Soccer Star!

Annabel LOVED soccer this Spring season! Teams in our new league are neighborhood based, which I really love. The teams are also gender based, so Annabel is on an all girls team, which we also love because she gets so much play time and a real chance to shine. Teams are also grade based- so these are all girls going into Kindergarten with Annabel at her school next year! She will go to school knowing a handful of girls already! So fun! Annabel was so excited to play soccer this year. We even treated her to some soccer cleats this season- pink ones!

The season went by fast. Our Saturday games had pretty crazy weather- some really warm and some super cold (see picture of Daniel below, wrapped in two blankets!), but we always enjoyed watching. Annabel really did great this year. She is an awesome defender and she can run the field very well to catch up to the ball and get it away from the other team. She does great keeping her eye on the ball and takes the chance to get in there and get the ball or help her team out, passing the ball. She did especially well with break-outs where she managed to get the ball and take it all the way down the field, very nearly scoring goals- so exciting. Daddy was assistant coach and did great with that, making the girls all laugh and have a great time as he always does so well. We are already signed up for the Fall season! Go, Annabel! We are so proud of you and your hard work!

An Anniversary + Before & Afters!

Yesterday we celebrated our one year anniversary since Key Day! It has been ONE YEAR since we bought our new house. So exciting! I look at all those empty house pictures from that day, think of all the dreams we had, all that freshness, all that space, all the things we still want to get to...it all still says "home," feels like home, more and more every day. We are really making some great memories here!

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to put together some (unedited, i.e. messy in some cases thanks to the kids and their toys and "spaceships"!) before and after pictures of some of the rooms in this house that we've really put our stamp on or decorated in some way. Most of these you've seen, but the before and after is just fun! Some rooms, like Ben's office, are just, ahem, well, not blog-worthy let's say, and other rooms just haven't changed really, like the kitchen. But we've worked pretty hard to decorate, paint, and hang pictures here and there all over the house. We still have more we'd like to fix up, too...there's always something to do!

Enjoy!

Home! (Nothing's changed out here.)

 Front hall

 

 "Dining Room" that shall never be a true dining room

Family Room- don't mind that mess below- it's just life lived well!

Daniel found a Lego-ville!

Library! My Happy Space! My Favorite Room!

Screened Porch- a space we appreciate more and more every day!

Daniel's Room

Annabel's Room

Play Room

Game Closet! We have a lot of games and that's not even all of them! 

(And no, the hideaway nook hasn't changed either, except for some cushions and pillows in there.)

(Also, Annabel is probably 3 inches taller now than she was here- isn't that wild?! She did grow 3 inches in the past year. She looks so young here, though. I love it!)

Master Sitting Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom- not a lot different, just a bit of color and life!

Honeymoon pictures and a bench for this big wall in our master bathroom- perfect spot for both!

When we were getting ready to move, I was reading many decorating books and blogs. One book, The Nesting Place, by The Nester, gave me a lot of inspiration. One thing that jumped out at me was a prompt to list words that describe how I want our home to feel. I immediately came up with:

Fun. 

Relaxing. 

Real. 

Simple. 

Happy. 

Cozy. 

The author then went on to say that these words should drive how I decorate, choose colors, and make purchases for our home. This was such a lightning bolt moment. And it really helped me focus and find my vision for this new house. I feel like I did it, too! My house feels great- it's fun (that library! that play room!), relaxing (library again, master bedroom, sitting room, and hello- screened porch), real (you saw those play messes- that's just real, to me!), simple (master bedroom, nice and simple), happy (all the rooms!), and cozy (all again!). I was struck the other day when reflecting on my words again, how I really did achieve all that I wanted for this house, for my family. We may still have more projects to do, and we may indeed have messes and clutter that are not simple and happy (don't we all?!), but we'll get there and we have this drive, this focus, and these successes so far to boost us and get us there.

Our home is "us" and it couldn't be more perfect! Happy Anniversary, House! We do so love being here!

Back to Scrapbooking!

I'm SO excited- we finally put together my very own scrapbooking space! I just LOVE it and can't wait to get started on catching up with my scrapbooking. I'm only...ummm, FOUR years behind! Annabel's first year (yes- FIRST year, you know, the year she was a baby before she turned one- that year!) scrapbook has sort of been left in the dust since my scrapbooking buddy moved away, AND our scrap-all-night haunts all went out of business, AND in our old house, I never had my own space to work unless I wanted to haul it out and then pack it all away again every. single. time. Now I have my own scrapbooking space in the closet that's in our master bedroom sitting room. When we first saw the house and all the storage space it had, I said right away, we'll fill all the closets and if this closet is still empty- I'm claiming it for my little nook. Nailed it!

