What we've been up to

Hadley and I have been exploring MOPS groups in our area. If you're not familiar with MOPS (mother of pre-schoolers) it's an international organization where local moms meet for talk, crafts, etc. Hadley will also be going to "daycare" while I attend the meetings! I'm VERY nervous about this because she has been very stranger danger and I can already tell I'll be leaving the meeting to soothe my sweet girl. There are two mops groups here and I attended both their playgroups to get a sense of which one I wanted to join. I have really stepped out of my comfort zone many times lately in order to find us things to do :) I felt drawn to one group more than the other due to the amount of other military wives and other factors. It's twice a month and we can't wait to start!

Here's Hadley at one of the MOPS playdates LOVING the water

Last week I organized a ladies' luncheon at my house. We had some great food and great chat. I hope to continue these to fill our days.

How cute is this dress?! I'm thinking YES I need to have it for Hadley's 1 year photos to represent her whole first year (given that her whole nursery is hot pink chevron and so is her baby book). One of my friends here made this dress and I just love it.




Hadley learned to drive a car this weekend! haha ok, not quite but she sure did have fun.



This is more her speed :)


Hadley is getting SO big. She drives cars, takes baths in the big girl regular tub and is trying to stand up on her own, slow down girl!

We can't wait to hang out with my sis and Max (and David) who will be in town tomorrow for a quick stay before they head down to the beach. I hope Max will like it so much here that I can keep him :)

updates

I wanted to thank everyone who has been commenting on our house renovations. It's really been helpful hearing your ideas and opinions! I think for now, we've decided to keep our desk the color it is (mainly because James is too busy to do it and I don't think I'd be successful) and it's growing on me as is.

I moved on of our kitchen parson chairs for the desk chair for now and I quite like it. I'll post a pic once we're done loading the shelves.

Now for the master bath fixer upper project. James and I have disagreed a TON this weekend to the point where we have been to Lowes THREE times and bought nothing :) I've finally decided that if he wants to make extra work for himself then who I am to save him the time. So he's we've decided to pull up the tile in the tub/toilet area and pick one tile to go in the sink area as well so it all matches. I've been pinteresting a lot of pins about cheap fixes to upscale the area. I think we'll go up the tub face with the tile to make the tub look more "built in". We'll also add floating shelves to the top of the toilet area and baskets for towels in the empty area. I would like to get a longer WHITE shower curtain (or regular curtain) to make the room look bigger.

example of bins/shelves

tiling up the tub area

Oh and I loved your ideas of pocket door, but unfortunately it's not possible for the area due to closets on both sides. I thought about sliding doors that you mount on the outside, but then it would block the light switch..... so for now the knee hitting door has to stay.

shelving above toilet

So stay tuned!

We also saw some COOL tile that looks like wood floors that I LOVED but it's way too pricey for a home we're going to sell soon, but how neat!

"master" bathroom

Our master bathroom leaves a little bit to be desired. I know what sells a house and that's a great kitchen and master bathroom. We're lucky we have one that is attached to our bedroom so that's a plus, however, it's not the best set up. It has a little area for the sink/vanities and then a separate SMALL area for the shower/tub and toilet area. Then within that area there's an empty unused weird space! 

and not to be specific but when you sit on the toilet the door will hit your knees (not that you should be opening and closing the door when you are on the toilet but it happens?)

We've talked BIG and SMALL things we could do. Like I've said before, we don't want to over do it for the neighborhood, but then I think about what if we can't sell it in the end. OR what if we end up having to lower the price more than we want because we didn't upgrade the bathroom. Meaning if we spend the money now at least we could enjoy the upgrade instead of just spending money in the end to get out of the house withOUT the upgrade. See what I mean?

We have a hallway closet on the other side of that empty wall that James has wanted to push through since we bought the house. My problem is that our area/bath tub area is pretty small and not mastery and then you have that blah space. We actually put our big laundry hamper in the empty space to fill it (I took it out for picture).

I'd love to put a different style tub or make a different shower area but in reality we'll probably just get a longer white shower curtain and call it a day? 

