Getting Organized

One of my goals for this year was to do a small project every week.  That hasn't quite happened due to our vacation, trip to Midland and now I'm trying to get everything together for William's 3rd birthday party.  I am happy to say that all our photos are uploaded to Snapfish and I have most everything on a flash drive!  I'm super paranoid about losing videos and pictures so this is a huge relief.

One of the things on my to do list was cleaning out one of our closest.  I wish I'd taken a before picture.  The top of the closet was just a huge mess of gift bags, ribbon and tissue paper that continued onto the floor of the closet.  I finally worked up the courage, during William's nap time, to clean the big mess up.  I took everything out of the closet and got organized!  

This wrapping station organizer from Pottery Barn is wonderful (it's no longer available but maybe they'll offer one again around the holidays).  It was super easy to hang on the wall and I love that you can see everything.  I have all our Christmas wrapping paper in a big tub and gift labels are in the pull out drawers.

The used the big gift bags to put all the smaller gift bags into.  The big blue bag has baby bags and the train bag has kids birthday party bags.  I left the more neutral bags out.  My favorite thing to do is use a solid colored gift bag and place a big label, from Erin Condren, on the front.  The big box has gift boxes inside of it.  The next time I have to wrap a present I. Will. Be. Ready.

Starting a project like this is never fun (seriously, you should've seen the before picture).  BUT, the results you get at the end are well worth the time it takes!!!

Cheers to a clean closet.  :)

Our New Home

Our new house is finally starting to feel like home!  We had a lot of empty rooms up until a few weeks ago....it's been a slow process BUT well worth the wait.  We are still waiting on our living room furniture to be delivered.  For now, it's a nice big open room for William to run around in!
We've been so busy going out of town, having company in town, and everyone has taken their turn getting sick with this yucky winter weather.  FINALLY, things are starting to slow down and we are getting into a new routine.  I just need to get everything organized now.  :)

Here are a few of the things we are loving about the burbs:

• We have so much more room.
• William loves his new playroom and his bedroom is twice the size of his old room. 
• The neighborhood is nice and quiet. 
• The park and walking trail around the pond are fabulous.
• We finally live somewhere with sidewalks!
• We live close to friends with kids around William's age.
• The school district we live in is great.
• There's a Sonic right down the road (and my best friend).  :)
• It only takes me 10 minutes to drive home from Bunco.   
• We have the coolest family/game room.
• Gordon has plenty of room to shoot his bow & arrow in the backyard.
• I day dream about the tan I'll have this summer with the pool being only 3 blocks away.
• AND guess what, we still go into "town" once a week to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. 

Life is good.  Moving was stressful.  A. LOT. OF. THINGS. WENT. WRONG during that first month.  But, we survived.  There are still 20+ boxes that need to be unpacked in our garage.  It doesn't even bother me anymore.  It'll get done eventually.  I'd rather enjoy my family for now.  :)

Here are a few pictures my BFF took of us back in November (outside of our new home).  Check out Alison's photography website here.

His kissy face is priceless.

William thinks Alison and I are weird!

 

Our First Home

Soon after getting engaged G and I decided to make our first big purchase together......a home!  I was paying nearly $1,200/month to live in a 900 sqft apartment in Midtown.  So, we figured we might as well put our combined rents towards a mortgage. 

5718 Kansas was still in the process of being built when we first stepped foot into it.  We both knew right away it's where we wanted to live.  Gordon continued to look on a weekend I was working but nothing compared.  Our future first home had the lay out we were looking for with beautiful finishes.  It was in a developing area that was getting nicer every year.  In the back of our minds we hoped to one day make some money when we sold it....and we did!  The neighborhood is by no means perfect but we would be in a gated area, downtown and the galleria were both super close and the med center was easy to get to.  There would be no commuting for work, we could still enjoy all of our favorite restaurants and we even had a little side yard for Gus.  We were sold! 

On May 5, 2010 we signed on the dotted line.  It is one of the best decisions we ever made.  Over the last 42 months we have made countless memories.  I made our first dinner as a married couple here, I've spend many hours during bed rest staring at the walls thinking about our unborn baby, the kitchen is where I told Gordon we were expecting, we've had a ton of get togethers with some of our dearest friends, we went on a million walks with Gus and most importantly it's William's first home. 

