mud mud everywhere and progress being made.

Our backyard got really muddy really quickly once it started raining after we moved in.  It wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for pup 1 and pup 2.  Once pup 1 lost her white coloring and pup 2 [our golden/lab retriever] turned into a chocolate lab we knew we had to take action pretty quickly to eliminate the muddy backyard.  Tommy was pretty bummed out because we bought this house on the premise of not having to do any work, but I reminded him that's just not us.  He dreamed up/engineered out his plan and got to work.

Our backyard before 

He has no problem with the mud-- we're the ones with the problem.  And the green stuff was Tommy's first attempt at fixing the problem.  He tried to plant seed and used this stuff on top of it. 

Again, Eli loves the mud.  Tommy is progress. 

A ton of rock! 

Seriously, so much rock. 

The mud.  So much mud. 

Tommy tilled up this pathway.  This is where the water seems to puddle and the path we guessed the dogs would take the most, so we are turning this whole area into a pebble walkway.  Tommy tilled up this section of the yard to prepare it. 

Then he rented this awesome machine [which saved him so so much time and energy] to remove the mud.  It's still in our yard, just in a different location.  He took all of the extra mud and dirt out of this pathway and leveled it down. 

Just another shot of him bein' boss with the machine. 

Seriously couldn't have done this project without these guys.  My brother and his friend helped us immensely with this project!  And of course, we had record breaking heat days while they were hauling rock and digging trenches.  85 degrees in March-- yeah, that would happen while we're doing this project.  Bradley and Bradford, so much thanks to y'all!  We would be sittin in mud if it weren't for you.  Did I mention they're on spring break right now, too?  Yeah, they're great guys!  

I have no afters yet.  It's looking awesome and so far we are so pleased, but it's not done.  So I'll be sharing those later-- probably after the weekend.  The hubs needs to go to work and sleep at night, so I'm encouraging him to wait a few days before finishing this up. 

new home.

We love our new home!  We are so thankful to be in it.  We seem to be in a great neighborhood and have met some really nice neighbors.  Unpacking boxes is so time consuming.  If I never hear the crinkling of that paper again it will be too soon.  I am so thankful we had movers bring our stuff in.  Maybe wishing now that I had had them unpack.  I didn't think about how much paper there would be and how many boxes I would have sitting in my garage.  Anyway, just happy to be here.

We have started a new project already, of course.  The dogs always seem to make things a little more complicated, so we are working on the backyard.  And by we, I mean Tommy.  He's working really hard on it.  Big changes to come, and I will have lots of pictures to share.

In the mean time you won't believe-- or maybe you will-- what our week of eating has been like.  This seriously busy, seriously tired family has stayed in our house for 7 nights and I have made dinner one time.  Spaghetti at that.  Took me 15 minutes total, and my mother-in-law finished the noodles for me.  We've been eating some junk this week, and my body's starting to rebel against it.  I've got to get back into the cooking groove, and the making healthy meals for my family groove.

Now for the fun part, the pictures...  

Our new home on closing day!  Our front porch. 

We're happy homeowners. 

The "before" color of Jack's room.  A little too bold for my taste so Tommy got to work. 

This room seems to be everyone's favorite. 

My favorite area-- the loft! 

Living room/dining room.  With a mess of stuff. 

Master bath.  We're so excited to have 2 sinks!  Talk about luxury. 

Our moving truck.  We had that thing loaded.  Feels like it was longer than just a week ago. 

Our garage.  This is such a luxury for us since we didn't have a garage in Maryland.  It's loaded up with boxes but it's also got my car in it! 

View of the living room from the loft and all of the work I have to do. 

excitement.

I woke up this morning so expectant, so excited about this time in our lives.  Today is closing-eve!  Tomorrow we close on our very own house.  It is such a sweet thing and something we appreciate so much  more now than we did before.  It's not just a house.  This is a new place where our family will dwell.  We will make it our own, and we will be thankful each day how God has blessed us with this place.  A lot of things had to line up for everything to work out so well, and God took care of all of them-- including selling our house in one of the worst markets!

In our new place I hope to have so many sweet memories with my family.  I hope to love people well at our new place and be a welcoming home.  We are so enjoying our Jack- we always do- but my goodness 9 months is a really, really fun age!  And I hope to do so much more enjoying of my sweet family in our new home.  Pictures to come soon!  Until then, I've been scanning Pinterest looking for inspiration.  

catch up.

So much happening over here.  Since I last posted, we have officially closed a house in Maryland!  Wow!  And we are now in closing week for our house here in Tennessee!!  We close on Friday and are so thrilled and feeling so blessed beyond measure.  Really excited to have a place for our own family, but also feeling so thankful for our family who has housed us and loved on us so much during the last four months.  This whole process, as trying as it's been, would have been truly awful without their support.  So thank you to our sweet family!

