Friday, March 30, 2012

Before and After

I am almost too embarrassed to post this because our house looks like a PIT in all of the before pictures. (D will be horrified that I am not too embarrassed). I wish I had a really good excuse, like maybe a tiny tornado entered our house and threw all of our belongings around.  But alas, my only excuse is that three of the four people who live here are horribly messy.  And in a tiny bit of defense, I really did not pick up a single item before taking some pictures. Like not even a little bit. And I do straighten some every night. I really do. And our house is only 1700 sq ft. And we have two 4 year olds.

So here is what our house looked like before:

 Our "adult" room - the den.  That has clearly begun to be taken over by kid.
 Playroom.  Nice that I did not even put up the TV trays where I let the girls eat their cereal sometimes.  It is a real loose ship that I am running over here.
 And now they are eating snack in the kitchen. And as an aside - I had already cleaned off the refrigerator as it is usually covered in art and pictures.
 I guess there are some counters under there somewhere.
 The girls' room
 The guest bedroom
 The office. Really no surprise that D is insisting that he have his own office in the next house.
 Our bedroom.  See I did not even try to pretend that I make up the bed everyday.


We rented a POD and put all our clutter, big toys, and non essential furniture in it.
And here is what is looks like now:

 Guest Bedroom sans a coffee table and toys
Girls' Bedroom less a giant chair and then flipped around like you might put an actual bed in case the next owners are not going to give their kids the master bedroom.
The office without a chair, easel, and lots and lots of c-r-a-p.

The Den without the TV stand, TV, coffee table, slide, games, etc,
The Playroom with a new slipcover and pillows (goodbye ridiculous plaid! why did we wait so long to cover you? as if anything could have been worse really!) and without the princess tent, trampoline, baby changing station, piano, and all the miscellaneous toys that lived here that were not confined by the shelves or giant storage box.
The kitchen with its heretofore never before seen counters.
Our room


So now I just have to keep it clean until someone buys it...oh dear!






My little photographers

As I have written on here numerous times, the girls LOVE to take pictures.  They have definitely improved their composition skills.  Here are their latest creations around the house.  Can you tell that they love tiny toys and stuffed animals?
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Official

Well as of today it is completely official. We are moving to Baton Rouge!!

It is hard to believe that we have been here four years. The girls were just 6 months old and barely able to sit up independently. So much has happened in these last four years and we have loved every minute of it.

We are going to miss our friends, though expect some Skype and FaceTime chats from us! After our friends I think that the thing we are going to miss the most is the seasons. I never knew that there could be four different ones! Not just hot and hotter. I am not sure the girls are going to recover from a winter without snow.

I'm nervous about it but also excited about a new adventure for our family.

 We rented a POD to put all of our extra stuff in it to try to make the house look bigger!

Sight Seeing in DC

As I mentioned in my skiing post, we came home a day early from that trip.  And since D already had the day off, we thought it would be fun to take the girls down to the mall to be tourists for the day.  Their favorite part is clearly riding the train (aka metro) into the city and from stop to stop.

We enjoyed all of the monuments but I was bummed that they were working on the reflecting pool and the water features at the WWII (my favorite).  It is quite a hike to go from one end all the way to the other by the Lincoln, so we then took a taxi (another favorite for the girls) over to Capital Hill to eat lunch.  We ate at We the Pizza (by Spike from Top Chef fame).  Then back on the metro for a trip to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs and the diamonds.  Where the girls went CRAZY taking pictures of every rock there was.  D secretly loves how annoyed I get during these photo sessions cause he thinks it is some crazy karma based on all the times I make them take pictures.   So here are the pics from the day:



Riding in for our adventure on the Metro.  Every 5 stops the girls switched seats.  When do they get to a point where they don't care who they sit by?

The girls rocking a pose in front of the WWII and with the Lincoln in the background.

We have this same picture from when the girls were 10 months old.  Which I think is here: babies in DC

 Here is the fam in front of Virginia.

LOVE IT!  This is probably one of my all time favorite pictures!!

The girls in front of Lincoln

 Brooke took this picture of us - which totally had us cracking up as it looked like it was aimed directly at our crotches and she insisted on taking several, much to the amusement of the diners outside. 
Not sure what this is but the girls wanted their picture taken with the flowers so I got this in the background.
  Brooke in front of the Hope Diamond

Brooke with a large cool rock.

 Audrey posing in front of more rock (clearly we did not learn much on our day)


I deleted most of the pictures that the girls took from the museum - too much glare and too close to see much.  But here are a few that survived my editing:









Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Ski Trip

Since our ski trip over Christmas was canceled due to lack of snow, we decided to reschedule for late February.  Unfortunately there still was not much snow, but we headed out anyway.  The four of us had a slopeside condo at Timberline in West Virginia in the Canaan Valley.  I selected this place cause it has the longest green slope in the east coast....and I am clearly only going to ski on the greens as I can barely make it down those. 

D did all of the blues and blacks and even the double blacks that were open - though he said that the double black was much too hard and he only did it once!  I did the greens - and for the most part did ok.  I am clearly not a natural skier as I am petrified that I am not going to be able to stop the entire way down and it is not pretty when there are icy conditions.  Brooke and Audrey also did all of the greens.  In retrospect the long one was in fact a bit too long for the girls.  Brooke is much steadier and therefore enjoys it more as she spends more of her time upright.  Audrey is less sure of herself.  I think that if skiing becomes a family tradition, she and I will hit the spas and chill in front of the fireplace!

We actually came home a day early due to poor weather - and poor D was mentally and physically exhausted from getting all of his girls down the mountain!

Here are some of the pictures from the trip

 D getting ready to take Brooke out for the first time - she is in the pink pants with purple jacket.
 Audrey getting ready for her first trip out.
 How cute are they skiing with their little harness?!
 Good first day of skiing! I love this picture of them together - it gives me a glimpse of them hanging out at as teenagers!
 In front of our condo - clearly the only snow around is man made!
Yep. I rocked it!
 
Favorite picture of Audrey from the trip!

D and the girls

 I think that D may be a little tired!

Me and D in front of the (and I am using the term very loosely) lodge