Easter!

What a happy Easter it has been!

We had our first real gathering at our new house this morning, complete with a delicious brunch and of course . . . egg hunt!

Ellie loved getting dressed up in her Easter dress and bonnet!

I'm pretty sure she is in a true sugar coma here!

The girls! All girls!

(left to right) Rowen, Ellie, Lucy, Olivia, Chloe, Ali

Miss Ali, showing off her newest find

Rowen didn't seem to get the point of looking for eggs in the grass, until she discovered they were filled with candy! I'm not sure if Ellie's favorite part was egg hunting or just having all her favorite girlfriends in one place!

Chloe posing with her loot!

Livi looking lovingly at her prized eggs

Sisters in the tree

Lucy, smitten with her treat!

It was a day filled with pretty girls in pretty dresses, good food and an obscene amount of sweets.

One great Easter!

A white fence

It's funny, when you move to a new place, what you fall in love with . . .

I knew I would love the space, the yard, the bathtub!

But was I surprised by how much I LOVE this fence!!

The miles of white fence bordering the farm across the street is my favorite part of our new neighborhood!

Ellie loves walking along the fence to see the horses, who we have named Charisma and Mr. Grubbs. The sunsets are gorgeous and if you stand the on the first rung you can see Lake Washington

That fence . . . and how Ellie rests her chin on Drew's head when she gets tired on the walk home . . . that's my favorite part!

Number One

This video perfectly depicts why we chose the house we did!

Notice the pretty culd-e-sac and sunset view. Also see the glamour shot of our house in the last frame

p.s. Happy belated St. Patricks Day from the lil' leprechaun

Slowly

. . . but surely, life is returning to normal.

Well, actually, it's a new kind of normal. It seems as though more than just our address has changed!

The biggest one occurred last night when Ellie slept in her big girl bed for the first time!

Our friend, Chris, made this bed for his girls. Ellie was very excited and kept saying "Chris made this bed for ME!"

With memories of Ellie's horrible sleeping habits of her first year still fresh in my mind, I was very nervous to change Ellie's bedtime routine. But much to my surprise, it went down without a hitch! She fell asleep in about 2 minutes and I don't think she even realized she could crawl out!!

Tonight, started the best part of moving . . . decorating! Drew even helped with this art installation ;)

Our beautiful new sink. And notice the penny round tile. The bathroom is the closest to being completely done but it still needs a medicine cabinet and new light fixture to be complete.

I'm still amazed that this beautiful tub is in our house!!

Too fabulous!!

Getting there

Camera cord has been found and we have a bathtub!!!

The house has turned the corner and become a home vs. a construction zone.

This week all new windows were put in so another layer of drywall dust was mopped up last night!

Good riddance to the old black frame windows and all the dust!!!!

Here is a photo of the painted kitchen counter tops and new stainless appliances (old windows still intact, however). We love our cabinet pulls from my favorite store, Rejuvenation!! Our first dinner party with my Auntie M and Carolle Lynn. Mum brought over the stew but we couldn't find utensils or a wine opener!!! We were willing to drink the soup straight out of the bowls but Drew had to run to the neighbors to get a corkscrew!!

Ahhhh, our beautiful tub. It's perfect and looks even better in the bathroom than in the driveway!

True before and afters still to come . . .

And so it goes

Here continues the posts with no pictures since the camera cord is buried in a box somewhere.

But the good news . . . we are all moved in!!

Our beautiful pedestal tub will be delivered this week so for now we are driving to mum's house to get cleaned up.

Even though we're surrounded by boxes, it's starting to look like home!!!!

I will try to post before and after pics this weekend!

Remodel 2.0

The tale of remodeling with a toddler.

Week 1: Ellie can't be at the new house at all! It's just fraught with danger . . . stray nails, screws, hammers! And she might breathe in chemicals from the new floors or icky paint fumes.

Week 2: Ok, Ellie can be at the new house for a little while but someone needs to watch her all the time! And she needs to go outside for fresh air.

Week 3: Ellie is playing with a hammer. But that's ok, at least she's occupied and we can get more work done.

(no photo of Ellie playing with stray nails and a hammer because . . . oh yeah . . . we're in the middle of a remodel!! :)