There's No Place Like Roam

So, about 6 months ago, Grahams hair was finally long enough for us to trim it into the shape that we wanted. Hunter had a friend with floppy hair that I loved and Jason's hair was in a bowl-type cut when he was two, so thats what we were going for. Well, in all that growing-out time, Graham McKinney decided that he doesn't take haircuts. Before we moved Jason was able to take him one last time to get it out of his eyes, but Graham wasn't about to get a haircut with me there. We all went to Great Clips in May and all the boys got their haircut, and I thought he may go along. No, he pitched a complete fit and tried to kick the lady, so we just left. It was a complete battle for me to even trim his hair out of his eyes, and I swear, if I did that one more time without cutting the back, he was going to have a FULL-ON Mullet. So two weeks ago, we decided to go for it. I bought Jason some new hair clippers and like all wonderful parents, we bribed him with chocolate cake. Whatev...

Well, here it is. We are finally able to announce, three months after we moved in, that we have finished rennovating ONE room in our house. Hahaha. Oh well, I guess thats life with three kids. Technically we will still be getting new hardwood flooring sometime next year, but we are done with the dining room for now. And now for the moment you (all 3 of you) have been waiting for.... BEFORE AFTER

The boys and I just returned from Panama City Beach. We were invited to go by my sister-in-law Lisa. The boys were able to play with their cousin Patrick, and we all had a good time. We toured Gulf World and were able to pet stingrays and caught Cars 2 while there was a thunderstorm. The boys (and the moms) spent a good bit of time on the last day hunting down seashells that were watching up with "creatures" inside them and watching them bury themselves back into the sand. Graham thought it was great! We missed Daddy and Uncle Scott, but we hope we can all go together next time!

Last Thursday Shea and I took the boys to Lake Winnie. They all had a blast, and honestly, so did Shea and I. Carter and Peyton showed no fear, riding the craziest gravity defying, Tilt-a-whirl type rides several times in a row. Hunter had some problems with heights. He wasn't able to climb up the really high stairs going to some of the rides. He was one inch too short to ride several of the bigger "thrill" rides, and I don't think he minded one bit! Collin took a little persuading, but ended up riding some of the bigger rides more than once. Graham was quite cranky in the morning, but once we got him on a ride, he was begging to "do it again"! We pretty much spent the entire day there. We made it back to the house just in time for supper. Thank goodness for Papa Johns. We were exhausted! The boys are already begging to go back. I wouldn't mind at all. I think it would be fun to go back in the evening. I'll bet it looks cool at night, all lit up like...

Well, I guess at this point you could say that we will do just about ANYTHING to avoid finishing the dining room. Not really, but its just been such a long process that its just plain "feels better" to work on something that might actually get finished in a day or even a weekend. Jason had been talking about clearing out the flower bed in front of the bay window, because the shrubs there had really taken off this spring and were about half way up the windows. They kind of looked like they were eating the house! So I mentioned something about pruning them down so we could see what it would look like with smaller stuff in the beds and he gave me the green light. Well, that was early in the morning and by 9:30 PM, we were finished. It looks SO much better. And I have to say, I am TRULY IMPRESSED at how hard working and just plain strong my husband is. I could barely budge the stumps left after my pruning and could hardly dig in the rocky soil. But Jason took over with an axe and...

Well, the wallpaper removal has gone MUCH slower than I had hoped. We are still working on the dining room. Graham's room has been put on hold until we complete the dining room. However, we have got things settled on the deck, and spend the majority of our early mornings and evenings sitting out there enjoying the weather. Here are some pictures. Our VW "Bug" planter Jackie planted for us I sprayed this candle holder Laura Anne gave to me to match the umbrella and added some mini tikis The deck with our pots of herbs, tomatoes, and flowers :-)

Graham and I went to see Thomas the Train this weekend at the Tennessee Valley Railway. We went with my friend Gayle and her 3 year old son, Brody. The boys had the best time and were ecstatic during the train ride. They were shrieking "ALL ABOARD" during the entire ride!

