Moving Day is Approaching!

The big day is coming this Friday when we will move in our "new to us" home. I cannot begin to tell you how excited and fortunate we consider ourselves to move into such a great neighborhood and house with SPACE! Since Landry was born in Dec. of 07, we have literally been so cramped and continued to downsize from our house in Benton to my parent's house in Ruston, then to a 1086 sq foot home for 10 months. So this 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2200 sq ft house is the Taj Mahal as far as I am concerned! I think this makes us appreciate our new home all the more as we prepare to move. Mind you there is A LOT of work to do between now and then, but it's coming together. The pics below are of the new kitchen cabinets. I am not crazy of the color as I thought there was going to be a darker glaze, but instead it is a clear glaze....but the granite counter tops and back splash, along with the pulls and knobs on the cabinets will hopefully pull my attention off of the color. Also, I am now realizing just how dirty the brick pavers are, so tomorrow I am scrubbing them with acid and then we are going to reseal them.....yes, I talked to Cissy before I committed to this! The pics are from my phone so they aren't great but you get the idea. All of the rooms are finished with the exception of the master. It will get one more coat of paint next Saturday. The carpets will be shampooed this week and hopefully the counter tops as well. Back splash will more than likely be done next week but that is no biggy. I am tired.......enjoy!

Cabinets minus one door, a fridge, dishwasher, stove, and microwave....oh, and crown molding and pulls and knobs

Another view
Pantry and china cabinet minus several things: bottom doors on china cabinet and another set of doors on the far end....of course we will put glass in the doors if you had any doubt. The pantry was added and it has an odd angle but at least we now have one.

Playing with daddy at Aunt Lou's house today.

And last but not least is Landry's new ride. She has been desperately trying to ride Jake's tractor and he goes for her throat every time she goes near it. My ears would ring from the sound they made screaming at each other, sooooooo I told Jake I was going to get HER a tractor and he said NO, she needs a TINKERBELL. Well, it just so happened they had a Tinkerbell 4 wheeler. Perfect! So here she is with her new toy. Now if only she could work it without momma pushing the button. Oh well!

New pics to come. Have a great week!

Before Pictures of the House

Thought I would give those of you interested a mini tour of our house! These pictures were taken several weeks ago before the cabinets in the kitchen and built-ins in the living room were torn down. We are making process but painting the whole house (ourselves!!) and it just takes time. We have to be OUT of our house(it's no longer ours but we are renting it currently) by August 1, so the countdown is on. I'll try to explain as I go:

The kitchen cabinets and china cabinet to the left in this picture are no longer. They are all being custom built along with granite countertops and tumbled marble backsplash. The island in the bottom of this picture is no longer and we are having a built-in buffet made to the immediate left of this pic

Better view of the kitchen and you can see how dated the house is. The previous owners replaced all the flooring in the house and we love their choices, but more updating is needed. We are also having to put new lighting in both the kitchen and living room.
Love the formal dining room. Only thing we are painting in here is the crown molding(is the bottom part called crown molding? Excuse my ignorance!)

The built-ins in the living room....totally torn out and we are replacing them. Also painting the room a deep khaki color and painting the crown, baseboards and CHAIR RAIL a shade of white: makes a HUGE difference! Matt finished this room and the kitchen last weekend.

Landry Grace's room. Will be a light pink and the chair rail will be painted white...don't you love the plantation shutters??? Each room has 2 closets and that is SO nice!Jake's room...will be painted a mocha color with the chair rail painted white along with the trim, closet doors, etc.

Front living room...to be painted the same color as the formal dining room which is directly across from it.
Alternate view of the kitchen....can't begin to tell you the difference the paint has made! Took down the window treatments and will replace them AS SOON AS MATT TELLS ME I CAN(hint hint honey:)). The built-in buffet will be to the far right.

Hope you enjoyed this! I didn't post pics of the master bedroom or Matt's office. Nor did I post a good shot of the main living room. We are also replacing both sets of french doors in that room. Hopefully it'll turn out NICE;)!!

