* Moving In

Nolan’s Room in the new house! It was the first one completely finished!

* Our New House

After closing on our house in January we took a few weeks to tackle the enormous inspection list before moving in. All new siding and exterior paint, 36 new windows, new carpet upstairs and down, refinishing the hardwood floors, and many many gallons of paint later, we started slowly moving things over and decorating. We let Carter choose how his room would be decorated so he felt excited about switching houses and he we went with a Super Mario Brothers/ Skylanders/ Super Hero theme. We painted the walls gray so it will grow with him for years to come and added removable decals for decoration. Nolan’s nursery, the guest room, and our master bedroom stayed exactly the same as in the old house. Why mess with what works? We put a hodge podge of furniture in the living room, set up with dining room with my mother in law’s dining set that she had given us years ago, and put all the toys in the basement. It was amazing how quickly we were able to fill the spaces!

Our very first weekend in the house our friend Jack was in the attic changing a filter for us and fell through {writing this post almost eight months later it still has only been patched}. All I could do was laugh. I heard him falling as I was standing at the front door and before you knew it his leg popped out. Thank goodness he was wearing jeans as he got pretty banged up. Lesson learned early with an older house…there is always something to fix! We also had to replace all five toilets in the house and get the entire air system scrubbed. Before long it was feeling (and smelling) like a new house!

* Busy February Days

* Orlando Science Center

* Cousins at Sea World

* Winter in Orlando

The boys and I spent a long weekend in Orlando with Kris & Nathan!

* Valentine’s with Spencer

For the fourth year in a row our littles buddies were able to spend Valentine’s together! It has been so incredible to watch them grow up side by side and even though our schedules are so different and we don’t get to see Shari and Spencer as often, I hope we will always make time for this yearly tradition!

* More Snow!

Thankfully this time Atlanta was prepared  

The snow only lasted a day this time! By the next morning all was melted.

We had “snow”nuts for breakfast and hunkered down inside.

* Valentine’s Crafts

Carter had to decorate a mailbox to bring into school for his Valentine’s. We spray painted a shoe box and he painted it with pink, yellow, red, and white. We also spray painted and decorated juice boxes {love potion #9} for his class treat!

* Empire State Building

On day two of our NYC trip, the sisters went to the Empire State Building. You cannot imagine the views from the top! Wow! It was SO cold and SO windy but the sight was breathtaking. I was blown away that this building was built by hand and without any of the modern technology used to create sky scrapers today. How scary that must have been for the laborers up on scaffolding way above the New York City skyline!

* Sisters Go to NYC

For Christmas, my dad surprised the daughters with a trip to New York City!!!

The first day was jam packed! We visited the Natural History Museum, ate at Bobby Flay’s restaurant, saw Jersey Boys on Broadway, walked to Radio City Music Hall and rode the subway. Not to mention ate lots of yummy food—including a late night piece of authentic cheesecake!