Thursday, July 18, 2013

Rosemary Beach 2013 Part 2

 




GA was actually running a fever on this night and wasn't quite in the mood for pictures.  We have been to the beach 3 times in the last two years and every time the girls get sick!  Thank goodness this time it was just a 48 hour fever virus for each of them with no other symptoms.  We just took Advil and kept going! 









Will was being silly trying to get GA to laugh!

She just copied him!

Last day at the beach!  So Sad!


Both girls loved the water and the sand this year!


Aunt Liz, Aunt Kim, GA and I all have the same flip flops!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Rosemary Beach 2013 Part 1

Last week, the girls, Aunt Liz, Aunt Kim and I enjoyed a perfect week at Rosemary Beach.  Will came for several nights too!  Aunt Liz rented a beautiful house, the weather was perfect, and the company was fabulous!  GA told me several times that she wanted to live there forever! I only wish the week had lasted longer!  Aunt Liz gives me a run for my money on how many pictures she takes, so combined we have a TON! I picked my favorites and will split them into two posts!






The girls favorite part was getting to take showers outside by the pool! 

Lizzie loves to look at the pictures I take!






10th Anniversary!!!

Love these ladies!




 
 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

A few from Thomas family reunion day!

I didn't do a good job of taking pictures at the reunion this year, but here are a few of the girls before we left and of the very old swing at reunion house!
 






Our cute cousin Anna Kate
 

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Lightning Bugs and July 4th

At Tripp and Hilton's birthday party, the girls received bug boxes for favors.  GA was super excited about catching lightning bugs!

 
 Lizzie lost interest in the bugs quickly and turned her attention to the play set.  The play set was here when we moved in, and Will spent the entire afternoon of Father's Day painting it like new.  We are amazed at Lizzie's skills on the rings.  She is SO strong and can hang with her legs up forever!

 
 
 Our July 4th was pretty low key since most of our planned activities were rained out.  These pictures were actually taken on the night of the 3rd when we went to HCC for dinner and swimming. We left just before the fireworks, because GA is terrified of them and made us promise we wouldn't stay. 



The girls love for us to blow bubbles.  I highly recommend the extra large bubble wands at Target!  They blow huge bubbles and they work really well (much better than the $1 ones)!

GA, Lizzie, and Bayla swimming!  Lizzie hangs at the pool very well with the big girls!

Sweet Girl!
Happy Birthday, America!

Monday, July 1, 2013

The Move - a post to remember the good, the bad, and the ugly!

We are finally reaching a point when I can reflect on the last few months and think "we have survived the move!"  I wanted to write a blog post about it just so we can look back many years from now and remember how it all happened.  This may be boring for many of  you - sorry!

Last year, I began telling Will that we should move.  I had three main reasons.  1) We needed more space. 2) We wanted to be settled into a school system before GA starts kindergarten. 3) We wanted a more central location so I can spend less time in the car! Will was not excited about moving at all but knew it made sense. We were very specific in the location we wanted and had it narrowed to about a 3 mile radius. Everything happened really quickly:
- In January, we met with realtor and began preparing our house to sell
- In March, we put the house on the market. This was the most MISERABLE 9 days.  I should not complain because I know many people would love to sell their home this quickly, but we were having showings all the time and sometimes until 8 at night.  Keeping everything clean with two small kids and a dog and having to leave the house by 7 every morning with everything perfect was so hard.  Sometimes we would only get 30 minutes notice of a showing.  Also, because the house was showing so much, I started to get really nervous that we would sell it without finding a new house.
-After 9 days, we had a contract that was too good to be true.  They would close at the end of April and then rent back to us until the end of June, giving us time to find another house and move our things. After their inspection, they backed out of the contract for no specific reason.
- Two days later, we had two more offers and another contract, but we had to be out in 4 weeks! And we would have 3 days to move.  Thank goodness the house we had liked best so far was vacant!
- We put a contract on the new house but had many things come up in the inspection without any agreement from the sellers to help fix anything. We were so frustrated, especially since we were fixing a long list of things on our old house.  It was two weeks before moving day when we finally came to an agreement.  I was thrilled that we would not have to move twice.  All month, we packed and packed and packed.  I would work all day, take care of kids until bedtime, grade papers, and then pack as long as I could stay awake.   Finally, we moved!
- The second night in the new house, the basement flooded due to a blockage in the main line. Will sucked water with a Shop-Vac all night long!   A week later, we noticed a stain on the ceiling downstairs resulting from a leak in the girls bathroom.  The plumbers had to put large holes in two  (newly painted) walls to fix it  The entire first month we lived here was pretty much a blur.  We had so many projects going on, the biggest being new floors on the entire main level.  I was trying to finish the school year, we were living out of boxes, and for the most part living in the girls rooms since they were the only rooms finished.  It was miserable.  We were averaging two to three different workers here at all times completing projects and repairs, most of which we didn't expect.
- Finally, school was out and I could get some things done.  We are starting to get settled, and I really love our new home.  We have so much privacy and space here, but we are still very conveniently located.  We have very nice neighbors that have made us feel very welcome. We live much closer to our church, GAs school, and my school and are in my first choice school system for the girls.  I'm glad we are liking it, because we don't want to move again any time soon!  We still have a TON of projects that we want to do, especially in the yard which is COMPLETE MESS, but we are making progress.

I am so glad that we moved, and so glad it is over!  Our old home will always have special memories, especially of bringing home our two baby girls.  We will miss the beautiful yard that Will had worked on for years. But I am much happier here with less clutter and more peace and quiet.  The whole experience made me so thankful for my husband.  Through all of this, he remained so calm while I was so stressed.  I am amazed at how much he has accomplished around here in such a short time.  He is such a hard-worker and so good at coordinating things that need to be done.  I am so blessed to have him in charge around here!

We finally got a new sidewalk today after the old one was destroyed with the plumbing problems!




Sunday, June 30, 2013

Back to the Splashpad and Waterslide Party

We made another trip to the splashpad with the Stockard family.  We also went to an adorable birthday party for Tripp and Hilton.  (These were two different days, but the girls just happened to have on the same swimsuits).  Grace Ann loved the big waterslide and Lizzie loved the baby pool slide!
 
Lexi and GA at the splashpad

 
GA, Emilyn, and Harris having so much fun at Tripp and Hilton's party!

Lizzie has freakishly long eyelashes!  I'm jealous!

Will hanging with some sweet kiddos!
 
 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013