Big City turned small town when....

You find a job in a part of town you knew nothing about growing up.

While at said job people get to know you and find out you live around the corner.

Said people reference your home as "so and so's old house"

You don't know so and so... until a high school friendship is rekindled as she moves around the corner.

The so and so's become high schools friends, neighbors aunt and uncle. 

Follow that??

Anywho thanks to the power of facebook you are offered the incredible and rare opportunity to connect with the so and so's and email back and forth.

Through your back yard new fence nightmare you find one of their childrens precious stepping stones accidentally left behind when they moved.

I am so excited to be able to message the wife of this couple and get her to fill in the blanks for me on our home we knew nothing about.

The people who bought from them were who got foreclosed on. 

After several emails back and forth and her answering some questions for me she sent some pictures she took just before they listed their house on the market. 

Enjoy seeing how it has changed in 8 years.

The bank made a LOT of changes between them and before we purchased. I kinda wish the kitchen was how it was when she had it. 

Oh well.... to be renovated eventually!

This is the picture she sent me, i commented with the changes that have occurred since then.

Sorry its dark. but the kitchen dining area became our home office.

disregard the suitcase. haha

not sure who did what here but i LOVE her cabinet doors. 

I dont have these pretty doors. mine are plain with an AWEFUL paint job to them!

and the cooktop and oven?? jealous!! this cheap thing I have doesnt cook evenly!!

CURSES!!!

And i hate my countertops, time to stop complaining.... there are people around the world starving and I complain about my faux granite countertops! 

What am I the most jealous of??? she didnt have these HORRIBLE spanish tiles in her backsplash. one day I will get mad enough and just take a hammer to em!!

final share for this post...

remember my question about the random pole in the middle of the very back yard?? 

She answered it!

That was the side to the ladder for their above ground pool.

better picture from the spring when we added the flower beds.

Wait til this spring when we FINALLY landscape and put up a privacy fence!!!

I will probably cry because I will be so excited about the dogs not being about to run off!!!

More to come in a second post!!

Disney Day 2 Part 2

As promised here are the pictures from my iphone. 

Took them quite a while to upload so sorry for the delay.

Waiting in the fast pass line at Winnie the Pooh.

Had to grab a quick blurry picture while on the ride.

The scene from the birthday party is my favorite! 

So happy and cheery!!

And the much anticipated Ariel ride! 

The characters in this ride were pretty amazing!

Loved the fish in this "scene"

This ride you are in the clam shell just like on Nemo at Epcot.

Our very excited 4 yr old bumped me while I snapped this one. oopsies, but this is the last scene at the end of the ride! 

So fun!!

And I did an awful job checking back with yall after the much anticipated double stroller debate. 

We finally found the City Select at a local discount store. 

It was new in box and we LOVE it.

Made getting around the park with 2 sooo easy!

Random picture of the crazy traffic as we entered Magic Kingdom that morning!

And here is sweet boy grabbing his ear and getting excited about the approaching Main Street Parade as we made our way out of the parks!

We spent the next 3 days with family and 2 of them parusing the great outlets and shops of Orlando. 

Such a fun opportunity to stop in at disney a short year and a half later after our first trip with baby girl!!

Time for a shopping post??

Disney Day 2- Part One

Man I have waited way too long to post this.... 

Let's see if I can remember what we did.

We woke up and headed straight for Epcot to go straight to the Character Spot to meet Mickey and Minnie.

We knew this would be the highlight of the trip for baby brother.

I know your super jealous of my heart monitor and the do I or do I not look pregnant. 

So over this phase!!

Carrying on...

Brother was Smitten with Pluto. 

Since we have beagles we don't make barking noises but we howl. 

Sooo funny!

Sounded kinda like an owl hooting but this was the noise he made while seeing pluto.

Not quite sure at first.

Then he was a howling away!

For those of you that don't remember our horror upon last years trip; well, big sister has a horrific fear of large characters. 

Like, nightmares, tremors, it was horrible taking her and discovering this inside Magic Kingdom!!

This year she got brave!! The first day was a slow start and warm up but apparently all it took was getting Minnie to sign a doll!!

Score!

