Hallie is TWO!!!

Our sweet little strawberry-blond nugget is TWO! We're looking forward to celebrating with family and friends once we move into our new house, but here's how we celebrated so far...

Grandma & Grandpa Scearcy gave Hallie an early gift before they left out of town.  It was a basket full of plastic fruits and veggies that she could cut apart.  I love Hallie's expression every time she "cut" the fruit and veggies.

Friday night we went to the fish fry with some of our friends and Hallie and her good friend Rose had a fun time getting their faces painted and got cool balloon animals.

Saturday we went to Build-a-Bear with Aunt Carla, Clete and Kate.  Each of the kids picked out a bear and got to "build" it.  So fun!

Sunday morning (Hallie's actual birthday), she was greeted over breakfast by a birthday video text from her good friend Rose.  What a sweetheart!

Then Daddy brought Hal a special donut and I Mommy made her bacon (her fav) for breakfast.

Then she opened up her gift from Daddy.  It was a velcro ball/paddle set that would help her learn to throw and catch.  Hal and Daddy had a blast playing with it.  Lilly had to get in on the action too :)

 

Mommy got Hal a set of Cars 2 fischer price wheelies to use on her car tower.  These were a hit!  I love hearing her say "Mater!" and "Lightning McQueen!" with excitement.  She's still working on "Finn McMissile" and "Francesco Bernoulli" ;).

After nap time, we headed to dinner at Red Robin and told Hal we were going to see the new Muppets movie afterwards.  She's been talking about the Muppets for a while now.

We ended the day with a little cake I made and a few more presents at home.  Hal got so excited for the cake she didn't even wait for a fork ;)

One last present before bed!

She has changed SO MUCH since she turned one!

Mommy and Daddy love you SO MUCH Hallie Joy! xoxo

new YEAR...new HOUSE!

Hello all!  Or rather, hello Mom! (since she may be the only one reading this).  We're already 2+ months into 2014 and I have yet to blog.  We have had a lot of life type stuff going on behind the scenes and blogging has not been super important.  But, spring is coming and I am excited to get back to blogging, being outside, designing/decorating, photography etc.  As previously blogged about, we sold our house last fall and moved out in November to an apartment.  We wanted to take a breath, decide our next move and allow Cory time to heal from his third major back surgery.   We had bought a lot in a newer neighborhood in Bennington and were pretty sure that we wanted to start building there as soon as the weather got nice and Cory healed up.  But after we got our plans back from the architect, did all of the hard costs and thought it through, we realized that wasn't the best move for us right now for a few reasons: 1) Cory needs a chance to really heal and working full time and building a house on the side is not going to allow that to happen.  When he builds a house for our family (this would have been his 4th time doing so), he does almost EVERYTHING.  Basically, besides plumbing, electrical and HVAC Cory is the one doing the work.  That is a huge time and energy commitment and not one that either of us thinks is wise for Cory to undertake right now 2) The main reason we sold our previous house is because after doing Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover through our old church, we were really convicted about being debt free and for us that includes NO MORTGAGE.  So, we wanted to downsize and build/buy something that would allow us to have no mortgage.  After doing our hard cost sheet for the new house we were considering building, it was clear that we would have to do a little financing.  Even though it would be a small amout, we really didn't want to go down that slippery slope 3) We were ready for something different! Cory has built us three houses in a row and they have been great, but he was ready for a different challenge...SO, those three main reasons led us to decide that we should (drumroll please) FLIP A HOUSE!  As soon as we committed to that path, we were on the hunt for a great deal.  We wanted something that wasn't completed destroyed, but was in rough enough shape that we could give it some TLC and then turn around and sell it for a good profit in a few years.  We found a few options, but settled on a split-level HUD foreclosure with huge mature shade trees (a must-have for Cory).  We put in a bid and were happily surprised when we found out we got it!  We closed on it at the beginning of February and since then Cory has been spending some time on the weekends fixing plumbing and doing demolition and now we're starting to get to the fun parts: picking out tile, counter tops, paint, draperies, etc.  I look forward to blogging about the fun remodel and we hope to be moving in some time in April :) 
   
Here's to our next adventure...THE JENSEN FLIP HOUSE!