My Life

Hi guys!

We are here.

In Georgia, and 800 miles away from our home in Illinois in our new home.

We are still unpacking and working on getting settled, but I’m ready to get back to blogging. I didn’t intend to take such a long break, but this move ended up taking a whole lot more out of us than we thought. Our last week at home (in Illinois) was spent spending time with family & friends, and then after my dad left (you may remember he was visiting and staying at my house until about 3 days before we had to leave for Georgia), we had to kick things into high gear!

We started packing like crazy. And we never would have finished on time if it hadn’t been for family and friends taking turns watching the kids for us.

We purged a lot of stuff that didn’t fit into the truck. We made our neighbors and random people driving by very happy. Ruben put some of the things that didn’t fit into the moving truck by the curb with a huge sign that read, “FREE.” It went fast.

We gave away our groceries to my brother, who was more than happy to take them off of our hands….hungry college student, you know. Thank you, Jason!

We met with the landlord. We handed over the keys.

We said final goodbyes. We left later than we expected to….the packing and loading at the very end felt like it would never end. We started dumping stuff in garbage bags and shoving it in where we could.

Not kidding.

We drove around 18 hours including stops. We spent the night in two hotel rooms.

We closed on the house on Friday morning, April 20th.

We bought a house!

We are homeowners!

Praise the Lord!

We are unpacking…..ever so slowly. Who knew unpacking would take so long with a 3yr. old that never seems to stop and a 4-month-old baby girl? We’ve moved so many times in our marriage, and for some reason I looked backward and thought this move would be like the rest…..not thinking that we are moving – this time around – with more children, more stuff, and less time to transfer things between one house and the next.

Oh well. We are reassuring ourselves that things WILL get unpacked. We will be able to walk through the garage one day or, better yet, fit our car in there.

And we will get settled.

This is home. Georgia.

And here are some pictures of our new home!

 

 

All in all, though, we love our new home. 🙂

 

I’m not a very crafty mom. I don’t know how to knit, crochet, or use a sewing machine. But that doesn’t stop me from carving out time to make crafts with my craft-loving daughter, Breanna.

Only, we almost always use pre-made kits. Almost everything is included in the kits that we use except for maybe scissors and glue sticks.

I do try to be careful to read the instructions, so that whatever we are making looks almost 100% like it’s supposed to. My girl appreciates this.

So even if I don’t have amazing craft skills, and I’m no Martha Stewart, I try for Breanna.

Are you crafty? Do you have any fun and easy crafts that you can recommend (emphasis on easy :-))?

P.S. My mom has been kind enough to sign Breanna up and take her to sewing classes at our local JoAnn Fabric craft store. Pretty nice of Grandma! There she is learning how to use a sewing machine, and so far she has created a really nice pillow case and a purse. So when we get a sewing machine sometime in the future, Breanna can teach me how to use it.

For the record, I can hand sew. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. 🙂

A few months ago, I applied to host a Huggies Pull-Ups Potty Party. I could hardly believe it when I received the email that I had been chosen as one of the moms to host a party!

Part of the reason I was chosen was because I have my own little potty-trainer right now. His name is David.

David loved the little blow-up plastic guitar that came in each guest package provided by Pull-Ups. He liked playing with his guitar while listening to the Pull-Ups potty dance song, which we played over and over and over during the party. I’m singing the words in my mind now…..Do THE…..Potty Dance!

The Pull-Ups people kindly provided me with a coupon for a free bag of Pull-Ups for hosting the party. Pretty neat.

All in all, a fun time was had by all.

For food, we had orange chicken from Trader Joes (this is better than take-out chinese food), the best frozen pizza ever from Whole Foods, cheese & crackers, olives, Annie’s Mac n’ Cheese, and homemade chocolate chip cookies. I think I served corn, too.

We played one game, and I gave out Starbucks gift cards to the first and second prize winners.

It was a fun afternoon, and I’m thankful to Pull-Ups for choosing me to host a party. 🙂

Other than putting together a quick list of what I wanted to serve at the party and preparing it all, Pull-Ups made the rest of the preparation very easy. The Facebook page set up for the party was very helpful with its printables and ideas for the party.

If you are interested in applying to host parties for a wide variety of different products, be sure to visit the House Party website!

P.S. I still have potty packs leftover, so if anyone local would like one, just let me know. They come with a toy guitar, stickers, coupons, a dance mat, DVD, a milestone chart, and two door hangers.

Hi guys,

I just wanted to post a quick update to let you know that I’ll be back to blogging soon. I’ve been out of town (actually out of state) in Georgia! Because I’ve been away and this trip was pretty much planned on the fly, I feel behind on EVERYTHING. 🙂

I know I’ll get caught up soon. I just wanted to post an update for everyone. And for those who have emailed me, I will be returning those emails soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures we took on our trip. One big highlight was seeing GREEN grass this time of year! The weather in Georgia is much different than the weather here in Illinois, for sure!

Beautiful Georgia flower.

Green grass!

My dinosaur lover, Isaac, would love to visit this place one day.

We planned to stop in Scottsburg, Indiana on our way to Georgia on our first night on the road. We had no idea that Scottsburg, IN was so close to the town that was devastated by tornados the day before we left on our trip. We took pictures from the highway as we passed Henryville, IN. Truly devastating.

The military was there to help those affected by the tornado. We saw lots of military vehicles.

Indiana windmills.

It was a long car ride – about 13 hours plus plenty of stops.

At our hotel in Georgia. We had to stay in a suite to fit our crew of seven.

We LOVED the beautiful Georgia weather!

I’m planning on sharing more about our trip soon and the reason why we were there. 🙂