March 2013

March was a busy month with house showings and us going to look at more houses.  In January, we took a close look at our finances and decided that I was going to need to go back to work.  Even if we did not move to a bigger house, it was no longer possible for me to keep staying at home.  It was such a hard and sad decision for me but it needed to be done, so I started the application process for teaching positions in the fall.

Here are some fun shots of the kids from this month:

Silly sock day

 A silly picture in a new outfit from Nana:

 Nathan and the rest of my family ran the Little Rock Half Marathon again.  Nathan ran a personal best and won our family trophy!

 Mallory started trying some solid foods.  Here is the first try of egg yolk.  It was a hit:)

 Our family did Marleigh's Diabetes March again.  They did moustache face painting:)

 Mallory having some fun wearing Daddy's sunglasses.

 Mallory having fun at her 9 month appointment showing off her waving skills to Dr. Calloway:)

 Her 9 month picture.  We had to give up on the sitting down pictures by this point!

 A fun new Matilda Jane outfit for Spring.

 A chilly before school picture.  I sure love these cuties!

 In an effort to prepare her for daycare in the fall, Mallory started a 2 day a week MDO program.  Here she is on her first day.

 Madeline's hip-hop dance picture for this year:

 Resurrection Rolls on the Saturday before Easter.

 Easter baskets waiting on Easter morning:

 Happy Easter from 3 smiling kids (an Easter miracle)

We also had a nice staycation for Spring Break.  No luck selling our house at this point, but we kept hoping an offer would come soon!

February 2013

We started this month by putting our house on the market.  We had found a house we really liked but knew we had to sell first.  Here are some pictures of our house so that we can always remember:)
Living Room

 Dining Room

 Kitchen

 Playroom

 Will's Room

 Girl's Room

 Master Bedroom

 Front of House

 We lived in this house for a little over 7 years, the longest I have ever lived anywhere by far!  When we bought it, it was stuck in the 1960s and with a lot of hard work and a tight budget, we managed to make it more like us.  We brought home 2 babies to this home and Madeline was not even 2 when we moved in.  We have been so blessed to live here and have so many wonderful memories!
 On to the rest of February!

Valentine's Day

 Annual Campfire Father Daughter Dance:

 Silly Girls

 Mallory turned 8 months:)

Sorry to be so short!  I have a lot of updating to do:)

I can't believe it's been almost a year!

I'm sad that I've let the blog go untouched this long:(  After January, life got super busy with many, many life changes.  Now that I'm on Christmas break, I can finally try to catch up.  I'm probably just going to post a few pictures of each month and the major updates.  Lots has changed for our family and I want to document it for myself even if everyone else has given up on reading my blog:)

What we've been up to: January 2013

Okay, so I know I said I was going to try to take more pictures to blog with on my good camera that takes way better pictures than my really old and outdated 3G i phone, but this mama is pretty busy and just doing the best I can!  I am due for an upgrade in March, so maybe my frugal self will get really wild and get the cheapest i phone offered that is a step up from my 3G.  Then at least my pictures might be slightly better in quality as I run around doing a million things for my 3 kids while still trying to capture memories!

So, back to the purpose of this post:  We have had an interesting January.  We started casually looking around at houses right before Christmas.  The "casually" looking quickly turned into looking online at ezmls multiple times a day, uploading the realtor.com app on my phone to check when I can't get to my computer, talking to 2 different mortgage brokers, and looking at  every home in our town that is remotely close to our price range.  So, you know, it's no big deal or anything.

The kids have really been good about it all.  Here's Mallory all ready to head out, yet again, to see just a few fixer-uppers!

We have found a few we are interested in but haven't made any offers yet, so we'll see!  I get twitches when I think about getting our house ready to sell and keeping it "show ready" with three young kids, especially since the reason we are selling is because we are busting out the seams of our cute "starter" home:)  Being a one income family definitely rules out the whole 2 mortgage thing so we will have to sell while still living here, like I'm sure most people have to.  I'll do my best to keep you all posted but if you don't see many house hunting updates, just know I'm probably going crazy trying to find every Lego Will has scattered on the floor 5 minutes before someone comes to see our house!  If you live in my town and feel like you see me at Walmart or Sonic every time you go, just know that I'm probably killing time during showings.

