Florida in February

We've been back from our trip to Florida for awhile, but I'm finally posting about it. It was so nice to take a break from winter and go down to where it was so warm and sunny. It was surreal being able to swim and wear flip flops after coming from the cold!

I seriously couldn't get over how cute Chloe looked in her new bathing suite and matching swim cap. So many people gave her compliments too.

The whole reason we came was to see my dad. He is officially a snowbird now. Since he works from home he decided he was done with winter and rented a place in Pompano Beach, Florida. His place has a nice pool and it was right on the  beach, we definitely enjoyed it!

We spent most of the time at the pool, beach or a park but one day we did go to Butterfly World. Chloe loved it once she woke up from her nap.

We ended up staying an extra day because our flight back to Charlotte got canceled. Clarke's office ended up closing too so it worked out well.

One funny story from the trip, at first Chloe hated the sand. Like screaming in the above picture, hated it. We kept working at it and by the last day she was playing in it. She loved it so much she decided to eat it while we weren't watching. I wonder next time we go to the beach if she'll love it or hate it?

I'll also add last year she wouldn't wear her sunglasses at all. This time she would actually wear them for a little while, at least long enough for a picture. 

While we were ready to come home it was like culture shock. We left from the sunny warm beach to mounds of snow. But we were thankful for the little break we got, and glad that spring is so close!

Goodbye CRV, Hello Forester

The other day we sold my Honda CRV and bought a new car. We've been talking about doing this since we moved here, but finding the right house took a lot more time than we thought, and things just got crazy, so we finally got around to doing it. 

It was so bittersweet. I've had the CRV for 9 years and it's full of such great memories. This is the car we brought Chloe home from the hospital in, so many fun road trips and countless moments spent in that car. I know it's an inanimate object, but it felt like apart of me. The Honda was such a great car, and in those times when we really couldn't afford a car payment I remember praying to God to keep it going. He was more than faithful as it was still going at 191,700 miles! 

I'm excited about out new (well new to us) Forester. It feels so fancy compared to my old car! My Honda was the base model, but this new car has some fun upgrades like heated seats. 

So here's to starting new memories in our new car! 

House Tour: Winter 2014

 I've had lots of requests for photos of the new house, and I love seeing how it changes over time, so I decided to do a little house tour.  It's definitely a work in progress, but here's where we are right now.

Winter House Tour 2014: 

This is what you see when you walk in the front door. I didn't take a photo of the outside of the house, but I posted one here. This will be the dinning room when my mom sends down the furniture. We are getting hand me downs since it's too big for her new house, plus the sentiment that it was my grandma's, then my mom's, now mine makes it really special. The left doorway is where the pantry is and then leads to the kitchen. To the right are the stairs and hallway to the half bath, mud room and garage. Oh and to the left is the study, here it is:

And my assistant helping out, ha! Not much I want to do to this room, except change the light fixture. I may paint it but I can't decide. Right now i'm liking this color. 

This is that hallway on the other side of the dinning room I mentioned earlier. I love all the hooks and storage for shoes. The door on the left is a closet, and the door on the right is the garage. I forgot to take a picture of the garage, but right now it's a bunch of stuff everywhere. Once it warms up we are going to put some shelving up and actually organize it. I really love our garage though. I used to hear people talking about how nice it is to park in a garage, especially in the winter and I never understood. But now I do, it's so nice!

Here's the half bath downstairs. Love the bead board. I really want to paint it, thinking a light blue?

Here is the kitchen, probably my favorite room in the house. I love it!

It's so funny because the light over the table is very similar to the light I put up in our old house over the kitchen table. It came this way, but when I saw it I knew this was our new home, it's so me. 

Here is the family room, which is open to the kitchen. This room needs so much! My mom and I painted it Benjamin Moore's Revere Pewter, which is one of young house love's color. I absolutely love it, it's the perfect gray. I want to get a big sectional to go in here and obviously hang artwork, etc. 

This shot shows how it's open and how the room kinda swallows up our current sofa. Thinking this sofa will work well in the playroom though.

At the top of the stairs is the laundry room. I love having the laundry on the second floor, no hauling laundry baskets up and down the stairs. 

On the right side of the stairs is the playroom. It's open and big, which I love. I haven't done anything to it except put the toys there. I have so many fun ideas for this room, changing the lighting, artwork, organizing and making it a fun place for Chloe. 

To the left of the stairs is our room. I really wanna paint this room too, and it needs curtains.

Here is our bathroom:

And the other side of our bathroom, with my assistant again! 

Here is our walk in closet. And fyi that's my wedding dress in that huge pink bag, lots of people ask!

Here's the guest room. Haven't done anything in here except buy a new lamp since the other one broke in the move. I wanna paint this room too!!

Sorry for the weird shadows in this picture, I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. But this is the guest/ Chloe's bathroom. 

And probably my favorite room, okay another favorite, is Chloe's room. I reused everything from the old house except the color. I decided to go neutral with Benjamin Moore's Moonshine. It's very different from the pink but I think it goes better with the rest of the house and I love how calm it feels.

Can you tell I love this room, took too many pictures! A few more…

I'll end with her bright yellow closet. I had to have some color in there, it's actually the exact same yellow that was in her first closet back in Richmond. 

So there's our new house! I feel so blessed to live here, just to own our own home again is a blessing. It was a long road here, lots of searching and disappointment, and I don't forgot that. Everyday I thank God for this blessing!

