There's No Place Like Roam

I simply cannot believe that my last post was in July! I stayed at home with the kids until November, so WHY oh WHY didn't I have time to blog? UGH. It will take me several posts to get caught up...but I'll do my best to remember the highlights. Its now Jan 2012 and I can't think of another thing that we accomplished on the house, so the Living room update from July is still pretty current. The boys started school in August. Carter is in 3rd grade in Ms. McKinney's room (funny, I know!). Hunter is in 1st Grade in Ms. Diggs room. They are both doing well, although Carter is a tad lazy in getting his work done. Ms. McKinney is really demanding, but I think its good for Carter. Ms. Diggs has been really good with Hunter as well, and although Hunter seemed to be behind in his reading at the beginning of the year, he is caught up and doing well! Graham enjoyed staying home with me until November, and is now loving going to school with his friends. He is doing well with recog...

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 :-)