Wiggle butt!

I stumbled across these two videos we took of Lucy in January and thought I'd share here. We've joked that her nickname is "wiggle butt"...I think it's pretty obvious why in these videos.

She just gets SO excited when she sees the kids, or knows that they're coming home.

She's even learned roughly when they'll be coming home from school every day, and about 20 minutes before the bus arrives, Lucy gets antsy and starts pacing around, staring out of all the windows for them. We've taken to putting on her electric collar and letting her have some outdoor fun time for that period, when weather permits. She's learned to stay up by the house, waiting for the kids to greet her as they get off the bus.

We've even started to walk Lucy up our street without the leash on; I want her to get to the point where she will listen and stay with us even when off leash. I did it this morning with both kids and she stayed with us quite well! Ran some with Henry, stopped when she got a bit ahead, and didn't wander off to sniff any other dogs. Very proud of her!

A second (smaller) winter snow

After our large snow storm in December, we had a smaller one in January that only kept us in for a day or so, and luckily it hit over the weekend so it didn't impact life too much! On Saturday morning, Natalie and I took a walk, trying to beat the snow before it started. We walked from the Downtown Mall to the Corner and back, and definitely saw some snow flurries along the way!

 

By the time we arrived home, the snow was definitely coming down, so we hunkered down for the rest of the day.

Sunday dawned cold, sunny, and covered in snow!

We weren't super snowed in, as it wasn't enough for that, but it was enough to let the kids sled again.

And enjoy another session in the hot tub to warm up afterwards!

Now that it's spring, we are enjoying our house even more - I like snow, but our neighborhood is so lovely now that it's in bloom, and I don't mind the warmer weather!

Holidays 2018

A quick overview of our 2018 holiday season... which frankly was a bit of blur, after having just moved! We moved into our house the week before Thanksgiving, so we were definitely in no shape to host. Luckily, Carrie and Chip wanted to host (since it was their first holiday since getting married!), and now it's an easy drive for us to get to their house - not even two hours away! This made for a really easy day trip there on Thanksgiving.

We had a lovely holiday with my parents, aunt, and Carrie & Chip. Henry was particularly delighted to spend some time in Chip's music room. Chip really enjoyed that too, and the kids and he had a great time jamming out. Henry and Natalie made up a song, and once Chip heard Henry playing "Feel it Still", they all played and sang together!

For Christmas, we wanted to host since it would be our first Christmas in our new house. Luckily, everyone agreed, so we had a full house - my parents, Evan's parents, my aunt, and on Christmas Eve Carrie and Chip. So nice to celebrate with so many!

We had to figure out how to put up the Christmas lights at the new house - turns out we don't have nearly enough, and will have to get more next year! But I think Evan and Natalie did a nice job.

We had the house all decorated inside as well - and while we've needed a new tree for a couple of years, our vaulted ceiling living room really reinforced that. Time to get a taller tree! Also, next year this will all look a bit cozier now that we have things on the walls.

The kids woke up Christmas morning to their new body pillows and stockings ready to be opened on the couch! I loved that for one more year, their matching pjs from Scott & Amanda still fit.

I think everyone really liked their presents - I loved my "big" gift from Evan. Friends Funko Pop set #2! Specialty characters. I think I'm going to need the original set now as well. But I do love these hanging out on the shelf behind me as I work!

Oh, and just after Christmas I finished my latest cross stitch project - Angels of Rockefeller Center. I have an idea for seasonal cross stitches in our foyer, so this one will be framed and ready to go for Christmas next year.

Hey, guess what? We moved!

If you've been living in a cave, you might have missed the fact that we moved in November 2018! We started the process almost a year ago, just looking at houses in Charlottesville to see if something might strike us. Would we want to actually move, or is C'ville just great in our memories? Could we find a neighborhood we liked? A house? What about schools? Well, in 3 visits down to C'ville (the last one with the kids, after we told them about the idea), we found a neighborhood, a house, and schools that we really liked. We put an offer in, and after about 7 weeks (and some moments of anxiety about selling!) we were able to sell our house, get everything organized, and head 2 hours south.

Leaving Leesburg wasn't easy; we'd been there for 12 years, which is the longest I'd ever lived anywhere. We loved our life there, our friends, activities - all of it. Leaving wasn't a decision we came to lightly, but it's been a really good one for all of us, even if we were sad to leave!

But we were able to find this amazing house, which has been one of the biggest pluses for all 4 of us. The kids absolutely love their rooms, I love how separated we are from the houses around us (an acre puts some nice distance between us and them!), and we've met some really nice folks in the neighborhood.

I can't wait to see what it looks like once everything is in bloom!

The move itself went off with nary a hitch - we lost one lamp and some pixels on our TV, but otherwise everything survived. The company sent excellent packers (yep, we paid to have ourselves packed) who did such a great job over the course of 3 days. The moving team was also great, as this was a pretty big job. Our new driveway is steep enough that the truck couldn't make it up, which made for a bit more work for them. The kids found the whole process fascinating.

But I think we all settled in pretty well to our new space!

 

I was going to do another post showing the modifications we made (mostly cosmetic, as we had almost all of the house painted; I was not into the southwest style colors that were in the house when we purchased), but again, I'm trying to streamline these posts! Plus it looks like I never took good after photos (but lots of the terrible terra cotta before!); if I ever get around to taking them maybe I'll put together a post. But for posterity, so that I can remember 10 years from now, we took away the cream color (such as shown in the kitchen above), and repainted the living room, kitchen, upstairs hallway, and guest room a lovely light gray (replacing multiple shades of cream, yellow, and terra cotta in the process). We removed the 3 shades of peach and cream in our master suite, and covered them with 2 shades of neutral mauve (although the bathroom is pretty purple!). And the kids rooms went from plain white to a Parisian blue for Natalie, and Star Wars-inspired gray, charcoal gray, black, and red for Henry. Exciting all around to make our new home really feel like OURS!