Meanwhile, Jack Jack is on his 4th ear infection since 4 months.  Wow, saying that makes me tired.  Bless his sweet heart.  The bacteria seems to be resistant to 2 different antibiotics and maybe a third.  We've been at the pediatrician a lot.  Also, praise that he does not have an obstruction in his intestines or twisted intestines!  We were afraid of that last week for a brief moment-- thankfully, it's just poop.  But our poor boy is backed up in a bad way so we are trying to get him to drink juice like crazy and mix it with Miralax.  He's onto us...  Aside from all this he is incredibly awesome and my heart breaks when he's hurting.  Some pictures from the past few weeks...  

One of those days.  Neither of us look too happy here.  And I do have sweet potatoes all over me- there was a sweet potato revolt, to put it mildly. 

Snuggling with Nan, trying to get this boy to drink some juice! 

Bathtime with Grandma!  This boy loves a good bath. 

Wearing his Great-Grandfather's cap while practicing walking. 

A lot of teething lately.  I'm expecting to see something break through-- soon, I hope! 

Jack's favorite new game.  Nothing like playin with Daddy. 

He carries these balls around with him everywhere. 

we're back.

We took our trip to Maryland.  The one we've been waiting for to wrap up our house sale up there.  It was rough.  Selling a house is rough.  Traveling for 9 1/2 hours in the car with a very mobile baby is rough.  Driving all around the metro DC area with that baby is tough.  Cleaning out a dirty, dusty house with a crawling baby is rough.  I had to close my eyes and pretend my baby wasn't crawling around on those filthy floors.  Needless to say, bath time was extra important.  Anyway, I have pictures but not the energy to put them up tonight.  We had to cut our trip short due to some doggy issues back on the home front.  We didn't get to spend nearly the time with everyone that we wanted to.  So for everyone we didn't get to see, we miss you and hate that we didn't get to spend time with you!

our house.

I have done many posts in the past about our house, but this one is different.  Our house is for sale, as I'm sure any of you reading know, and it's on my mind.  We've been through many different emotions since putting the house up.  We had the hope of it selling right away -- didn't happen.  But we still have hope!  We know it will sell in God's perfect timing.  We ask for the patience to wait, and we do ask that He brings the perfect family for the house quickly.

Our Christmas tree our first married Christmas.  And Little Lady Lou keeping watch out the window. 

 
Our house has its own website.  Check it out here, if you feel so inclined. 

our kitchen.

Since it's been 2 years of home-ownership for us now, I thought I would "celebrate" the occasion this week by showing some of the updates we have done to our house. 

Let's start with the kitchen.

The kitchen was the first thing we did.  We knew that we could not even live in this house with the kitchen the way it was, and you are about to see why.  After work and on weekends for a month and a half we would be here every day working on this place.  This kitchen was completely DIY and done on the cheap, but we are happy with how it looks.  Tommy did almost all of it by himself.  I helped with sanding the cabinets and painting them and occasionally as he needed me to help hold something, but he did the bulk of it by himself. 

This is the old kitchen.



The kitchen is small so we knew we needed to brighten it up with lighter cabinets.  We also knew we needed better countertops, flooring, and appliances.

The old details: 
-  Tommy brought down the nasty hood over the stove.  NASTY.  That's all I have to say about that.
-  Next he started disassembling the cabinets.  Doors off, taking out the old countertops, the sink, etc.
-  The 3rd and 4th pictures on the top row show the cabinets and counterspace in more detail.  The knobs really weren't so bad, I suppose, but at the time I really hated them.  They definitely weren't modern.
-  The 5th picture shows how nasty those floors were!  It's disgusting to look at that.  That was the set up of the old kitchen.
-  Bottom row first picture on the left, another view of what the kitchen looked like.
-  This was where the refrigerator originally was.  We felt the need to put in a dishwasher so we had to move the fridge as this was the only place the dishwasher could go.
-  You can see all the different colors this kitchen has been over time.  It was built in 1948 after all.
-  I'm such a dork.  This is me giving a thumbs up as things are going well during our home inspection.  This is the other side of the kitchen- where we moved the fridge to.  I do wish I had kept that light though.  Not in that spot because it hung way too low, but I have several spots where I would have put it.

This is the new kitchen.