This past Sunday was Mother's Day. It started out for me with breakfast in bed. (Eggo waffles on a paper plate and an orange Capri Sun squeezed into a glass.) So cute! Around 10:00 I convinced the guys to take me to The Chattanooga Market . I had been seeing advertisements about the market since Jason was interviewing with Volkswagen and I couldn't wait for May to get here so I could check it out! It was better than I hoped for. So much to see, eat and buy! And we didn't even stay until the music started! Hunter and I bought some HUGE pretzels from the Bluff View Bakery . Carter bought three heirloom tomato plants for his garden, and Jason bought a huge SLAB of hummingbird cake. We also picked up a gallon of strawberries that had been picked that morning. Below you can see a picture of part of the market, along with a bowl of the berries that I have all ready to be baked into a cobbler. YUM! We can't wait to go back!

Oh. My. Goodness. These people were obsessed with wallpaper. Most of you know that I am not working outside of the house right now. Ideally I would be able to start a job when the boys start to school in the fall. Right now my goal is to get this wallpaper removed before school is out for the summer. Its not looking like I'm going to make my deadline. Its not the wallpaper that you can see that is the problem. It's what lies beneath. I've started working on two rooms so far and both of them had double layers of wallpaper and borders. Not only are there two layers, but the bottom layer has been painted over, which makes it virtually impossible to remove! ARGH! That's ok though, because we got a good deal on the house and I'm not working right now. At least the completed projects will add value to the house. I'm usually not so good about taking pictures of before and after, so I went through the house snapping pictures of the "before" so you can at least...

Well, this Easter was not traditional by any stretch of the imagniation. Well, we had a ham, and hunted Easter eggs, but that was about it as far as traditions go. Since my grandmother passed away, the Hammonds no longer get together for Easter and since we don't have a church family yet in TN, we just celebrated at home. Luckly we had lots of company. Jim & Jackie came up and so did my brother and his family. We had a good time and the kids were glad to be able to play with their cousin Patrick.

During our spring break excursions we visited Harrison Bay State Park . By the way, Harrison Bay is the OLDEST state park in Tennessee. I believe the park has 1200 acres, along with 40 acres of shoreline on Lake Chickamauga. I'm sure we didn't see the entire thing, but they have an Olympic-sized pool, tennis courts, fishing, camping, a playground, ping-pong tables under a pavilion, shuffleboard, you name it. It was not very crowded while we were there, but I bet it gets pretty busy in the summer! This park is about 15 minutes from our house, so maybe our friends will be able to tie in a visit to the McKinney's with a family camping trip some day!

While we were in Collegedale, TN visiting the Imagination Station we tried out one of the walking/biking trails which lead us to the Veterans Memorial Park . The kids were blown away at this neat little park which has a massive American flag in the center, surrounded by all 50 state flags on the peremeter of the circular path. I've included some photos below. We did most of our exploring during spring break, so I hope we get to do a little more over summer break, before I find a job.

For those of you that clicked on my Facebook link thinking you were going to read my opinion on college football, get on back to Facebook. You obviously don't know me very well and are just being nosy. Ha! Anyway, Jason and I were laughing yesterday about how the differences in living on acreage vs. subdivision living had not turned out quite like we thought. At our last home in Alabama we had about four acres, and both of our neighbors had at least 20 acres, so we felt like we were in the middle of the country. Horses in the front yard and coyotes howling at night. The whole shebang. When we moved to Tennessee we were able to move into a comparable house, but we couldn't afford the same type acreage in the school district we wanted. So we eventually found a home with a decent sized lot and a few trees in a semi-private backyard. While we were in Alabama, we only saw one snake. A 8 inch garter snake that I stepped on barefoot. That's it. Not even after they came through the...

We found the neatest little park about 10 minutes from the house. The wooden play structure is huge and each part of it was donated by different people in the community. They also have miles of walking/biking trails. Below are some pictures of the boys during the week we discovered the park.