Tuesday, March 31, 2015

House Showings

Selling a house is insane! I don't know how real estate agents sleep dealing with clients all day! We've lived in our house for 10 years, and we've gone from renting the upstairs to friends, to turning the house into a single family home and bringing our 4 daughters here to grow up. Now it's time for change. We don't want to raise our girls in the city, so the house is for sale!

We've been on the market since October, and we had a buyer in December which kept our house off the market until mid February, when he got word he may get deployed, and didn't want to deal with having a new house and being overseas for a year.

Now we are back on the active market, and even though more than half of our stuff is in storage, it's still just as stressful keeping this place clean. Dishes, papers, candy wrappers, toys, laundry... I cannot wait until we finally sell!

This week we are focusing on getting ready for an open house (plus Lexi and Lilly's party). It's supposed to rain most of the week, so we are cleaning out the basement. We hope to put up some waterproof basement paint to help with the leaky spots (it's gonna leak, it's old, like 1869 old!)

On a better note, the weather is supposed to be in the 60's! Spring is finally starting to arrive in Ohio!!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Alexis turns 9!

This month Lexi turned 9! It's hard to believe that in one more year she'll be double digits.

For the past couple years we've combined her party with Lilly's (May birthday) and hosted it in April, so for their actual birthday we do a family trip to a restaurant and the toy store.

Unfortunately Lexi's birthday falls in cookie season for girl scouts, so not only did we have to work around those, but Henna was sick that weekend too! We ended up with Applebees carside to go, and the next day when Henna wasn't throwing up in the car, we made it to Toys-r-Us.

We ended up with a few Elves Lego sets. They must be new, because we hadn't seen them before, but we scooped up the treehouse and magic bakery. Legos are one of the only toys still left in our house that haven't been packed up yet, and the small table we used for cookie booths is now a permanent fixture in the dining room for Legos!

All in all she had a great weekend! We love you Alexis Raine!!



Thursday, March 12, 2015

Cookies, Clothing, and Celebrating

March is always super busy for us. Alexis was born on the 6th (birthday post will be separate from this post), plus there are many other family birthdays. Usually in Ohio we get our first taste of Spring, cabin fever lifts, the local farm stores get in baby chicks, and the foot of snow outside turns into a slightly grassy mud hole!

We had a lot of Girl Scout events this past week! March 7th was Goodwill Goodturn Day. Each girl donated 3 bags of clothing to get a community service patch! We also started working on another community service project we will finish up in May. We plan to knit hats for preemies, and make tie blankets that we can donate to hospitals.
 It is also cookie booth time! Alexis and Lillian have been in girl scouts 3 years, so they are first year Brownies. Avery just turned 5 so she is a first year Daisy. So for the past 3 years, we ask everyone we know in January to order cookies, we receive them in February, and in March we hit the stores to sell to the masses! We've already had booths the past few weekends, and we still have this next weekend for sure. Super fun times!!
 Today was the 103rd birthday for Girl Scouts. It just happened to be the day we had planned on taking the troop to a salon for a girly day. We turned our outing at Belles & Beaus into a birthday party, with some balloons, cake, and snacks, and the girls got their hair done up with hair chalk and glitter, plus a little makeup, and also had their nails done!
 Next week we will have a small St. Patrick's Day celebration while we start our tray favor crafts that are given to hospital patients on their lunch trays. We do flower shaped tissue paper "stained glass" ornaments that they can hang in windows.

Friday, March 6, 2015

West Virginia Getaway



Last week we made the 4 hour drive down to rural Calhoun County West Virginia to visit my (Holly's) grandparents, better known as Nana and Papaw to the girls. I've been going down there all of my life, and if you are looking for some quiet time and fresh air, this is the place for you! Our cell phones don't even get a roaming signal, and the internet is so slow Facebook doesn't load most of the time. Luke used the time to catch up editing pictures, while I actually sat and read books! The girls had a great time playing with toys, learning chess, sled riding on the hill, and walking up the road to feed the horses. I will say it is a lot more fun in the warmer months, when the trees are full of color, you can play in the creek, and you're not freezing to death.
Here's some of the beautiful winter landscapes on grandma's road.
Since we didn't see them over Christmas, we gave them our gifts we made, including a block puzzle and framed map. The girls love to climb the hill across the road to the cave, and the porch is a common spot for us to hang out with the animals.

Athena and Apollo love coming down to roam the hills. The girls had a blast sledding down in just their snowpants, but we had some sled wipe outs too!



See! Not even a paved road (imagine what the dogs looked like after walking in this mud!) The neighbors up the road have horses, so we took a trek up that way to feed them some carrots.


The girls go down a few times a year, and we are hoping that this year we can make it down more often as well. There is a blog I follow on Facebook, and she is located in the next county over. She offers classes and workshops on different homesteading ideas, and I would love to take a class or two. Although I don't personally know her, her website is full of information on country living. Check her out! Chickens In The Road