The new details: 
-  Painted the upper cabinets white and the lower blue.
-  Dark countertops -- stock countertops from Home Depot, and my amazing husband installed them 100% by himself.  He says he'll never do that again.  I tell him he did a great job.
-  Mounted a microwave above the stove.
-  New sink and faucet.
-  New dishwasher -- first time this house had ever seen a dishwasher.
-  Hung my pots and pans where the fridge used to be to try and conceal that custom fridge-containing cabinetry.  I think it works pretty well.  At least I'm pleased with it.  [Sorry I couldn't clean off the counters before I took that picture.  That picture is from 2 years ago and apparently I didn't feel the need to clean up} 
-  Moved the fridge to the other side of the kitchen to make it feel bigger.
-  Painted everything with a nice, crisp, clean coat of white paint.
-  New hardware on the cabinets.
-  New floors.  The floors alone took the hubs about a week and a half to do because there were 4 layers of old flooring he had to pull up.  You used to have to step up into the kitchen there was so much old floor piled up.  It took him forever, and he lost a lot of blood but he took care of it.  And I love our kitchen floors -- hides dirt so well!


One last before and after look:

Thanks for coming along on my kitchen renovation tour.  It was a lot of hard work but so worth it.  We love our kitchen! 

2 years ago today.

We bought our first house!  Two years ago today!  It's hard to believe that two years have gone by here in this house.  A lot has happened here... too much for me to recap on this late night post [and yes, 9:30 is considered a late night post for me].

Two years ago today, I left work early, picked up Tommy and we drove up to Columbia nervous about what was to come.  We sat and met the people we'd been wondering so much about.  They weren't  happy that we made them take 6 sheds off the property.  We also learned they had already taken 6 off before they put the house on the market.  Oh, if only that was the worse thing we had learned about this house.

Two years later and we have done a lot.  Not nearly what our eyes had thought as we walked through this place before we made an offer.  We were very naive; we had no idea that our eyes were way bigger than our abilities, even bigger than our time, and mostly bigger than our bank account.  But bit by bit we have made this house our home and continue to do so now.  We tweak, we change, we paint, we update, we conceal.  We work hard on this place, and it really has been a labor of love.  It kept us busy when we were in a new area, far away from family and friends.  It kept us warm when it snowed- in fact when there was not one, but three blizzards our first winter here.  It's been a good house.  It's an old house- it has "character" as the people in the real estate business would say.  "It's definitely not a cookie cutter house" people say when they come over.  It's our house.  But most importantly, no matter what our house is like-- it is our home.  It's where Tommy and I have learned to work together.  It's where we brought Eli home and where he layed on the same blanket in the same spot in the same room for days.  It's where we chased Lady around the house time and time again trying to get whatever the latest item was she snuck off with.  It's where our family sleeps when they come to visit us, and while it's not perfect, we're so happy to have them here.  It's where we brought our baby boy home when he was discharged from the NICU and realized we had no idea what to do next.  It's where we have watched our sweet man sleep each and every night since and where we watch him play and grow all day.  It's where we have begun our marriage, our family and our dreams, and it's where we continue to grow. Thankful for a house that has become a home that means so much more for our family. 

 Our house as we saw it 2 years ago  

 Our sweet Eli  

 Destruction - not an uncommon thing to find with these two pups  

Good morning kisses  

Losing control of the bed  

 
The usual spot for these two

Bringing home baby boy for the first time!  

 Jack kisses  

 Jack and Daddy in his room 

Our little family  

my list.

I would say I'm in full-on nesting mode. Full on. Tommy would say whatever you can say that sounds more intense than "full-on" is what I am. He's been amazing and so supportive, but I think I've driven him just about to the end of his rope with my honey-do list. He's ready for me to not be pregnant anymore. I am too.


Here's my list of things to get done before Jack's arrival/this summer {some:

üCdone	Bench in dining room
	Call pest service for our ever increasing stink bug issues
donedone	Clean bathrooms
done	Clean guest bedroom
üdone	Clean kitchen
üdone	Clean living room
üdone	Clean master bedroom
üdone	Clean, organize office
üdone	Finish Jack’s room
üdone	Get together stuff to donate
üdone	Iron
	Mirror above fireplace
ü	Pack away maternity clothes
üdone	Pack away winter clothes
üdone	Photo gallery in living room
	Plant herbs
üdone	Plant spring flowers
	Redo decorations in office
	Re-hang marriage license in bedroom
üdone	Reorganize kitchen
ü	Returns to Target
	Weed flower beds
	Window boxes for side windows
	Work on decorations in guest room
	Work on decorations in hallway downstairs

I've been moving along at a pretty good pace. Some items I haven't checked off my list because they're not completely done but I have tackled and failed. Like the herbs--- I've bought and planted twice and had some failures. Hoping for success this go around. Some things I've been putting off, too. We'll see how much more I get done before Jack arrives.