I chose a nice soft yellow for the paint color (this color will probably also end up being the master bathroom color...someday). The kids were very happy to help Daddy paint! Ben put in an outlet for me. He hung up some adjustable shelf tracks and we put in three shelves. We found a counter/desk top at IKEA in the as-is section- perfect! The rolling drawer cabinet also came from IKEA and was so fun to fill up! We hooked up an under-cabinet light in there so I have a good light to work by. I have a folding chair to use in that space. And then I filled up all the shelves and voila! My scrapbooking space is ready! It is just so fun to have that space and I visit it just about every hour of the day right now. I can't wait to get it more organized (I need to go through my stuff in more detail and really get it handy-ready) and then get started on finishing that scrapbook of Annabel's First Year! Check out the pics below!

Pinterest Project Complete!

Woohoo- I finally completed a project I'd marked from Pinterest ages ago! So I'd seen this idea to take the words from our wedding song and frame out a wedding picture of ours with those words. I'd started a family wedding picture corner in our dining room and I knew right away what would go in that corner next to them- my wedding bouquet and this project. After all, our wedding should be featured in our own home, too! So, voila- my wonderful wedding photo project and photo corner! I think it turned out beautifully!

School Year in Review

Annabel had her End of Year Program at preschool on Friday and she did such an awesome job! We were just so SO proud of how wonderfully she sang, how she did all the actions and just how happy she was. I just LOVED watching her! The program was adorable as always, but this year was just so special- that was my baby up there, no longer a Preschooler, and she was just literally shining! I have no better way to say it- Annabel was really shining!

And with that...our school days for the year 2015-2016 are over. (Except for school camps, but I'm hardly counting those! Those are in-betweeners.) We had a really wonderful school year. The kids both had great teachers. They both did amazingly well in school.

Daniel started the year reading at an end-of-2nd-grade reading level and continued upward in that vein, learning deeper comprehension strategies and complex spelling patterns in individualized and challenging reading and word groups. I loved how they were always moving him forward in school- I was pleased with the level of challenge he was receiving. He did great with picking up math skills, mastering math facts and was even beginning double digit addition before the year was out. AND I'm also proud to say we walked to school EVERY DAY this year!!! This was at Daniel's urging, too- "Never pick me up in the car, Mommy. Always walk." So we did. (Daddy did the super rainy days, but otherwise, I did all the rest! Annabel sometimes joined us, especially once it got nice out again!) Daniel also made some good friends, too- Manny, Misha, Holden- all such nice kids. I just loved how well he seemed to do in all areas of school. So- a fabulous year for Daniel!

And Annabel- she rocked her last preschool year by learning to read, and quite well, too! She writes stories like crazy, as well. I loved how her teachers challenged her, sending books home for her to read to us, giving her challenging writing projects, and teaching her more in depth writing skills. Annabel is also picking up math facts quite well. And her teachers stretched her in math, too- pulling activities from the Kindergarten room, having her work with addition and subtraction and skip counting, and even having her work on a number roll, which is where they build the numbers and write them on grid paper strips and keep going and going and going. It's an on-going project and Annabel made it all way to 270! Way to go, sweetie! We also just loved the songs Annabel came home singing- I think that is one thing I will really miss about this preschool age- the adorable songs they sing.

Another chapter over. On to the next. 

First Day of Summer!

Summer started off fabulously- we just play, play, played all day last Thursday! And we hit the park with friends. And we went to the library- picked up a good haul there. We were busy! My main thought for the day was that I had my kids back. They were mine again. One of the first things we did was to build marble towers, and just watching the kids concentrate and get their towers together and SHARE so nicely- it was awesome. Then they built with our foam blocks. Daniel made a game for his spoon launcher, which was amazing. I just LOVED his creativity! This is exactly what I miss when we're in school. All I could think was- I have my boy back! It was so wonderful to have the time to make these creative things happen. The kids had fun taking pictures with their camera, too, and Annabel was inspired to take videos. And be IN videos- oh my, she danced and pranced and sang totally made-up songs. It was all such a hoot! And the kids- oh my gosh, I didn't know who they were, sharing so super nicely, compromising so nicely- it was wonderful! We'll see how long that lasts of course... The fun continued after Annabel's program on Friday, too, with sink/float experiments, getting caught in a downpour at the park, eating dinner on our screened porch! We're all just super excited Summer is here and it's here to stay! Hooray!