What would you do with the empty space to make it look more "mastery"? What are your thoughts with a big type reno? It's also VERY hard to get any pictures of the whole area due to its awkwardness.

tub area

Empty space area

Another angle

Now, the real reason we are doing a little bit of renovating.... We have carpet in the sink/vanity area! When we replaced the carpet in our bedroom/closet we told them to leave this because we would be doing something with it that did NOT involve carpet. So Labor day weekend we will be taking care of it. We were just going to tile it and match it to what is in the toilet/tub area except there is not one tile leftover anywhere. So we'd have to eye ball it, bring it home to see if it would match, then buy some. I said I would be willing to do that, but James is being weird about it. He says he'd rather pull up all that new tile (at least it seems new) from that area in the tub/toilet and get a whole new tile for that whole area.

I think that's a lot of wasted energy to pull up perfectly good tile, but he's worried about the matching. I said well if you're going to pull up all that tile we might as well do a WHOLE BIG master reno (which is how we got to talking about the complete overhaul of the tub/toilet area). I also thought of doing a cork tile (I heard that's in? but is it as valued as regular tile? not sure....) or staining concrete?

gross carpet

So what do you guys think?! 

Just get a new tile that closely matches the tub/toilet tile and call it a day?

Go CRAAAAZZZY and knock through that wall and build a great big shower area?!

Anything to jazz up the area without knocking through walls?

Go big or go home?! haha

Happenings

I ordered a new rug for under the kitchen table because the old one was not doing well and didn't match. 

Measuring the area.

Hadley eating for taco night. She's a messy gal, but she has fun!

Selfies

James' HS friend Jay was on a road trip back East and stopped in for a quick visit! He will be stationed in Germany soon so he was making his rounds! We haven't seen him since our wedding 6 years ago! Such a great guy. Hadley was very stranger danger and cried a bunch but she was also interested in him at the same time.

Sneaking over to see him.

We have a store here in MS that is only open a couple weekends here and there. They buy boutique clothing and sell it for 60-70 percent off. Hadley scored so CUTE things! Can't wait for fall and christmas! I love the upper left dress, I wish they made it in my size too :)

Hadley Emilia's 9 months old already!

SLOWWWWW DOWN HADLEY GIRL! seriously. Ever since she started sleeping ergo I started sleeping, I would like her to slow down growing :). I'm really enjoying this stage of her life and love my pretty girl. This photo shoot for her 9month blog post will probably look more like the outtakes. I need a photography assistant to make sure Hadley doesn't dive off chairs etc. So needless to say, these could be better. I also don't feel like redoing them so here ya go :)

We had a doctor's appointment yesterday so her stats are up to date!

Stats:

Height- 28 inches (75th percentile)

Weight- 19 pounds (50th percentile)

Head- 17 inches

New Developments:

Hadley is crawling like a champ now, she just started doing it at 8 months 12 days old (July 23rd) and now really only seems interested in pulling up on EVERYTHING. No joke, she'll grab a toy and try standing up with it, she'll grab me and stand up, coffee table, couch, doors etc. She also has FOUR teeth! Her top ones are definitely IN. She didn't really act any differently but she is grinding them and driving me NUTS.

She's actually really happy in this photo but it looks like it could go the other way.

Personality:

Hadley is a VERY happy girl and I just LOVE her giggles. She's also going through a HUGE stranger danger phase (sorry if you've been victim haha). I hope she grows out of this soon because I'd like her to be happy to most people :)

My days of putting bows/headbands on her head are over.... FOR NOW she pulls them down every time and eats them.

Sleeping: She's still sleeping really well from 8pm to 7ish (sometimes 8!). She takes two hour to hour and half naps (a bad day we'll get a 30 min in the morning). I really can't complain here!

Eating:

She's still nursing 5 times a day and gets 3 solid meals. She's loving everything and anything. We can introduce meat now so we'll see how that goes! 

