I can't believe it's almost November. Fall 2012 will definitely go down as the busiest fall to date. In late July we put an offer on a new house in Charlotte and after many ups and downs throughout the process, we closed in mid September. We did a little bit of renovations and moved about 3 weeks ago in the beginning of October. We had been casually looking for new homes but when we found this one, Mike and I both fell in love. We had a long wish list of things we wanted and this house met or exceeded all of our expectations. We had been needing a lot more space with our growing family and this house is perfect for us!
The weekend of the move was craziness but luckily DeeDee, Papa and Uncle Court came up to help us which was a lifesaver! I will post more pictures of the interior once it is a little more completed (i.e., we have pictures hung up on the walls!) but we are getting settled in nicely. We absolutely LOVED our old neighborhood and neighbors and we certainly do miss them a lot but luckily it's only a 15 minutes drive away from them and we have met some fun new neighbors here already. One of Ella's boyfriends from her preschool class last year lives over here so they have been amazing introducing us to new neighbors.
The weekend after moving in, we had Maddie's baptism so we were lucky to have family in town again to help us. Mike and his Dad worked non stop for 3 days on different projects! On Friday night, Mike's Mom and I took Ella to see Disney on Ice. We went last year and she loved it and her love for all things Disney has multiplied over the last year so even though the timing was super busy, I knew we had to make it work for her. She couldn't wait and talked about it all week and proudly wore her Cinderella dress to the big night. I let her pick one present and she immediately picked out the Ariel doll and then Grandma got her a Tinkerbell fairy hat and cotton candy.
She literally sat mesmerized for 2 straight hours and the only time I could get pictures was during the intermission. She cheered so loudly and sang along to the songs she knew.
Ariel and all her friends, Ella's favorite of course!
Like I said, mesmerized the entire show!
And she even got her first taste of cotton candy and no surprise my little sweet lover devoured it! The show went until 9 and she immediately crashed when she hit the car seat on the drive home. It was definitely a special night for her and I am so glad I got to see it through her eyes.
One thing we are loving about the new house is the backyard. It is fully fenced in so Dakota can run around freely and it's nice and flat and grassy so the girls can have fun out there as well. The weather has been great so we spend a lot of time after naps out there playing.
Ella enjoying her new backyard with her soccer goal. Daddy is smiling right now!
Last weekend, we traveled down to the Georgia mountains to celebrate DeeDee's 60th birthday. DeeDee has helped us so much the past year since we had Maddie and has helped so much painting the girls new rooms (pics to come soon I promise!) so we were happy to help her celebrate.
We loved all the beautiful colors and spending time with the family!
Papa got Ella some lovely "accessories" for the weekend
It was a little chilly in the morning and night but the sky was the most amazing crisp blue sky and Ella and Dakota enjoyed a morning walk before we had to head back to Charlotte. It was a quick weekend but great celebrating my Mom.
It was picture day last week at school and we were practicing our smile on the way to school in the morning.
I was happy to help out with the pictures and got to see Ella and her little buddies from school. Her class minus one boy and girl that were getting their picture taken at the time.
Ella and her buddy Piper!
This weekend we were excited to have a more laid back weekend in Charlotte! Our new home comes with amazing tress and yes, lots and lots of leaves. Mike blew them all into a big pile but before bagging them, Ella had the time of her life jumping in them.
You can check out the front of our house in the background and the massive pile of leaves! Can you spot Ella;s head in this picture? She was standing up and just her head was peaking out!
Our little princess usually doesn't like to get dirty but she jumped right in and had the best time.
When Maddie woke up from her nap, she joined in the fun, although she just tried to eat them so she didn't last too long out there.
But I had to get a couple pictures of them in their Halloween shirts!
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| Love these two girls! |
And one final picture of the back of our house.
So, yes it has been an insanely busy fall for us but we are loving every minute of it. We had two Halloween parties also this weekend and a big Halloween parade and trick or treating to look forward to on Wednesday so more fun to come! Also, the new house has plenty of room for guests so please come visit us soon!
Happy Halloween
