different woman!

It was difficult to get all 3 of us looking and smiling while Nana was trying to work the iphone camera! :)

At this point poor Charlotte was past her lunch time and almost at her nap time and we still had a 30 minute drive and had to pick up BBQ for lunch.  By the time we got to Nana's Charlotte was just about fed up and ready to eat some lunch!  We had a great lunch of BBQ and was able to enjoy a few minutes of outdoor time with Nana before we headed back home.



I'm so glad my grandparents/Charlotte's great grandparents live so close that we are able to have visits like this!  I'll cherish these memories that Charlotte is making with them.

This is Charlotte after a short nap once we got home at 2:00 - you can see she is still tired!  We had a lazy rest of the day and watched Tangled :)

Progress!

I feel like this past week has been filled with wonderful progress!!  It has made the start of this week so much better too!

First off, we successfully got a full week of the low carb diets under our belts!  Proud to announce a weight loss of 9 pounds!  Super excited to see that in the first week - I know it will become less and less per week as we go on, but I can't help but dreaming what losing this much weight a week would be like!  Overall, the diet wasn't as hard as I had remembered it and while I am already losing interest in some of the foods, seeing that 9 pounds off the scale feels better anyway!  Hopefully gonna try some new foods/recipes this week to change it all up!   I have decided that I will only be weighing weekly.  Before I got caught up so much in the numbers every day and could get really discouraged by it - so just a week at a time people!

Secondly, we got a treadmill!  I have been looking at craigslist for weeks now, every day, to find a free/cheap treadmill to get.  This one was $70 so a little higher than what I wanted but I feel like it is a good deal.   Thanks to my Dad and Jeff for picking it up and hauling it upstairs to our room!  So far I have worked out twice (I'm doing an every other day thing for now) and have walked a mile each time.  I am soooo out of shape people!   But the second time I was able to shave 2 minutes off my initial time!  The treadmill is old and has some quirks for sure, its  really a tad loud so a little hard to watch TV while I'm doing my thing, but I'm thinking if I keep at it long enough and prove that I'll use it maybe I'll get a new (ie quieter) one!



I'm sure the above two items of "progress" has really had a hand in this as well, but I just FEEL so much better!  My stress level is down, my productivily level is up, and my skin has finally cleared back up!  I account a lot of it to having this past week (and forever) without the extra two kids.  It's tough having 5 kids 3 and under anyway, but when 2 of them are having some major stress inducing issues, it does not make life easier!  I have gotten so much done, the house stays cleaner, and I am in a better mood.  Even Jeff has noticed the overall stress level in our house is so much lower.  Say it with me "ahhhhhh"  :)

This week I am looking forward to just 2 more days of childcare and 2 days in Owensboro Kentucky!  Another thing that letting these kids go has allowed me to do - have some days off :)  I'm happy that Charlotte will get to spend some time with her Nana and we'll have a little girls vacay!

I'll share a fun little story to wrap up this little post!  I got in my latest Scentsy order today, and Charlotte loooves when Scentsy comes in.  She loves to help me unpack it all, to smell all the bars, and then to climb in the boxes when they are empty.

She was so enthusiastic in getting the paper out!

Then it was her turn to sit in her box, smell her bars...

And watch TV in her new spot :)

Finally a Fab 5 Friday!

I have been absent on my Fab 5 Friday posts for 2 reasons  - lack of motivation, lack of fabulous things to post (I know that sounds uber melodramatic), and lack of time.  Ok, maybe 3 reasons.  Today I have lots of Fab things to say!

1. Babies babies and more babies!  My dear friends Wade and Allison Combs are bring Laney Sinclair Combs into the world today!!  I am so so so excited for them.  Their 2 year old son Hazen and Charlotte are super buds, I know he is going to be a great big brother! I have been praying for them all day during Allison's scheduled C-section and can't wait to meet Laney tomorrow morning.   AND more awesome baby news, my lifelong friend (and pastor) Josh Howerton and his wife Jana have been in the adoption process and received news that they have been chosen!  They will travel to KY on Monday to pick up Eliana Charis Howerton, a beautiful 1 month old baby girl!  I am beyond excited for them and the Howerton clan. Take a peek at Josh's FB status below - so cool!

The Combs Family (until today!)

2. I am now providing childcare for 4 kids part time instead of 6 kids part time - amazing what that changes for me!  Instead of having 5 kids (including Charlotte) 5 days a week, I'll have 3 kids 3 days a week, 5 kids 1 day a week, and then 1 day off!  This will last about 6 more weeks and then I'll just have 2 kids 3 days a week and 2 days a week of.  I know, it's a lot of numbers.  What it really means: my sanity level feels a little more back to normal, my house is a little more tidy, and I'm really looking forward to those mid-week days off.  It may not last forever for financial reasons, but I'm basking in it for now!

This is me and Charlotte doing puzzles, just the two of us :)

3.  Stockpile!  I know I have posted this before, quite a few times actually.  I tried a couple organizational things with it over the past few months and nothing really worked well.  This time I have it all downstairs in only 2 places, instead of spread out in 3+ places on 2 levels.  The biggest success here is that I have finally made my stockpile list! (Dry goods is done, fridge and freezer should be done soon)  I think it will be much easier to get my list and such done.  Woohoo!

Can goods on shelves, boxed items in tubs below (will be labeled)

Kitchen cabinet for cereal, chips, crackers (takes up too much space in a tub)

Sample of my stockpile check list

4.  I know you aren't supposed to list people, but Charlotte has just been super cute lately in developing her fashion sense, I have to count that as a Fab!

5. Low Carb.  We are back on the low carb diet!  While this is not my favorite diet, I am listing it as a Fab so that it can be motivation to keep on keeping on, and because it is a diet that I know works (I lost 70 pounds on it 2 years ago!) so it is fabulous :)  Sadly, I have gained backed that 70 pounds so it feels very much like I am starting over.  In some ways it was easy to lose that 70 pounds over 6 months, but thinking about it now, I can't imagine doing this for 6 months more, longer than that if I want to actually get down to my goal weight! But anyway, that is more info than this post requires for a Fab.