Beach Bums

Well, we've done nothing around here lately but hit the beach and the pool. Landry Grace LOVES the ocean and Jake has yet to step foot in it.....that's typical! She had a great time out there today and actually wanted to get out of my arms while I had her out there in the water. I did let her walk along the shore:). Jake will come to the beach for a little while and then tell me it's time to go to the pool . But we are having so much fun. Sorry the pictures are just about the same: me and the kiddos or a little variation of that. Enjoy the pics!
Jake let me bury him today in the sand!

Landry LOVING the waves!

Again....looks like she is trying to get away!

Matt's cousin Jenny is here with her twins Kyleigh and Kaleb and her mom...we met up with them a couple of times.

Trying to get 4.5 year old twins and my 2 to pose for a picture wasn't easy....but we got them all in a single shot so that's success.

My niece Abigail loves to sing so she did karaoke last night to Kelly Clarkson's song "A Moment Like This"......LGT cried the whole time because she couldn't run to ABBY!

Me and my sister Laura...she is 4.5 years older than me for those of you who don't know her. She lives in Atlanta with her son Cameron.

This was from the other day in the kiddie pool. Love this area! It is a great place for toddlers!!!

Taking a break from the sand and sun for a snack.

Saved the BEST for last....mom brought this car for LGT to ride in and it has been the lifesaver of the trip! Well, Tuesday morning she woke up at 6:05 and was in full force until about 12:30. We loaded up and headed back to the condo and fell asleep in her car.....priceless:)

Coming home Saturday morning. Then back to getting the house ready to move in by August 1. So excited about that!

Update from Florida

These pictures are a little out of order but I don't feel like changing them! We are having a great time at the beach so far and the kiddos have adjusted great! The trip down wasn't too bad although I had my niece and nephew with me to help out with the babies. We left around 5:45 yesterday and made it to Ft. Walton by 1:30. The place we are staying at is GREAT. It has a kiddie area where the water is no deeper than a foot and has stationary play toys....wonderful! I can sit and let the kids entertain themselves. Yes, we have made it to the beach but it was overcast and a little chilly in the water today so we spent most of the time at the pool. Tonight we had beach pictures taken in Destin and hope that the photographer got some good shots. Last year we tried taking our own pics and it didn't go over well. So mom hired someone this year and my parents wanted to get a picture of them and all the grand kids. Matt couldn't make the trip due to fact we just got back from another vacation, so I hated that we couldn't take a family picture. Other than that, we are just kicking back and enjoying the vacation. Here are some pics:
Abby and Jake goofing off

Got ready and all to take this one quick pic!

Not real sure about the sand and DID NOT want to be put down!! :(

Thought this was a sweet shot!

Being silly!

How many people does it take to make my babies SMILE!!! We'll see...........

Landry was FREEEZING all day and finally I put her in the hot tub for a few minutes and she really warmed up!

2 of the pools at Waterscape are zero entry and the kids really are having a blast!

She LOVED the ocean yesterday but it was overcast this morning and she was just a little too cold. Maybe tomorrow!

Holding my sweet little girl!

Maybe I'll post more later. Mom's computer uploads pictures a whole lot faster than Matt's, making this blog post go very fast. I like it:)

Mall carousel

We had lunch with Matt today in Mer Rouge and stopped by the mall on the way home. Landry Grace loved riding the carousel as did her big brother!

Sent from my iPhone

Busy Bees!

So I have tried for the past 2 nights to download pictures and have been unsuccessful. Tonight I just bit the bullet and downloaded the pics 2 at a time....will never do this again! And will also warn you that I posted too many but hopefully you will enjoy them anyway:). I didn't realize that we have really been on the go since coming home from vacation last week. I will just go through the pictures and explain as I go:

Went with some of mom's running buddies to Dubach to an alligator farm. Not a public farm, but Mr. James uses these alligators to feed his dead chickens to. He had over 200 of them(He works for Pilgrim's Pride)!

And yes I was the only stupid one to go into the pit to take a picture while the rest of the group looked on. Mr. James told me to run up the hill if the alligator came out of the water. Not sure that would have helped but luckily "Cadillac" never did.