We always knew we'd move when our first baby was one or two.  Honestly, we would have stayed longer if the housing market wasn't so great right now!  Our old realtor kept emailing G asking him if we were interested in moving.  After casually looking around in Katy we stumbled upon the perfect home.....big lot, cul-de-sac, game room, lots of room to grow (hint hint Gordon...haha), an open lay out, great school district and a park and pool 3 blocks away.  SOLD.  We even got in early enough to pick all our finishes.  I'm sure I'll be doing a post soon about the new casa! 

We put our home on the market on Saturday, June 29th.  I was a bit anxious starting this process with a baby.  But things went great!  It was shown 10 times on the first day!  Gordon and I were so excited that we called Ms. Melissa so we could have a date night.  While we were at the movies we had 4 offers come in!  The next day the house was shown another 6 times and another handful of offers came in.  The first offer we excepted came in at $5,000 over asking price.  Long story short the deal didn't work out.  While we were in Rosemary Beach the first contract was terminated.  So, we moved onto a buyer that had been interested at the beginning.  After another round of inspections and appraisals, on September 6, 2013, we sold our home.  We are so blessed to have gotten so much positive feedback (and so quickly).  I will say that I am super grateful that we did all this when a) we only have one child b) I'm not pregnant c) we don't have a newborn.  There have been some trying days but we are nearly done. :)

Here are some pictures taken by our realtor!

So today I will cry.  I hate change.  I really hate unknowns.  I hate leaving so many precious memories.  But I have pictures....lots of pictures!  I'll remember this house forever.  So many firsts.  So much happiness.  Thanks 5718 for a fabulous 3.5 years!  Our new home in Katy has a lot to live up to.  :)

A Celebration Weekend

To say we had an eventful weekend is an understatement!  We were busy bees from Friday through Sunday.  Our weekend got off to a fabulous start a little sooner than usual.....we finally closed on our house at 2 pm on Friday.  I'll post more at the end of the month about our home buying/selling process.  For now I'll just say I'd much rather buy a home than sale.  It has been a bit of a headache but it's finally over.  Signing those papers took a lot of weight off our shoulders.  Now we just have to focus on packing up the house and getting the next ready to move into!  We bought our house on May 5, 2010 and sold it on October 4, 2013.  Just one day short of 41 months. 

 

Gordon and I had a quick celebration drink at the Galleria Tasting Room! 

 

 

Here's what William thought of selling the house.  Shocked and loving his new slinky.  :) 

We did our normal Barnaby's breakfast and run to the grocery store before heading out to Katy.  My best friend, Alison, had her baby girl last week (more on that later too!) so we ran by their house to drop of a pasta dish.

 

 

On our way back home we stopped by Buffalo Wild Wings to grab lunch and watch a little Red Raider football!  William never watches TV.  We rarely have the TV on and when it is he's not interested at all....except for football!  He's mesmerized!

 

 

Last night we continued the celebrating and had date night.  Sweet Ms. Melissa watched William while we had dinner at Coppa. 

 



 I had the chicken "under the brick" and Gordon had the spaghetti carbonara.  Their signature bellini was delicious and G didn't complain about his fancy whiskey drink! 

Yesterday was also our two year "baby anniversary".  We found out we were expecting sweet William on October 5, 2011 (read more here and here).  The past two years have been filled with more happiness than I could have ever imagined. 

Here's what we've been up to over the past 12 months:

October-  William celebrated his first Halloween as a frog and started eating cereal!
November-  Baby's first Thanksgiving in Texarkana.  We had our Christmas card photos taken during this weekend too.
December-  First Christmas in Midland (William started sitting up on his own too).
January- Headed back to West Texas for George Strait concert and William got his first fever at 9 months old.
February- Celebrated mommy's birthday at Tony's.
March- St. Patrick's Day and yucky hand, foot, mouth infection.  :(
April-  1st birthday at the zoo, Emily/Grant's wedding and Easter in Texarkana.
May-  Back to West Texas for Duck Dynasty, lots of swimming and San Antonio for Mom's Day. 
June-  Put house on market and signed contract on new home!
July- Lake Houston and Rosemary Beach.
August- Mommy had surgery. 
September-  Canyon Lake, 2nd wedding anniversary and baby's first time to Kentucky. 

Such a fun weekend!  NOW we have to get busy packing....