After we said our good byes to Mickey, Minnie and Pluto we hopped on the monorail and RAN over to Magic Kingdom to sneak in lunch at the new Be Our Guest restaurant.

For those of you that do not know Be Our Guest is one of the restaurants in the new Fantasyland. 

Being honest, most disney food is pretty run of the mill, honestly not that great. 

This meal was very flavorful and quite satisifying!!

Here is what we saw upon walking in the restaurant.

There was not a single detail un-noticed!

Here is what the menu looks like!

After a walk down the "short hall of armored men,"

you then round the corner and are given a red rose. The rose contains a GPS tracker in it for the server to bring you your food.

You place your order at the following stations and then select a room to sit in.

Since we are big scaredy cats, ie our 4 yr old, we sat in the rose garden room.

It is quite impressive that each room can accomodate hundreds of people.

If I added correctly, at any given time they can seat just under 1000 people!

The walls in this room were covered in scenes from the movie.

Our food was delivered in once of the fancy serving carts like seen in the movie.

Everything was hot, tasty, and probably the best meal I have ever eaten at disney!

We were smart this day...

We fast passed Mickey's Philanthrarmagic, and Winnie the Pooh. 

In the meantime we rode the carousel!

Then we fast passed Ariel's new ride! I think it was called Under the Sea.

And walked right up and rode the Spinning Tea Cups!!

Back with iphone pics in just a bit!

Disney Day One

I should have known, I should have been better prepared.

But I wasn't...

If you can't tell from the picture, people are literally running to get into the park! 

Insanity!

Park gates closed at 11:00am this day, gates close at between 85,000-90,000 people and normal occupancy is considered 40,000.

Insanity!!!

we were quite terrified by all the crowds and for a child with a huge fear of large characters this is a true overcoming of fears!

Then.. out of no where we spotted pluto!

Way too scared to talk to him hence the photobombing begins!

Then we got in line for meet and greet with the princesses!

 A little timid at first, then... add some minnie ears and Voila!

Sooo pumped afterwards!!

Then we headed to Dumbo's new ride in fantasyland!

Baby brother was not sure what to think of all these flying elephants!

He ended up loving it!!

We stopped for a quick photo op.

Baby girl with Uncle Cody.

This was his last week working at disney.

Just now realized we have a mouth full of popcorn! 

This is outside of gastons tavern. 

we enjoyed popcorn while everyone else had hot chocolate!

We finished up the night with the closing show!

Be back with Day 2!

Purifying- A New Years Resolution- The Follow Up

This year has been all about simplifying. 

To date we have donated nearly 20 boxes of items to the Goodwill, a local mens rehad called the Warrior Center, and various children's clothing donations. 

It feels good to finally be seeing complete and total organization flowing through all sections of my life. 

The most sinful "collections" I had was an abundance of beauty supplies. Its unreal! 

I am thanful most of these items are still good to use and I have given them to tons of friends and family  or the bad stuff I got rid of. 

Feels good people, feels good.

The one Pin I saw on Pinterest that inspired this the most was attic orgainzation. 

Source: atticmaxx.com via Jenny Beth on Pinterest

All of christmas is in red boxes, everything else is clear with a contact sleeve filled with a fun fonted description of its contents! 

The one thing a friend shared me is to do a color for each child so Big sis has purple transparent boxes and baby brother has bright blue transparent boxes. 

Very easy to identify what box an additional item needs to be added to.

This has aided in the closet cleaning out and adding to our keepsakes pile, which might I add I am sadly not a sentimental person so I only keep my very very most favorite of what we own.

I have kept about 3 boxes either in our attic or on our screeded in porch to aid and ease the cleaning out process.

Source: remodelaholic.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Obviously mine is more purposeful and not quite this pretty, ie broken box to throw away once done sorting. haha

Be back to show you pictures of how mine turned out!

Merry Christmas From Our Home to Yours

Just wanted to stop in and show yall some of our christmas decorations. 

A few things moved around this year but not much.

This was our tree last year.

Big Sister was shocked when I told her we were leaving after going to Grammy and Poppy's and headed straight to Disney World!

Disney Posts up next!!!