The smart onlookers............;)

Saturday started out early with a BLAZING HOT 5K!. My sweet running partner Kennedy Coates was running the Peach fest 5K and therefore I told her I would run as well. Sarah was helping organize the race and therefore didn't run. We finished together in first place and glad it was over.

After the race we raced over to the parade and tried to catch some shade! Here is the group(minus me and Matt!) watching as the parade started. The Lees' invited us to join them and we had a good time watching the kids try to figure out what to do with all this "stuff".
Landry had 3 pieces of candy in her hand the whole time and refused to put any in a bag....so I collected a few things for her so that she would have a bag to take home.
And Landry did pretty good at the diaper derby. She was supposed to go through this hoop. Well, she came close to the hoop, looked at it, then decided to walk off the mat and around the hoop...then came straight to me. I figured that was wonderful problem solving:)!!!!


And here she is staking out all the goods mama scraped up for her at the parade....this was the next day and she wouldn't even look at me she was so into her candy.


And our last event of the Peach Fest was to go and ride the ponies. So Sunday afternoon I took the kids and Jake actually rode one.

And just for some of those who wonder what my children do while I get ready....they SCREAM at my feet for me to pick them up:(. Really, this picture did not capture the anguish on their faces. I have to remind myself at times like this that it could be worse. Really?
We went to Chuck E Cheese yesterday with FBC and had a good time after the getting ready part:). Here is Jake with his buddy Landon Hall.

My niece Abby is in from Atlanta and has been a tremendous help to me this week. The kids love her and I love having a helping hand! I told her she cannot go back:). My nephew Nicholas is in town as well and they will be going to the beach with us on Sunday.
Late this afternoon we had a last minute play date at Temple. The kids had a blast playing with Katie! She was throwing these tennis balls in the air and the kids were having the best time running around and catching them.

The kids caught wind of an aerobics class on the other side of the partition in the gym. They were for some reason mesmerized by this and thought it was a cute picture!
And last, I had to post a picture of one of our youngest members of our "play group" : Kennedy Hall. Isn't she precious!

Well, I am tired and have a full day tomorrow as well. We are headed to the Children's Museum in Monroe tomorrow with some friends. Tomorrow also marks the start of our new home renovations. I am going over early in the morning to take some 'before' pictures. Can't wait. For now I am off to bed so that I can meet my running buddies at 5:30am...............UGH!:)

Day 3 and 4 of Disney

I am tired from a long day with the babies, so I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking. Saturday we went to MGM or now Hollywood Studios. It was OK but there wasn't a lot that little kids can do. We did breakfast at the PlaynDine at Hollywood and Vine and it was our least favorite. Don't recommend it to anyone. The characters were OK but hardly anyone was there. The rest of the day was fine and we ended up staying until 2pm. Jake took a 3 hour nap that afternoon because he was just worn out! The rest of the day we stayed at the resort and played in the pool.

Sunday was GREAT and I HIGHLY recommend breakfast at Chef Mickey's. I knew it was a popular one, but thought only Mickey was going to be there. Yet Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto were there as well. We will do that one again...loved it! Landry cracked us up as she would wave and laugh at the characters as long as they kept their distance. But as soon as they walked into our little room, she would literally try to climb out of the high chair in fear. It was funny but sad at the same time. We left that breakfast and spent the rest of the day at Magic Kingdom. We stayed until 3:30 that day to watch the afternoon parade. It was absolutely SCORCHING, but the parade was great and I was glad we did it.

Overall it was a wonderful trip! The kids were young but Jake actually caught on to so much more than I thought he would. So thankful that my mother-in-law was gracious enough to take all of us there. Yes, the weather was H-O-T but we survived it! We probably won't go again until they are 5 and 6 and we are thinking the week after Thanksgiving will be good. So that is it. Been there and done that with the kids. Loved it but glad to be back home. Currently we are having doors made for our kitchen cabinets and redoing the counter tops and back splash in our new home. Hopefully we will be in within a month.

This weekend will be busy with the Peach Fest. I am doing the 5K at 8, parade at 9, and Landry will be doing the Diaper Derby at 11. May opt out of the 5K...we'll see. Bye for now.