Over a Year Later

I have finally decided to come out of my blogging hiatus, shocking right?! The last year has been so crazy, rewarding, fun and full of a few firsts for us.

First things first, we bought our first house! For so long we have been renters because we knew we wouldn't be staying in those places for very long. We have no idea if Georgia will be our forever state, but as of right now I am staying put, at least until my girls have graduated highschool. I love their school and so do they, so leaving would probably cause me great distress. They're both doing so well and there is no way I am putting them through another move. So buying a house has been on our wish list for a long time. Every now and then I miss renting, for example when we have to shovel out money to fix a house problem, or getting a note from the HOA for having a weed in my yard, or something similar. I certainly don't miss not being allowed to make house changes whenever I wanted to, that has certainly made home ownership fun. So far we have redone the kids' bathroom and completely redone the downstairs bedroom for Hannah. When we moved in, the basement bedroom was just an empty space with ugly carpet and we were making Hannah and Mallorie share a room upstairs. As you can imagine that wasn't going well, they fought constantly. So we ripped out the carpet in the basement and added nice flooring, hung new curtains, painted the walls and filled her room with all the antique furniture that I'd been holding on to for many years, and now her room is the nicest room in the house. Our fix up list is about a mile long, so I am excited to move on to the next room. 

Just a bit of a before and after. You can get a sense of just the sheer ugly color that the wall was before. Now it's a slate gray color, that sometimes has a blue hue to it, but for the most part is just a beautiful gray color. And that hand rail you see below is the color of the stairs. Why? Why, do people put silly putty paint colors in their house? I think their is no sane answer, but that is next on my to-do list. I wish I had an after pic, but maybe some other time.

I feel like I have so many other things to catch up on that I don't know where to start. Ava is officially starting Pre-K in the fall and Hannah will be an 8th grader, while Mallorie will be in the 7th grade. They both did so well in school this last year. Hannah continues to amaze me with just how easy she makes school seem. And Mallorie just makes me so proud, considering her teacher thought she was illiterate when we first moved here because she was just too shy to talk and read outloud. I still think of her 4th grade year as the year from hell for her. Poor thing. I was at the school probably once a month in meetings with the principal and all her teachers. Now, she's come out of her shell, and her being in the band has been an outstanding place for her to make new friends and get rid of some of her shyness. Ava is still in ballet, but adds tap this fall to her class. She gets to go to Pre-K with several of her dance friends and will be there three days a week. I must confess I am totally freaking out about her being away from me, but she'll have a lot of fun. She took swim lessons in May and totally rocked my socks off!! She's never been afraid of the water, but she wouldn't jump in or get her face wet. NOW, she's like a new kid. She learned to jump in, swim without floats and just not be afraid, and may I add, her back swimming is most impressive. I have to give credit to her teacher, she was so wonderful and made Ava feel completely at ease.

 We recently went on a vacation to Hilton Head Island with my side of the family and poor Mallorie got such a terrible sunburn on her face. Someone, who's name I won't mention, forgot to put sunscreen on his daughter before they went to the beach. He, I mean they put it on at the beach and then she got right in the water and it washed off. Poor kid was pretty miserable for the rest of the week. I used coconut oil religiously on all the blisters and it healed pretty well. It at the least stayed very hydrated and swimming in the cool pool also helped alleviate some of the pain.
PS...I HATE being in pictures, I'd rather be behind the lens any day, but we needed a new family pic. Plus, I pick myself apart everytime. For example, WHY didn't I straighten my hair that day??? WHY didn't I lose 50 pounds before vacation, ha? Kidding, sort of.

This is the best picture from all of our vacation pictures. Obviously it's not lined up, I wasn't even shooting at the moment, I just snapped it as it was happening without looking through my view finder. This was classic Bree, she's so happy go lucky and Holly was mad at one of us.

I have a new nephew and a new niece since I blogged last. My little sister had another daughter, Bree. She's too precious, and totally squishy! My sister in law had another son, Luke and he is just such a sweet little guy. I wish I could see them all more often, but thank goodness for smartphones, I atleast get a pic or video to stay caught up.

This picture of Luke and Tyler was from last summer on vacation in Cape San Blas, FL, so it's a year old, but I still love it.

I started back up at my gym a few months ago and took a leap and started going to a yoga fitness class. So far, it is kicking my tail. I am so sore some weeks, but I am noticing that I am getting better each week. And while it hurts while I am working out, I can't wait to go back for the next class. I'm not sure I will be able to take the class once Ava starts Pre-K, but there are a lot of other classes I could try. I kind of want to get back into swimming laps, but haven't done that yet. It takes guts to get out there in a swimsuit and a swimcap. Plus, I hate the feeling of being watched, ugh, sometimes I feel like that's all people do at the gym, ha.

The hubs is staying busy working, like always. Our weekends a lot of times consist of working in the yard or on a house project, but mostly we try to just relax and make sure he gets some down time so that when he travels again that next week he doesn't feel too tired.

I think I'm going to have to stop here for today and maybe blog again later this week with some more updates. The kids are asking for lunch, and since that's my job, I guess I'd better get busy. I hope you all have a great week!