How the GOALS are going...

I feel we've been doing fairly well on our '12 goals.  We had hoped to spend the weekend knocking out the house but we've slacked more than anything. We watched the HOGS win the Cotton Bowl on Friday night and we are watching the RedWolves (our Alma Mater) play in the GoDaddy Bowl right now. We did get about 6 boxes unpacked Saturday night along with Essie's room organized somewhat. 

I have lost 7 pounds since Jan. 1st and accidentally started a Biggest Loser competition at my school. I casually mentioned it during lunch one day and that turned into an afterschool meeting with 26 people signing up! We have a pot of $520 at stake right now! Our first weigh in is Monday to establish our base weight and we will weigh in every Friday following that until Spring Break.

We've had 3 no spend days so far. I think that's pretty good. It's alot harder than we anticipated. We have to communicate on when to buy gas, when Travis' buys lunch or packs it, etc. 

Just for fun...here are a few pics of our week. It's been so warm we enjoyed some chalk time outside.

I made my first Pinterest project at our new house...I love him....he is just adorable!

"NASTICS" and those hogs

Last night we took Essie to a free preview class at our local gymnastics place. She was beyond excited. She did "okay". She wanted to do only one thing...jump on the trampoline. She would NOT do anything else AT ALL. I'm thinking we are going ahead and signing up and hoping she gets over the newness and will participate more. She sure misses kindermusik and hopefully this will give her something to look forward to each week.

We (like all other Arkansans) are gearing up for the Cotton Bowl. We all wore our HOGS gear to school/work today.

it's buttah!

We sold a lot of our furniture when we moved into the apartment because we wanted a fresh start and we didn't want to move it all.  Travis and I spent Monday furniture shopping...we have looked on and off the past few weeks but without much luck. We were able to find a new dining table/chairs. We bought some of Paula Deen's furniture...yes we did. I loved the chunkiness and the mix and match aspect. 

We bought this table in the tabacco color...

and these chairs in the linen color.

We also found a media cabinet to put our big tv on since our fireplace won't hold it and we've pretty much decided on a couch too.

We have no idea what we are going to do in the back room yet but we will need a few pieces for there too!

We {heart} Craftsman!

One thing we noticed while looking at the thousand houses over the past six months was that we LOVE Craftsman style homes. Love. Love. Love. We even looked at some really old homes that were craftsman. When we saw this house we knew instantly...

this was our new home. It was only a matter of days and we had a contract on it! We got a fabulous deal on it as well since it's been on the market for so long! Even though it is 6 years old it looks brand new and has so many unique qualities about it.

We are far from ready to reveal it but here is a few sneaky peeks!

This is our mantle in the main living room...it has these lovely stained sconces on either side...love. The fireplace is see-thru to the back room so we have another mantle back there as well. 

This is one of my favorite rooms in the whole house...our half bath. I love the color, beadboards, tile floor, and ceiling.  Such cute details!

12 Goals for 2012...

I am determined to make 2012 a good year for us...so here are my 12 goals for 2012!

1. Get settled. We've been unsettled for pretty much 2 years. I want to get our new house together, get rid of all our old junk, start fresh....

2. I saw this one over on Allison's blog...love it! Have 100 NO SPEND days where we spend absolutely nothing on those days! I'm going to make a little chart to put somewhere to keep up with this one for us. I'm very curious to see if we can do it!

3. Complete the potty training process with Essie...she does much better at school so I know it's our fault. We are honestly being lazy about it and we need to go full force and get her out of those pull ups.

4. Be a better friend.

5.  Read at least 3 books. The first one is sitting on my nightstand ready to go.."The Hunger Games". Yes I am late coming to the Hunger Games party but I am determined to get caught up before the movie comes out!

6. Find a church home.

7. Get caught up on Essie's photo books...create a blog book too!

8. Start new family traditions...Friday night movie night, Family Game night, etc.

9. Keep my car clean. It's always a mess-inside and out.

10. Do something nice/unexpected for/with my students more often. I have such a wonderful opportunity as a Kindergarten teacher to set them on the right path in education!

11. Get my wisdom teeth out...rediculous I know but I've been putting it off for years!

12. Get healthy. So cliche but I'm wanting to add onto our family in the near future and I need to be in better health to do it.

Those are my goals...I would love to accomplish them all...let's see how this year goes!

2009 & 2011

What a difference two years makes!

Our Christmas

After we got home from Batesville we had to get busy so we could get ready for our family's Christmas! She spread out some more reindeer food of course...

 We didn't get Essie to bed until midnight since she was still so riled up! Then Travis and I stayed up til 4 am getting her big Santa gift put together...a huge dollhouse. She asked for a princess castle but for cheaper we were able to get a wooden, much nicer, much bigger one.  When Essie got up she ran straight to the tree and grabbed a gift and tore into it!



She was so excited and got a ton of Princess stuff. 

We saved the big gift til the end and read her the note Santa left her that told her that her big surprise was in her room and BOBIS was waiting for her there. She had to kiss BOBIS goodbye so he could fly back to the North Pole! Essie loved her new doll house and played with it off and on all day!

Let's catch up...

We've had the BUSIEST last few weeks EVER. We wrapped up Thanksgiving in just enough time to set up a little small tree at our apartment. Essie enjoyed decorating the tree so much and we met our newest friend our Elf on the Shelf whom Essie named BOBIS.

We started the packing process and spent weekends in Jonesboro packing up our house. On December 14th we got approval to occupy our new house early so we loaded up a small UHAUL trailer and trucks and emptied out our apartment for the most part.  We were so glad to spend our first night in our new house and to get out of that cramped apartment!

Friday Dec. 16th we headed to Branson to spend Christmas with Travis' family. We all got hotel rooms next door to each other. The kids (and adults) decorated a foam Christmas tree and snowmen for decorations. We saw an AMAZING animal show and Uncle Tim got called up on stage to race a pig in a maze! We also let the kiddos open presents and spent the evening (along with every other crazy person in the world) at Silver Dollar City.

As soon as we got home on Sunday we had to clean out the apartment and move completely out of it...We got finished late Sunday night.  Travis injured his back sometime over the weekend and was pretty much down for the rest of  the week. We  spent Monday at the doctor, picking up the biggest UHAUL they make, and loading it up. Thankfully we were able to hire some help to get us loaded up since Trav was unable to walk. 

Tuesday Travis' dad came up with an additional trailer since we filled the big truck and we finished loading up and headed home to our new house. We finished unloading the UHAUL with lots of help and crashed into a heap. Travis worked Wednesday and Thursday while I tried to get unpacked. Thursday night YaYa came down to help us paint Essie's new room..we are painting the top half "Belle's dress" yellow and going to put beadboard on the bottom. 

Friday we closed on both homes! We officially sold our house and bought our new one! We also headed to Batesville to spend Christmas with my family. Saturday we made Reindeer food for Essie to spread in the yard. She had been complaining of her shoulder hurting off and on all day and it seemed to get a lot worse at dinner so we made our annual Christmas trip to the ER...they took xrays and said she was fine. So we came home, got into jammies, and went to bed to get ready to Santa!

Christmas morning we celebrated Christmas with my family...Essie was so into it this year and got so many great things!