I hope to post progress as it changes. Thanks for looking through all those pictures, I know there was a lot! 

Weekend Randoms

We've had such a great weekend. I must say Chloe has slept so well these past few nights. I don't know what it is, but last night she slept for 14 hours straight! I woke up at 8am and was a little scared, went in to check on her and she was just sleeping sucking on her paci. Couldn't believe it.

Saturday morning I officially started training for the Raleigh half in April. It was so great to see all my running buddies and run a familiar route again. 6 miles in the cold, but it didn't feel that cold. No wind or rain so it was all good. Ready to get back to consistently running!

My big project this weekend was hanging curtains up in the den, study and dinning room. I got curtains for the den from Ikea when I went with my mom about a month ago.

Not the best picture, but you can see they are gray. I wanted something pretty neutral.

Dinning room still has no furniture, but I love how the curtains look.

Same curtains and rods in the study. These curtains were actually table cloths from Target that my mom cut in half and hemmed. They were so much more affordable than "real" curtains at such a long length. 

Close up of the rods. I got the rods at the UFab outlet by my mom's house on sale, really love them. It's amazing how curtains make your house feel so much more cozy and homey. 

The weather was so nice today. Felt like Spring! We went for a nice long walk.

We've been watching the super bowl tonight. I tried to get a good picture of Chloe in her chair watching the game so I could compare to last year. It was a lot harder this year with an active toddler.

Hope you had a great weekend too!!

Bridal Shower Tea

I've been in Richmond these past days visiting family and friends. But the real reason for the visit was to celebrate my dear friend's upcoming wedding with a bridal shower tea. 

I had so much fun helping put this shower together. I love events like this, just celebrating happy moments in people's lives. 

I love any excuse to bring out my teapot and saucers! I will also add that the hardest part was probably hanging up those pom pom flowers in the picture below. Lets just say we got very creative with stacking high chairs, a clothes hanger and holding onto each other for balance!

It was such a fun day. Makes me even more excited for the actual wedding day, which will be here soon. :) 

Wekend Update

I've had such a busy and fun weekend, and it's been way too long since I've updated the blog so here we go…

I started out Saturday morning meeting some friends to run. It was way too cold, but I was so glad I went. I ran for Meg. A richmonder who was killed by a drunk driver last Saturday morning while out running. She was a mother, and it breaks my heart to think about what her family is going through right now. To think one day you are going for a training run, just like normal then your gone. This is what it said on the Facebook page and I loved it…. 

This Saturday, January 18, 2014, no matter what your distance, no matter where you live, run for Meg. Take in the fresh air, be aware of your surroundings, keep your headphones on low, feel the heaviness in your lungs, the soreness in your legs, and be grateful for it--for all of it. The sweat, the pain, the wind, the cold…everything. Be grateful for that moment.

I am grateful to be able to run. Grateful for a family to come home to. Just grateful. 

I got a haircut Saturday. It had been way too long since I last got it cut.She took about 5 inches off and it feels so good! Then one of my closest friends, Rebecca and her husband, Cori came for a visit. It was so great seeing them and catching up. I wish I had snapped some photos but totally forgot.

Sunday morning was huge for our church. We officially launched. Up until now it had been all planning and preparing for today. Me and Clarke served in the nursery, and it was busy, busy, busy. We were so thankful such a great turnout on the first day though. 289 is attendance and 8 gave their lives to Christ!

It was such a great weekend, went by too fast!

5 things

Well it's my first post of 2014!

 Not much has been going on around here but I thought I would update anyway. 

1. We've been settling into our new house. We've been here almost a month and I'm almost done unpacking. I've been opening up boxes that we packed up in June, so it's kinda like Christmas again. I totally forgot about lots of pictures that we owned so I am figuring out what to do with all of them. It's been so much fun to have a house to design again!

Chloe's favorite part of the new house is the washing machine. The door is right at her level and she LOVES to watch it. 

2. Driveway update: I'm not sure if you remember back in my Christmas post I mentioned a clogged toilet? Well it turns out that problem came from when the cable company accidentally cut our sewer pipe underneath our driveway. The plumbing company had to destroy our driveway to get to the pipe to fix it.

Luckily the builder took care of everything, especially the bill. But they had to resod our front lawn and power wash everything as well, but they were so nice about it.  Even though it was frustrating, I'm so thankful it's fixed now. 

3. Chloe got sick this past Sunday. She had a fever until today and a cough and runny nose. She is normally not the best sleeper but she really hasn't been sleeping well recently. I feel so bad for her.

We've been snuggling on the couch a lot. It's been sooo cold here. Today the high is 17! We are both getting cabin fever, but there's no way we are going out!

4. So I signed up for winter half training! I'm beyond excited. It's actually kinda funny because when I started training for the half I wasn't sure how I would like it. I was used to training for a marathon and after loving that so much I didn't know how the half would be, but I loved it. I still felt challenged and I loved the shorter training season. The running community here in Winston has been such a blessing in my life. I've made such good friends. The fall training program was such a step out of my comfort zone, but I grew not only as a runner but as a person as well. The race is in Raleigh and I'm excited for a race in my new home state.

5. The church that we've gotten involved in officially launches January 19th. We are apart of the launch team and up until now we've been preparing to officially launch. I'm excited about what it will become.

That's about all I have for now. Hope you are staying warm!