So, back to the rest of our life!  We got Madeline and Mallory their first matching outfits for Christmas.  This was tough to find when your 8 year old refuses anything smocked!  Thanks to Matilda Jane, we found something.  I think they look so sweet!  I didn't plan to ever attempt to match them with an 8 year age difference, but Madeline thought it would be fun, and it was.

Mallory started rolling both ways right around this time, so nothing is safe!  She rolled all the way from her play mat in the background to be near Madeline, who was doing her homework on the floor.  She's eyeing Madeline's pencil here.  I wish I had captured a picture of her grabbing it while Madeline was trying to write!

Uncle John and Aunt Lindsey got Will this spin art set for Christmas.  He thought it was a lot of fun on a cold Sunday!

Will just celebrated the 100th day of school, which is a huge deal in kindergarten.  He had to bring a hat with 100 things on it.  We went with golf tees, which made for a very hazardous, but cool, hat!

Mallory turned 7 months on January 23!  I love how much bigger she looks here!  She has such a fun and happy personality.

She sits ups so well, loves to babble, rolls all over the place, and has turned into a stomach sleeper which scares this worrier mom to death!  I kept sneaking in to roll her back over but she would just go right back to her belly, so I gave up.  She is not crawling but it really trying too.  She hasn't figured out how to get up on her hands and knees at the same time.

We had an unnaturally warm day on Sunday.  We asked Will to go change out of his church clothes to go play outside, and this is what he came out in.  Not sure about his sense of style yet!  He has such a great sense of humor and loves to make funny faces for the camera.

Another busy but good month.  February here we come!

Family Photo Shoot

In October, my brothers and I gathered our families to have pictures made as a gift for our parents and grandparents.  It was not the best experience but we were able to get some good shots of everyone. Our family members loved their gifts, so it was worth all of the chaos:)  I tried hard to get these all in some kind of logical order but Blogger was making that very difficult, so bear with me!

Some fun pictures of the "big kid" cousins:

I love the look on Will's face here.  He could not seem to jump at the same time as the girls, but at least his hands are up:)  I'm impressed with Madeline's jump.  That girl has some 'ups!

Sweet individual pictures:

Love Madeline's eyes here.  Just so strikingly beautiful and the missing tooth makes it even more precious!

This picture of Will is my favorite of the whole session.  It just captures him perfectly and makes my heart melt!

Sweet little Mallory:

Robbie's little girl Emma with her beautiful brown eyes!

Love Lucy's little half smile, just so adorable!

Oh the fun of trying to get the whole group.  It seemed like there was always someone not looking:)

I think this was the one we went with for my grandparents:

Except for the phantom hand on Madeline's stomach, this was one of the very best pictures!  We had it blown up, cropped, and framed for my parents and they were blown away by the sweet faces!

The babies were so calm and cooperative:)

Mallory's face cracks me up in this group shot:

I'm not sure why photographers love the jumping shots so much but at least it gives us something to laugh at after the chaos of the photo shoot:) The three guys in the back are the best part!

Funny faces!

My favorite shot of our family.  I am so glad to have a new blog header!

Trying to get a shot of all the kiddos sitting up, but it was tough with 2 babies that couldn't sit up yet.

My three babies!  I wonder what Mallory is so focused on?

Our other family shot.  It's okay, but I like the other one better, less posed:)

We were exhausted and cold afterward.  I'm not sure we will do it again for awhile.  This is the first time we have ever had professional pictures done of our family, outside of church pictures.  I am enjoying the few pictures I like but am not sure it was worth the trouble or expense.  Maybe next time we can find a more reasonable photographer who is better at handling family shoots!