Lately....

The weeks leading up to Spring Break were very busy!

 

 The weekend before Spring Break Sophie was the Lightning Bolt in her ballet's Aesop's Fables. 

 Mom, Dad, Lindsey, Brian, and Carter came to watch her and we got to spend some time with this guy.

 He is on the move!

 

 The next week was the kids' big TRIYS presentations.  Sophie's group made it to the finals. Their project was on Light Pollution.

 JC's group did Xeriscaping. They didn't make it as far, but he was content with his bronze medal.  He had a good experience for his first year.

In the end the girls had to settle for silver medals, but they did great.

 

Coming off a weekend of ballet performances and company and then a week of practicing and presenting for TRIYS ( I had 4 groups in my own class) we were all worn out and ready for Spring Break!

House Progress: Sophie's Room

 We finally finished Sophie's room! 

 This was her room when we bought the house.

Over Christmas break we let Sophie help paint her walls.

Months later...here it is!  Sophie loves it.   When we moved her back in she said, "This is one of the happiest days of my life!"

I'm happy with how the ceiling turned out, even without texturing it.

 

And Taylor did an amazing job on the floor!  He's getting better and better!

 

Next up...Spring Break work week.  We've got some big projects planned.

Rodeo Weekend!

 Hoe Down Day at school!

 4th grade musical

 Sophie's hoe down

 JC at his rodeo

 JC's hoe down

 That afternoon we took the kids to the actual fair and rodeo

 Rodeo Time!!!

House Progress: Guest Room

    When we bought our new home we were excited to find something with the size and price we wanted and just a few "cosmetic" changes we wanted to make.  We moved in right after Christmas.  It was a whirlwind with the holidays and making a trip to Mississippi to see my grandfather.  Then I got the flu and it took forever for me to feel like myself again.  About the time I got better, Taylor left for 2 weeks in Israel.  It was maddening not to have started on any of the changes we wanted to make.  Taylor got home and was jet lagged and it took about a week for him to feel like himself again.  Suddenly we find that it is February and we have done nothing to the house except unsuccessfully try to scrape wallpaper in the bathroom.
     Taylor finally had time to get started on tiling the guest room.  He decided to start back there on the room that will be used least in order to practice.  It was a slow process with many trips to Lowe's, but after a nice snow day that kept us home one day this week and a full weekend to work, we finally finished the guest room.  Well, kind of.  I still need to scrape the popcorn ceilings and paint them, but will hopefully get that done next weekend.

This is what the guest room looked like when we first looked at the house:

We painted the walls, pulled up the carpet, put down tile, and added new baseboards.  This is the finished product:

 

      I am so ready to get furniture in here and decorate and have a room totally finished, BUT we don't have furniture for this room yet!

Meanwhile, this is what the rest of our house looks like:

 

 We have a huge dresser in the hall.

 When you walk into our home you are greeted by boxes of tile with things from Sophie's room piled on top.

 Sophie's headboard and doors are in the hallway.  Her mattresses are in the den.

The kids have been great at being flexible and sharing a room for a while.  We even got Sophie to paint baseboards today!

 

 

We have Sophie's room all cleaned out and ready for tile. We are hoping it will go faster now that we have everything we need and know what we're doing.   I already scraped and pained the ceiling and since we DO have furntiure for her room we will hopefully have a room TOTALLY finished next weekend.  Stay tuned!

Valentines 2014

 We started our Valentine week on Monday with the annual Daddy/Daughter Date Night.  She loves this night with her Daddy.

 Sophie and Taylor went out to eat at Olive Garden and then to the dance.  There is a Mother/Son dance, but thankfully JC isn't interested.  Instead, we went to see the Lego Movie and had popcorn and nachos for dinner.

 John Curtis was VERY specific about the kind of Valentine box he wanted to make.  I was out of town so Taylor helped him make his Macaroni Penguin box.

 Due to my years as a stay at home mom, my kids think their Valentines have to be made.  The fact that Mom is working full time while also remodeling a home does not change their minds about this.

Thankfully they are old enough to make them themselves so what you see is what you get (friendship spelled wrong and all).

January Visits

In January Taylor traveled to Israel for 2 weeks.  We had lots of visitors while he was gone.

 During the first week Lindsey and Carter came and stayed with us for a few days.

 We're a little crazy about this little boy!

 

My Mimi came to spend the 2nd week with us and the following weekend we took her down to Granbury Lake.

 The kids had a blast playing on the beach.

 They even ventured out into the freezing water.  The lake is so low they were able to walk halfway across it!

 Aunt Edie came on Saturday to hang out.  The kids love their fun great aunt.

 It was a great week with Mimi.

Thankful for her!