Goodbye, plum tree

I didn't plan it this way, but this post is a second goodbye in a row! This time it's a bit closer to home: we had to say goodbye to our plum tree. These trees were planted in front of many of the houses on our street when our neighborhood was built, and since we moved in 5 years ago I've really enjoyed ours. It flowers very prettily in the spring, and even though we had to pick up the little plums it dropped all over (sadly they were inedible!), it was a great shade tree.

Unfortunately, about 2.5 years ago, a fungus came through the neighborhood that attacked all of the plum trees. It swept down our street, covering branches in this black, bulbous fungus. The first spring wasn't too bad, but by the second spring, the tree was looking pretty bad. Branches were shedding all over our front yard, no plums at all... And then by this past spring, we had no flowers, more branches dropping, and it just looked terrible. No more pretty plum tree for us! Look how dark it is. Definitely not how it used to look.

Our neighbor had the same issue with her plum tree, so we worked with our mowing company (we both use the same one) to have them remove both trees at the same time for a discount.

I was home the day they came, and they moved so quickly! The first time I went outside to check, they'd already removed my neighbor's tree and were just about done with ours. Aaron and Chris did a great job!

They left the stump in until a later date (it was actually just taken out last week), but...here's the after!

And some comparison shots. I took them from as close to the same angles as I could.

I was sad to see our tree go, but it definitely had to (it was dying). Now the front of our house is a lot more open, which I like, but as the sun sets to the front of the house, it's a lot warmer in the evenings in the front than it used to be.

We are required by our HOA to replant a tree - we'll be doing that by next spring, most likely. We are leaning towards a redbud, as they flower so prettily, but if anyone has a different suggestion we are open!

Goodbye, Foxfield house!

This year was a particularly poignant Foxfield, as it was our last year in the house where we've stayed for at least the last 5 years! The owners are selling it, so we are unlikely to be able to rent it next year. The house has been really great for us, with the right amount of space for us all.

Because we knew it was the last year there, we made sure to get photos of the kids there!

Natalie and Zabby are always up for taking photos together, since they only get to see one another a couple of times a year.

On Sunday, as the grown ups were loading the cars, the kids were playing. With this being our last year there, I captured their playtime (which I don't always do).

And then I set up my camera on a chair with a timer and shot all of us together - one last good memory of the house!

My (new) home office

Months ago I posted photos of Henry's new bed, and Natalie's new room...now it's time to show how I turned Natalie's old bedroom into my new office!

First up, Natalie's old room. Here's the view straight ahead from the doorway, and to the right of the doorway.

 

Her bed was on the far side of the room, diagonal from the door.

And here is the view from the window, back to the dresser (the door is to the right of the dresser in the photo).

Because we moved her furniture into the guest room, we moved the guest room furniture into this room...after it was painted, of course! I chose a purple/gray color that wasn't too dissimilar from the color it was previously (above), but with a lot of the purple pulled out. Here's the guest bed, which I placed in the same location as Natalie's was, but turned to extend towards the window.

  You'll note that the comforter in no way matches the color of the room...more on that below.

There's also a big empty space where Natalie's dresser was...that was intentional, as that's where my new office furniture needed to go! I picked out a shelf and a standing desk from Ikea; Henry helped me put them both together (Evan did his part helping me on the shelf), and then it was ready for my stuff!

 I had a couple of boxes of stuff that used to be in my office at Noldus; this was a good excuse to go through everything and see what I really needed, wanted, and what could be tossed.

 Oh, and remember I mentioned how the comforter didn't match? I bought a duvet cover to pull out the purple/gray in the paint. I love the floral print!

And in the photos below you can see the evolution of the desk itself. I thought I might use my exercise ball to sit on; that hasn't happened, so I removed it. Also, I was waiting for my docking station and monitor to arrive from the main office; that's also set up in the next photo.

 See - all set! This is how I use the office now: two monitors, docking station, oil diffuser, and I finally got everything up on my walls!

I particularly enjoy this little shelf. I love my owl lamp; Hooty McBoob lights up the space so nicely :)

And here's a (rather yellow) shot of the bed again, with the city cross stitches I did on the wall. There's room for more, as I now have to add London and hope to add more as I travel to new places!

I absolutely love having my own space - in addition to the office area, the closet in the room is fully mine, and has all of my photography equipment stored within. 

Lucy "helps" me work

One of the reasons we were able to make it work to get a new puppy is because I now work from home, too (when I'm not traveling, of course). This means that Evan isn't solely responsible for the puppy, and that she doesn't have to be by herself for hours every day, locked in a cage or the kitchen.

The easiest thing to do is to have her be with one of us during the day. Evan keeps her in the basement sometimes, and I keep her in my upstairs office with me too. She has taken rather well to being up there with me, I think partially because I stand and she gets to do this at my feet.

My office is also our upstairs guest room (I keep forgetting to do my before and after post on that room!), and on one of the first days I had her up there with me, I turned around to look for her and coudn't find her. Then I lifted the bedspread and found this:

Which turned into this:

And I have turned around a few times to find her like this:

Lucy loves to lie on top of the bed too. Who wouldn't love to curl up on a nice comfy bed? I'm not going to lie; there have been times when I have curled up next to her.

I always bring some toys up into my office too; after play time, who doesn't love to curl up on their soft elephant friend?

This dog sleeps in the MOST awkward looking positions. It cracks me up so much.

And, when she isn't in crazy puppy mode, she poses SO regally. This is one pretty pup.

Remember when I said crazy puppy time? She cracks me up.