First of (Likely) Many...

Eowyn fell off the monkey bars at school yesterday and hit her eye on the way down. Thankfully, she didn't split it open and require stitches.






Day 2---a little deeper bruising and puffier




Still smiling though...and currently running around outside.

Easter

Easter was at our house this year. Saturday Adrian and the girls dyed eggs. Avril sang in the children's choir at church. After church, we got ready for dinner. It was really nice, especially since the house is generally clean for showing I really didn't have to do anything--ha! My mom and Ron and step-sister, Jodi, and her family came over. We had a yummy dinner and then the much anticipated Easter egg hunt. We all really enjoyed the day. My nieces spent the night with us. After all the excitement and sugar, they finally started to get tired and watched a movie before bed. I was very pleased that they were all asleep before 10. The next morning we had fun playing games and hanging around until we got a call--at 9am--to show the house--at 10am. So in addition to putting the house back together after 5 girls playing we also had to get dressed. But between the 7 of us we had it looking great and were out the door in 45 minutes. Go us!
p.s. Sorry about the weird placement of the pictures. If you double click them they will enlarge.










































































































And here's two bonus pictures. We have a LOT of pollen being surrounded by all the pine trees. It's crazy. Poor little pollen kitty.

Progress

This was our house when we moved in last summer. It hadn't been lived in for a while and I think the weeds support that statement. We have slowly worked on improving our status from "trashiest yard in the neighborhood" to "decent yard in the neighborhood". For the record, this neighborhood has a lot beautiful yards. The people take great pride in their homes. So it's been hard to wait for planting season to come. But the day (yesterday) finally arrived. The piece of paper up in the window was a sign mentioning the name of the landscaping company who was maintaining the yard.--yikes!



And the end result...







Thank you Dad and Jill for your wonderful Christmas gift of gift cards to the nursery. Adrian and Eowyn went on Friday after school and bought the flowers. We are loving such a thoughtful gift!



We also pulled all of the matted pine straw and weeds off of the small flower beds around the shed out back. Eowyn bought three packs of flower seeds with some of her gift card money so they planted those seeds. It's not as impressive a picture--just dirt, but you don't see weeds. Hopefully, we'll have pretty, colorful flowers soon.



These other few are from inside the house. It's amazing that we have worked for so long inside the house, and really, a stranger walking in would never know it. What they notice is that they don't notice anything, meaning comments like "Wow, there's a lot of work to do here." should not be uttered. Avril asked if we are living in Antarctica now that everything is SO white. She's got a point, but our desire is to make the house appealing to any buyer. The hallway is the most noticeable change. It was so dark with all the dark wood trim and doors, but now it is very, very bright.

I am really happy with how nice the house is looking. I don't know yet where we will be come this fall. If Adrian is able to get a job locally and we stay, then I will be happy with all our hard work that we've already finished and can keep making the house look nice...and put some color on the walls. If Adrian gets a job out of the area, then I hope the work will encourage someone to buy the house.

Valentine's Day

It's been a while, but I wanted to put on our pictures from Valentine's Day. Adrian scheduled a weekend of activities. On Saturday we all went to the Botanical Gardens. It was so lovely out that day and we had a wonderful time. Then we ate lunch at Golden Corral. The girls thought this was Heaven--especially when they saw the self-serve ice cream bar. Can you say 'sugar overload'? Sunday after church was Jammies Day and we snacked and hung out all day. It doesn't get much better than that. Then Monday night Adrian and I went out to dinner. It was wonderful. So without further ado...here are the pics.


Rascal joined us (from Eowyn's class) for the weekend.


Eowyn has a talent for walking into pictures that she's not
supposed to be in. This one, however, turned out fabulous.

A pink and blue kind of day.


Avril and Maia wanted a picture with Rascal on the eagle. Do
you see who's trying to sneak in?



Avril posed us like this and took the picture--hehe--but
it's a great picture.


I think Maia took this one. He's so handsome.