Sweet Caroline

Another weekend come and gone…and here we are at the end of January 2017, goodness!  We’ve been having lots of warmer than normal days lately, which has allowed lots of outside playtime, the kids love it and so do I!  Of course, we bundle them up and let them outside when it’s cold too…that’s where they prefer to be.  We hosted my parents and my brother and his son  on Friday night for dinner  (my SIL and niece were out of town)…  the kids tore the house apart but sure had fun doing it.  It’s always nice to have a low key family get together.  Saturday was spent playing, running errands, birthday party-ing, and house working.  We went to a friend’s house  Saturday night  to hang out and let the kids make their own pizzas for dinner, a cute little idea and they loved it.  On Sunday, my mom and I took my kids, my nephew and a friend to Edventure, our local children’s museum.  It was chaos (in a good way)… it is such a cool p...

1.       Master bath.  Of course I have like a million gorgeous all white marble bathrooms pinned… but I don’t have an all-white marble bathroom budge ;-)  I’m trying to get the “look for less” so to speak… I’ve thought about doing color tiles and different things, but I keep coming back to all white tiles and having a light aqua/spa color on my walls, I cannot quit that color!  This is where my head is at right now….  The floor tiles are pretty cheap so I’m hoping I can pull off the others without breaking the budget.    My inspiration :    2.       Kitchen backsplash.  I had ALL white in our last kitchen (cabinets, white subway tile and white countertops)…so I wanted to mix it up a bit in this kitchen, and again…I cannot get enough of the pale aqua/sea green colors so that’s what I’m leaning towards for our backsplash.  I’m sure there are a million different tiles out there but it’s so ...

Back today to talk about the living and dining areas. The area for a living room/den is very long and narrow in this house, but we will make it work.  It already looks completely different than these pictures, which is exciting!  Previously, the kitchen was cut off from the den by a wall, that wall is now gone.  There was a tiny “hobby/office” room to the immediate right when you walk in the front door.  This is where we will demo the wall and the carport enclosure plus this tiny office room will become a bigger playroom/family room.  We are using the tile room/sunroom area as our dining space, which leads to our bedroom… a little weird but what can you do?!  Anyways, this is what it all looked like when we bought: Foyer, looking towards front door. Playroom/family room will be where on the left. The tiny hobby/office...the wall on left is what leads to carport and is what we will knock down.  Living room looking from kitchen. Door to right of fireplac...

Finally getting around to sharing our newest adventure, our 1960’s ranch- style fixer upper we purchased on Lake Murray.  If you’ve read my blog or know me, you know I’ve wanted to get ON the lake for a while now…I grew up on the lake and there is just something about lake livin’ that I LOVE.  But of course, with that dream, comes a much bigger price tag.  Due to the fact that my amazing daddy is a contractor, we knew that buying a fixer upper would be the way to go right now.  The process was not without craziness and stress, but I’m so happy with where we ended up.  We walked away from a previous fixer upper, that had a much better lake “view” and even bigger lot (a full acre)…but was FULL of asbestos and our renovation budget was shot because the asbestos clean-up was so expensive.  We lived with my in laws for THREE months during this process …. Meanwhile kind of waiting the market out before we decided to rent.  However, this house was listed a li...

What a yucky weekend we had around here, SO much rain!  We had a pretty laid back/low key weekend…pretty par for the course this time of year.  We took the kids to a local high school basketball game  Friday night because Collins’ dance studio was performing at half time…and we went to support some of her friends who are in the next level up from her, and she left ready to do it next year!  Colls also had a friend spend the night…I’m pretty sure they stayed up talking until almost 11 and were up before 7!  Silly girls, but I know they had a blast.  Mikey and my dad worked on the house ALL day long Saturday and got the playroom/carport enclosure walls framed, meanwhile it rained alllllllll day.  I kept the kids entertained and cleaned the house during nap time and took them to a birthday party!  We headed over to a friend’s house to hang out  Saturday night  and watch our Gamecocks play basketball, we can’t quite keep up with Kentucky yet...

Another weekend come and gone, another weekend that saw lots of renovation action.  HIGH FIVES all around!  I need to upload all of my “before” pictures so I can start sharing our house renovation process before I get too behind.  We had big progress this weekend though, AND Mikey is off today, so up comes the old tile floor in the kitchen!  We started our weekend off  Friday night  with a boat ride to dinner, it was 75 degrees here on Friday and beautiful, so we took advantage.  I took the kids to workout with me  Saturday morning  and then we headed straight to a birthday party.  The kids got LOTS of energy out and were pooped by the time we got back home for lunch and naps. We had a couple families over  Saturday night  to hang out, all of the kids were even able to play outside a while and they loved that.  It was a fun night and I didn’t take ONE picture, ugh!  Hate when I forget.  My mom and I took the kids...

TWO and a HALF.   I know I start basically every post about my kids growing up with the same thing…but it cannot be overstated…WHY do they have to grow up so fast?  I want to freeze time right now and make this stage last at least two years.  Two and a half is my favorite age EVER.  EVER. EVER.  The tantrums haven’t kicked in yet (at least with my kids they don’t start until more age 3) and the sweetness is at an all-time high!  These boys melt my heart daily, I absolutely LOVE hearing them talk to each other and to me.. it is seriously the cutest thing ever.  (yes, I’m biased…)  But, gahhh y’all…. This is it for me…no more babies and I am having SUCH  a hard time letting go.  I cherish every minute they want to snuggle with me and kiss me and still want mama to do things for them.  These boys absolutely light up my life, I cannot believe they are already two and a half.    They are both talking nonstop, but Thomas serious...