Restless= all done! :)

Randoms:

She's in 9 month clothing and can fit in some 12 months but they're a tad big

She's in size 3 Honest Company Diapers

Hadley LOVES our cat bella and squealing at her (the feeling isn't that mutual) and she LOVES our dog Maddie and that feeling is mostly mutual.

Hadley loves being outdoors and just wants to go go go!

She may be developing some curls on the top of her head... with this humidity though, it's hard to say.

Hadley goes to the beach!

My baby girl LOVES the water, any kind. Unfortunately, she also loved sand... and I mean like EATING it.... yucky

We went to Isle of Palms around Charleston, SC area for a couple days and had a BLAST! I miss it already.

View of the beach from our balcony.

We rented a condo and here is one photo for you.

Enjoying the beach.

We have friends that live a little north of Charleston that came to the beach with us one day! Unfortunately it rained early but we still had a great time.

I meant to crop that lady out butttt that didn't happen, (ps I wish blogger had cropping)

James had hadley way out jumping waves! 

We also visited a splash pad (also a Hadley fave)

Hadley and James with the Cooper River bridge in the background at Waterfront Park.

We LOVE Charleston and had a great time as expected :) Safe to say Hadley does also- she did great!

Office

ok blog readers, I need your help! We recently purchased these Ikea bookshelves for our dining room turned office area. It is a gray-brown color and I love it.... but the desk color is clashing (as I knew it would). We've been planning to refinish it for a while now but it seems like a good time. This desk was James' grandfather's and it's an antique type-writing desk. Now the question is..... what color or what finish should we do?! The walls are baby blue with white on the bottom. (keep in mind we are moving within 3 years and the walls will not always be blue/white).

'



We also need a desk chair.... any suggestions (put link in comments). I'm thinking of getting two decorative chairs to go with the area that can also be moved into the living room when we have company.

Here are some pinterest pics I've been liking.

just showing you some other color schemes

shelf arrangements

Love these chairs

So leave comments below to help us out!! Desk color and office chair/accent chair recommendations! thanks everyone

Happy birthday to my twin sis!

Happy birthday to my twin sister and womb mate! I can't believe we are the big 3-0! I don't feel like I'm that old so you're only as old as you feel. I feel 23 so let's go with that :) I recently saw on the news that people reported the two best ages of their lives being age 23 and 69..... interesting fact huh?

I'm on the left in case you couldn't tell :)

FLASH BACK

I think I'm right

I think I'm on the right again

us with our kiddos (hadley almost 9 months and Max almost 18 months)

 Shout out to my mom aka Gi Gi for birthing us :)

Happy birthday to us 30 year olds, have a great day Jen! (we celebrated early with a nice dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant where she lives). 

Hadley visits the Citadel (and the beach)

Hey there everyone! I have been gone for a full month from my house and I can't believe it's AUGUST already! My husband and I just got back from about 9 day trip to SC. If you saw the previous posts you saw what we did when we visited his family and now for part 2 of our trip. We stayed in a condo on the beach on Isle of Palms. I will do a separate post about that because I have a lot of pictures.

A little back story: my husband went to college at The Citadel (it's a military college but you don't necessarily have to go into the military after, but the majority do). While we were in Charleston we definitely had to make the trip. We also met in Charleston so we had to get married there of course and we did so at the Citadel's chapel. We also took some photos around campus and it was a nice job down James' memory lane.

A gal just so happened to be coming out of the chapel and offered to take our fam photo.

 Inside the chapel

Look how cute Miss. Hadley boo is, seriously and look at the backdrop, can it get even more perfect. It's such a beautiful campus. If you're ever in Charleston, SC you definitely need to check it out.

One with her sun hat

 When you attend the Citadel, you get assigned a company with like a 100 other students and James was in the November Company (also convenient that Hadley was born in November!)

Outside his ole barracks 

 I have a picture of James and myself back in the day in front of this very N, I'll have to dig it out and scan it in.

We had a great time visiting and now I'm itching to get back to my stomping grounds of GSU, hopefully maybe for a game this fall?!